Just a few quick notes on the current campaign through the eyes of a white liberal who has never felt the Bern.
On fundraising through February 2016:
Sen. Bernard Sanders may have lost a majority of states on Super Tuesday, but he continues to pull ahead of Democratic presidential primary rival Hillary Clinton in the money race.
The Sanders campaign announced Tuesday it raised $42.7 million in February, and the Clinton campaign announced Wednesday morning it raised $30 million during the month.
On the primary campaign demographics in 2016:
There are three times as many nonblack voters as black voters in the Democratic primary electorate. To cancel her strength, Mr. Sanders would need to win nonblack voters by about 20 percentage points, since Mrs. Clinton leads by more than 60 points among black voters.
And now backing things out a bit.
The Dean campaign in 2004 was overwhelmingly white liberals who were looking for a cause. The Dean campaign was the first time I showed up on an FEC report.
The Obama coalition in the 2008 primary was a combination of white liberals and the African American community plus not getting crushed among the other major groups within the Democratic primary electorate. The Sanders coalition is primarily white liberals and rural Democrats. The Clinton 2008 coalition was moderate and conservative Democrats, Latinos and a bit more female then the party as a whole. Her coalition in 2016 is her 2008 coalition plus the African American bloc.
What we are seeing is the limit of white liberal power within the Democratic coalition.
It is more than sufficient to fund campaigns but it is insufficient to create a durable national majority. White liberals by themselves are a much larger, and far less crazy analogue to the Paulbots of the Republican Party — more then sufficient to generate a lot of money and advance ideological arguments. It is well connected to to privileged positions within the media and discussion ecosystem and due to its demographics plus committment of its members, it can fundraise efficiently on the internet at small to medium donor levels. Internet fundraising allows for a fairly low burn rate on the part of ideological and aspirational campaigns to tap this set of small donors. These are two very strong political assets.
However white liberals alone or with minor coalition partners, are not able to form a majority within the Democratic Party. . White liberals get a whole lot closer to forming a majority than libertarian dude bros but they cap out significantly short of a majority.
khead
It’s been a long, shitty day. Have some Mason.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Yup. IIRC, a recent Gallup poll found a record number of people self-identify as Liberal. At a whopping 24%.
It’s great to be liberal and have strong rational, consistent, compassionate views on how society should operate and how government should be run. But there aren’t enough of us. We have to get people to join us, and that means messy compromises.
Moving the ball forward is my goal. Not a “political revolution” that cannot achieve its stated goals at this time.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ready
White liberals are going to become increasingly rare as the Dems are setting themselves up as the non-white party, using racial division and hatreds to gain power, a favored tool of leftists from the Woodrow Wilson to Milosevic
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ready: Bullshit.
khead
@Ready:
I look forward to my future as the white Ben Carson or Herman Cain.
Goblue72
This is all certainly true. But you can make exactly the same analysis in reverse – that voters of color alone are insufficient for electoral victory.
Question is then, what unifies the wings of the tent? Gay marriage plus free trade plus technocratic edge nibbling ain’t the answer. Unless I’ve been hallucinating the Republicans control Congress and the majority of state legislatures.
Elections happen every two years, not every four. Your coalition above unfortunately only shows up every four. So how do we win every two?
Gex
What bothers me is the frequency with which white liberals seem wiling to say that things should be their way or they’re walking. I’m hearing people both say they’ll vote Trump, vote Stein, or stay home if Bernie isn’t the nominee.
I caucused for Hillary, but I will be perfectly happy to support Sanders if he wins the nomination. It doesn’t for one moment occur to me that I specifically should get my way if I am not in the majority in the party regarding the nominee. I hate that I see so many who are utterly unwilling to accept the votes of others in their coalition as being as valid as their own vote.
Kropadope
@Ready: The dems aren’t setting themselves up as the non-white party, but there are quite a few commenters here who seem like they would prefer a party without white men.
different-church-lady
Wait… I thought money in politics was a bad thing.
smintheus
Huh? I understand the condescension vibe, but…what? Sanders wins among voters under the age of 50 or so. How does that make his very large base of support a ragtag band of Paulbots?
superpredators4hillary
@khead:
https://jaydeanhcr.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/kgrhqnlme1f8rbeczbnbpsmmcq_1.jpg
BruceFromOhio
Which is why I want a political party made up of EVERY ONE WHO LIVES AND BREATHES. I don’t give a tin shit about your zip code, your ancestry, your earning potential, or what certifications you hold. Do you eat? Do you drink water? Want a safe place to live? You’re in! Welcome.
It’s a majority of human beings who care for one another, and see the power of working together to better our world, in contrast to ripping it off and strip mining everything in sight.
Many hands make light work.
BBA
@Kropadope: I for one think white men should be disenfranchised. Yes that means losing my vote but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
khead
@superpredators4hillary:
Buck up little camper. It will be ok.
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: Doug! spoof troll alert.
Edit: Potentially valid but definitely unsound argument, with some accurate real world fact knowledge coherently used, signals bored mathematician to me.
BruceFromOhio
@Kropadope: I’m just guessing here, but seeing the effect of Caucasian males on the last, oh, I don’t know, six centuries of Western civilization, it’s not a long journey to figure out why.
Hell, take the last 150 years if you want to narrow it down a tad.
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
It bothers the hell out of me, too, and I am apparently that rare unicorn, a married white woman over 40 who votes Democrat. (G is an even rarer unicorn, a married white man over 40 who votes Democrat.)
Minority voters are perfectly happy to support an economic justice platform that doesn’t ignore racial justice, but a whole lot of Berniebros seem unwilling to toss them that bone. I have no idea why, but it seems very short-sighted.
Comrade Jake
#CrashAndBern. After last night, it’s all over except for the crying.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Heh, me or Ready?
BruceFromOhio
@khead: Need a PR flack? I’m in the book. 1-800-GRIFTER. Ready when you are! ;)
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne:
Socialist dogma is a hell of a drug.
Technocrat
Man, if only there was a system where we could all vote for who we want, and tally up the results.
#ihaveadream
Wag
@BruceFromOhio:
This.
Davebo
Bernie is raising a lot of money but money only goes so far. Just ask Jeb?
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: I meant Ready.
But, maybe you are a Doug! spoof too?
OK, now I am out of here. I should known better than to venture into another Clinton/Sanders fight club thread.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
If white liberal men would STFU for 10 minutes straight and LISTEN to what other people are trying to tell them, we wouldn’t feel that way. But after a certain point, if you’re absolutely determined to take your ball and go home if you’re not allowed to dominate, then don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out. Help build the coalition we need to win or get the fuck out.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Davebo:
Or Rudy, or Meg,…
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Did you say something?
dedc79
If you break down the electorate by any combination of race/ethnicity and political leaning, you will not get to 50%.
Linnaeus
@Mnemosyne:
Be careful of the availability heuristic – just because you’re hearing about or seeing such reactions more frequently among a certain group doesn’t mean that’s representative of said group.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
I thought we were all DougJ spoofs. He is our Tommy Westphall.
different-church-lady
@dedc79: Not even stupid people?
Daulnay
@Gex:
It’s not that. It’s the ‘rats-fighting-in-a-barrel’ zero-sum economy jointly built by the Republicans and neo-liberal ‘Third Way’ Clintonites. Nobody in the working and middle class gets ahead except at the expense of someone else. So proposals to improve life for working-class blacks have hurt working-class non-blacks, and vice versa.
It’s a trap, and pits us against each other. The real problem is that ‘your’ candidate helped build this trap, and up ’till this election season has been trying to extend it (e.g. TPP trade agreement). As one of the Davos attendees said, “If she were to get nominated, if she were to be elected, I have a hunch that what runs in the family is you get a little practical if you ever get the job”
We can expect no help from Hillary.
Davebo
@Mnemosyne:
Well that kind of outreach is bound to win supporters.
Betty Cracker
@Gex: I’ve actually seen very little of that, either online or in meatspace. But I mostly stay off Twitter. Maybe that’s it.
Mnemosyne
@BillinGlendaleCA:
No, no, you nod along and then say, “Hey, that’s great. Can you get me a sandwich?”
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker:
No wonder you’re reasonably sane.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Daulnay:
That’s the kind of thinking that gave us Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan; it’s also a load of crap.
Daulnay
@Mnemosyne:
Yea, this. But we need a coalition that will actually win, and win longer term than just this election.
different-church-lady
@Daulnay:
Well, white men ain’t where the growth is.
Mnemosyne
@Linnaeus:
I’m over 40 and I’ve been a liberal straight woman my whole life. Trust me, it’s a dynamic I’ve encountered many times before, even before Al Gore invented the Internet. Sure, #NotAllLiberalWhiteMen, but more than I think most liberal white dudes realize, which is why it’s raising so many hackles for liberal white women.
pseudonymous in nc
@Ready:
That’s DougJ. The classic troll is strong with Right To Shite.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Excuse me, I was talking.
dedc79
@different-church-lady: I suppose we’re about to undergo a national field experiment testing whether white morons constitute a majority of the american voting public.
Tegdirb
@Kropadope: I think white men should take a break on voting for the next few cycles. It would kill off the Republican party and let the rest of us fix this mess.
How’s that?
Mnemosyne
@Daulnay:
The Obama coalition won twice. Why the rush to shitcan it and rebuild it with white dudes?
Gex
@Betty Cracker: I’m seeing a lot of it, but I have a lot of friends that I met through Kate’s comedy career. 20’s and 30’s white men dominate that group.
And in two threads I’ve commented on here today, I’ve gotten replies from someone whose post implies it will be a cold day in hell before they vote for Clinton. I can’t say if they are white, though.
I’m certainly not trying to represent my experience as a huge trend or universal or anything. Just that’s what I’m seeing in my little corner of the world.
I certainly would be most pleased to find that my experience is not representative.
different-church-lady
@dedc79: Any way we can de-fund that before it goes forward?
smintheus
Meanwhile, Trump’s healthcare reform plan turns out to be just the same old bad Republican ideas: wipe out ACA; eliminate individual mandate; destroy state regulation of insurance and create a race to the bottom; block-grant Medicaid; tax-free HSAs that also function to circumvent estate taxes. Apparently nothing to protect people with pre-existing conditions. And definitely nothing to ensure that Americans will actually be able to afford health insurance.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
;-p
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: I watched Morning Joe this morning, they were in PANIC mode.
Dr. Bloor
@dedc79: I’d bet on that over gravity every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
different-church-lady
@Gex:
To me what seems to be shaping up is a whole lot of people who will never vote for Clinton vs. a whole lot of people who will never vote for Trump.
Could be record low turnout for the 21st century.
khead
@BruceFromOhio:
You have to like cats. I mean REALLY like cats.
p.a.
@different-church-lady: I’m not on twitter, if that’s where the Boinies are spouting off, but isn’t this just what the Hillbots did in 08? denial anger yadda yadda, acceptance will come. A tiny minority may sit out the election, but these people (and politically I consider myself closer to Bernie than Hillary, but I really don’t consider him electable) are good Dems and will know what’s important to do.
Too Panglossian?
