.
Barney Frank (may he live a thousand years) takes some hard truths to Politico – “The Self-fulfilling Prophecy of ‘Government Doesn’t Work’“:
It’s easy to see American politics as a situation in which voters are all innocent victims of mistreatment at the hands of elected officials — easy, but wrong. Sure, politicians often fall short, and I’m convinced that the negative bias of the media make it harder to govern responsibly. But the voters are no bargain either…
I’m writing this not to defend my former colleagues in elected office, highly as I regard many of them, but to correct a widespread misperception that not only diverts attention from what needs to be done, but in fact exacerbates the situation. That mistake is assuming that the problem is too many ideological members of Congress, of both parties, who would rather shut things down rather than compromise.
There are two serious flaws in this description. First, it assumes a false equivalence between the parties. It is true that the center of political gravity in each party has moved further from the center. But not equally so. I believe that the recent speakership debacle and the current presidential nominating contest demonstrate that the Republicans have moved further right on the issues than the Democrats have gone left.
But even these who reject this point can’t deny that there’s a stark difference between the parties on the critical question of whether they’re willing to compromise to be sure government functions effectively. One major dividing line between the dominant factions in each party today is, literally, their commitment to government in general, over and above any specific set of policies. Perhaps the biggest shift over the past eight years is how far that commitment has fallen out of favor among those who now dominate Republican primary contests…
The more Americans tell themselves the problem lies with the politicians in office, and the less they admit it’s the responsibility of the voters who elect people unwilling to govern, the worse things will become. Blaming elected officials just deepens the degree of public unhappiness with the political system; this misplaced anger then depresses voter turnout and distorts voters’ choices when they get to the booth.
Once again there is an asymmetry when it comes to party behavior. Nonvoting is more often the response of the angry left than of the angry right. When the latter became increasingly dissatisfied with the response to the 2008 crash, they formed the tea party, the members of which actually increased their disciplined participation in elections. Meanwhile, the most militant on the left created the Occupy movement, with a focus on public displays of their personal rejection of the status quo. Not surprisingly, elected officials were more influenced by voting than by drum circles.
The more the prevailing narrative blames the failures of political insiders for gridlock, leading to voter alienation, the deeper the gridlock and the greater the advantage to the right. It is the people who voted for Barack Obama and then sat out the midterms of 2010 and 2014 who are primarily responsible for his inability to achieve his goals…
Some combination of three things will have to occur to break the logjam. Mainstream conservative Republicans will have to start voting more in primaries and take back their party; unhappy voters on the left will have to realize that being unhappy is a reason to vote, not to sulk; and all voters will have to demonstrate — by really showing up and voting for candidates actually willing to do the hard work of governing — that there is an electoral price to pay for those who believe that fealty to their ideology is the only relevant aspect of holding office.
Mustang Bobby
Thank you, Barney Frank, for saying exactly what I’ve been thinking for a long time.
Baud
I want to have this post’s babies.
Wake up, sheeple.
Ben Cisco
That’s gonna leave a rash.
Baud
Apparently, “wake up, sheeple” causes a comment to be marked as spam.
Baud
Hey, I caught up in the spam filter.
Baud
Apparently, “wake up, she-eeple” triggers the spam filter.
Marc
And it needs to be blasted loud, the next President could get a couple of Supremes to replace. I’d vote (D) for for that reason alone. Scary thought if a (R) were elected – particularly the leaders of this clown car.
DivF
In addition to the incisive content, Barney Frank is a pleasure to read / listen to (I can hear his voice while reading this piece ). He has the perfect mix of precise literate vocabulary and colloquial turns of phrase.
(Written from an aircraft in Hartford Conn. )
Gimlet
Buzzfeed
Following comments that his city should reject refugees in the way the U.S. interned Japanese-American citizens during World War II the mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, has lost his spot on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s Virginia Leadership Council.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gimlet: couldn’t happen to a nicer idiot.
Mustang Bobby
@Gimlet: Sheesh, some people are so touchy.
See George Takei’s response.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Gimlet: They should give him an expense paid trip to Manzanar for a day or two.
BillinGlendaleCA
Today is the 27th anniversary of my mom’s passing, my wife called yesterday morning to tell me her brother had died. So it was off to the hospital to see his corpse and her help her sister-in-law and the kids plan out the arrangements. It was not totally unexpected since he’s been on dialysis for a few years.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
My condolences.
Gimlet
@OzarkHillbilly:
Apparently she would never have known he was a jerk if he hadn’t opined on this. So much for the rigors of vetting.
Baud
@Gimlet:
How would she have known? Do you think jerks always reveal themselves as such?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Thanks, I should note that both of the kids are adults. While it still sucks, it’s not as bad as if they were still kids.
Gimlet
@Baud:
It was an isolated gaffe?
Baud
@Gimlet:
First I’ve heard of the guy. If you have info, please share.
Elizabelle
@BillinGlendaleCA: RIP to your mom and brother in law.
Reconstructing a comment that FYWP just eated.
Elizabelle
Ta Nehisi Coates just won the National Book Award. A big effing deal. Per NY Times:
Well done. A little surprised we’ve not seen a TNC blogpost on the Paris events up. Am sure he will have much to say.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Good morning, EB. It’s quiet today.
Gimlet
@Baud:
Not in my neighborhood either, but apparently important enough to be appointed a member of a Presidential Campaign Leadership Council rather than ignored.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: I had a witty comment(at least I thought it was) about Joe Scar that got eated.
ETA: Thanks for your kind thoughts.
