obama weighs in on both fight/don't fight debate and also housing/no housing debate. bold moves
www.cnn.com/2025/07/14/p…— Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li (@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com) July 14, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Former President Barack Obama issued a call to action for Democrats at a private fundraiser in New Jersey on Friday evening, urging those frustrated by the state of the country under President Donald Trump to “stand up for the things that you think are right.”
“I think it’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up,” Obama said at the fundraiser, according to excerpts of his remarks exclusively obtained by CNN.
“You know, don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed right now, so you’re not doing anything. No, now is exactly the time that you get in there and do something,” he said. “Don’t say that you care deeply about free speech and then you’re quiet. No, you stand up for free speech when it’s hard. When somebody says something that you don’t like, but you still say, ‘You know what, that person has the right to speak.’ … What’s needed now is courage.” …
As Democrats debate who should lead the party, Obama encouraged them to channel their energy into the governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, saying the off-year elections could be “a big jumpstart for where we need to go.”
“Stop looking for the quick fix. Stop looking for the messiah. You have great candidates running races right now. Support those candidates,” Obama said, calling out the New Jersey and Virginia elections, according to the excerpts of his remarks.
“Make sure that the DNC has what it needs to compete in what will be a more data-driven, more social media-driven cycle, which will cost some money and expertise and time,” he continued.
Obama spoke at a private fundraiser hosted by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and his wife, Tammy Murphy, at their home in Red Bank, New Jersey. The intimate dinner drew in $2.5 million through in-person and online donations for the Democratic National Committee, a source familiar with the event said.
A portion of the haul will be allocated to Democratic efforts in the governor’s race in New Jersey. The Democratic nominee, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, and and DNC Chair Ken Martin were on hand for the event…
Obama also argued that Democrats need to focus on how to “deliver for people,” acknowledging the different views within the party about how best to do that.
“There’s been, I gather, some argument between the left of the party and people who are promoting the quote-unquote abundance agenda. Listen, those things are not contradictory. You want to deliver for people and make their lives better? You got to figure out how to do it,” he said.
“I don’t care how much you love working people. They can’t afford a house because all the rules in your state make it prohibitive to build. And zoning prevents multifamily structures because of NIMBY,” he said, referring to “not in my backyard” views. “I don’t want to know your ideology, because you can’t build anything. It does not matter.” …
At the closed-press fundraiser on Friday, the former president said he has not been “surprised by what Trump’s done” or that “there are no more guardrails within the Republican Party.” He repeated his calls for institutions, including law firms and universities, to push back on intimidation efforts by the Trump administration.
“What’s being asked of us is make some effort to stand up for the things that you think are right. And be willing to be a little bit uncomfortable in defense of your values. And in defense of the country. And in defense of the world that you want to leave to your children and your grandchildren,” he said. “And if we all do that, if we do our jobs over the next year and a half, then I think we will rebuild momentum and we will position ourselves to get this country moving in the direction it should.”
vaguely surprised not that he's fight/yimby but that he's being public about it
though unclear how public "private multimilliondollar fundraiser" really is i guess— Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li (@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com) July 14, 2025 at 1:55 PM
===
it's funny (but also depressing) how many people have quote-skeeted this and gone "how horrible it is that obama is telling people not to fight"
he in fact says the exact opposite… but who cares about posteriors when you've got priors to assert— Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li (@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com) July 14, 2025 at 4:15 PM
War for Ukraine Day 1,236: Release the Tariffs!!!!
Martin
Optics of ‘fight’ and ‘YIMBY’ from the private multimillion dollar fundraiser could be better.
NobodySpecial
Yeah, Obama was a great President, but imagine how much more resistance the country could have put up if OFA hadn’t just folded their tents and disappeared in 2013 the instant the reelection was won. Plus he’s been deathly silent for way too long in the face of two terms of Trump. Kinda like the cavalry running over the hill five minutes after the last attacker left.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Maybe he thought they needed to hear it.
NotMax
If it weren’t Texas would Dolt 47 blame flash floods in another state on failure to rake the rivers?
Magic 8-ball sez: “You bet your boots.”
//
Craig
@Martin: where would you prefer him to have spoken?
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, I’m sure those in the fundraiser needed to hear it. But if the message is directed to Democrats, getting this filtered through the millionaire fundraiser I feel isn’t the most helpful.
Martin
@Craig: Interview?
prostratedragon
The best audience for this part, no doubt:
prostratedragon
[My emphasis.]
Craig
@Martin: where? The NYT? The Bezos Post? Any of the compromised media structures paying bribes to Trump? How about we discuss what Obama said and worry a little less about the optics of where he said them.
NotMax
@Craig
Thank goodness he wasn’t wearing a tan suit.
//
Msb
@Craig: bingo.
sad to say that some of the other comments are the kind of thing Obama’s objecting to.
bjacques
Damn if Obama isn’t channeling Thomas Paine on Christmas Eve 1776. Sunshine patriots and winter soldiers and all that.
I can even deal with that venue being a fundraiser, because multimillionaires are the sort who could actually resist the most instead of being the first to cave.
Archon
@Martin: Should he have given it from a soapbox at a public park?
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@NobodySpecial:
For their own sake, I’d honestly rather the Obamas stay the hell out of the spotlight right now. It was a goddamn miracle none of that family was assassinated when they were in the public eye, and shit’s even more tenuous right now.
Archon
@Msb: Nobody does more naval gazing on the issue of “optics” than progressives.
NobodySpecial
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: That’s valid for Biden and Kamala too? Or really any national Democrat, given what happened to Pelosi’s husband and Minnesota?
He said it’s going to be uncomfortable. He’s got as much if not more skin in the game as anyone. He needs to be there just as much as anyone.
SpaceUnit
I loved Obama but he can take his “toughen up” and shove it up his ass.
Tell it to the protesters standing up to ICE. Maybe he could show up with a fucking bullhorn.
Mai Naem mobile
Tfg, Noem and DeSantis can laugh in front of a gulag. Tfg can get bribes multiple times at his private club.. Tfg’s sons and other family members can get multiple bribes. Tfg can talk like he’s a demented old man with sundowners but OMG let’s dissect Obama talking at a high dollar fundraiser.
prostratedragon
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: Miracle indeed. And while I have no clue what his activities are when he’s not addressing the public, it hardly follows that he’s just sitting uselessly on a shelf somewhere.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@NobodySpecial:
I’d say it’s more valid for Kamala (who’s also staying a bit away while she plans her next move) and Obama than Biden and Pelosi, the latter of which is still working, though if I were her I would’ve said “fuck it, I’m out” years ago, considering all that she’s had to deal with even before what happened to her husband.
Especially since Obama’s not wrong that waiting for a messiah (or a scapegoat) is not helping Democrats
@SpaceUnit:
Pretty that wasn’t aimed at protestors or your average citizen given the venue. I also wonder how much good it would actually do to have him out there doing that.
WTFGhost
I didn’t attend the fundraiser, so I can only speculate, but I think he was thinking of the protestors, standing up to ICE, as the people who did toughen up, and told Republicans “we know you’ll say we’re protecting murderers and rapists, but we’ll still protect our friends and neighbors!”
I would suspect he’s concerned about the people who are like “maybe we should crap on gay people, or transfolk, to see if that helps us poll better,” because they should stop worrying about what stories Republicans will tell. They’re already telling the worst possible stories – we might as well try to do some good and maybe show that we’re not the monsters they make us out to be.