Linnaeus
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not saying that the behavior you describe doesn’t happen or that it’s not a real thing. I’ve seen it myself. But I’m not sure how much of an effect that has at the ballot.
BillinGlendaleCA
@smintheus: Only thing different from Trump’s healthcare “plan” than the standard issue GOP “plans” of the past 25 years is not having a proposal to cap malpractice awards. Other than that, same old, same old.
superpredators4hillary
crickets
Daulnay
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Sorry, it’s math. It’s how averages work, and it’s why we’re currently, completely, screwed.
1) There’s been no improvement in the average real income of working class and middle class Americans (the bottom 80+ % of us) over the last 35+ years.
2) When one component of an average increases, the average goes up. Unless another component of the average goes down, or several go down, enough to offset the increase. This is the basic arithmetic of averages, it’s how they work.
3) So, over the last 35+ years, when one subgroup of the bottom 80% gained economically, those gains have been offset by pain for the rest of us. It’s been a zero-sum game, except for the upper <20% and especially the 0.1%…
This is fact, and math. The key to the problem is that the benefits of economic growth have all been siphoned off for the wealthy, so that the pie doesn't grow for the rest of us.
Especially the very wealthy, like those Wall Street guys who paid Hillary 2.9 million for a few hours of talks.
Technocrat
@different-church-lady:
Well, if we’re going to have low turnout, let’s convince everyone to stay home…
(whispers) …then I sneak to the polls and vote for Pennsylvania.
Kropadope
@BruceFromOhio:
Yeah, well, we’re not all so bad. And telling the ones who want to help build an equitable society and get rid of the policies that harm so many minorities that their opinion doesn’t matter and to go take a hike isn’t a path to effective coalition building.
mclaren
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Well, we could always crush anyone who disagrees with us and set up gulags for those who refuse to espouse tolerance and common human decency…
…Um, no, that won’t work.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Daulnay: Why are you assuming that the average must remain constant?
ETA: I’ve taken college level math, so I do understand math.
Betty Cracker
@p.a.: Yeah, that’s what I think will happen too. The PUMA assholes were so loud in 2008 that they were actually all over TV and featured on the cover of national mags, but when it came time to vote, they turned out to be a fart in a whirlwind.
mclaren
@Ready:
Drat! You have divined our diabolical master plan.
But wait…Ming of Mongo is not so easily defeated! Soon, soon, the hated Democrats will nominate a candidate who calls Mexicans rapists and drug-dealers, and who urges his supporters to beat up and eject black protesters…
p.a.
@mclaren:
We’ll have job security.
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
A certain type of liberal white guy has been complaining forever that “social issues” have been taking up too much energy and we need to get back to talking up “economic issues,” as though civil rights and economics are two completely separate areas that never cross over.
Again, #NotAllLiberalWhiteGuys, but in prior election years I absolutely have seen articles online that propose liberals give up abortion rights in exchange for labor rights. That was 2004, IIRC. So, no, I don’t really trust the white guys who say they’re *totally* not planning to sell women and minorities down the river *this time,* they just want equal time for their concerns, which somehow manages to work out to 24/7 coverage.
But I’m not bitter. ;-)
different-church-lady
@p.a.:
Why not? I do, even though (a) he bugs me sometimes and (b) I think he’s not as qualified as Hillary.
Technocrat
@Daulnay:
But is there a political solution for the problem? Because if 1.5 billion people continue to decide to share cat pictures on Facebook, or buy absolutely everything on Amazon, you’re going to get billionaires.
amk
@Ready: rtr idjit?
BillinGlendaleCA
@mclaren: FEMA camps!!!
goblue72
@Mnemosyne: Because the Obama coalition disappeared in 2010 and 2014. Just as we can’t win with a coalition focused on whites that ignores issues important to voters of color, we can’t likewise win without votes of a portion of whites. Esp given whites show up to vote every 2 years.
Black voter turnout down in 2010.
Black voter turnout down in 2014.
I want to win every 2, not every 4. And that means fixing something that is currently broken. Which means either getting voters of color to show up every 2 – or getting more whites to vote Democrat while not losing voters of color in Presidential years. Or some other combo.
Daulnay
@Mnemosyne:
Can’t rebuild it with only white dudes, obviously. The white male privilege stuff is a real problem with Bernie, and he exposed it early on with his response to the BLM interruption. But the coalition does also depend on all of us, not just blacks or hispanics or liberal white males or liberal white women.
Hillary’s too corrupt and too pro-corporate to actually fix the rats-in-a-barrel problem, and that problem gives the Trumps of the world a way to pit us all against each other.
Mike J
@Betty Cracker: Hey Betty, think we can get you credentials from state to go to Havana for the Devil Rays game? You should cover it for us.
LeonS
@Goblue72: As someone who does feel the Bern (I’ve been following him since he was a mayor), I am getting frustrated with his campaign. I think his message and platform, or at least something very close to it, could be made to appeal to a broader coalition. It’s kind of starting to look like he’s just going to keep shouting “revolution” and “wall street” to the same crowds. I really think you can appeal directly to minority interests with his platform, and even tie it back to wall street in the end, but it doesn’t look like he is even going to try. It just seems like he says “we should do this” and when questioned he says “Europe can do it”, he could present this stuff a lot better and taylor it to different populations. Too bad. He might not have had the time to build the coalition necessary anyway, but now we’ll never know.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne:
I do listen, but forgive me if I tire easily of people who won’t do me the same courtesy. For some people, almost of all of whom I’ve run into on BJ in just the past few months, there is nothing I can do that will satisfy them. And some of the worst are actually self-identified white men who are being indignant supposedly on others’ behalves.
It’s not that I won’t STFU and listen, nor that I want to take my ball and go home. It’s that some people have this stereotype built in their head and those people are demanding that I STFU, go home, and leave my ball.
Daulnay
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m not saying that it must. The economic system built by the Republicans and neo-liberal Clintonites/Third Way pro-business people does funnel all the economic gains to the very wealthy. And I don’t see any way that will change, unless we dismantle what they built. Will Hillary do that, after courting the people who’ve benefited from it? I think she will dance with the people who brung her, which is to say… not us.
Which is to say, that zero-growth for everyone who’s not well-off is here to stay, until we undo the pro-corporate works of the last 40 years.
different-church-lady
@mclaren: Maybe it wouldn’t work long term, but you could probably get at least 30 years out of it.
khead
@superpredators4hillary:
Kittehs like crickets.
different-church-lady
@efgoldman: A unicorn that poops unicorns.
Eric U.
I like Dean, but I hardly see him as a liberal paragon. He was a a “third-way” guy, but not quite as bad as Clinton and Gore. So be it. I voted for him in the primary, but it was a protest vote. I actually gave to the DNC when he was head, they don’t bother to call me any more.
Linnaeus
@efgoldman:
And I thought we were comrades. :)
ETA: “Comrade” will probably get me banned too, no?
Tegdirb
@Kropadope: LOL.
(I am assuming your comments are parodying how white dudes make it all about their feelings so I said LOL.)
Raven Onthill
@Mnemosyne: “Minority voters are perfectly happy to support an economic justice platform that doesn’t ignore racial justice, but a whole lot of Berniebros seem unwilling to toss them that bone. I have no idea why, but it seems very short-sighted.”
I wonder how many. Sanders himself is not. The man has an impeccable record on race, going back decades. Hillary Clinton, or at least her and her husband (I don’t think their views are significantly separable), have at best a mediocre one.
Another point here: irony of irony, a lot of African-Americans are conservative, especially in the South. If the Republicans dumped their racism, they could have them in their coalition. But, no. So I suppose Hillary Clinton mirrors the Democratic coalition.
LeonS
@Daulnay: That’s why the class war angle can work. But I don’t think Bernie is doing it artfully enough.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: You are the one who has said that he was likely to to vote third party or leave the top of the ballot blank rather than vote for HRC. Sorry if some see that as taking your ball and going home.
superpredators4hillary
@khead: Adorable. I like their tent.
Tegdirb
@Raven Onthill: What exactly did he do for PoC in Vermont?
different-church-lady
@Kropadope: The ball is a lie.
Mike J
@Tegdirb: He bought Bob a Coke once.
Betty Cracker
@Mike J: I would be thrilled to pieces! I will be just to watch on TV.
Kropadope
@LeonS:
His canned answers to certain things are definitely getting a little irritating, although this…
might be a little reductionist. He has a broader platform than a lot of people give him credit for. The stump speech could use a little freshening up. Even when he changes things around, the opening paragraph stays. It didn’t matter as much when his name recognition was hovering around zero, because if you never heard it, it’s new to you. He does need to step it up, though. Maybe open with the small-bore, pragmatic stuff on occasion so the people who don’t listen past the first paragraph can’t convince themselves as easily that he’s merely for pie-in-the-sky.
p.a.
@different-church-lady: I would consider the fact that he almost certainly won’t win the Dem nomination proof that he would have difficulty in the general. FSM knows I hope I’m wrong, but I came of age in Ronzo’s America and I still think a strongly progressive economic policy still freaks out too large a % of the population to be an election success. It seems the Great Recession has shifted the equation somewhat but not enough-yet. Again the proof I cite is his (apparent) failure in the primaries. And it doesn’t matter whether his failure is based on policy or political, electioneering issues.
Daulnay
@Technocrat:
The problem has a political cause – the ‘free’ trade, pro-corporate agenda of the Republicans and Clinton/DLC Democrats. That agenda has been death by a thousand cuts; jobs lost to NAFTA, calls for ‘reasonable’ spending and/or austerity after the 2008 crash, the onerous bankruptcy bill, dismantling of Glass-Stegal, Clinton’s welfare ‘reform’, the assiduous blindness towards market-rigging, the near-automatic acceptance of mergers when they were clearly anti-competitive, and on.. and on.
We abandoned a well-regulated capitalist system, and went back to iron-fisted, rapacious, unfettered capitalism. Bill and Hillary helped midwife this monster, and I don’t see her disavowing what she did. In fact, I see her ally, Debby Wasserman Schultz, trying to perpetuate it.
Betty Cracker
There’s a white Republican lady on CNN right now whining about people calling out Republicans for exploiting racism. It’s hurtful, y’all! Nice counterpart to this thread.
Linnaeus
@efgoldman:
Oh. Sorry.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
You’ve been hanging around here for years and overall you’re a cool guy, but I swear to fucking god your Clinton Derangement Syndrome is so bad that you turn into this guy the instant Hillary’s name is mentioned. You are very clearly not an objective source when it comes to anything Clinton-related. So, yes, I take everything you say about Sanders vs Clinton with a boulder of salt.
p.a.
@efgoldman: I have to look it up. But then I’m a white male over 40…
Kropadope
@Tegdirb: It’s not about my feelings so much as the fact that I’ve been coming here almost ten years and all of a sudden a segment of the people here have turned into a bunch of big, swinging dicks. You know what, though? I’m gay, dicks don’t scare me and I will stand up to every one of you pricks.
p.a.
@efgoldman:
Rectal fractal unicorns!
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: What am I saying about Hillary that’s so off base? Any factual errors you’d like to point out?