Baud
@Gimlet:
It’d the Virginia Leadership Council. Probably every significant Dem elected official in Virginia who supports Hillary is on it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Gimlet: Mayor of a relatively large city in a hopeful swing state.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gimlet: Assholes come in all shapes sizes and colors. Somewhere out there, there is an asshole made just for you.
bystander
Condolences to BillinGlendale and congrats to Ta Nehisi Coates.
Listening to the heavily accented simultaneous translator who was covering the French prosecutor’s press conference. When she translated “these assaults” it sounded like “these a$$holes”. At first, I thought, man, this guy’s telling it like it is. Then I realized she was skipping some pesky consonants.
Gimlet
@Baud:
Maybe a DINO.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Good morning back.
Watching a bizarre James Coburn movie on TCM; rated X when it came out. Southern potboiler based on Tennessee Williams movie. Lotta shouting. Would rather be watching Ship of Fools, which I missed.
Makes for better viewing than Republican Joe. Have not even been curious about his misdeeds this week. He and flunkies get no attention from me.
Baud
@Gimlet:
Probably. He’s in a pretty conservative area.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I like my MJ filtered through BJ.
NorthLeft12
@Baud: No. I believe that saying gets caught up in the bro/libertarian/moran filter.
Just musing aloud here, but has any woman been recorded as using the word “sheeple” in a sentence? Not counting, “Sheeple? WTF does that mean?” and the many variations of that.
And Ann Coulter does not count…….in any way.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gimlet:
Sounds like a fancy name for “Come work for me for free and I might remember you when I’m President.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
area old white man frightened by what he sees on TV, today’s edition, starring G. Will
Opinions
After Paris, we should look to Chris Christie
I skimmed through the column and the endorsment of Christie seems to be that he’s not Trump.
Also, too, this
is what happens when your definition of international opinion is, What does Bibi say?
I have to say, I’m as surprised the by American, not just the right, reaction to these attacks as anything I’ve seen in our politics. I think it’s Eric Boehlert who has a piece up quoting O’Reilly and a bunch of ‘wingers after the attacks in Madrid in ’04, which to them proved that Bush was right about everything. But somehow attacks in Paris prove is wrong about everything. I’m not surprised at the Murdoch universe, but at how much traction this idea seems to have.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Pretty much. I assume mostly what they do is receive talking points from the campaign and attend local political events for their candidates.
Mustang Bobby
@Gimlet: Based on my relatives who live there and my brief visit to see my dying grandmother in 1998, I understand Roanoke to be a quiet town with a balance of aristocratic Virginia Republicans, a smattering of genial liberals involved in the arts and education, and the usual contingent of proto-Tea Partiers. But it isn’t that far from Lynchburg, the home of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The real answer is, hell yes.
But certain folk will just feel that is wrong.
Kay
I don’t think he gives Occupy enough credit. They were quite successful in re-directing the debate from austerity to inequality.
He also ignores Fight for Fifteen, which is IMO the most successful labor-backed effort in 20 years. They actually changed city and state laws and they have had some success with aligning economic issues with civil rights issues, which IMO is the single hardest thing to do in political organizing.
I also haven’t seen any actual proof of “the angry Left” being the reason Democrats lose elections. I know it’s a theory but has anyone ever offered anything that indicates that people who are engaged enough to be “the angry Left” are the same people who don’t vote? In my experience (admittedly anecdotal) people who don’t vote except in Presidential elections could better be described as “sporadically engaged” and they don’t really have an ideology that is well-defined enough to be “angry” or “Left”.
I like Barney Frank but I think Democrats are going to have to do better than this when analyzing why they lose off-year elections. I would go in the other direction and not start at Congressional elections but instead start at state races. Is that the “angry Left” too? Why do we lose so many of those?
Ben Cisco
@BillinGlendaleCA: So very sorry for your loss.
AnonPhenom
Great cartoon.
So, because Dubya’s Presidentin’ didn’t start until 9/12/01, he ‘kept us safe’.
Paris is attacked in the 6th year of Obama’s Presidency and something, something….’bad leadership’
Explain Madrid and London to me again?
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t know if they don’t vote, but they sure seem to talk a lot about not voting. Maybe that’s the source of the misconception.
Sherparick
I am sure the Chomskyist/Naderist trolls at Salon, Naked Capitalism, and Democratic Underground, who hate Hilary and promise that they will never vote for her in a million years will call Frank a “corporate shrill” and his “Dodd-Frank” bill “pseudo” reform. They are always in a “heighten the contradictions” form, as well as completely going “Green Lantern” on the Presidency. They need to call me when they elect majorities in Congress and the state legislatures in a majority of the states.
By the way, corporate MSM media also has an agenda to make Government look bad and to say “nothing works,” because again if shifts power to the new aristocracy and to private power (see prison industries and charter schools). When these institutions blow up, or a toll road goes bankrupt, it is not privatization’s fault, but again more “bad Government.”
Elizabelle
@Baud:
Definitely. Joe is stupid on steroids, and most of the time, it’s too bitter a brew for the dawn of a new day.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: FOX news tells them otherwise.
Satby
@BillinGlendaleCA: so sorry to hear of the passing of your brother in law. And though my dad died 26 years ago, I don’t think we ever stop missing our parents in some ways no matter how long they’ve been gone. Condolences.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
So do a lot of other sources these days. But they want to believe it, so it’s easy.
Gimlet
Maybe headed for that highly desired Indiana paradise that has tried to keep them out.
Breitbart
Two federal agents operating under the umbrella of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are claiming that eight Syrian illegal aliens attempted to enter Texas from Mexico in the Laredo Sector.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ben Cisco: Thanks much.