Martin
@Craig: What the fuck do you mean where? You don’t think Obama can’t call up any outlet in the US and get an interview? Any rando with a book to pitch can do that. He’s got his pick from the NYT to Maddow to Colbert to Daily Show to Rogan and back again. Nobody is turning that interview down. “Hey, two term president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barak Obama wants to come on this week, can we bump Joaquin Phoenix?”
Good christ people – I give the absolute most timid criticism I can think to give – that the optics could have been better – basically can we get Obama (Harris, etc.) delivering these messages to the voters in addition to the donors? Is that too much to ask? Because I don’t think the donors are how Democrats get out of their current situation.
SpaceUnit
@WTFGhost:
He’s above it all now.
Just toughen up.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Martin:
I think Craig’s argument (and they can correct me if I’m wrong) is that, given that just about every news organization has pre-capitulated to sanewashing Trump, it’d be unlikely his message would get a fair shake, or would get to the audience he’d want it to. And for my part, I don’t disagree with that take.
Martin
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: You think that Maddow has done that? Really?
Like I said, Obama can pick ANY outlet. Literally any. Not just any outlet, any interviewer.
divF
@Martin:
Actually, Martin, that statement is incorrect. One of our biggest problems is that we need all the money we can get to deal with the overwhelming advantage in resources the plutocrats and their captured media have. If he can find millionaires with consciences, I think that he should try to enlist them and their $$. Furthermore, this is not going to be a one-and-done. We need sustained financial commitments – the GOP won by pounding a message via Fox and Sinclair for decades.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Martin: Like or not, she’s part of MSNBC, dude. Who’ve been doing their own questionable shakeups as of late.
And of course all this is besides the point that his message seemed to be in particular for donors, so this would be the venue for that.
Archon
@Martin: Wait, you’re in a huff over Obamas comments because he didn’t say this on Maddow???
Kathleen
@NobodySpecial: I agree. Where was his defense for Joe Biden when it counted?
Kathleen
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: A Democratic member of Congress has been indicted for showing up at an ICE facility for inspection per her right as a Congress person. I think that’s taking a stand.
JCJ
@SpaceUnit: but he wasn’t speaking to the protestors standing up to ICE at this event. He was talking to people who might be able to help support those protestors or others doing the hard work. Since I wasn’t there I have no way of knowing exactly what was said or if he said it in the correct tone with the proper cadence and inflections to satisfy his critics, but it helps me to remember that Barack Obama was not a horrible politician.
SpaceUnit
@JCJ:
Obama wasn’t a horrible politician. He was pretty much my favorite president.
I’d just like to hear something more inspirational from him right now. Telling Dems they need to toughen up is bullshit. It’s like he’s working for CNN now, filling in for Chris Callizza. Screw that.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Kathleen: I was aware of that. How’s it relevant?
@SpaceUnit:
Sounds like he’s telling donors to toughen up, which feels in line with what we want?
SpaceUnit
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain:
Then maybe he could just say that without dumping on the base.
Martin
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: LITERALLY ANYONE. Pick Zeteo. Pick Hasan Piker. Hasan Minaj. Subway Takes. Amy Pohler. Surely in this great universe of ours there is one single soul pure enough to deliver that message.
WTFGhost
You know, I really don’t get your problem. It’s obviously not the phrase itself. And, just so I’ve said it, every single letter I type comes at a cost in pain, which means it’s a complete waste of my time to treat you like a person, if you’re just going to jeer.
If you are going to jeer, it is a grievous faux pas to tell people whose lives are entirely defined by pain to “toughen up.” Especially when I went to effort to treat you as a full, real, human being who might want to express an opinion, if given sufficient invitation, or, who could simply have declined the invite.
SpaceUnit
@WTFGhost:
I don’t understand a word you said.
Kathleen
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: If that’s the case fine. I didn’t come away with that but I could be wrong.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@SpaceUnit:
Say what? The article’s saying his quotes were directed at donors at a private event. Unless I’m reading that wrong?
@Martin:
My apologies; whether or not a news organization would be helpful for any message in general was completely besides the point and I shouldn’t have let myself get off track. It isn’t relevant, because this was a very specific message with a very specific purpose.
The message was for donors, not voters or Democrats in general, so this particular venue was better than any other, since it was in a room with a bunch of them he could personally talk to and interact with.
SpaceUnit
It’s 2:30 am here. Very late.
Look forward to jousting with all of you later!
Baud
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain:
One of my biggest gripes too.
Baud
King Charles plays The Game of Thrones
eclare
@Baud:
And this is after Macron visited with every possible ceremonial extravagance. Love it.
Martin
@Archon: I’m not in a huff over Obama, I criticize my daughter worse than that to her face. Why can’t people tolerate even the mildest of criticism against Democrats? Particularly when the message being delivered is ‘toughen up’?
Professor Bigfoot
Obama campaigned his ass off before November 5 2024; and white America told him and the rest of us to fuck right off.
And now white America is pissed off at him for ‘not doing enough.’
It’s fuckin’ tiresome.
columbusqueen
@Professor Bigfoot: Yeah, but part of me feels Obama should be more frequent with his public comments. I feel he played a major role in triggering SFB with his WHCD speech in 2912. Would Trump have run without it, I wonder?
Professor Bigfoot
@columbusqueen: AGAIN, Obama campaigned HIS ASS OFF last year.
Black folks and especially Black women worked and donated and worked some more to elect Democrats.
And WHITE AMERICA slapped us collectively in the face.
The standard Black retort at this point is that “Obama don’t owe you MFs a got dam thang.”
Martin
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: Discussions of housing policy need to be for voters. Voters should be the ones pressing candidates and shaping housing policy, not donors.
Professor Bigfoot
“Money is the mothers milk of politics.”
“If you can’t take their money, eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women and vote against them anyway, you have no business being up here.” –Jesse Unruh, California Democrat
People complain all the damn time about how the Democrats always have their hands out for donations and we get texts every damn day and we hate it… but God forbid they take money from millionaires because they’re supposed to campaign on air, I guess.
Baud
@Martin:
Obama isn’t a candidate for any office. And donors are voters too.
Also, I don’t know where this gate keeping comes from. No one can talk policy unless it’s in front of a predefined group of voters? Surely a panel of progressives at a conference can talk housing policy, even if not a lot of average voters see it.
montanareddog
OT: More performative nonsense from ICE; Dutch tax fraudster, released for good behaviour after serving 2/3 of his sentence, and with a ticket back to the Netherlands, is detained by ICE and returned to federal prison.
Dutch tax adviser detained by ICE after being released from jail
Your tax dollars at work, to goose the deportation stats.
MagdaInBlack
@Professor Bigfoot:
Obama should do more.
Obama tells wealthy folks to toughen up.
No! Not like that.
Baud
@montanareddog:
You can’t hit your quota if you allow people to leave voluntarily.
Professor Bigfoot
@MagdaInBlack: The American* need for a Magick Negroe is neverending.
Baud
I don’t know this person, but I suppose some people here might.
49 years old
Geminid
@Martin: No. Don’t pick Hasan Piker.
Baud
@Geminid:
I don’t know who most of those people are. Two Hasans? As of two Naomi’s wasn’t bad enough.