Clinton Derangement Syndrome != Refuses to believe that Hillary Clinton shits rainbows.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Daulnay:
These are two different sets of poeple that may have some intersection. I should note that the only time where we did see a real increase in wages and weath were in the last few years of the Clinton administration. Also remember that Bill Clinton proposed and got passed an increase in the top maginal rate in 1993(at great political cost); that’s “neo-liberalism’ that’s I can live with.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
“Niagara Falls … “
Gerald
@Ready: Your sheets showing …you might want to tuck it in!
p.a.
I have little doubt most commenters here do not need this, but here we go
Raven Onthill
@Kropadope: I did some homework on the SC results, that seem to have held across the South. You can read it here, but I think the wrap-lines are the significant part for this discussion and your difficulties here: “We so badly want to believe the iconography of the candidates, even though nothing human could possibly live up to it. Story, that mighty force of nature, triumphs (trumps!) the unromantic realities.” So the discussion takes on something of the character of a family quarrel, or perhaps a religious dispute. We argue over icons and mythology, rather than the unromantic realities.
LeonS
@Mnemosyne: That really bugs the crap out of me. Why cede any argument? The more you push, the more you stand by your principles, the more you get in the end. You won’t get everything obviously, but pushing for economic reform should complement social issues, not interfere with them. That’s what’s bugging me about Bernie (as someone who’s rooting for him), he refuses to tie his economic platform to a broader array of social issues. If you were a cynic you might wonder why he refuses to do something that would obviously help his campaign. Just an old dog who can’t learn a new trick? Or a genuine disinterest? (If its the latter, as bad as that is, I guess he gets some credit for not just faking it like most politicians would do)
Cat48
I’m not so worried about who is,in coalition, but I know the Obama/Hillary coalition can win 32% White, 93% Black, 70% Aisan, 70% Latino, bigger the better. the presidents approval is around 50% which makes it easier to win 3rd term, We’ll lose all,of his agenda, even the Iran Deal & Cuba, Healthcare maybe, that’s important to us
Mike J
@BillinGlendaleCA: And when did pro business become a dirty word? It’s very possible to be pro business without being anti labor, or betraying the ideals of the left in any way. I would guess that the vast majority of Democrats and other Americans like to earn money. Business isn’t a bad thing.
Linnaeus
@p.a.:
Okay, I’ve learned my lesson. Apologies for the jargon. :)
LeonS
@Kropadope:
Ha, you are very kind in your measured response. Lets face it, its very damn reductionist. This place is so much more civil that Kos!
different-church-lady
@p.a.: Difficulty in the general is not the same as “unelectable.” Shouldn’t be used synonymously.
If there’s any one place where I sympathize with the Bern-feelers, it’s the “unelectable” crap.
Linnaeus
@Mike J:
It depends on context. “Probusiness” is often code for reducing the the power of labor, reducing taxes, reducing regulatory oversight, etc.
Mike J
@LeonS:
He shouldn’t fake an interest, he should take an interest. Caring about what voters care about is what elected officials are supposed to do. There’s nothing evil about it.
WarMunchkin
Not that I think you had any poor intent, but you did leave out young and old voters in general, instead choosing to classify by race and gender. Obama also did an epic job registering people to vote.
different-church-lady
@LeonS: Like I said.
Mnemosyne
@LeonS:
Exactly! For a couple of weeks this summer, it looked like Sanders was going to be able to join it all into one giant liberal grand unification theory and explain how economic justice and social justice are so closely intertwined that you can’t have one without the other, but that moment faded away and never came back.
If he had managed that, he would have been unbeatable.
trollhattan
No More Fvcks to Give Obama, hipster edition.
He has One More Chance to be the first sitting president at Burning Man. Make this happen!
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: White dude, 51.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: That was a long time ago that I last said that and have been very clear since that I plan on voting for her, no matter how much grief I get from her supporters or my friends.
Mike J
@efgoldman: But the argument was trying to say there was no difference between Republicans and “Clintonites”[1]. It’s just not true. Anyone who says it is true is a liar.
[1] Pity that women can;t do anything for themselves without being part of a couple
Mike J
@Mike J: Perhaps not a liar. It’s possible they could just be very, very stupid.
Mnemosyne
@Mike J:
It reminds me of a werewolf novel I read back in the 90s (I think by Skipp and Spector) where the heroine says something like, You can be a werewolf without being an asshole.
Our current method of unfettered capitalism is not the only way to do capitalism. The Nordic countries we admire so much are all happily capitalist countries, but they’re wise enough to realize that capitalism needs to be regulated and taxed to keep it from going out of control.
p.a.
@Linnaeus: No! It’s a word I’ve heard often but didn’t know its meaning and couldn’t pick up from context. I’m not busting. Others I have difficulty remembering: teleology, weltanschauung, Gemeinschaft, Gesellschaf.
fuckin krauts
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: Voting for her in the general if she wins the nom, you mean, right? I’d vote for a dead opossum’s rotting anus if it got the Dem nom over anyone from the GOP. I have no beef with you.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, of course I mean that. I voted for Bernie, he’s not much, but he’s on the right side of ham sandwich and that’s apparently enough in 2016.
p.a.
@efgoldman: We’re the rara avis (not as cool as heuristic, I know) of the Obama coalition. Delicate orchids who get too much manure. Oh woe is… us?
rarae aves plural? 40+ years since Latin.
Tripod
What I didn’t get about Bernie until yesterday – he’s hopelessly risk averse and conservative in the personal sphere. His supporters handed him $40 million and he placed his chips on the “sure” bets even if it meant a guaranteed house win.
His campaign also has that Senator from a safe seat, and stuck in an entitlement bubble thing going on. He hasn’t had a competitive race in twenty years and it shows.
Raven Onthill
@LeonS: “You won’t get everything obviously, but pushing for economic reform should complement social issues, not interfere with them.”
Look at his record! He’s been fighting the social and the economic issues for so long that I don’t think he sees them as separable, and probably thinks that is obvious. What else is white supremacism if not the ideology and practices of a class system? And what else was US white supremacism founded on if not the desire to gain wealth by enslaving Africans? Are not reparations an economic acknowledgement of and apology for social injustice?
Now, that said, neither Sanders nor Clinton have embraced reparations and, unfortunately, the reasons are obvious: it is hard to imagine anything that would be more likely to send voters into the arms of Trump (uck, block that metaphor.) But saying that Sanders does not care about social issues…for heaven’s sake, he has seven decades of caring about them!
mclaren
@Mnemosyne:
Shorter Mnemosyne: “Valid factual criticisms of Hillary Clinton for corporatist warmongering corrupt triangulation are `Clinton Derangement Syndrome.'”
This is exactly what we’d expect from a paid Koch-funded far-right astroturfer.
According to Mnemosyne, government-issued mandatory I.D.s will solve all our undocumented immigrant problems (while incidentally giving giant corporations a great way to control everyone by monitoring everyone’s movements 24/7/365 and exacting draconian penalities if their mandatory I.D.s show up on the tracking system in the wrong place or at the wrong time)…
…And according to Mnemosyne people like myself who speak out against grotesque Wall Street thievery and revolving-door government corruption, with former regulators getting cushy jobs in giant corporations and former Pentagon generals getting lavishly paid positions with defense contractors, are corporate stooges…
…And according to Mnemosyne, anyone who speaks out against corporatist Democrat DLC-style triangulation designed to edge us ever farther to the right with toxic Republican-lite policies like NAFTA and the TPP and the Clipper Chip and welfare “reform” that guts the social safety net, are insane and demented and “I swear to god you sound like this guy [link to clip of the 3 stooges]”…
…Yet the aggressively toxic non-stop lies and far-right astroturfing proferred by Mnemosyne should never, ever cause us to say that whenever we hear Mnemosyne’s thin falsetto shrieks of outrage against anyone who proposes moving back from the ever-rightward corporate authoritarianism, it makes me think of this whip-wielding babe almost as eager to suck up to thugs as Mnemosyne is.
mclaren
@Raven Onthill:
The Big Lie that “Bernie doesn’t care about [fill in the blank: women’s rights, black rights, gay rights, etc.]” is merely the Ann Coulter technique of character assassination — when you run out of facts and logic and find yourself on the last desperate edge of defeat, accuse your opponent of whatever enormities you yourself are guilty of.
Standard stuff. Senator Joseph McCarthy mastered this technique 60 years ago. Nothing to see here folks, move along.
gwangung
@Raven Onthill:
Um, no.
LeonS
@Raven Onthill: Sure, but it does’t sound like he does. His messaging seems tone deaf lately.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
I guess that’s what I get for publicly admitting that Flash Gordon is my favorite guilty pleasure.
Still, it’s better than being this guy.
Linnaeus
@p.a.:
Correct! I had to look that up on Teh Google, having never taken Latin.
different-church-lady
@gwangung: There’s a picture of him and everything!
different-church-lady
@efgoldman: I got mine this morning.
[ducks]
p.a.
@Kropadope:
He’s reformed?
Peale
@Daulnay: nafta isn’t the issue, unless you’re going after Canada, which no one ever does.
Linnaeus
@Mnemosyne:
Flash! A-ah! Savior of the Universe!
BillinGlendaleCA
@mclaren:
Hope you don’t have a cellphone.
goblue72
@Mike J: The majority of Americans do not own a business. The majority WORK for one. And at some – the interests of labor and the interest of management & ownership DIVERGE. And that divergence occurs at the bargaining table where the profits of the business enterprise are divided between labor (in the form of wages and benefits) and in the form of distributed profits to ownership. We can kumbaya all we want – but there IS a zero-sum divide between the two at a certain point.
Mnemosyne
@Linnaeus:
What pubescent girl could resist Timothy Dalton in a tunic cut to the navel? Not this one, that’s for sure.
I freely admit that one of the things that won me over in Ted was the obsession with that movie. Too bad they didn’t understand what made that movie work and screwed up Ted 2.
different-church-lady
@BillinGlendaleCA: Dear DLC: we have been monitoring your movements 24/7, and we’re very worried about you, because it appears there haven’t been any since you lay down on that couch last week…
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: @efgoldman: Your pivot to paid astroturfer, DoD psy-op operator, or Holocaust photo masturbater when someone disagrees with you is a bullshit move. You are perfectly capable of making cogent arguments – some of which I agree with; some I do not – but the spittle-flecked rants do nothing for your credibility.
Nate Dawg
I have a mild case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome, and this election has tested my mettle. But I am a pragmatic Obot at heart, so it is what it is.
p.a.
@Linnaeus: I should go to bed now; ain’t gonna get any better for me tonight after that! George Wightman Williams (my Latin teacher) would be happy. Incidentally, he was the last living direct descendant of Roger Williams. He was usually in charge of detention; he would give you a word definition from the dictionary to memorize verbatim and you’ld have to stay until you got it. Guess he didn’t have much of a life and/or he was a sadist. Decorum was a fave he inflicted on me more than once. Had a sign above the blackboard, “Flunk Now- Avoid the Rush”. Pride-of-place in his classroom went to the first edition Playboy, Marilyn Monroe cover.
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: Relax, she’s making the troll face right now.
mclaren
@efgoldman:
Mnemosyne and Omnes Omnibus are well-known and infamous far-right Koch-paid astroturfers. Martin also qualifies.