@AnonPhenom:
Madrid’s in Spain and London is in the United Kingdom.
OT: On my hike on Monday a few of my pics were out of focus, so I was playing with my 50-200mm lens and realized there’s a switch on it for manual focus and auto focus, doh!
Kay
I got an email yesterday from a Clinton supporter who has not been involved politically before. She says she signed up on the national website thinking she would be given some work to do and instead all she gets are 17 emails a day from the national campaign asking for money.
Okay, so obviously this was perhaps not the best way to volunteer because it’s probably too early for there to be a framework in place for someone local to contact her and get her involved in whatever Clinton is doing or plans to do locally, and we don’t really have a competitive primary so maybe that’s the reason there isn’t coordination between a person signing up online and a human being responding on the other end, but the volunteer wouldn’t know all that. She’s new at this.
Between the Clinton campaign and the national Party and any state Parties, there are a lot of paid political professionals in and around the Democratic Party supposedly working on getting Democrats elected. Maybe one of the thousands of them could take the email volunteer signups and make some phone calls to the prospective volunteers. Maybe Democrats could fire one consultant and hire a bunch of people who make 30k a year instead, or run ten fewer tv ads each cycle and hire some organizers.
greennotGreen
If the attacks in France had been carried out by a French political wing supporting a right wing French politician, do you think people in the U.S. would be so freaked out by them? No. But because the attacks were carried out by people Americans already identified as “other” we’re having politicians scramble all over each other trying to repeat racist mistakes of the past and make Jesus, whom they claim to follow, weep.
If we let 10,000 Syrian war refugees into this country and two turn out to be terrorists, that’s a number we can measure. If we let 10,000 (I think it should be more) Syrian refugees into this country, we’ll probably never know how many are turned away from radicalization because the Western world showed them compassion.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we do the right thing, the humane thing. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Or are those just words?
Davis X. Machina
@Baud:
The untold tens of millions of natural social democrats who don’t vote, because they’re never provided with candidates that are sufficiently left, the voters who are currently propelling Sanders to the nomination — that’s all the evidence that’s necessary.
Left-liberals and social democrats should win every election. Their policy prescriptions and positions are so self-evidently correct that it’s only the obtuseness of the existing parties, and the strength of media-induced false consciousness, that prevents the US from becoming basically a larger, and a a nuclear-armed, Denmark.
I learned this from the Internet.
greennotGreen
Oh, and Barney’s largely right. But I also think it’s the responsibility of elected officials to educate their voters, and they can’t do that while simultaneously drumming up fear.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Yeah, the constant appeals for money are a complete turnoff. Sometimes I wonder how much they want to train us to turn them down and hit delete, over and over again.
Would it kill them to do a personal response email, by a person, to an intending volunteer? Just reminds us that campaigning is a business.
Gimlet
@greennotGreen:
What matters is that we do the right thing, the humane thing. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Or are those just words?
It sounds as though it will play out the way our pre-emptive war with Iraq and use of torture did. When the crisis is over everyone will condemn the behavior and we will affirm our American ideals until we suspend them the next time.
Satby
@Kay: The majority of people don’t vote anymore. When the zealotry is almost entirely on one side it lets them win. I really blame the media for that, between the flood of propaganda from the Murdoch empire and the dogged insistence that “both sides do it” from the rest, people who should know better are so turned off and jaded they’ve given up. I just was disagreeing with a friend on FB, who equated Obama and Christie as the same in hyperbole about the orphans comment. He knows better, he thinks we should take refugees, but he equated the two wildly divergent statements as “both bullshit”. I push back every day, and it probably is adding to my snappy temperament.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: I agree with you and Kay, the reason most would volunteer is they have time and not cash to donate.
brantl
@NorthLeft12: Sheeple, a combination of sheep and people. For the very credulous.
OzarkHillbilly
@Davis X. Machina:
And all this time I thought it was the stupid.
NorthLeft12
I guess my problem with Mr. Frank’s analysis of the situation is that he gives the elected officials a pass for their pandering and stupidity not only during the campaign that gets them elected, but also during their term in office. And then there are the more intelligent and corrupt officials and organizations, who don’t really believe in the idiocy that is being spewed but are eager to encourage it and use it for their own purposes.
As long as politics and elected office is about winning and losing, and not actually serving the electorate…all of them, not just the ones who vote [or pay] for you, this mess will endure.
Unfortunately, I realize how naïve a lot of the above sounds. There will always be a supply of useful idiots and slimy, unethical manipulators for public office. Power is the ultimate addictive substance.
Mustang Bobby
@OzarkHillbilly: As long as you have people saying “Keep your government hands off my Medicare” and railing against socialism while they stand in line to deposit their Social Security check, you will have that with us, and it’s no wonder politicians like Barney Frank lose it. It’s like trying to explain gravity to a chicken.
Kay
@Baud:
I feel as if his argument falls apart halfway thru. He says the Tea Party are engaged in electoral politics and have moved the GOP Right, adding to gridlock because that leaves all Democrats (not just liberals) with no one to negotiate with. He then says the “angry Left” are disengaged, other than protesting. But say he’s right and liberal Democrats don’t vote because they’re busy with drum circles. Say they did what the Tea Party do and focused on getting (just) liberals elected. Wouldn’t we still have gridlock if they were successful at that? Isn’t he really telling both sides to just support the Party candidate?
HRA
The most popular word this time around for the election is discouraged or disappointed and not angry. Its both in the Left and the Right.
The front runners in the polls do not offer anything except idiocy for the Rs and unrelenting drama for the Ds.
PS The fear of who will be on the Supreme Court does not work as an incentive.