I am old and out of touch.
moonbat
Funny that the tone police show up to criticize a speech in which Obama tells Dems to stop navel gazing.
Obama should do more! No, not like that!
Pretty much the story of his entire presidency. BTW Obama has as much at stake as anyone in this country because you’re an idiot if you think all 45’s fantasies about revoking birthright citizenship don’t end with putting Obama on a plane to S. Sudan.
Aussie Sheila
Why care where Obama said it? Amplify it and push it along.
He is still very popular and his voice counts for something. Make it count more.
And I think he shouldn’t be out and about too much in public. For his and his family’s sake.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
With so many people believing in the woo these days, that could be a profitable vocation for some enterprising black folks.
montanareddog
@Baud:
As far as I can tell, the guy was operating an offshore tax evasion scheme out of the Netherlands, which included US-owed taxes. He has never been a resident of the US until he was extradited to stand trial. The probability of him wanting to remain in the US after his jail term must be 0. It is clearly just ICE’s “body count”, and we all know how useful that kind of metric was.
Kathleen
@Baud: I totally agree with that.
TS
After giving the people of the US his life and his family lives for 8 years, he was rewarded by them voting for a GOP congress and then for trump – I’m amazed the Obamas haven’t retired to an island resort & lived out their lives away from any form of politics. Whenever they do get involved, they get as much (if not more) criticism from democrats than they do from republicans. Obama saved republicans from themselves, as did Biden but neither got the accolades they deserve.
Baud
Elbows up – 👍
Toughen up – 👎
Professor Bigfoot
@montanareddog: “The Cruelty Is The Point.”
Aussie Sheila
@TS:
That’s true. I trust in future Democrats won’t be in the business of saving the gop from themselves and that in the next decade they work to sink them in such a way that they cease to be the threat they are to democracy everywhere.
no body no name
@WTFGhost:
If he cares about that he’s full of shit. He ran for president twice not being for gay marriage and reached out to evangelicals and spoke with hate pastors. Once gay marriage made it through the courts he came out for gay marriage and now a slew of voters, zip codes, and states he won are permanently red and we are never getting them back. Trans rights and later poly rights will have the same result.
Obama wasn’t for gay marriage until he never had to get elected again and SCOTUS did it for him. He never would have been elected had he take the correct stand on it. Gay marriage directly put states that cost us 2016, 2024 and permanently the senate into team red which is why Obama got a pass for his moral cowardice on it.
In 2008 his stance on gay rights was a big reason HRC had more LGBTQ support in the primary than he did and it was an issue. Shit it was Biden of all people in that administration who came out for gay marriage before Obama did and Democrats were livid about Biden possibly screwing Obama over by being for gay rights at the moment.
Newsom is far more progressive on trans issues and reaching out far less crazy right wingers now than Obama was on gay marriage during his initial run. It doesn’t make either of them right but as the party that lives in reality we do need to accept that. Not that I like that but the lesson from Obama is that a black person can win if they are willing to abandon LBTQ issues and the Democratic party can’t win once it gets a legal victory on them. We still have yet to process that and find a way around it. But like civil rights gay rights may have been something that helped make us a permanent minority. We aren’t willing to talk about that the GOP very much is.
Professor Bigfoot
Obama and Biden both saved AMERICA from the Republicans; and the Republicans (and most of America*) hated them for it.
There’s nothing they hate more than a smart, capable, competent person who is not a straight white Christian man.
(Joe Biden? Yeah, a straight white Christian man who was comfortable with Black people, made a Black woman his VP, put a Black woman on the Supreme Court so he’s an n-word lover and has thus renounced his whiteness)
Suzanne
The left-NIMBYs who love to call YIMBYs racist are now, somehow, gonna find a way to call Obama racist. Watch it happen. (Possibly here in the comments section.)
prostratedragon
Not just donors, though this particular occasion was to raise funds. These peple also included parners in law firms, and college and university trustees, as well as others who have influence in those circles.
Aussie Sheila
@no body no name:
If you think embracing ‘gay rights’ accounts for the current political zeitgeist vis a vis the Democratic Party you need to get out more.
JFC, even the stupid dipshit male wankers that opine on ytube that supported trump couldn’t give a rats about the ‘gays’. Trans rights I grant you, a bit. But overall, I think it was more about immigration and the inability of the Biden camp to confront the issue effectively. That and inflation, which of course was the result of twisted supply chains after Covid. Every country including mine suffered from that .
Baud
@Suzanne:
I’m confused. Is this an area where lefty Dems and “abundance” Dems agree?
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: I’m just curious as to how these NIMBYs manage to call “Yes In My Back Yard” people “racist.”
My impression of NIMBYs has always been “keep those icky people away from my beautiful suburban oasis.”
Soprano2
@Martin: As my mother used to say, sometimes it’s not what you say but how you say it. How about “I’m glad he said that. Now I’d like him to go to public venues and say the same thing.” Same message, but probably doesn’t provoke the “I’m so tired of the ‘not that way’ response to everything Democrats do.”
MagdaInBlack
@Soprano2: This. Thank you.
Baud
I hate the term “Kabuki,” but it sure seems apt here.
Baud
@MagdaInBlack:
Thank her mom.
Suzanne
@Baud: Doesn’t exactly break down along left/center lines. But there is a significant contingent of left-NIMBYs, and there are also left- and center-YIMBYs. (I haven’t read Abundance, can’t speak to it.)
One of the more common left-NIMBY criticisms of building is that it gentrifies minority neighborhoods and raises their rents, thereby driving them out, so they will call YIMBYs racist. Someday everyone will figure out that shortages of things raises prices, too, and that this is basically happening everywhere, not just in minority neighborhoods.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Thanks.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
There’s quite a few left-NIMBYs who believe that they are protecting minority neighborhoods from gentrification and densification. They call it “housing justice”.
In my now sixteen years of my career, going in front of City and Town Councils to actually get projects built, and my time living in places with, like, other people…. everything I have encountered is as you describe: wealthy, overwhelmingly white homeowners who don’t want people of color or poor people living nearby, or who feel entitled to have everything stay the same as when they were kids.
ETA: If left-NIMBYs’ political behavior is exactly the same as racists who don’t want people of color in their neighborhoods….. one might start to think that protecting property values crosses all political lines.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: Aaaahhh… okay, I get that though I do think it wrong headed.
Most of the NIMBYism I’ve seen has been from people in “nice” neighborhoods who don’t want to see multi-family developments anywhere near their posh subourbon enclaves.
The gentrifiers, on the other hand, are those who move into poor neighborhoods because of the lower property values and prices… and then start calling the cops on the Black and brown people who were already living there.
If you want to move to the neighborhood and become a neighbor, great, welcome! But if you’re here to enforce your pale dominated Starbucks Latte suburban kingdom, you can kick rocks
ETA: Yep, agree with your comment at 81 completely. To me they’re two different breeds of folks
ET ETA: <snicker, we keep catching each others edits!>
“There is no horseshoe. There is only white people who are at best uncomfortable with any power being held in Black hands. Those white people are at all points of the ‘left-right’ spectrum.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Baud
@Suzanne:
Same with 401k’s. Lots of interests cross party lines. It’s what you do to protect those interests that matters.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: Her mom made me think of how women, in general, are socialized to add a little sweetener to the criticism, for our own safety. I say “in general” because I missed a bit of that training ;-)
Baud
@MagdaInBlack:
I often do that too. But I rarely accept criticism directed at me, so I feel like fairness demands that I also pull my punches.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: I see NIMBYism even in my very-working-class, fairly racially mixed urban neighborhood. There is a chunk of land a few blocks away that used to have a private school on it. The school moved, and a developer came up with a plan to replace the school with a mix of single-family and multi-family homes. Some percentage of them were “affordable”, ten percent IIRC.