Other people, not so much.
These people all have long long records going years back of the 4 Ds — “deny, disrupt, degrade, deceive,” in many many thousands of posts.
Omnes Omnibus claims to be a lawyer but displays nary a scintilla of legal knowledge. I’ve spouted a lot more law than he has, so it’s clear he’s just some Pentagon private in a sub-basement somewhere pounding out talking points in an effort to disrupt liberal forums like this.
Mnemosyne claims to be a 40-plus secretary in Hollywood but once again, she hasn’t uttered a peep that would indicate she knows anything about the TV or movie industry. Once again, a corporate tool whose pathetically invariant right-wind talking points brand her as a belligerant liar undoubtedly paid to be a far-right drivel geyser.
And then there’s Martin, who assured us (among other gems) that Snowden was “a paid Chinese agent.” Standard far-right talking points, vomited out with time-clock regularity.
These people are obvious far-right paid astroturfers. You can tell from the low quality of their “arguments” (whenever I engage the alleged lawyer Omnes Omnibus in a legal discussion, his preferred debating rebuttal is “fuck you mclaren” rather than deal with the legal points I raise; whenever I point out Mnemosyne’s crappy logic and bogus non-fact factoids, her perferred rebuttal is to claim I’m a woman — and whenever I point out that Martin is spouting Wall Street Journal-style far-right bullshit, his preferred debating tactic is to run away and hide) and also from the unvarying nature of their attacks. When these three stooges get pounded into hamburger because their “facts” are proven garbage, they retreat for a day or two, then return to inject the same long-debunked Reaganoid talking points into the discussion yet again.
This is not what you find with Democrats engaging in a discussion in good faith. It’s typical of far-right astroturfing stooges paid to inject a specific set of talking points so as to pollute and hopefully destroy liberal forums like this one.
For the record, the talking points Mnemosyne and Martin and Omnes Omnibus are paid to inject boil down to:
[1] “The constitution is just a goddamn piece of paper” (in George W. Bush’s words) and we need torture and extrajudicial murder and martial law and lots more to deal with the allegedly existential threat of scary swarthy guys wearing towels on their heads. This is classic neocon/Project For the New American Century talking point.
[2] We allegedly need much stricter controls on the population, including universal mandatory government issued-I.D. cards, corporate/government surveillance, corporate/government credit controls that can delete anyone’s bank account at the touch of a button, in order to deal with the allegedly existential threat of scary swarthy guys with towels on their heads and also dirty hippy anarchists.
[3] Anyone who proposes going back to Eisenhower-era marginal tax rates and financial regulation is [fill in the blank: mentally ill, a transvestite, one of the three stooges, etc.].
[4] Claiming that liberals are not helpless against corporate/Republican power because a Democratic president has lots of legal options and plenty of powers with lots of constitutional latitude to use them is [fill in the blank: insane, a fuckwit, a firebagger, a loser, an asshole, etc] because “everyone knows” that the American experiment is over, it’s hopeless, we can’t fight the Republican noise machine, we’re all doomed doomed doomed doomed doomed doomed.
We keep hearing this horseshit from these three far-right drivel geysers trying to palm themselves off as something other than corporate-funded movement conservative sock puppets, and I for one am tired of it.
Kropadope
@p.a.: Familiar with the phrase “I’d rather vote for a ham sandwich(.)”?
Here’s my presidential preferences for this year:
Bernie Sanders
Ham Sandwich
Hillary Clinton
(Miles of separation)
John Kasich
(Light years of separation)
Marco Rubio
Ted Cruz
Trump, il douche
Though, even though I rate him lower than Clinton, I might consider voting for Kasich since I consider the culture of the two parties important. Kasich would be a big improvement for the Republicans. Hell, it’s why I’m choosing Bernie, I actually prefer Hillary’s policies overall (except on guns and war), but she and her advocates, big and small, I often find pretty troubling for the Democrats.
Linnaeus
@p.a.:
Funny! Not what I would expect from a descendant of Roger Williams.
p.a.
@Omnes Omnibus:
That would be a great name for a punk band
different-church-lady
@mclaren:
And look at how far it’s gotten you!
different-church-lady
@Kropadope: I’ll take a hot pastrami over any of ’em.
Linnaeus
@Mnemosyne:
I saw Ted, but not Ted 2. Apparently I didn’t miss much.
Nate Dawg
@mclaren: “well-known” and “infamous” needs citation.
You need help @mclaren. Seriously.
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: Re-lax — she’s making the troll face right now.
Mr. Twister
@Kropadope: Kasich, really, JFC you’re insane.
p.a.
@mclaren: You forgot a title. May I suggest
J’accuse!
different-church-lady
So, apparently r-e-l-a-x is one of seventeen thousand words you can’t say on WordPress.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Like all paid astroturfers, you ignore the facts and logic of debating opponents and instead pivot to personalities, using invective (‘spittle-flecked rants’) rather than actual arguments.
So I’m going to do some jiu jitsu here and flip you back to the subject you’re trying to steer this conversation away from — namely, why shouldn’t people vote for Bernie Sanders?
You claim to be a lawyer, so explain to me why if Bernie Sanders is elected president he can’t legally and constitutionally use the methods of overcoming Republican obstructionism detailed in this Yale Law Journal article?
The article is “Can the President Appoint Principal Executive Officers Without a Senate Confirmation Vote?” Matthew C. Stevenson, 122 Yale L.J. 940 (2013).
I have included a direct link to the article.
Please use your supposed legal knowledge to explain clearly and in detail the flaws in the legal reasoning that would let president Sanders appoint Supreme Court judges over Republican efforts to obstruct him. Show your work. No hand-waving. You must use legal terminology and valid legal reasoning, including cites of relevant precedents.
But you can’t do any of that, because you’re not a lawyer, you’re just some paid corporate schmuck typing far-right talking points in an astroturfing internet boiler room run by the Koch brothers.
different-church-lady
@mclaren: I swear to god, if this doesn’t result in a “your mom” joke, this place is weak tea.
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
I’ll have to let my husband know that I’m not actually a fortyish secretary. He will be astonished to find out my dark secret. If I even have a husband, that is …
In the meantime, I have to go feed my mythical cats before getting ready for bed so I can be ready for my
secretarial job at the Giant Evil Corporationday of posting right-wing talking points while collecting that sweet, sweet Koch paycheck.On the other hand, this means that I can now urge everyone to run out and see Zootopia this weekend because it’s totally not a conflict of interest for me to do that. And I definitely won’t get a bonus if it does well at the box office, so grab the kids and get in line now!
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Projection! You are actually a paid right wing troll whose goal is to make leftists look ridiculous. Shit, this is easy, and I do it in far fewer words.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne: Just as I feared: weak tea.
Kropadope
@Mr. Twister: Whatever other problems he may have, he is serious about policy and, while I don’t agree with him on most issues, he has shown a tendency toward compromise. He still sucks, but he’s lightyears ahead ogf the other republicans
Mr. Twister
@mclaren: Why shouldn’t people vote for Senator Sunshine ? ‘Cause he’s a carpetbagger from an insignificant state. A johnny come lately using the Democratic party as a means of actually running a third party campaign. He’s building a cult of personality and his followers are going to stay home and pout in November and give us President Crumpio.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
p.a. was making a Jewish joke. Ham is treyf.
different-church-lady
@efgoldman: Light-years more polite.
Mr. Twister
@Kropadope: Sorry dude you’ve lost the thread.
Kropadope
@Mr. Twister: Wait, Bernie is a carpet bagger? Someone who moves to another state or district simply to run for office? Doesn’t sound like Bernie, although there is another candidate who fits that description. Not that I give two shits.
different-church-lady
@efgoldman:
You sure that running out wouldn’t be for the best right about now?
p.a.
@Mr. Twister:
Starting at age 74. That’s optimistic!
Nate Dawg
@Kropadope: He’s a carpet-bagger in the sense that he wasn’t a Democrat and is carpet-bagging his way into their nomination process.
I believe that is what he is saying. (I’m not endorsing this message, just explaining for you.)
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
Hey, I had to work the Zootopia plug in there. Which is, of course, a completely unpaid and unbiased plug now that I’ve been unmasked as a paid Koch operative. See it twice!
Mr. Twister
@Nate Dawg: Yes, of course.
chopper
@efgoldman:
hey, crazy town banana pants used to accuse us all of being secret CIA psyoperatives. I find “tool of the koch brothers” a big bump in salary.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: A carpetbagger to the Democratic Party.
mclaren
The paid far-right astroturfers Omnes Omnibus and Mnemosyne and Martin desperately want to keep us away from the central question in this particular discussion thread — namely, why shouldn’t Democrats vote for Bernie Sanders?
So let’s direct our attention back to what the astroturfers are frantically trying to get us to ignore, and delve into some of the more compelling arguments for voting for Bernie Sanders.
As I see it, there are 3 solid arguments for voting for Bernie:
First, given current Republican obstructionism, Hillary is no more likely to be able to enact much of her proposed agenda than Bernie. Essentially, the next Democratic president will act as a station-keeper whose main job will be to fend off the Chosin-Reservoir-style North Korean-type human wave attacks of Republicans trying to block everything the next Democratic president does. It seems clear that Bernie Sanders has a clearer understanding of the stakes and the methods of the Republicans than Hillary does. Hillary seems to think we’re engaged in a political fight. Sanders understands that this is an existential death convulsion by the plutocrats acting through a group of character assassins and bagmen who call themselves the Republican party. Bernie is far more likely to hold firm and give no ground than Hillary is.
Second, Bernie Sanders understands the stakes here. Hillary keeps talking about women’s rights and “love and kindness” and America as “the indispensible nation,” a motley grab-bag of identity-politics interest groups, whereas Bernie understands that this election boils down to the billionaires attempt to wrest total final control over government from what was formerly a democracy. Sanders understands that before anything else, we have to shut down the plutocrats. Women’s rights get nowhere as long as the Koch brothers and their tools are running things. Black rights get nowhere as long as Citizens v. United is in place and as long as a fringe far-right extremists rule the Supreme Court. It’s nice to talk about “love and kindness” as Hillary has recently taken to doing, but the brutal reality remains that Bill and Hillary gave the thumbs-up to DHS government goons beating the heads of students in the Occupy movement with batons…and all because of money. Bill and Hillary Clinton think they can worship at the altar of Big Wall Street Money and come out without having sold their souls, but Bernie Sanders knows better.
Source: “Wall Street deregulation pushed by Clinton advisers, documents reveal,” The Guardian, 19 April 2014.
Third, since neither Hillary nor Bernie is likely to be able to effect more than marginal change in the status quo, why not go for broke and elect Bernie? “Unlikely” is not impossible. Voting for Bernie is like buying a $2 lottery ticket. It’s unlikely you’ll win a million bucks, but if you have the $2, is there a compelling argument against taking the long shot?
Daulnay
@Mike J:
Um, I think should have been directed at me, not BillinGlendale. Let’s muddy the waters, things are too simple. We should distinguish between pro-business, and pro-corporate (big business). Organized labor is necessary to counterbalance the market power of big businesses, so it’s not really possible to be completely pro-corporate without being anti-labor. Small businesses have too little market power to rig employment markets. Let’s also distinguish between most of the American left and the Jacobin magazine-style left. It’s impossible to be true to the ideals of the Jacobin left and be pro-business, because the Jacobins are a remnant of the Marxist, anti-capitalist, anti-market left of last century. For the rest of the American left, maybe.
p.a.