.
Baud
@Davis X. Machina:
The reason I hang out here instead of at GOS is because that place turned into Fox News of the Left. Almost everything we say we hate about how the media covers Dems, I saw in the comments and diaries over there. Their numbers are small, but they have an outsized influence because they echo and reinforce what the media and the right have to say about us.
Iowa Old Lady
@greennotGreen: The refugee panic is stronger because R candidates, most loudly Trump, had been fanning what fear and hatred of immigrants already existed. Fear and hatred of the Other seems to be part of the R psychology, but it really goes wild when their leaders decide to use it.
Baud
@Kay:
His assumption is that, if the left did what the Tea Party did, the Republicans would be voted out of power. Or at least be sufficiently concerned about it that they would be more flexible.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: When I was drinkin’ I no problem reading GOS. After I quit the bottle, reading GOS made me want to start drinkin’ again, so I came here.
OzarkHillbilly
And speaking of the stupid: GOPer Wants Special Session To Halt ‘Potential Islamization Of Missouri’
“
If we had half as stringent a vetting process for the purchase of guns, maybe we wouldn’t be losing twice the # of Americans every week that France lost on that one day.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Is the US more respected? Of course. A lot of people in other countries still seem to regard Barack Obama as a hero for no real reason other than that he’s not George W. Bush. It’s reason enough.
Is the US safer? Maybe not, because the chaos planted by the Bush administration just keeps expanding exponentially. The Middle East is worse off than it was under Bush simply because the suck was just getting started back then. Of course, under a Republican administration for the past six years, the US would have been even less safe.
Baud
@HRA:
There is no possibility of a electing a Democrat in the near future who will not offer unrelenting drama. The Republicans will see to that.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I think we’re safer, especially if you count soldiers’ lives, which the GOP never seems to do.
WereBear
Condolences to BillinGlendale and family. May his passing be one of peace profound.
Ta Nehisi Coates and the National Book Award! That’s a great thing!
I think the Democrats should look at the success Bernie Sanders has had in stirring up previously indifferent voters. He is giving the people what they want, not unlike President Obama’s successful primary campaign for the 2008 nomination.
In contrast, Kay’s experience with the volunteer and the Clinton campaign just makes me despair. Is the only lesson she has learned over the last fifteen years one that says “start an email list and ask them for money”? When there is a succesful Fight For Fifteen why does she come out in the debate with support for… twelve?
Why is that poise and conviction so much not in evidence so many times? If ANGRY gets Republicans to the polls, why doesn’t it work for us?
Because I’m angry.
Matt McIrvin
@greennotGreen:
Well, the organization that was apparently behind the attacks in France has explicitly made threats against the United States, whereas French right-wingers presumably would have no reason to do that. (American right-wingers would, but right-wing racist-nationalist movements tend not to be internationalized in the same way, by their basic nature.) So this isn’t a completely apples-to-apples comparison.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Kay
@Elizabelle:
The emails don’t bother me that much because I have some sense of the timing of national campaigns having watched them here so long and I never feel pressured to contribute money to anything- it’s just not something I feel “pressured” into doing. I will know when a Clinton organizer lands in this county, just because it’s a swing state and I’m involved in the county Party. But the thing about new people is they don’t know that and every one of them who has an experience like that will turn it into a story “How I tried to volunteer but was ignored by the Big Money Grubbing Machine”.
Absolutely agree on the personal contact. It’s a list with a finite set of names and she has enough funding to make a personal campaign contact with each of those people – I think I would put them in contact with each other, actually, based on close-in geography. They’ll sort out the whole “who will be The Leader of the volunteers in a given area” thing themselves.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Good edit.
debbie
@Kay:
Maybe not as angry outwardly as on the right, but I think every vote for Ralph Nader was an angry vote.
Baud
@Kay:
I would like you to run my campaign.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
I think it depends on how you watch/listen. I generally listen to Glenn Beck in the morning and have found it to be very humorous. Nothing better than hearing jackasses being jackasses.
scav
@OzarkHillbilly: Ahhh, yes, that “potential Islamization of Missouri.” that might cause support for puppy mills to decline or discourage the milking of poor citizens for traffic citation monies or horrors! interfere with the police’s ability to do whatever they damn well please.
Kay
@WereBear:
Especially because they know Fight for Fifteen is successful. They’ve been to the White House twice. Cuomo is responding to them, for God’s sake.
OTOH I actually think they wouldn’t mind a counter-offer of 12. The point of Fight for Fifteen is not entirely the wage. It’s power. It’s a seat at the table. If Clinton is making a serious counter-offer then that’s a success all by itself and they started high knowing it would come down. What they want is to bargain, to be heard enough to bargain.
MattF
@Elizabelle: This is why I’ve unsubscribed to every Democratic party email list. Every single email I ever got asked for money. And this is after making one or two contributions in a Presidential year. There needs to be some other response, and not just over the phone, either.
Elizabelle
@HRA:
In what world? If the GOP gets the White House, they will get at least 2 Supreme Court nominations in the next 4-year term, maybe more.
We would be going down, for the rest of our lives on this planet.
The Supreme Court is seen as being politicized and dubious (Citizens United). People who would vote Democratic get that.
greennotGreen
@Matt McIrvin: Good point.
Davis X. Machina
@Baud: I have a 3-digit UID over there, and my experience basically tracks yours.
OzarkHillbilly
greennotGreen
@debbie: My slightly different read: Every Nader vote made me angry.
Baud
@Davis X. Machina:
I’ve heard similar reactions from a lot of kos alums.