The fucken’ outcry went on for months. Absolute freakout about “the kind of people” who live in affordable housing, and traffic, and parking, and all the same bullshit, and it just makes me so tired. Fearmongering about drug use and crime. I wanted to say, “HEY EVERYONE! The drug use and crime are already here!“.
It finally got built. It’s fine. We still have drug use and crime. Same as it ever was.
columbusqueen
@Professor Bigfoot: Not disagreeing with this. However, his role in helping to shiv Joe did rather irk me. Bygones, I guess
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: There’s also a lot of people who just like low-density living. They like single-family homes with big yards and nice views, and big parking lots, and they don’t like public transit. And over time, their city or their suburb gets denser and they don’t like it. You know, “the suburbs were better” people.
I have human empathy for them, because change is hard and people get attached to places, but it’s also not good public policy to protect that. The American population is still growing, and housing construction basically fell off a cliff in 2008. And urbanization is the undeniable worldwide pattern of migration. (Fun fact: Japan is losing population, yet Tokyo and Osaka are still growing.)
lowtechcyclist
@Archon:
Fourteen comments in and I’m already tired of this stupidity. Obama would be welcome to give a public speech practically anywhere he wanted to. Major universities, bar association conferences, Democratic Party national or state meetings, mainstream denominational gatherings, you name it.
DUH.
ETA: Martin beat me to it @23, but Jesus H. Christ on a rollerblade, Obama can speak to a big public audience almost anywhere he wants.
frosty
I will never stop being angry about this. I started canvassing in 2004 and Obama’s elections were the most organized of any I’d seen. We ran out of doors to knock. The next one? We were starting from scratch again. All that organizing, the cleaned up walk lists, gone.
prostratedragon
News you can use:
The Audacity of Krope
That would have been fire, for real.
Also, too, if he had avoided subverting any elections last year. Yeah, I stand up for what I believe in.
Baud
@prostratedragon:
Someone needs to wash out the British mouth with soap.
Professor Bigfoot
@columbusqueen: Compared to ALL the white people who stabbed him, Obama’s relative silence hurt but I can’t put it in the same category as those who actively sought to end Joe Biden’s political career; ESPECIALLY the MSM and Newsom and Pelosi and all the rest.
I will go to my grave believing that Joe Biden got taken down because he was too nice to Black people and put too much power into Black hands.
Princess
@SpaceUnit: He’s telling it to millionaire donors who probably do need to toughen up and get off their asses.
Geez, no wonder he keeps quiet a lot of the time. He can’t win for losing. You people. “Not like that. Not to them. Not that message. Why doesn’t he speak up more.”
Professor Bigfoot
@frosty: Yeah, but it was there in 2010 and white people abandoned him.
It was still there in 2014 when white people gave the Congress to Republicans.
But somehow it’s HIS fault that white people gave the entire fucking US Government to Trump in 2024, right? 🙄
The Audacity of Krope
Not true. Obama came out before the 2012 election, shortly after Biden. He ran his reelection campaign supporting gay marriage.
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
stinger
Yeah, that Obama, doing it rong again. Speaking to a group of wealthy people on behalf of a party that’s hugely outfunded and getting his speech fully reported on by CNN. He’s just never figured out politics and influence, apparently.
The man spent eight years doing the hardest job in the world, if done right, with a target on his back, and on that of his wife and on those of their two little daughters. He owes us NOTHING.
Liberals are such perfectionists, no wonder we’re shut out of all three branches of government.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Made me look. From the 2012 Dem platform.
Princess
@MagdaInBlack: Bingo. Criticize Obama for staying quiet? Whatever, okay..
Then shit all over him when he does speak? GTFO
Suzanne
I should note that I don’t know if it’s possible for me to love Barack Obama more than I do. (Yes, here I am being a cringey college-educated wine mom resist-shit-lib.)
zhena gogolia
@SpaceUnit: That’s a lovely message for our first Black president.
zhena gogolia
@Professor Bigfoot: This.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Let’s all have another circular firing squad about Obama. That’s for sure what he meant by toughen up, stop navel gazing, and get uncomfortable.
Obama gave his message to a bunch of old guard well heeled Dems, and I’m pretty sure that’s the audience he thinks is most in need of hearing it. They’re the ones wasting money on consultants, and leaning towards centrism, and probably mostly muttering under their breath about the state of the world from their comfortable perches and doing not much else.
We don’t want Obama out there leading the party. Like he said stop looking for Messiahs. Also where does that lead? A dead end. He can’t be president again so he rebuilds a movement and???? It’s been proven in 2016 and 2024 that he can’t transfer his mojo to someone else. He campaigned his ass off for Hillary and Kamala and the mojo didn’t transfer. So we wind up supporting a guy we wish could be president again and the actual candidate gets ignored as an inferior product. Not optimal for winning.
no body no name
@Professor Bigfoot:
You are yet again full of shit. In my middle class area the biggest NIYMBs are your folk. Black. Who moved into all the old 50s-70s condos (as did I, Jewish) and now are hell bent on no Latinos and Asians as those groups bring crime. I’m also deadly aware that if I don’t mention being Jewish I’m fine around them but mention it for one second or that I’m not entirely straight and I’ve got an army of Kanye’s around me.
The low income housing here, it’s all Latinos and the people who hate it the most are all black. Our dark skinned Asian area, it’s black folk who constantly say it’s all prostitutes. Stealing jobs from black folk and selling drugs. When my wife was attacked, well, your folk again.
White people? I’m not scared about admitting I’m Jewish and not entirely straight. They never attacked my wife and called her a prostitute for being mixed race with very tan skin and Asian features. They didn’t assault her during COVID. They never called the cops for random pissy ass reasons. They didn’t scream and try to shut down the low income housing they asked for it.
You’re so far up your own ass you cannot admit that any group of people is capable of anything. And when you are the odd one out you’re the damn target. Or that the more well off are more egalitarian because they can afford to be.
You come off as exactly the same sort who propositioned my wife as “dark skinned Latina Asians are all hookers” and tells me about Jewish conspiracies. It wasn’t a white who did that. Police your own tribe. Lord knows my people have their failures and there is fuck all I can do about it. But I’m not going to blame our screw ups on random white people.
Harrison Wesley
Barack Obama doesn’t need my advice on politics. Or anything else.
stinger
@MagdaInBlack: Exactly.
Baud
@no body no name:
That’s one of the ugliest comments posted here in a long time.
Gvg
@Martin: Maybe he and others are saying it elsewhere and it’s not being reported, except from a multimillionaire event which can shout just as loudly as the GOP controlled media? Think how often we have heard from people why doesn’t so and so speak up, when we know they already have, only it doesn’t get reported? Because it’s being suppressed, or because it’s not interesting enough to sell copy? (Both). After awhile, democratic pols may start waiting to “speak” for a moment when they think it might break through, even though they are ready and know their position all along. They need it to be new news at that moment?