@mclaren: How fast do you type? Or Dragon?
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
yeah but apparently you’re both a Koch-funded disruptive as well as a DoD flack working from the pentagon basement. So you’re moonlighting as well! Man, how do you find the time.
Nate Dawg
@Mnemosyne: To any astroturfing recruiters, I’d like to put forth my name for your consideration.
I have a long history of internet forum posting, from BBS’s in the early 90’s to mIRC, usenet, facebook, and reddit. You could say I’m “aware of all internet traditions”.
I have a keen sense of authenticity, and was one of the first people to sniff out the infamous “The Nephew” troll on Daily Kos as an imposter.
I can flow between tone and play different roles well. My specialities include jackass, know-it-all bomb thrower, and disinterested, informed, reasonable man.
Rates are negotiable. Serious inquiries only.
different-church-lady
@mclaren:
Fine, I’ll do it: YOUR MOM is why.
chopper
@Kropadope:
I think the reference is to his joining the democratic party at the 11th hour.
different-church-lady
@Nate Dawg:
Whoa… I didn’t know we were in the presence of legend here…
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, he’s been caucusing with them for ages and pretty reliably has most of the same priorities. Besides, I’m registered to vote as “unenrolled,” strict partisan arguments don’t really sway me.
He should upgrade to the 2.0 version of that argument, that he isn’t doing enough to support Democratic candidates. If you did, I would agree with you, to an extent, though he didn’t have quite the high national profile he does now even a year ago. He has raised funds for the DSCC, though, and honestly his not doing X number of $1000/plate fundraiser dinners could be considered a point in his favor.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: Speed.
mclaren
@Mr. Twister:
Since Sanders just won Vermont, the “he’s unelectable” argument won’t fly.
The delegate count is now Clinton 1052, Sanders 457. That has evened up a lot since the early Clinton 300, Sanders 70 count. If we continue the trend, Sanders has a good shot at taking the nomination.
Notice that I respond with actual facts, real data, valid logic. The far-right astroturfer Omnes Omnibus has, predictably, not responded at all to my request for his supposed legal reasoning. Why? Because he’s not a lawyer, he’s just some stooge paid to disrupt this forum with far-right talkings.
Likewise, Mnemosyne hasn’t offered anything but the usual lame far-right character-assassination tactics beloved of Karl Rove, Ann Coulter, et. al.
Chopper is another far-right astroturfer I should mention. He doesn’t show up often, and never offers anything other than name-calling and the usual right wing noise-machine character assassination.
Notice that these people never respond to actual arguments with logic or facts. With them it’s always name-calling and four-letter words and insults. That works well in Republican circles because it’s how the Republican primaries operate, but that shit doesn’t work in a liberal forum like this one where facts matter and logic counts.
chopper
@Nate Dawg:
better look somewhere else. apparently most all of us here already have the job.
different-church-lady
@mclaren:
You don’t know the first thing about lawyers, do you?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: I wasn’t making the argument. I was explaining it. I will note that he would have virtually no coattails down ticket.
chopper
@mclaren:
thanks! every time you mention me by name I get a 20 dollar bonus. I’m eating steak tonight!
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: What would you like, troll boy?
Nate Dawg
@mclaren: You do realize from a broad perspective, it appears *you* are the astroturfer paid to make Bernie Sanders supporters look like moonbeam, looney leftists who wear tin foil, eat patchouli, and want to burn the whole system down?
That’s just the impression you give off, and it’s a far stronger impression than the supposed astroturfers are projecting.
mclaren
@Nate Dawg:
Now we’re back to Civil War-era insults. Why not call Bernie Sanders a copperhead as well? And while you’re at it, you can accuse him of being a Whiggist troll.
Notice that the very same people who attack Bernie Sanders for allegedly splitting the Democratic vote and destroying our precious unity in the face of the supposedly terrifying existential threat of Donald Trump (whom I predict will melt down in the general campaign in debate and will crash and burn catastrophically in the general election) are the very same people who do an about-face and assault Bernie as an allegedly No True Scotsman not-a-real-Democrat.
Folks, logic 101: you cannot have it both ways. Either we Democrats should all pull together and work as a team, or Bernie Sanders is No True Scotsman and must be purged from our Democratic party for the sake of the sacred purity of precious bodily fluids.
One or the other. But you can’t have both.
Your first argument — namely, that we need to work together as a party to defeat the Republs in 2016 — precludes your second argument — namely, that only the most perfectly pure True Actual Real Democrats are permitted to run for the nomination in 2016.
Once again, I use logic. The astroturfers use character assassination and name-calling and personal insults.
Keep it up. You’re going down in flames, and everyone can see it.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
So when are you going to address my legal points, as detailed above?
You can’t because you’re not a lawyer. You’re just another paid astroturfing troll.
different-church-lady
@efgoldman: Your name isn’t chopper.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: My bad, I forgot whom I was responding to and too late fixing it.
chopper
@efgoldman:
talk to jerry in HR. he’ll hook you up with the forms.
Nate Dawg
@mclaren:
^^Evidence you are a troll.
No one, not even the most ardent Sanders supporter, would claim that his winning Vermont puts the “unelectable argument” to rest.
It is just ridiculous.
different-church-lady
@efgoldman: It’s true. Even monkeys can do it.
Just Some Fuckhead
Why do you freakyass shut-ins have the same ridiculous argument night after night. What the fuck is wrong with you?
Go read a book, take up sewing, watch the old movie channel, stare out the window fearfully, do normal shut-in shit.
Omnes Omnibus
@different-church-lady: I was going to respond and then bill the fucker.
Kropadope
@efgoldman:
You know, there’s enough variability in those screeds that I’m reasonably convinced he is not copying and pasting.
Bill_D
So Clinton picked up 752 more while Sanders picked up 387 more. Yeah, at this rate Sanders will win, just like that guy who loses $1 on every hot dog he sells but makes it up on volume.
Now what were you saying about facts and logic?
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead:
What the hell do you think I do between refreshes?
Nate Dawg
@mclaren: Way to cutt of my comment, asshole.
And I had to put that disclaimer there because I knew some jackass would want to pick a fight over this, and I have no interest in the topic whatsoever as it is is irrelevant because a) Sanders has already lost and b) no one gives a shit.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Once again, this logic doesn’t parse.
We’re told that we shouldn’t vote for Bernie because he has no coattails down-ticket. But the very same people who assure us that Bernie has no coat-tails also assure us that we’re all doomed, doomed, doomed because the Democratic party has pretty much given up trying to elect state and local Democrats and now has a solid electoral game only at the national level, every 4 years.
But if we’re all doomed, doomed, doomed, because the Democrats can’t win control (and aren’t even making a concerted effort) of the House and the state governorships, why does it matter whether Bernie has no coat-tails down-ticket?
Notice what the astoturfer Omnes Omnibus is trying to do: his sole goal is to spread despair on this forum. No matter what happens, the Democrats must lose. We’re doomed. It’s all pointless. Don’t vote for Bernie, it’s pointless. Don’t try to indict Wall Street crime lords, it’s counterproductive. Don’t shut down Obama’s illegal unconstitutional assassination of U.S. citizens, it’s pointless.
This is the goal of the far-right astroturfer: to make it seem as though liberals can’t win, there’s no point in trying, we should all just curl up in a foetal position and wait to die.
different-church-lady
@Bill_D: No, no, it’s true that if he continues to barely lose in states he wasn’t even supposed to be competitive in he’ll be… no, wait a minute…
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
Still 100 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. You should definitely see it three times now that you’ve unmasked me and know that I won’t directly benefit in any way.
Nate Dawg
@mclaren:
You literally haven’t brought up *any* legal discussion, so what is s/he supposed to respond to?
Nate Dawg
@mclaren:
Are you a goddamn Brit?
Seriously?
Edit: Who is astroturfing whom, eh?
Mnemosyne
@Just Some Fuckhead:
See thread above — book 5 in the series I’m reading is already checked out, so I really don’t have anything better to do, other than to urge people to run out and see Zootopia, opening this Friday. Richard Roeper says it’s the best animated film he’s ever seen.
mclaren
@Nate Dawg:
The assertion “it is just ridiculous” is not an argument.
You need more than a vacuous assertion — logic and evidence.
This thread proves reminiscent of the ferocious rage that erupted in the forum when I suggested that Barack Obama is not helpless in the face of senatorial obstructionism and that, in fact, there exist a remarkable number of legal and constitutional ways for Obama to overcome that obstruction.
But by all means, continue wailing away in existential despair. You can sit there with your head between your heads doing a live re-creation of Edvard Much’s The Scream.
The rest of us will soldier on, voting for and electing the next Democratic president, and then figuring out ways to blockbust through Republican obstructionism and get a progressive agenda enacted.
different-church-lady
@Kropadope:
I think it’s possible it’s the alcohol-and-nicotine fueled spirit of Christopher Hitchens come back to life in non-corporal form.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Vote for whoever you want. How you sleep at night, given who pays you, amazes me. Or is it bennies?
Kropadope
@different-church-lady: I kind of get where he’s coming from, since the percentage of delegates has definitely improved for Bernie (45% is way better than 0.3%). Still, he is falling further behind cumulatively.
Still, though, it’s not guaranteed he’s going to lose. More than half the states still need to vote and it isn’t an immutable rule of the universe that Bernie will continue to not do as well as Hillary.
different-church-lady
@mclaren:
No. It’s not. It’s an assertion.
ruemara
@Raven Onthill: No, that’s not Bernie Sanders’ record. And it glosses over very nicely his lack of support for marriage equality until recently. What legislative efforts has Sanders made in the 30 years of holding office at the national level that he’s done? It’s fairly simple, since he’s got a 7 decade (really, since he was a toddler?) civil rights record.
OR, Bernie Sanders is a guy with the vague feelings of what is good & right, who liked to be a part of a movement, did have natural leadership abilities and used them, got into politics and held office where he did what he thought best but really had not much to do with actual issues affect POC, since he was in land of ecru & maple. That is a little bit closer to the truth, less hagiographic.
While it’s enlightening to hear about the failure of POC to comprehend how excellent the choice is that our Caucasoid betters make, it is with great relief I say that most of you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. It’s not because Southern blacks are more conservative. We’re not unaware of Sanders. He’s going to lose the black vote because he fails to ask for it; he just expects it, much like he expects to pick up the disaffected white blue collar bigot vote because income arglebargle. He’s been running a Jim Webb campaign but with more granola & patchouli oil.
And about that youth vote thing, y’all have been ignoring that Sanders is not winning the black vote there either. Between Sanders’ comments and his team’s comments about their campaign strategy to circumvent having to deal with the black vote, it’s not gonna change much.
Just Some Fuckhead
@mclaren:
I never considered that Omnes was playing a part. His despair seemed so real. I just accepted him as a tragic woebegone figure.