Elizabelle
@MattF: We should do one of Tim F’s phone call campaigns. Call the politicians, and tell them we are sick of constant demands for money.
Since the Senate and Congress is even more the rich kids club, it’s insane to be asking Democrats to send money to millionaires to run to “represent us.”
Davis X. Machina
@OzarkHillbilly: Remember, people are good, and institutions make them bad.
All we have to do is change the institutions, and we can usher in the millennium.
greennotGreen
@Davis X. Machina: This is snark, right?
MattF
@Elizabelle: In contrast, a guy who ran for for the Md State Legislature last year (Marc Korman) came to my condo and started out by saying he wasn’t asking for money. Just wanted to meet, greet, and discuss issues. Imagine that. He won, btw– no surprise since we are deep blue here in Bethesda.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle:
Some of the people who would vote D get that. Most aren’t even paying attention yet.
Kay
@Baud:
I’m actually pleased with Clinton right now. In the last two weeks she’s made two fairly blunt statements that indicate she will be moving away from the Obama Administration on public schools. This happens inside the sort of edu-silo of edu-politics so it doesn’t get national play, but she was immediately attacked for it by some very powerful people. They don’t brook a lot of dissent, the ed reform “movement”. They went bananas, and she didn’t even break that far! She took issues with two Obama policies- the two worst policies.
If she moves away from Obama on public schools I’ll do volunteer work for her enthusiastically. His public school approach isn’t just horrible, it’s unpopular outside DC and think tanks.
Sherparick
As we roll into 2016, I write as Sanders supporter that only thing that makes me angrier than Ted Cruz opening his pie-hole is the rants of a “True Progressive” promising never to vote for Hilary under any circumstances in order to “heighten the contradictions.” That worked out so well under George W. did it not? Not to much. First, I got news for you. Even if Sanders wins the nomination and gets elected President, he is not going to get anything done domestically that Hilary could not get done for the most part. They will appoint moderate judges as about the only kind they can get through a narrowly divided Senate. They will basically follow Obama’s foreign policy, including the Drone, Special Ops, and air strikes in Middle East, Asia, and Africa. They will try to make the current immigration and naturalization system as humane as possible and reduce CO2 pollution within the limits of not being able to pass any laws. But in this they will both be better than the most moderate Republican (believe it or not that could be Trump) likely to win that party’s nomination. http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/11/joint-causality-does-not-allow-any-individual-willful-cause-to-escape-responsibility
Sly
He comes to a dumb conclusion, but George Carlin was generally right that the problem with American politics is that the American people suck.
“Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do these people think politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents, and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses, and American universities, and they’re elected by American citizens.”
“This is the best we can do, folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces. Garbage in… garbage out.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Davis X. Machina: I’m afraid the millennium already came and fvcked me right up the ass.
Baud
@Kay:
Clinton’s campaign so far has been a pleasant surprise. I suppose all the predictions of doom early on have benefitted her. :-)
Amir Khalid
@Kay:
As I understand, there’s an economic argument that Hillary’s proposal of US$12 plus indexing may be better than a straight US$15.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Good to know.
I’m happy with Hillary or Bernie. Have started to give some thought to volunteering in Iowa for Bernie, and a few other early states. To see. I’m perfectly happy with getting Bernie’s issues out there — and discussing, person to person with his supporters — how important it is to vote Democratic, whether it’s Bernie or not. Pretty sure it will be Hillary as nominee, and I like a lot of what I’ve seen of her.
If the GOP and their mainstream media mouthpieces cannot drag the GOP candidate over the finish line, they are going to try to depress turnout among Democrats. We need to work extra hard, because we saw the misuse of ebola and ISIS in the midterms.
Also the year to educate Democratic-leaning voters that they have to vote in ALL the elections, and maybe gently shame them if they don’t. They’re falling down on their responsibility.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Cool. If you do that, we’d love to hear the reactions you get from voters.
Mike E
@Mustang Bobby: “…like arguing with a dining room table.” What he said.
Baud
@rikyrah:
GM, R.
rikyrah
Rafael…you’re just not that important
…………….
Cruz to Obama: ‘Insult me to my face’
11/19/15 08:00 AM
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By Steve Benen
President Obama has heard some of the Republican hysteria about Syrian refugees, and he’s clearly unimpressed. “These are the same folks oftentimes who suggest that they’re so tough that just talking to Putin or staring down ISIL, or using some additional rhetoric somehow is going to solve the problems out there,” the president yesterday. “But apparently, they’re scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America as part of our tradition of compassion.
“First, they were worried about the press being too tough on them during debates,” Obama added. “Now they’re worried about three-year-old orphans. That doesn’t sound very tough to me.”
Evidently, this has hurt Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) feelings.
“Let me suggest something Mr. President: If you want to insult me, you can do it overseas, you can do it in Turkey, you can do it in foreign countries. But I would encourage you, Mr. President, come back and insult me to my face,” Cruz said. “Let’s have a debate on Syrian refugees right now. We can do it anywhere you want. I’d prefer it in the United States and not overseas where you’re making the insults.”
In context, Cruz’s school-yard taunts concluded with the senator calling for some kind of one-on-one debate with the president. “We’ll do it on any station,” the Texan added. “I’m sure any one of the TV stations would be glad to host it.”
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cruz-obama-insult-me-my-face
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: Glad to hear it. Why doesn’t she say that, then?
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
You can’t explain that.