Maybe all the democrats are trying different strategies to see what can work too, and we are not in their shoes, just Monday morning quarterbacks. sure we are the audience and know it’s not working for us personally, but we don’t hear the speeches that don’t break through, so we don’t measure the attempts that do even blip, just the ones that almost break through and a few that do. Statistically slanted. Oh, some of them are not trying enough, and some of them are but failing so we should probably try someone else, but know that we don’t know every thing.
They don’t know either and yes they do have retread consultants.
Look for weaknesses in the gop to exploit.
Kosh III
Mr Obama, there is a governor’s race in Tennessee next year. We could use some help, any help, from the DNC. But those of us resisting here will go it alone, just as we have for years since y’all abandoned us to the redhats.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Martin:
Exactly. He’s simply preaching the same trickle-down housing crap that’s been spewed in here for years.
The fact he let 10m foreclosures happen simply laid the groundwork for the commoditization of housing (and the financialization of housing) that led to the *affordability* crisis.
stinger
@no body no name:
That is a huge conclusion to draw from a single data point. Are you saying Harris lost because she supported LGBTQ issues?
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
Oh BS, he was savvy enough to keep his mouth shut on that in order to put folks on the court who would make it legal. He was in favor of legalizing as far back as 1996 in the Chicago LGBT newspaper Outlines, and though he claimed as a senatorial and presidential candidate “I’m for traditional marriage.” (a pretty obvious side-step, especially in retrospect) he oversaw the end of DOMA and DADT, neither of which he made any efforts to maintain.
There are things to ding Obama for, but this was one of his smarter moves; one that definitively paid off.
frosty
@Professor Bigfoot: Just my experience and anecdata, but no, the Obama campaign wasn’t there for the midterms. 2010 was the Tea Party and I watched them come out when I was working the polls. In my area it wasn’t so much Democrats staying home as new Republicans coming out. Same thing in 2016.
Baud
@stinger:
Some people think the trans issue hurt Harris.
But we won in 2012 and 2020 supporting LGBT issues so the premise is faulty.
different-church-lady
There’s a ‘no housing’ side to the debate?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Professor Bigfoot:
Exactly. The white colonizer/gentrifiers preaching market urbanism are basically about turning city cores into their Exclusive White Urban Living Theme Park…until little Liam and Emma reach school age and then it’s back to whatever lily white burb they came from when they can’t “choice out” into a “better” school (read ‘white’ school) because
Gentrification Stops At The School House Door.
A good blog from a longtime NYC housing justice advocate:
fuelgrannie.com/
The Audacity of Krope
@Professor Bigfoot: I’m not so worried about “not good enough.” I’m worried about bad.
I brought up one of the good things and one of the bad things. Don’t want to go much farther on this, though, because the bad things have been so much more consequential.
lowtechcyclist
@frosty:
My dim recollection is that after the 2012 election, OfA got morphed into an org with 501-something status that couldn’t be overtly political. (I guess the idea was that donations could be tax-deductible, but that’s just a guess.) It just seemed to negate the point of OfA, and of course those walk lists would have been unavailable to actual Democratic groups. I remember being very disappointed by that choice.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Those people are indulging in the Pundit’s Fallacy.
The Audacity of Krope
Technically it’s a “put the housing far away” side, but we all know how that works out in the end.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
There are those on the right that prefer concentration camps for some folks.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Nowadays, everyone is a pundit and therefore everyone is equally fallacious.
The Audacity of Krope
And those are the RINOs who want to coddle these communities…
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
They’ll lose their primaries soon enough.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: So the firing squad and volcanic sacrifice crowd wins again.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s how that reads to me, with the usual bs the politicians have to do and pretending he is talking to someone else.
stinger
@Baud:
I doubt the trans issue hurt her nearly as much as did her gender and the color of her skin.
Anyway
Newsom was a vocal supporter of Joe Biden. You’re getting your back-stabbers mixed up. Are you thinking of Sherrod Brown?
Edited.
frosty
@lowtechcyclist: Thanks for the explanation of how OfA “disappeared”. It was discouraging to get tossed back into the PADems “organizing” after seeing what Obama accomplished.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Indeed, Obama is a some black guy with an absolutely absurd name for American politics who got elected president twice. I mean what does Obama know about politics?
Baud
@stinger:
I don’t know. People have different theories for the outcome. No Dem is asking me for my expert advice, and I’m not going to give it away for free.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
You speak for me as well.
The Audacity of Krope
@Anyway: Speaking of Biden, it’s coming up on a year and I’m still removing myself from Democratic donor lists.
It is interminable.
moonbat
@Baud: You’re right. And for this joint, that’s saying something.
The Audacity of Krope
@moonbat: I don’t even really think it gets that ugly in here, for the most part. If anything, some might be too sensitive about us not all holding hands and singing kumbaya.
But that? That was beyond hideous. That was a five-decker racist sandwich. And immediately after a
threefour paragraph screed centered around a not so factual fact, that has been corrected but not acknowledged by the one who dragged it out.Professor Bigfoot
@no body no name: So I’m to ignore the facts that it’s white people who overwhelmingly support Trump and the Republicans and it’s overwhelmingly white people who complain about the fecklessness and uselessness of the Black and Jewish and female led Democrats?
Fuck you, man.
prostratedragon
@lowtechcyclist:
A seasonal interpretive dance. The pastry or a wine glass is officially part of the step.
frosty
@prostratedragon:
I just read the article in your link. Apparently if I use any of those words I’m in the minority in the US. Damn! I’d better watch my language!
Princess
@Suzanne: I live in a century-old house on a mostly gentrified street near an area of luxury condos but on old industrial land by a canal and a huge European style market and a street of five star restaurants. The by-far greatest number of housing units are small apartments though, built in the sixties on railroad land and a ton of them a low cost subsidized housing, occupied by early waves of Hsitian immigrants and now lots of Syrians too. This is maybe a seven block radius — we all live together side by side, incomes, races, everything. My point is: gentrification does not need to remove poor people — they were in this area first and they’re still here.
(The whole history of urban renewal in my neighbourhood is fascinating tbh)
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: I cannot respond in the manner that I wish to because *I* would be the one who got banned.
But let me say this with all the heated passion a few typed words can convey— fuck that motherfucker sideways with rusty farm implements. Just FUCK THAT GUY.
UncleEbeneezer
@Professor Bigfoot: The Progressive wing of our coalition still believes that we can somehow solve housing affordability without actually building more housing. They also believe that building new housing enables gentrification, harms the environment but most importantly enriches evil developers. So they oppose it on those grounds. So they are effectively NIMBY but for different reasons. Of course because of racial inequality, limited housing with prices constantly rising, disproportionately harms Black People even worse than other groups. But stopping the Evil Developers is more important than having enough housing for people to be able to find/afford a places to live. So they tell themselves that being NIMBY is actually a brave stance of anti-racism/gentrification and pat themselves on the back. Meanwhile, Blue city rents keep skyrocketing and finding a place to live is a major struggle. Imo, a lot of Progressives are in denial about the Supply part of Supply & Demand, when it comes to housing. And refuse to admit that big developers are kind of a necessary evil to having enough housing to bring down prices.
But more importantly, fuck all this Obama hating in this thread. WTF is wrong with y’all?!!
Once upon a time, Cole made “How has Obama failed you today?” a rotating tag here and damn if that wasn’t appropriate…
Baud
Jesus.