Nate Dawg
@mclaren: It actually is an argument. Please read the *whole* thing again.
1) Your claim is patently stupid.
2) No other supporters have advanced this claim.
3) You aren’t actually a sincere supporter.
==========
4) You are a troll.
Seems like a good argument to me.
Your problem is that you are quibbling with my premise that “it is ridiculous.” That’s fine, and we can disagree about that, but the argument is sound.
different-church-lady
@Nate Dawg:
I KNEW IT!!!!
Nate Dawg
@different-church-lady:
OH.
MY.
GOD.
So how long does it take cancer to take a ghost down?
mclaren
@Nate Dawg:
I’ve brought up detailed legal discussion. You just haven’t bothered to notice.
To recap: there exist at least three legal arguments for Obama to appoint a judge directly to Supreme Court, bypassing Republican senatorial obstruction.
[1] There is no precedent for the Republican-dominated senate to refuse even to hold hearings for the remainder of Obama’s term as president. Therefore the senate is attempting a legislative veto on Obama’s nominations. The supreme court has previously held that a legislative veto is unconstitutional in INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983). This gives Obama legal standing to challenge the senate’s refusal to hold hearings and a solid precedent for his argument.
[2] The principle of bicameralism embodied in Article I, Section 1 and Section 7, and the presentment provisions of Clauses 2 and 3 of Section 7 of the constitution all preclude the senate’s effort to obstruct Obama’s nominations in this way. This constitutes a different but equally powerful legal argument which Obama could use to direct the president’s counsel to file suit in order to force the senate to hold hearings.
[3] The most radical move Obama could make would be to give the senate a deadline after which, if they refuse to hold hearings, Obama considers that the legal principle silentia consit applies and he directly seats his nominee on the supreme court. As Matthew Stephenson writes in the above-cited Yale Law Journal article:
Please tell me once again how I have provided no legal points for the supposed lawyer Omnes Omnibus to refute.
Kropadope
@ruemara:
Seriously?
Seriously?!?!?***
Do I have to ask again?
***Even if this were true, which it isn’t, that’s a damn sight better than what the Clintonites seem to expect, having the nomination given before everyone votes. Even after just Iowa, one state, “Is it over, can she be the nominee now? Uggh, this car ride is so looooong.
chopper
@Bill_D:
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: If you want my legal opinion, retain my services.
Just Some Fuckhead
Really folks, the same fucking argument night after night featuring most of the same people is INSANE. If I ruled the universe, Kropadope and Mnemosyne would be banished to the outer Galaxy as two planets forced to orbit one another too closely for the rest of time. Serious fucking issues going on there. You should all be embarrassed for your trifling selves. I say that with love and concern.
different-church-lady
@chopper: https://xkcd.com/605/
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead: Every once in a while, you are right.
mclaren
@ruemara:
Your argument here depends on black urban ressentiment at being taken for granted trumping (all puns intended) basic self-preservation.
Any African American with a brain can see what Trump is. The vicious treatment that black protester received at the hands of Trump’s no-neck followers offers only a foretaste of the savagery a Trump adminstration would unleash against minorities.
So you’re really serious telling us that blacks will get all pissy and refuse to vote Democratic if Sanders becomes the nominee?
Puh-lease.
I’ve already said I’m voting for Hillary if she’s the nominee. You think African Americans have a better place to go than the Democratic party to address their concerns?
Sorry, not buying it. In this election, the Republicans are the ones who are fragmented and falling into chaos, not the Democrats.
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead: I know. And such small portions.
Nate Dawg
@mclaren: Maybe he didn’t respond because your argument is obviously stupid.
1) Chadha doesn’t apply. It’s so plainly obvious to even the most casual observer. That you would cite is proof that you are out of your depth.
2) What is the argument here? I don’t see one.
3) Obama doesn’t do things like that. He’s a legal conservative. He actually respects tradition and norms. He also doesn’t have the political power at this point, and it would be viewed as an overreach (rightfully so, I believe). He could even risk impeachment. So, politics trumps on that front. “Although this proposal seems radical, and certainly would upset longstanding assumptions” = Obama won’t do it. So there’s your answer.
Kropadope
@Just Some Fuckhead: I’m working desperately hard to crack a really thick skull. And maybe you don’t read in full detail as you are not a participant of the particular discussion, but we are certainly covering new ground.
Besides what I do when I’m taking a break between physics problems is my own business.
Nate Dawg
@mclaren:
Now are you a Brit?
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
In order to do that, you would have to be a lawyer and not a paid astroturfer hack.
Address my legal points or stand revealed as a non-lawyer astroturfing stooge.
Weaselone
Counterargument:
Sanders, not Clinton is actually corrupt.
Evidence:
Hillary has been the target of a massive, well-funded and coordinated smear campaign for the last 25 years. In that time, nothing of any actual real substance has been found. If Hillary was actually in the pocket of big business and Wall Street, why would they fund such a concerted effort to destroy and discredit her?
Conversely, Sanders despite being touted as a threat to the current economic elite faces no such effort to destroy him and his reputation. He talks a good game, but he did not support legislation regulating the derivatives market, he supported limiting gun manufacturer liability and despite statements to the contrary, he attends swanky events with wealthy donors and lobbyists just like all the other politicians.
mclaren
@Nate Dawg:
INS v Chadha applies perfectly, and it’s obvious why.
The argument in both 1) and 2) is that the senate is attempting a legislative veto of executive powers, and the principle of bicameralism embodied in Article I, Section 1 and Section 7, and the presentment provisions of Clauses 2 and 3 of Section 7 of the constitution preclude that.
If you now try to claim that this reading of INS v Chadha is wrong, you’re going against black-letter precedent law. The supreme court has ruled on this point. Legislative vetoes are not constitutional.
As for number 3, Obama has shown a lot more balls recently than anyone expected. Obama is currently studying big thick folders full of the qualifications of potential supreme court nominees. You think he’s willing to waste his valuable presidential time without some plan for getting around Republican senatorial obstructionism?
Maybe. But I wouldn’t count on it.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Nice job proving her point about white Sanders supporters condescending to people of color.
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Just for that, you now have to see Zootopia FOUR times. Don’t force me to make it five.
mclaren
@Weaselone:
That’s not proof of corruption, merely proof of bad judgment. We have a long track record of Hillary and Bill Clinton taking vast amounts of filthy corporate lucre.
Moreover, Hillary’s campaign contributors are the very same giant banks and Wall Street crime lords who fund the Republicans.
Bernie Sanders?
…Not so much.
chopper
@Nate Dawg:
actually he does remind me a lot of (p)Rick from The Young Ones, now that you mention it.
Nate Dawg
@mclaren: I’m sure OO would love to be revealed as a non-lawyer. His standing would likely increase.
You, on the other hand, have been revealed as a Brit, and therefore likely the ghost of a young Christopher Hitchens come to haunt the internet with anti-American imperialists rants, fueled by nicotine, alcohol, and an unknown cocktail of psychoactive pharmaceuticals.
In any case, you aren’t a citizen, which explains why your political instincts are so awful.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: Incredulity at false assertions is condescending to people of color? Fascinating.
First of all, I don’t even know ruemara’s race or anything else about him/her, save that the post had a steaming pile of BS contained within. Bernie is working hard for every vote, he has to since he didn’t start with 99% name recognition and 70% committed support.
Mnemosyne
@chopper:
What about Cliff Richard? Hm? Hm?
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: You’ve made no legal points. You’ve mentioned some cases but you have made no legal arguments. You have functioned exactly like the very bright but resentful autodidact that I suspect you to be.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Discounting what a Black woman tells you about her fellow Black voters? Hellz, yeah, that’s condescending. And it would have been obvious she’s Black from what she said if you had taken five seconds to read it and listen to what she was telling you. For once.
Nate Dawg
@mclaren: Dude, or should i Say “Bloke”.
The way you string together phrases like “black letter precedent” indicates you don’t have any actual legal education, and are really just out of your depth.
I’ll attempt to briefly explain why Chadha doesn’t apply.
The Senate, in failing to confirm a nominee, is not “promulgating a statute granting itself a legislative veto . . .” There is *no* statute involved in the Senate’s’ approval of a SCOTUS nominee. None, zip, zero. Has nothing to do with this *at all whatsoever*.
The failure to “consent” to a judicial nominee is not a legislative action (as defined above). It is a separate mode of action, authorized in an entirely different area of the Constitution. It is the “alternate procedures” mentioned above.
Finally, the principle of “bicameralism” has little to do with SCOTUS appointments because only the Senate consents to judicial nominees, and so there is no check on “legislative encroachment” via bicameralism with respect to this function. (Keep in mind, bicameralism check on legislative encroachment, and confirmation is not a legislative function, which again, is why Chadha doesn’t apply.)
BillinGlendaleCA
Upstairs they said there was a train wreck down here, they were right.
different-church-lady
@Nate Dawg: That’s a lot of words just to say, “Your Mom”.
different-church-lady
@BillinGlendaleCA: But it’s a clown train!
Nate Dawg
@BillinGlendaleCA: It’s past your bedtime young man, go back to your room !
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: I read the whole thing thoroughly and none of the statements I responded to had anything to do with what black people were doing. The one you seem bothered by was about what Bernie was (not) doing, but her claim was false.
Bernie is asking for the votes of black people. He’s speaking to black political groups. He has stood by workers striking from retail food establishments, largely staffed by minority people. The fact that black people aren’t supporting him is indisputable and if there’s something he could be doing to earn their vote, he’s not doing that thing. The assertion that he’s not asking for their votes, however, is ludicrous on it’s face, much like the idea that I could somehow discern ruemara’s race and gender from her comments.
BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady: Clowns scare me.
Nate Dawg
@Kropadope:
I agree.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: :: whistles::
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: Clowns scare every sensible person. Creepy ass fuckers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope:
You couldn’t figure out that she was Black from this?
chopper
@Nate Dawg:
right. it’s not that he isn’t asking for their votes. it’s that he’s really bad at it. seriously, cornel fucking west?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Creepy ass fuckers, but they don’t work for free either☺.
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
they don’t scare me. the basement of the pentagon is well known to be utterly clown-proof.
BillinGlendaleCA
@chopper: I live in a cave, so I have dogs to keep the clowns away.
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: My only possible answer.
chopper
@BillinGlendaleCA:
(nods)
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I wanted to put in a “Hamilton” joke, but it turns out that a polymath and an autodidact are different things (though a person could be both, I suppose). It was overly flattering to mclaren anyway.
Nate Dawg
@chopper: I love “Brother Cornel”, but yeah, he’s made an asshat of himself these past few years. I fully expect that he and Tavis Smiley will join the “Stump for Trump” girls this fall, ultimately pushing Trump’s share of the black vote to a historic 1%.
That said, it’s all been so obvious for so long. Obama was only able to beat Clinton because he had the South + Western caucuses + Midwest (more or less).
I never saw the rationale for Bernie to actually win the nomination given that he wasn’t going to win those same states. Keep in mind, Clinton won California, New York, & Texas . . . and Obama just barely eked it out, with fewer actual votes, but more delegates.