Baud
@WereBear:
I thought it came up in the last debate. (I didn’t get to see the whole thing)
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: It’s good for your blood pressure to stop watching Morning Joe. I don’t know how Progressives do it. I don’t even want to hear about what he’s blabbering and can’t imagine actually watching him for 3 hours (or however long his show goes on for).
bemused
@Iowa Old Lady:
Yes! They are actively aiding and abetting xenophobic bedwetting americans to act out against groups of people they hate and fear. It’s bad enough that some Republican governors and legislators actually believe Syrian refugees are a threat but it’s utterly contemptible that those who don’t have quickly with no qualms whatsoever used this disgusting rhetoric for their own political gain.
gene108
@Kay:
Signing up for any politicians website is an invitation to be flooded with e-mails and phone calls from the DNC and DCCC begging for money.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle:
Democrats seem much more likely to think they should not vote in an election if they don’t feel they know enough about the candidates or the issues.
And in a lot of more local elections, the available information is sparse enough that, unless you spend a lot of your time on political activism, you rarely ever do feel sufficiently informed, especially with the collapse of so many local newspapers. Campaign literature in these races tends to be this boilerplate stuff mostly aimed at name recognition, in which everyone says the same few anodyne things about improving the community.
I think one step is to convince people that it’s OK for them to vote even if they feel kind of ignorant. If you vote for the wrong person by mistake, that’s just random noise in the system, but there’s also going to be some signal. If you’ve even glanced at a candidate’s statements, you generally know more than zero, and there are people more ignorant than you who don’t share your inhibitions.
Republicans, on the other hand, are much more likely to figure somebody else is too ill-informed to vote. Not them.
Hurling Dervish
@greennotGreen: Its also the responsibility of the media to tell what is actually going on. Take out the Ron “Both Sides Do It” Fourniers and the Morning “Obama’s Sitting on his Hands” Joes.
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108:The DCCC and the DNC are hooked up with Ted Cruz? Wow, the things I learn here. ;-)
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: Good observation.
MattF
@Matt McIrvin: For local elections here in the DC area, I find myself following the WaPo endorsements. It’s embarrassing, but they have the critical knowledge about who’s been effective on the school board, who’s running for judge as a political stunt, who’s the guy that’s been sheriff for the past 30 years, and so forth.
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
It’s surprising to hear that the Democratic party has so little imagination. Obviously, its supporters expected to be treated as something other than sources of money. One could organise local and state-level action: have groups to work out policy goals for each level of government, scout for political talent, champion local causes … the list is endless.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: …I think part of the reason voter turnout is so low in the US is that we have so many elections in the US. Most modern democracies are not like this; people vote on fewer things, and in a parliamentary system, in the national election you’re basically voting for a party. The cognitive load is lower.
Kay
@Amir Khalid:
Thanks. I hadn’t seen that. The state-level minimum wage stuff have been going on a long time. I was involved in one in 2006. It was focused on a group of states. We won in Ohio.
Fight for Fifteen is different because it has a broader focus. Raising the minimum wage is the “state side”. The union (or an organization like a union) is a lever outside state action. They need both.
They’ve done great at cross-pollinating. The home health care workers joining with the university adjuncts is the realization of a long-held Lefty dream, and McDonalds employees palling around with BLM activists is another. That is incredibly hard to do.
srv
When you’re Right, you Rise:
Kay
@gene108:
Right but you know gene, that the “contact point” in any kind of entity is incredibly important to people. It isn’t the job of a first time volunteer to figure out who to call. You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, gene! :)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It would be interesting to see how this works in Majority of None places like California, do certain minorities still get that same discrimination?
debbie
@srv:
Am I hearing the sound of Reince Preibus’s head exploding?
schrodinger's cat
@Matt McIrvin:
Nailed it!
Take for example the congressional elections, held every two years, when most seats are not even competitive. What purpose does this serve?
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodinger’s cat: Oh, I don’t know, following the Constitutional mandate?
srv
@schrodinger’s cat:
I, for one, wish we had a little less democracy.
Amir Khalid
@srv:
But Trump’s supporters aren’t looking for an experienced politician, are they? You guys want a candidate who talks as angry as you feel, whether he means it or not; who lashes out at the ruling establishment on your behalf. Never mind that as a billionaire businessman and entertainer, Trump himself is as establishment as they come. Never mind that he knows sweet F.A. about how to do the president’s job. Never mind that he’s leading his party’s candidates only on his skill at the art of the playground taunt. Never mind that any circus clown would outdo him in presidential dignity and gravitas.
Fuck it. Why am I wasting my keystrokes? You’re not even a serious Donald supporter. Nobody could be. He’s a frivolous candidate all the way down.
rikyrah
ok, I’ve decided to get myself a new Kindle Fire for Christmas.
Been looking on the site, and they are offering
a microSD card with the tablet. I am technology challenged. I get that it’s extra storage. But, I don’t know how to do it. Can you keep the card inserted into the Kindle Fire at all times? Or, do you have to store it separately?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
schrodinger's cat
@srv: I for one, wish that more races were competitive.
rikyrah
Georgia DemocratVerified account
@GeorgiaDemocrat
GA SoS Brian Kemp Compromises Privacy and Security of Millions of Georgians – http://www.georgiademocrat.org/2015/11/18/ga-secretary-of-state-brian-kemp-compromises-privacy-and-security-of-millions-of-georgians/ … #gapol #gagop
Gin & Tonic
@schrodinger’s cat: Ask Eric Cantor.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
If ti were elections every other year, in the fall, it wouldn’t be an issue.
But to get to Congressional elections you have primary election in the spring.
And then you have the off-off year elections, like the KY governor’s race this year or NJ and VA’s governor races coming up in 2017.
On top of that you have the seemingly random local elections for city wide offices, school boards, etc. that can pop-up in the spring or summer of any year.