Via reddit.
The Audacity of Krope
You’re about as separated from reality as the typical Foxbot.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Professor Bigfoot:
currentaffairs.org/2021/01/the-only-thing-worse-than-a-nimby-is-a-yimby
twitter.com/leahfrombklyn/status/1591855425238241280
twitter.com/damienISgoodmon/status/1592144591402455042
knock-la.com/of-course-republicans-are-yimbys-5a2ef0e93220/
Reminder everybody: the people nationally and in here pushing this market urbanist bullshit as it pertains to housing are pushing something that was originally started as an astroturf group in CA funded mostly by Peter Thiel. They are essentially a propaganda arm laundering far-right, libertarian economic theory intended to create wealth through increased commodification and financialization of housing. It’s pushed by the most powerful financial actors on the planet, promoted by the biggest newspapers & enacted by every big city mayor & loads of electeds.
A decade ago, glibertarians wound up a crop of mostly young, white, entitled bros (or gals if the pelaton fits), who were already predisposed to be pricks and told them they’re doing the work of MLK Jr on housing.
Market urbanists are either people on the real estate industry payroll in one form or another (planners, construction, real estate, architects, etc) or people too stupid to know that the only folks who say these things are being paid.
And the developers are laughing at them from their mountain homes in Telluride, or Aspen, or a yacht.
Ksmiami
@Professor Bigfoot: yep. Leave the Obamas alone the problem is our blade, bored and uncaring voting public. People font do the basica a democracy requires and here we are: devolving .
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
You got people in the Fox News comment section saying “WTF?”
I appreciate your restraint, which you are under no obligation to provide, so the rest of us can continue chatting.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@UncleEbeneezer:
twitter.com/pmcondon2/status/1812889900636922174/photo/1
therealdeal.com/magazine/december-2024/the-inventory-dichotomy/
macleans.ca/economy/why-canadas-housing-crisis-is-not-just-a-supply-and-demand-problem/
canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-supply-and-demand-myth-of-housing
No data supports the facile, bullshit claims about ‘supply and demand’ as it pertains to housing.
And the most recent by those noted communists at the Federal Reserve Board of SF:
48hills.org/2025/03/new-study-by-fed-economists-directly-contradicts-yimby-narrative-on-housing-pric…
satby
@TS: all of that. “Mild criticism about optics” is always the first bullshit response that comes up. And then the DARVO.
Trivia Man
@Omnes Omnibus: and maybe that audience are the ones who can actually move the needle on that issue. Sadly, billionaire developers and hedge fund managers have more influence on zoning than all community activists combined.
Ksmiami
@Ksmiami: blase
Soprano2
@Suzanne: In my particular city, the NIMBY’s are a much bigger problem than city regs. There are three different battles going on right now over stuff like this.
A) A developer wants to put some type of commercial development on the northwest corner of one of the busiest intersections in Springfield. One of our two hospitals is on the opposite corner from this land. It was zoned single family housing, and the people who live behind it are fighting to keep it that way! Somehow they believe someone wants a single family house on this land. The other two corners are developed, one with a medical office and the other with businesses like a donut shop. I guess the people in that neighborhood think if this development takes place their whole neighborhood will be destroyed or something, even though there has been no change to the neighborhood behind where the donut shop and medical offices are.
B) Another developer is trying to build somewhat denser housing in an area where there is a large plot of vacant land. The fight is supposedly about traffic and access, but it’s really about how denser housing will attract the “wrong” kind of people, because my chiropractor lives there, and says if the developer was building more houses like his there wouldn’t even be a fight about it!
C) Our city’s latest plan, Forward SGF, has a part about promoting more “missing middle” housing. A developer is trying to build a complex that fits this definition (some single family houses, some duplexes, some fourplexes, and some retail) in an area on the north border of town. The people there are fighting it because of the same bullshit arguments, more traffic and “it’ll change the character of our neighborhood”.
As far as I can tell, my city is trying to promote building more housing; it’s the residents who are fighting it. This is my biggest quarrel with the “abundance” people, they don’t seem to take into account that the biggest force preventing the type of progress they want isn’t the government, it’s the people!
satby
@Baud: on it 😉
Baud
@satby:
My favorite optics critique is the infamous Cookie Roberts complaint about the optics of Obama going to him home in Hawaii for the holidays because Hawaii is “exotic.”
Professor Bigfoot
@Anyway: Sherrod was definitely among them, but Sherrod was another one running as “Conservative Lite” and met the same fate that Tim Ryan did.
I just know who DIDN’T try to stab Joe Biden in the back- BLACK PEOPLE.
But those two facts are actually interrelated, aren’t they?
moonbat
@The Audacity of Krope: I confess that I don’t spend as much time on here as I did before the election, but whenever I do drop in these days it seems to be when the place is in meltdown mode and JC is screaming at everyone to behave themselves and posters/commentors are leaving in a huff.
One of the reasons I don’t hang out as much anymore is that never ending circular firing squads. It’s exhausting.
Most recent case in point: One of, if not the most, gifted politicians of our age stands up and asks the rich and powerful on our side to make some sacrifices in service to their conscience and their country and folks here jump straight down his throat.
Folks pining for OfA need to recall that it was a coalition building organization, not a ‘you’re not pure enough to play in our sandbox’ organization.
Soprano2
@Baud: I’m sure that wasn’t original to her. I have to keep that message in mind myself.
stinger
@Baud:
I suspect the number of people prepared to vote for a Black woman who instead voted for a convicted felon because of Trans issues is pretty small.
But more to the point, what’s your price?
Baud
@stinger:
Well, if you have to ask, you can’t afford me.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Soprano2:
The people want a say in how they live? How democratic.
yimby stormtroopers™ are a right-wing tech and real estate developer-funded operation that seeks de-regulation at the expense of regular people. They are a lobbying operation no different from that of the NRA or tobacco.
AxelFoley
@SpaceUnit:
Or maybe you can fuck off and do it yourself.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: That’s the most ironic thing, when these things finally get built it’s rare that any of the bad things the current residents were worrying about happen. It’s all coded language for “we don’t want those kind of people here”.
The Audacity of Krope
@Soprano2: The protests could be matched with protests against single-family developments.
AxelFoley
@Professor Bigfoot:
Thank you! All this “Where’s Obama?” “Why didn’t Obama defend Biden/Kamala?” bullshit…Obama FUCKING TOLD these assholes what was at stake. He told them in 2016 AND 2024, and they ignored him and we’ve been fucked ever since behind the 8-ball.
Fuck these people. They deserve whatever Trump is dishing out.
The Audacity of Krope
I stand by my kumbaya statement.
The nerve of some people, expressing an opinion I don’t agree with…
There’s a world of difference between debating political and policy approaches and racist invective. Honestly, I find it a little concerning that you would even characterize these things similarly.
Geminid
From this morning’s Politico Playbook:
Arizona is the westernmost state covered by the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and accordingly has two districts drawn to contain Hispanic majorities. AZ07 is one of them and is considered a safe Democratic seat, so today’s primary winner will almost certainly be the district’s next U.S. Representative.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Martin: Multimillionaires are the absolute worst and the very most effective at NIMBY. They need to hear it.
moonbat
@The Audacity of Krope: Express away.