I’m grateful that Bernie has captured so much attention, and is pushing the Dem party in the right direction, but I wish his supporters were politically savvy enough to take the campaign as seriously as it deserves to be taken, which is to say–not that seriously.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
I swear I did not read this comment until after the one I posted to Omnes above. Sorry, it’s a sickness. Don’t judge me!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne:
Ya don’t say, heh.
Lil' Chocolate Bronut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syiEwpcIPWI
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: I suppose I could have, but it turned on pretty much one word and that wasn’t really one of the details that stuck with me. This is all words on a screen. I might have picked up on it if I actually cared what her race was, but the more pertinent facts seemed to be that she is seriously racially aggrieved and had her facts wrong. Without that “we,” for all I knew she could have been white, albeit with a chip on her shoulder about other white people.
So, for future reference, should I take anything any black person says to be the absolute truth, even if I know it’s false? Is ruemara the spokesperson for all black people or just southern black people. ETA: Does she want the job of spokesperson or is Mnemosyme forcing her into it?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Hamilton graduated from King’s College – now Columbia. He was not an autodidact. For his time, he was conventionally highly educated.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Let me guess — you don’t see race.
Nate Dawg
@Kropadope: Don’t be an ass.
Ruemara was responding to this:
I don’t see how you can interpret this any other way than “white people know better than black people what is good for them.”
(Protip: When white people explain to black people what white supremacy is . . . you may not like the result.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: You said this:
All I did was show that her race was clear as fuck from her comment. Don’t extrapolate.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
He did not graduate, actually (someone else corrected me on that earlier) — he dropped out to form an artillery corps. He was a trained lawyer, but he and other veterans (including, I believe, Aaron Burr) were able to get an exemption on needing a college degree first thanks to their service in the army.
ETA: And wading that deeply into Hamilton trivia this time of night is definitely a sign I need to go to sleep. Good night.
Nate Dawg
@Omnes Omnibus: FWIW, I picked up on it too.
Pronouns are important. They provide context.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Pedantry accepted.
Nate Dawg
I think we’ve learned how to shut up @mclaren.
Omnes Omnibus
@Nate Dawg: Nah, the dude just passed out.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course I’ve made legal points. Let’s go over them, shall we?
Point 1: Obama has standing to take legal action against the Republican senate obstructionism. INS v Chada gives him that standing. There are two other supreme court precedents that also give him standing.
Point 2: Obama has a solid legal argument based on separation of powers. Legislative veto represents one embodiment of the separation of powers argument, but there others. Viz., an absolute refusal even to hold hearings arguably violates separation of powers in an of itself, without any other considerations — it doesn’t matter how we legally defined “legislative veto” if the senate refuses to do its job and in the process usurps executive powers.
Point 3: Obama can raise solid legal questions about what constitutes “consent.” Implied consent becomes an issue insamuch as the law defines implied consent as consent which is not expressly granted by a person, but rather implicitly granted by a person’s actions and the facts and circumstances of a particular situation (or in some cases, by a person’s silence or inaction). In this case, inaction triggers implied consent. This is a legal question which might or might not be resolved to Obama’s satisfaction by a court, but which cannot be simply waved out of existence by (say) denying cert.
If you were really a lawyer, you’d be able to respond sensibly to these points. But you have no concept of what implied consent is or how it is defined legally, so you can’t address any of these issues.
No surprise. Hiring someone with actual legal training would be too expensive for the Koch brothers. They want minimum-wage monkeys who will repeat their talking points.
Lil' Chocolate Bronut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FygIKsnkCw
Nate Dawg
@Omnes Omnibus: It is nearly 8am in the U.K.. The meds were bound to kick in sooner or later.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: I do, but I don’t sit here trying to discern all the various commenters’ races. That would be absolute lunacy. I have to say, it’s been a while since I saw you descend to this level of false argumentation. Not since the time we were discussing someone’s conflating anti-ACA liberals from 2010 with Bernie supporters from 2016.
Glad to see you’re still a knight in shining armor, ready to defend people against facts with your trusty
swordassuming the worst.BillinGlendaleCA
@Nate Dawg: Wow, that’s something we might want to commit to memory.
Lil' Chocolate Bronut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWhIayQL8YY
Nate Dawg
@mclaren: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
1. Standing is a separate issue. Congress argued that Chadha lacked standing because the section of the statute he wished to invalidate was inseverable from the section granting him relief. That was the Standing issue in Chadha, and it isn’t relevant to Obama at all, as Obama is not a private actor, and there is no statute involved, and therefore no severability issue at all. So if you want to talk standing, you’ll have to come up with a different case. This one doesn’t apply.
(Shorter: you aren’t very well informed, and should probably shut the fuck up before you make a bigger ass of yourself.)
2. This is not a “legislative veto” issue. There is *no* veto going on here. This is Congress failing to confirm an appointment. The Constitution does not require Congress to hold hearings.
3. This is complete rubbish (A British term for you.) The one thing you said that does make sense is that if OO were a lawyer, he would be able to respond. The flip-side to that is that since you aren’t a lawyer, you can’t even frame a sensible analysis worthy of response.
4. Your failure to bring up *the biggest legal issue* surrounding this controversy shows how utterly ignorant you are. Anyone with even a cursory understanding of Constitutional law would zero in on The Political Question Doctrine as the major obstacle to any ruling on this.
Knowing what we know about Obama, I’d say it’s fair to speculate he isn’t too keen on forcing a Constitutional crisis when biding his time isn’t that damaging.
And so, he will not force the issue, because he, unlike you, understands the law.
He, unlike you, understands the politics.
And he, unlike you, isn’t foolhardy enough to force a Constitutional crisis and tarnish his legacy when waiting this thing out will likely achieve a better result.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus:
And I acknowledge immediately that you were correct, while explaining why I was able to miss it. Why can’t some people take “you’re right” for an answer?
@Nate Dawg:
I agree with you with respect to that particular post, but that’s not what I’m fighting Mnemosyme about. I arguing with Mnem because (s)he is asserting that I was telling Ruemara that I think I know what is best for black people. Mnem’s accusation toward me had nothing to do with the post ruemara was responding to.
mclaren
@Nate Dawg:
This depends on the legal definition of the term “statute.” In making the statement that the Republican senate will categorically refuse to hold hearings on any of a president’s nominees for the rest of his term, what are they really doing?
A statute is a formal written enactment legislative authority that governs a state, city or country. But notice that here the senate’s pronouncement is formal and it is in effect an enactment. Thus the senate’s declaration meets two of the three requirements for a statute. The only difference between the senate’s categorical pronouncement and a law is that the senate’s pronouncement is not written down.
What then happens if someone writes does the senate’s statement that it will not hold hearings on any of Obama’s nominee? It now meets all three requirements of a statute. Has their pronouncement been written down? I believe it has, in a statement that all Republicans in the senate have been asked to sign.
There is therefore a substantial legal argument that the Republican pronouncement is in effect a statute and therefore falls under INS v Chadha.
You are incorrect, sir. Consent comes in two forms — explicit consent and implied consent. Implied consent is consent which is not expressly granted by a person, but rather implicitly granted by a person’s actions and the facts and circumstances of a particular situation (or in some cases, by a person’s silence or inaction). By failing to act and by making explicitly clear that they have no intention of ever acting, the senate gives the executive implied consent by reason of their inaction.
Matthew C. Stephenson has already made this argument in the Yale Law Journal, so by claiming that this is not a legal argument you are simply making yourself look ignorant and ridiculous.
The claim that confirmation is not a legislative function fails the straight-face test, since it clearly is. Functions are legislative which the legislature uniquely must perform, and since confirmation is a unique requirement of the legislature, confirmation is clearly a legislative function.
There is a considerable check on legislative encroachment via bicameralism when the legislature attempts to arrogate to itself the power to refuse to allow a president to make any supreme court nominations. The equivalent would be if the executive were to lock congress out of session by ordering the capitol police to bar the doors to all entrances to congress on the weak excuse that the executive has run out of money to pay for congress’ lighting bills. That’s a transparent effort by the executive to arrogate to itself legislative functions and would not be tolerated since it violates bicameralism at a basic level.
Nate Dawg
@Kropadope: Gotcha. I followed the chain upthread and figured that that quote is what started that particular criticism, but I got lost, obviously.
mclaren
@Nate Dawg:
1. No, standing is the fundamental issue. If a court rules that the plaintiff has no standing, that’s the end of the entire case. So standing is absolutely basic.
The fact that you don’t realize this shows that you are either not a lawyer, or not a competent lawyer.
2. To the contrary, this is entirely a legislative veto issue. There is a veto going on — congress is attempting to remove from the president the power to appoint supreme court justices. The proof is straightforward and obvious: the Republicans have said that they intend to hold no hearings for the rest of Obama’s term. If they had said “We’re not going to hold any hearings this week,” that would be one things…but a clear statement of their intent to remove the executive’s power to appoint supreme court justice constitutes a de facto veto on the president’s power. I remind you of the legal definition of the term “veto” — and if you were a competent lawyer, you would know this: a veto is the power (used by an officer of the state, for example) to unilaterally stop an official action.
Republican senators are officers of the state. A presidential supreme court appointment is an official action. Thus when Republican act to prevent the executive from ever appointing any supreme court judge, they in effect enact a veto. Quod erat demonstrandum.
If you were a lawyer, you would be able to explain why this is “complete rubbish.” In fact, you are just spouting bullshit, and consequently it’s clear that your response is complete rubbish and shows that you can’t even frame a sensible analysis worth of response. Thus it suffices in dismissing your point 3 to reduce it to nothing, which in fact it already is.
Your ignorance of the law becomes glaringly evident here, since Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000) blew right through the political question doctrine. If that transparently political ruling reached the status of justiciability, it’s perfectly obvious that a basic question of legislative veto does. Really, you need to brush on your basic law here. Bush v. Gore is now well known, and in fact infamous.
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Obama is in fact currently studying binders full of prospective court nominees’ qualifications as we speak. Do you think he intends to do nothing?
Time will tell. In the meantime, let’s hope no one hires you as a lawyer. Given your patent lack of rudimentary knowledge of the law, they’d find themselves in dire straits.
Nate Dawg
@mclaren: You know, you could have read what I said and learned something from someone who clearly knows way more about this topic than you (the law, in general).
Instead, you went back to the well of your own deep ignorance and justified your nonsensical positions with appeals to language, rather than substance.
Let me boil it down to simple, simple terms for you. Chadha was about passing a law. Confirmation of an appointment is not done via a law. It’s done via the Constitution (which isn’t a law!!!!!!)
Passing laws is a legislative function of Congress. Confirmations is a non-legislative function of the Senate (not Congress.)
Bicameralism doesn’t apply since only the Senate “advises and consents”.
No, it does not. A statute is a bill that is passed by both Houses of Congress and either signed into law by the President or, when vetoed, been approved by 2/3 majority of each house of Congress.
FAILING TO CONFIRM A NOMINEE DOESN’T MEET ANY OF THESE REQUIREMENTS.
It is not a bill. It is not passed by both houses of Congress. It is not signed by the President (or vetoed by him).
It is simply FAILING TO CONSENT.