If the U.S. just held one election every-other year it wouldn’t be a big of an issue, but there are literally 2-4 elections every year for various government offices.
Of course the only real way to get to that goal of one election every other year is to do what Parliamentary systems do and have the Party nominate candidates for the general election, rather than have the voters pick candidates in a primary.
Or just have a national primary day that’s pretty much fixed for the country in the spring of the year of the election, such as say April 2016 and then the general election in November 2016.
Same for 2018 and so forth and so on.
srv
@Amir Khalid:
You have much to learn about this country. Don’t worry, I’ll be here to guide you through a Trump Presidency.
McCain goes to New Mecca:
Micheline
@Kay: We are seeing the same problem here in Florida. Several people have reached out to the Clinton campaign to volunteer, but they haven’t yet received any responses from the campaign. This is completely different from Obama in 2008 and 2012.
gvg
@NorthLeft12: yes actually. There was an obnoxious commenter who used that phrase to insult people who disagreed with her on this blog. I think she was banned about 2 years ago…I think she was calling herself mokoto? Something like that. She was an odd mix of positions. For some time she seemed just enthusiastic but got worse as time went on. I did not know that phrase was in this blogs filter but I would guess she tried to sneak back on with new names. It doesn’t surprise me though as she got really bad that last bit of time here. I don’t think that phrase will show up on other blogs filter though someone did say they had seen her commenting on other blogs sometimes.
She was a she, and I have never heard anyone else use the phrase until now where to me it was an obvious long timers in joke.
schrodinger's cat
@Gin & Tonic: His party still retained the seat, didn’t it? One exception does not prove the rule.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@BillinGlendaleCA: My condolences to you, your wife, and her family.
Amir Khalid
@gvg:
As I remember, while she did use that word on people, m_c’s signature insult was to call the rest of us cows — although she actually had to explain that this was what she meant by the term “cudlips”. For me, of course, she had a special name.
schrodinger's cat
When the founders wrote the constitution this was a completely different country, in size and in population. Why the insistence that, what was decided more than 300 years ago was perfect.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodinger’s cat: I’d still rather have elections on the off chance
somebody will get tossed than throw up my hands and say nothing can ever change.
rikyrah
PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.
…………………………..
Trump won’t rule out database, special ID for Muslims in US
November 19, 2015, 09:25 am
GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump believes that the war on terror will require unprecedented surveillance of America’s Muslims.
“We’re going to have to do thing that we never did before,” he said during a Yahoo interview.
“Some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule,” Trump said.
“Certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy,” he added. “We’re going to have to do things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”
Trump would not rule out warrantless searches in his plans for increased surveillance of the nation’s Muslims, Yahoo reported Thursday.
He also remained open toward registering U.S. Muslims in a database or giving them special identification identifying their faith, the news outlet added.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/260727-trump-wont-rule-out-database-special-id-for-muslims
schrodinger's cat
@Gin & Tonic: I am not suggesting doing away with the elections, just the off year elections. Have Congressional elections every 4 years along with the Presidential elections instead of every 2. That and make the Congressional elections more competitive, have independent commissions in charge of districting instead of the parties.
Matt McIrvin
@srv: More elections does not necessarily mean more democracy. You can have elections for everything down to dogcatcher, and if most of them are uncontested and there are veto points arranged such that a powerful minority can prevent policy from changing anyway, the system is not very democratic.
rikyrah
Las Vegas man indicted on charges of threatening Obama, others
Posted November 18, 2015 – 4:09pm
A Las Vegas man was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on charges of threatening President Barack Obama and other government officials.
Tyrone Paul Ponthieux, 55, who is in federal custody, faces one felony count of threatening the life of the president in November 2014 and one count of threatening to assault, kidnap and murder other unnamed federal officials, including an FBI agent, in September.
The last threats allegedly were made after Ponthieux’s June arrest. He is to be arraigned on the charges in federal court on Nov 25.
Agents with the Las Vegas FBI’s domestic terrorism squad questioned Ponthieux at his home May 21 about whether he inquired about obtaining ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in fertilizer and making bombs, according to a complaint unsealed in June.
Independently, agents learned that Ponthieux had made a death threat on his Facebook page in November 2014 against Obama and members of Congress, the complaint alleged. The Facebook page contains a photo of Ponthieux sitting on a black Hummer holding an AR-15 rifle.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/las-vegas-man-indicted-charges-threatening-obama-others
Hoodie
@rikyrah: Maybe Trump can find some background information from his sources in Paraguay on how cranium size, facial characteristics and other features correlate to Islamism .
Davis X. Machina
@rikyrah: Stick it in and leave it there. The OS does the rest. It’s transparent to the user.
ruemara
@Kay: I think you give too much credit to Occupy. They really did nothing besides reject things and talk a social movement without wanting to do the work of a social movement. That means getting up and doing things to change the status quo, incremental and less rebel seeming though it may be.
Woodrowfan
@Baud: GOS?????
Matt McIrvin
In other fear-related news, the great general crime wave was largely a phantom.
Germy
Justin Wedes @justinwedes 2h2 hours ago
Trump told @YahooNews that if Pres he “wouldn’t rule out” registering Muslims in a database or special ID to wear.
LOLGOP @LOLGOP 5h5 hours ago
[email protected] The front runner for your presidential nomination is advocating actual fascism. Just thought you should know.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: I’ve been saying this for a while: Trump isn’t a joke, he isn’t funny any more. The guy’s decided to become the fascist candidate for President, and because he’s doing well he has the other Republicans racing to find some way to be as fascist as him. And right now, we’re in a fascist moment where the message could win even if the actual guy doesn’t.