And here I thought I was making a kumbaya statement. lol
satby
Actually, I think the majority of those who left/seldom comment any more did so out of boredom. Same shit/different day.
stinger
@Baud: 😊
Professor Bigfoot
@Ksmiami: You know, the whole point of “America” is that free people govern themselves.
There’s gonna be governance of some kind; whether it’s the King, the Tsar, the President-for-Life, or We the People.
Too many people have for too long shirked their duty as Americans— how many people will brag about how they avoided jury duty? Or the ones who don’t even register to vote so they never get called to jury duty? (yeah, I’ve heard of that too)
If it’s to live up to its founding documents, America has to be a participatory democracy. “Self government” depends on individual people doing their “civic duty.”
Too few Americans are willing.
(I bet my last nickel nearly every single naturalized American is also a voting American)
Suzanne
@no body no name: Get bent.
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: Me too.
prostratedragon
@frosty: Long as your last words don’t come from that list …
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: You could probably use scenes from “Your Friends & Neighbors,” to accent the crime aspect.
Soprano2
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: No one is making them change the way they live. No one is taking their houses away. Someone wants to put in a development that’s a little different than the area where they live, one that conforms with city zoning regs, and they are howling as if someone were proposing a huge factory right next door to them. To me the most unreasonable of the three is the group who believes anyone would want to live in a house right across from one of the two major hospitals in Springfield, at the corner of one of the busiest intersections in Springfield, but YYMV.
What I’m saying is that all of their objections boil down to “that development will bring in people I don’t like or want living next to me”. All that stuff about traffic and other crap seems like bullshit to me. They should get a say, yes, but they shouldn’t be able to prevent developments that meet all the city’s criteria for that area just because “we don’t like the way it looks on that street over there where we don’t live”.
moonbat
@The Audacity of Krope: That’s very slick. As though people’s complaining about whatever Obama says or does has zero racial undertones.
The Audacity of Krope
@Professor Bigfoot: I am unfamiliar with this work. Might have to address that, if I remember by the time I get home.
Geminid
@Professor Bigfoot: Naturalized citizens definitely vote in Virginia, and they and their children have helped turn Virginia Blue in this century.
Our candidate for Lieutenant Governor, State Senator Ghazala Hamshi, is a naturalized citizen. Ms. Hamshi was born in Hyderabad, India.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain:
That drives me nuts, as does nitpicking everything leaders do because they aren’t messiah enough. It’s tiresome.
Another Scott
@NobodySpecial: Not to relitigate this, but I don’t think that a campaign organization for a particular person can legally continue the same way if that particular person is no longer a candidate. FEC regulations and all that.
The organization had to change.
And it did.
FWIW.
I’m fine with Obama’s comments and for him attending this fundraising event. As long as we don’t have sufficient public financing of election campaigns, this is what needs to be done.
Purity kills.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Kathleen
@no body no name: This comment is offensive.
JML
Obama’s the best communicator we’ve seen in multiple generations, so he’s probably worth paying attention to. Happy to see him raising money for the party and different races, and if he can do anything to help tamp down the circular firing squads Democrats love so much and aim people at the right targets, more power to him. He’s correct that we can’t wait for a messiah or some savior to come along and unite everyone and fix things, that’s for sure.
I’m not going to bother with a critique of his presidency, because what’s the point? He was good, and looks much better compared to the insanity we see now.
The Audacity of Krope
@moonbat: Depends. The general doesn’t tend to map to particular instances.
Do people do criticize Obama or other black politicians while masking their racist attitudes behind more reasonable language? Absolutely.
Is it possible to have a legitimate criticism of Obama? Presumably.
Can the fact of masked racist criticism be used as a cudgel to prevent any and all legitimate criticism? You know it.
Kathleen
@Baud: Just heard on LOD pod cast that they plan on incarcerating’s “millions”.
Another Scott
@Professor Bigfoot: +1
“The 3 most important things in politics are:
Money
Money
Money” – Moscow Mitch.
He twisted the system so that’s the case even more than it was then (when he was a prof at a university, IIRC).
Addressing donors at a fundraiser is a necessary component of the system we have, like it or not.
And when a few MotUs can drop $250-500M on a campaign in the last couple of months, we can’t be complacent. We have to shake people on our side out of their slumber and get them to open their wallets to get the word and the voters out even with all the obstacles.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Professor Bigfoot: THIS!
Kathleen
@Professor Bigfoot: I totally agree. And Obama, Harris, Biden and Clinton don’t “owe” us one damned thing. They all put their all out there.
lowtechcyclist
@frosty:
Since that was 12 years ago and a lot (too much!*) has happened since, I won’t swear that’s how it happened, but I think that was the basic idea.
*”A whole lot is too much, too much is a whole lot, same thing.” – Chico Marx
suzanne
@Soprano2:
In a number of cases in my career, I’ve had homeowner push-back on projects that were planned before the homeowner even moved in.
I had one facility that was in operation for forty years, and they had a site plan on file with the City that included future build-out of two more buildings on the site. So, in accordance with that site plan, they moved forward with design (literally planned for forty years), and some homeowners who moved in two years prior decided to oppose it.
The homeowners did not win in that case, but they cost the project months of time and that delay was probably in the neighborhood of half a million dollars in additional fees.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
It never ceases to amaze me that whenever there is a positive post about a Democrat who ISN’T AOC, there’s this laundry list of grievance. Every single time. This is why so many people don’t step up and lead. The bitching is unending. Ick.
The Audacity of Krope
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I think, at this point, most of the bitching is about the bitching.
I remember one of Obama’s main points above was “respect that people will disagree.” What Obama definitely did not say was “everybody clap.”
Anyway
Cokie Roberts – still dead. She was instrumental in breaking me off my NPR in the car habit.
Professor Bigfoot
@Anyway: She was the epitome of the Nice Polite Republican, wasn’t she?
I turn it on occasionally in the toy car and usually shut it off immediately these days.
Gawd, I miss “Car Talk with Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers
ETA- speaking of which, has anyone see the memes of “Car Talk with Martok”?
davek319
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: Someone who stood at the front of the march has a birthday coming up Thursday. Doubt if the Honorable J.Lewis was ever invited to a closed-door millionbillionaire fundraiser.
Yeah, fuck off, Barack. Your superpower was your cloaking ability that let people write whatever they wanted to see on you. That ain’t fighting. Remember your Grand Bargain gamble with the Know-Nothing caucus? Lucky, isn’t it, they didn’t take you up on that. Or Merrick Garland? How about when Rahmbo Emmanuel cosplaying Mossad and your chief of staff simultaneously shitcanned the 50 state strategy immediately after it delivered you to the White House? I do. You’re a better human being than Bill Clinton or anyone named Bush, low bar, to be sure, but right for this moment? Pfff. You had plenty of chance to lead the Resistance, but that’s just not Your Way, is it?
Professor Bigfoot
@davek319: Bravo! That’s the best satire of a brain dead white supremacist “leftist” shiteweasel I’ve ever seen here! Brilliant! Kudos!
Anyway
love(d) them! Only part of NPR I miss. i still quote them …
“Do it while you’re young. You may never have another chance to do anything this stupid again”
They Call Me Noni
@davek319: Thursday is the 5th anniversary of John Lewis’ death. He was born on February 21, 1940.
prostratedragon
Not late enough.