Let’s look at the original text of the Constitution:
a) President nominates
b) by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate
c) Judges
Notice how it never says that the Senate *shall* advise. Nor does it say the Senate *shall* consent.
It says “by and with”. When the President lacks the Senate’s consent, the nominee isn’t confirmed. This has happened many times throughout our history, and this is no different. They are not required to hold hearings. They are not required to do jack squat.
I don’t understand what your ultimate argument is, but whatever it is, it is rooted in a deep, deep ignorance of the law.
You should probably stick with reading The Atlantic and Salon.com because it’s obvious that reading notes in the Law Review has utterly confused you.
Nate Dawg
You said that “Chadha provides the president with standing”. It does absolutely no such thing. The standing issue resolved in Chadha had to do with severability, and is is in no way applicable to the President.
The President cannot get standing by citing this case. That is what I said. I didn’t say “standing wasn’t important”. I said that you would have to find a different case to address the unique standing issue in this one.
The fact that your analysis misses the central issue with this controversy, the political question doctrine, shows how completely ignorant you are.
The fact that you are proud of your ignorance, rather than learning something and researching the topic more, shows that you have a serious personality disorder.
Get Help.
Omnes Omnibus
@Nate Dawg: Dude, it is a rabbit-hole. Leave it alone.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
Mnemosyne is a paid far-right sock puppet astroturfing movement conservative talking points. Her entire goal is to mire you in these kinds of nitpicking minutia, the better to derail the entire conservation on a liberal forum.
Ignore her.
Mnemosyne is following the classic 4Ds of astoturfers: Deny, Degrade, Deceive, Disrupt.
She’s going to disruption here, and as long as take her bait, you’re playing along.
Nate Dawg
@mclaren:
As everyone around here already knows, Bush v. Gore was a “one-off”, where the holding was explicitly limited to the case at hand. It did not augment or change the political question doctrine in any fundamental way.
Also, you are missing the important elements (*again*) With a 4-4 Supreme Court, it would be unseemly to ask them to resolve a political question, because it could force a Constitutional crisis. This is *exactly* the reason the Political Question Doctrine exists, and Obama isn’t stupid enough to force the issue.
Nate Dawg
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m just trying to get hired by the sock-puppetmaster.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Drop your proof. Or stand exposed as a liar. Come on; you do have documentary evidence, don’t you?
mclaren
@Nate Dawg:
In fact, the constitution is the highest law in the land. Your deep deep ignorance of the law makes it clear that you’re not just uninformed, you have a severe mental problem. No surprise: the law is one of the top 10 professions that attracts sociopaths and litigators have been shown to have the same blood cortisol levels as serial killers, so your bizarre behavior and crazed insults here make perfect sense.
You go on to hysterically rant that:
It’s clear that you don’t understand what my ultimate argument is, since it’s exact same argument Matthew C. Stephenson makes in the Yale Law Journal in 2013:
At this point, your screams of “ignorant” and “deep personality disorder” do not apply to me, since you are now not arguing with me — you are arguing with the author of an article published in the Yale Law Journal.
It is now pellucidly clear to everyone still reading that you’ve got a severe emotional problem, since you’re directing all these crazed insults at the author of a scholarly article in a prestigious law journal.
Do you realize how much you sound like Antonin Scalia?
Seriously, you’re making a fool of yourself here.
Nate Dawg
@Omnes Omnibus: Clearly the only reason you would not engage it in a legal discussion is because you are a sock-puppet.
Omnes Omnibus
@Nate Dawg: It is known.
Nate Dawg
@mclaren: As the Law Review article itself notes, numerous times, this interpretation is “radical” and not widely shared, and goes against the broad consensus view that no, the President cannot appoint nominees without the Senate.
I am telling you what the consensus opinion is, and why it is the case. You are advancing a novel legal theory, without even understanding the most basic elements of the legal system. There is quite a difference.
The Law Review article is not law. It is not precedent. It is not a consensus view. And it is not shared by any other legal scholars of note. So if I’m crazy for not buying it, then so is the entire legal establishment.
(Also, if you don’t understand the difference between statutory authority and Constitutional authority, I don’t know what to tell you. Chadha is entirely concerned with the difference in these two sources of authority. It’s cute that you call the Constitution “the law of the land” in order to elide the difference between the two, but it is a crucial difference, and you failed to actually address my point, which is that nomination/confirmation is a Constitutional process whereby the veto in Chadha was a statutory one.)
Tl;Dr: You’re full of shit.
Nate Dawg
@Omnes Omnibus: When does Game of Thrones start. This primary season has been such a drag, I need a better diversion.
If only I can convince @mclardburps to troll asoiaf.westeros.org….that would be some fine entertainment.
Though, they have standards and he’d just end up getting blocked.
Kropadope
@Nate Dawg: Glad we could sort that out. I don’t wish to make any additional people here hate me.
Kropadope
@Nate Dawg:
Umm, didn’t you read the sixth book? This is it, the whole primary season, a live reenactment.
Plantsmantx
@Mnemosyne:
[…]
http://inthesetimes.com/article/15784/social_democracy_in_the_south
Nate Dawg
@Kropadope: please tell me you saw this: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/02/game-of-thrones-donald-trump
Nate Dawg
@Kropadope: wait a minute, the sixth book is our already? I could have sworn we were only to five.
Kropadope
@Nate Dawg: Yeah, that was wicked funny.
@Nate Dawg: Sorry, I was joking. Didn’t mean to disappoint you. I had hoped the sixth book part would be a tell.
Bostonian
Sometimes I think that Republican paymasters are laughing all the way to the bank about the identity politics movement that has kneecapped liberals.
Pit the poor blacks against the poor whites and the fellow already on top wins every time.
Kay
@Bostonian:
IMO, you can’t analyze this without including this:
That’s where the two strands come together. Younger white working class are not the same as “Reagan Democrats”- they’re less religious and more socially liberal. Things don’t stay the same, thank God :)
Bostonian
@Kay: Thanks, Kay. I guess we can have the hope that once the Millennial generation reliably goes to the polls, there may be some change. And because it’s a more diverse generation than the Boomers, maybe the politics of racial division will be less effective against their candidates.
LAC
@Kropadope: Well, did it ever occur to you that some of the issues black turnout has been because by the voting restrictions that a number of states but in place ( right after the election of Obama.). Or that during those mid year elections, the only voices that got listened to on tnis side of the aisle (in this site, for example) were the brogressive dudes that regaled us with tales of how they soaped their Obama sticker off their Prius and that they are not voting because feelings? This is not an even playing field and low turnout is not just a motivational thing.
The problem is that too much courtesy and deference has been given to some of you white “liberal” men to the point that you really think that you know what is best for the rest of us who make up this coalition. You are the first to throw a tantrum or have a panic attack when your vision of who should be in the lead is threatened, and the first to play purity politics.
Maybe Omnes’ “shut up” was harsh, but I can understand the feelings behind it. I got a whole party on the other side who thinks I should go back to being 3/5 a person. And now I have to play a bit supporting player in this party because I a) clearly cannot feel the Bern as I am not a real “progressive” and b) blindly vote for Clinton because of my dumb blacky blackness. I have had to read nonsense like that in the last month here on this site. So maybe Omnes is on to something.
Applejinx
Wow, this really was a clown train.
But it wasn’t a TBogg Unit of Clown Train, so there’s that.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Daulnay: Dead thread, but I want to address this:
There are averages, and there are averages.
There was a lot of progress in a lot of areas in Clinton’s administration. Look at this CDC report on life expectancy (40 page PDF). See figure 1. Notice how the life expectancy for Black Males (bottom curve) was flat or declining under Reagan and GHWB, but rising under Carter and Clinton. I believe there is similar evidence available that at least some measures of family income showed modest gains under Clinton – it’s likely that those gains were snuffed out when the Tech Bubble burst and W took over though.
Lumping every post-Carter administration together doesn’t help us figure out the reasons for the lack of progress for the middle class. They’re not all the same. It’s sloppy thinking to do so.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
chopper
@Nate Dawg:
so you’re starting to figure out mclaren’s shtick. it’s all “I read something on Wikipedia so now I’m a doctor”.
chopper
@Applejinx:
thats “paid far-right astroturfer” talk.
Spanky
@Gex: Right on Brother.
Karen
@Gex: There are a lot of Trumpians who say that if Bernie isn’t the Dem candidate, they might as well vote for Trump because he’s not so bad. And they’re infesting the message boards like Raw Story, TPM and Salon. A real Dem would never say they’d might as well vote for Trump!
Bob In Portland
@Gex: Perhaps if you’d tell more liberals to get fucked a little more, or tell them to suck Putin’s dick. It works wonders on bringing in liberals.
Judging from the crowds and the voters, the DNC’s plan was to curb the enthusiasm and sneak Clinton through the primaries. The odds are she’ll win the primary that way. But if she manages to get past Mussolini in November she’ll have nothing but Republicans looking back at her in Congress and every statehouse.
Yeah, but maybe if you insult more liberals you can build a winning coalition. That’s the ticket.
Bob In Portland
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: White working class lives are getting shorter.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: Can’t tell the difference between $27 dollars from Mr. Smith and a quarter million from Mr. Goldman Sachs?
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: I guess you folks are as much the enemy as the Republicans. You don’t see it, and those darned young ones are always kicking and hollering and spouting their socialism. If only they’d line up behind us and wait their turn.
Church Lady, you sound creaky.
Bob In Portland
@different-church-lady: So progressives are only white men? Yup, black people don’t want healthcare, or a fair and equal justice system, or a job. No, only white men want them.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: Let’s use a white woman who loves wars and is deeply indebted to (the mostly white men) Wall Street. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Marc McKenzie
@Ready: F@#! you–with a McCollough chainsaw just for the hell of it.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Bob In Portland: If Bernie can beat Hillary, more power to him. If he can’t, tearing down HRC isn’t going to prevent the things you claim to worry about…
Keep your eye on the prize, Bob.
Cheers,
Scott.
PatrickG
@mclaren:
I haven’t finished the thread yet, but …. mclaren @ 160 has been added to my screenshot evidence refuting the argument that “BernieBros don’t exist!” May actually supplant the guy who posted on my Facebook feed “Of course NV Hookers are for Hillary. She knows how to spread her legs for money!”, laid further word-vomit about he’s totally down with prostitutes, deleted all his posts, and left “Thanks for the spirited argument!” as a good-bye.
Bernie Sanders is trying to build a progressive movement, and I respect him greatly for that. mclaren, on the other hand, seems to want to bring the Trump model into the Democratic race.
Good luck with that, mclaren.
Edited to add: Jesus Christ, mclaren doubles down at 172. I’m getting popcorn for the rest of this.
PatrickG
Too late to edit my last post, but I got to this and had to immediately comment. I’m sure it’s been said, I just wanted to pile on. Also, I promise not to delurk further when mclaren jumps the velociraptor over the shark they just jumped over, riding the flaming remnants of the OTHER shark they’d already jumped.
I just spit out my popcorn. mclaren really IS a Bernie Bro. Fucking women, wanting their rights and all, amirite?
Fuck off, mclaren. Just seriously fuck off. If you really want people to vote for Bernie, you’ll spend the rest of the primary with duct tape on your mouth & fingers.