That he sounds more moderate on the traditional menu of conservative-movement issues is a distraction; the guy’s taking a different approach that is not new.
Germy
@Matt McIrvin: Trump is the corn-pone fascist that people have been predicting for years. It can happen here.
But boy, how he makes the GOP establishment squirm: “He doesn’t represent us!” they say. Oh yes he does, assholes, he’s your logical conclusion.
Germy
Trump’s campaign manager:
Maybe Trump can dig up the corpse of Roy Cohn. He might be of some help.
Germy
Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, launched his career in Washington politics as an aide to Representative Bob Ney, best known for his involvement with Abramoff. And just weeks before Ney was sentenced to prison on federal corruption charges in 2007, Lewandowski was pleading for leniency for his old boss, praising him as a “consummate professional.”
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
What Davis X. Machina said. It’s like putting a second hard drive in your computer. Install it and forget it; the Kindle will know how to use it.
And microSD cards are cheap. You can get a 64-gigabyte one for about $20.
Steeplejack
@Woodrowfan:
GOS = Great Orange Satan, i.e., Daily Kos.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
One of the great foundational myths about America that Americans have internalized is that this country was perfectly conceived, in 1787, by men, who were almost god-like in their wisdom (and if you are a particular stripe of right-winger actually believe they somehow communed with Jesus in drafting the Constitution).
And this country continued in its Perfection until unfortunate events upset the Natural Order of things, such as abolitionists getting elected to the White House, in 1860, and emancipating the slaves (and starting the War of Northern Aggression against the South), and in more modern times feminists and Civil Rights activists, etc.
One of the stories that gets handed down is about George Washington getting caught as a kid chopping down a cherry tree and when confronted by the adults he could not tell a lie and admitted to it.
The view of the first President being completely honest all the time has rubbed off on Americans view of both themselves and their government, in a way that is not at all healthy, as it is unrealistic, but it is there that there is something inherently superior in their American-ness than exists elsewhere.
Emma
@rikyrah: Tiny card. Shove it in slot before first use. Ignore afterwards. Even if you don’t get the card immediately and add it afterwards, the Kindle will automatically use it memory. It will stash all large pdfs, audio books, and Kindle books there; at least mine does.
(added later) oops. Other people have answered you already.
blueskies
@Kay: I completely agree. Unlike many here, I don’t swoon over Barney. He’s a politician, maybe better than most, but still, he’s a professional (now retired) spinner. He’s blaming the victim. He has ZERO idea what it takes for blue collar workers (and increasingly, white collar WORKERS) to pay attention to politics at any level (including voting) and manage a family and job. None. Barney doesn’t have to worry about 90% of what the 99% worry about just getting through the day. Shit, Barney, when you had all of Congress, why didn’t you and your guys make voting day a national holiday? Why didn’t you move it to the weekend? Why hasn’t VOTING ever been a legislative priority for YOUR party? It sure as shit has been a priority for the GOP, sadly, in the wrong direction (i.e., more restrictive).
If Barney wants to place blame, he needs to look long and hard at himself and his DISASTROUS party. The Democratic Party had one, brief moment of usefulness wrt to voting when Dean ran the DNC and the 50 state strategy blossomed. Barney will never tell you that.
Why is that, Barney? Because by blaming the voters, he and his ilk are let off the hook. They don’t have to do anything.
gene108
@blueskies:
A lot of the voting his handled by the states. I’m not sure, if Congress could force the states to make it a national holiday.
Congress could make it a Federal holiday, but those do not often translate into days off for others anymore. Even on Thanksgiving and Christmas stores, movie theaters, etc. are still running these days.
When office stiffs get a day off for Labor Day, for example, retail and service employees are working.
Having a day when no one goes to work is something we’ve moved away from as a society and I don’t see us coming together to make election day the one day in the year, when all private and government sector employees do not work.
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: I’m loving our new “hangin’ judge” AG.
Another Holocene Human
@gene108:
Well other modern democracies have managed it–why not the US? Because we’re special? Specially stuck on stupid?
bemused senior
@Kay: I was so disappointed with OFA because, aside from the phone banking right at the time of the election, it was purely a mechanism to develop a money raising mail list. I had hopes that it would engage in on-the-ground organizing at the state and local level, but saw absolutely no signs of this. I now send OFA emails automatically to spam. I expect HRC’s web people are merely copying this model.
Bobby Thomson
@Matt McIrvin: the message already won. Bush allowed it to win under the surface while he engaged in happy talk publicly about how he wasn’t fighting Islam.
Trump is winning (and I see no reason for him to lose the nomination) because he is publicly embracing the ugly that is already there. He didn’t invent it.
Bobby Thomson
@bemused senior: the first Obama campaign had great web-based organizing tools. It was malpractice not to roll them out to everyone.
Bobby Thomson
@Amir Khalid: nothing will improve until DWS is replaced. If then.
burnspbesq
@Davis X. Machina:
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that’s intended as snark or parody.
D58826
OT but a quote from an article on Huffington
We don’t need to send troops to the middle east to fight religious extremists when we have them right here in the US. So the church’s position is they will not provide care for a woman having a miscarriage because of the sanctity of life. The net result of course will be the death of the woman in addition to the fetus. The bishops get two for the price of one.
Miss Bianca
@Baud:
I think “it’s like trying to explain gravity to a chicken” may just be the best thing I’ve read today. I think it wins the Internet.
blueskies
@gene108: Ignoring that I also suggested weekends or any other of a myriad of approaches to make voting easier. But hey, if we can’t have one perfect solution that fixes the problem, why bother, right?