Geminid
@Geminid: And Suhas Subramanyam, the freshman Representative from the 10th CD north of mine, is the child of immigrants. Around 1983, Subramanyam’s parents stopped at Dulles Airport on their way from Bangalore, India to Houston. They were medical professionals
Subramanyam grew up in Texas and made it to Northern Virginia by way of Tulane University and Northwestern University’s school of law. Now he represents a Congressional district that includes his parents’ Port of Entry.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m sorry to hear that you don’t listen well. He meant and did what he said. If ai had to guess, and this is only a guess, you got caught up in high-falutin’ rhetoric and didn’t stick around to listen to the particulars?
Professor Bigfoot
@Anyway: They were my Saturday morning “moment of Zen”- in the driveway, wash bucket, wax applicators, old cotton diapers (absolutely the best polishing cloths available back in them days!), snickering at them as I detailed the beast. <sigh>
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I’ll add that I like Obama. I’m glad he spoke at the fundraiser. He’s a fine advocate and was a great president. I DO NOT CARE that he made mistakes. Everyone does. I DO NOT believe Obama was the sole reason we are where we are. During the Obama period, Fox News penetrated all of rural America. Rush and his imitators completely took over AM radio. The right wing media combination of kissing the asses of rural voters with constant misinformation about Democrats was and is potent. I do not believe a progressive like Sanders would have left us in a better spot. I do not believe this, because there IS NO savior. Not Obama, not Sanders, not anyone. Only us. We will be in this ugly spot until we figure out how to drown out their propaganda.
Gin & Tonic
@Professor Bigfoot:
Damn, I’d listen to them (sadly, “him” now) read the phone book.
I vaguely recall an episode where a young lady called in wanting to apply sequins to her car, or something like that, and they actually had a serious (for them) discussion with her about the technical aspects of that.
Belafon
@Martin:
I’m very late to this party, but the optics are that Obama is speaking to the very group of people with power and telling them they need to get off their butts. He’s not speaking to the people complaining about the optics, nor is he speaking to the people who have said the things he’s saying. I’m sure he knew it was going to be leaked, but his audience was the people who aren’t standing up, who are sitting on their money and power, those who we all say need to do more.
Now if he could just get a billionaire lefty to buy a newspaper or two.
Harrison Wesley
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I totally agree.
satby
My, my; the racists and naysayers sure like to take their lizard brains out for a stroll whenever an Obama post comes up. Fascinating.
And so predictable.
Geminid
@satby: But they can’t quit us!
Even though they’re not here, some of the self-exiled won’t stop talking this “tired old culty blog.”
Kathleen
@Baud: Her mom made an excellent point. I overreacted and should have thought about delivery and context.
Professor Bigfoot
@Geminid: EXACTLY.
Those to whom this hard won freedom is precious understand that we all have to do the work.
One thing the fascists have done is make it harder to do that civic duty of first being informed, then they make it harder to vote…
Gin & Tonic
@satby: As you said, boring.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@The Audacity of Krope: Not sure it’s true that the bitching about the bitching is more than the bitching about Obama. I’d have to count the posts. People who criticize should be able to handle being criticized. If they cannot, they should not.
The Audacity of Krope
Right, and that often yields a sort of back and forth process where the interlocutors learn a little about the others’ thinking…or not.
I just want to keep the criticism honest. I believe what I have done here was to debunk a falsehood by no body no name, disagree with Martin in principle but defend his right to say it, and mock an absurdity by some rando I’ve never seen before.
Harrison Wesley
Alright,class, we’re over 200 comments. What have we learned today? Anybody?
Belafon
@davek319:
Yeah, no. That wasn’t on him. That was on all of the people on the left who saw the first black president get elected and decided that their job was done, completely ignoring how the rest of the country would react. He was made into the canvas that people turned into whatever they wanted to believe so that they didn’t have to do any more work.
davek319
@Professor Bigfoot: Me too.
Belafon
@Harrison Wesley: That 200 is greater than 199.
Steve in the ATL
@suzanne: the important thing is that lawyers got paid, so winning!
The Audacity of Krope
@Belafon: A lot of it was on the media who treated him like a mystery with no record and frequently reported that “there’s no knowing what this hope and change will actually look like” when he was very clear on his website, in speeches, in debates, on his public record…
frosty
@Professor Bigfoot: Car Talk with Martok was hilarious. Thanks! I also learned about the number 47. Full service blog!
davek319
@They Call Me Noni: True.
The Audacity of Krope
I’ve learned NIMBYs and YIMBYs both appropriate the language of racial justice. I’ve learned that even enthusiastic posters on obscure political blogs can forget the biggest gay rights pronouncement by a President to date. And I learned how to pose a grossly patronizing question, see the excerpt above.
suzanne
@Steve in the ATL:
That reminds me…. a lot of left-NIMBYs think that architects and contractors make more money the more that we build, and that we financially benefit if building is easier. WRONG!!!! We make shit-tons of money with all these regulations. I have colleagues who bill by the hour, and pretty much all they do is manage projects through incredibly arcane and complicated regulatory processes.
So the Republican-dominated City Council wants your project to go through five rounds of design review and public comment?! Add 18 months to the schedule and $3M to the fees.
Lyrebird
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Thank you for saying this. It’s particularly frustrating imnsho bc we know that Putin and co have the goal of splintering any resistance. And I think I need to look for more constructive uses of my resistance efforts – does this mean I am in a huff? I am in grief.
Commenting because I want to thank you and thank @Professor Bigfoot: for having a strong stomach. I think that personalized attack on you and a whole class of people is bannable, or should be.
satby
😂😂😂 Also predictable. And several are still here, they use different nyms over there. They think it gives them plausible deniability, as if their writing styles and views somehow have a cloak of invisibility too 😂
Miss Bianca
@Martin: Maybe – just maybe – people are fucking sick of the first reaction you among others seem to have to ANY messaging coming from any Democrat anywhere is how they’re Doing It Rong, Because Reasons? Just a thought.
stinger
@Professor Bigfoot:
AI has invaded the Balloon Juice comment section.
davek319
@The Audacity of Krope: Nope, Krope. Lived through the whole shebang, the 2010 legislative wipeout, Larry Summers, the bankers made whole after the 08 crash while millions of homeowners got nothing, the ghastly cheering at the end of Qaddafi. I was paying pretty close attention the whole time. Never saw a whole lotta daylight between Barack Obama and any bog standard typical DLC. If you have any examples of Obama standing for anything different, then share, by all means.
Kathleen
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Yes it is. There are many talented, hard working and effective Dems. ETA Many of whom who have flipped red/purple seats.
The Audacity of Krope
@davek319: Bruh, now I know you don’t listen, because none of that has anything to do what I said. All of that was consistent with how he portrayed himself on the campaign trail and previously in office. That’s my point.
Omnes Omnibus
@stinger: Baud has been here for a long time.
stinger
I had never encountered the Magical Negro trope outside of literature until the post-Obama presidency. You didn’t save us, Obama-wan! You were our only hope!
stinger
@Omnes Omnibus:
And working for free!
I guess if you’re AI you don’t have to spend money on pants.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2:
My God, ain’t that the truth. I see that dynamic all the time here in CO.
MagdaInBlack
@Geminid: You’ve noticed that too, I take it.
LAC
@Lyrebird: I second the thanks for the Prof! I hadn’t the patience or stomach for usual and also rarely seen members of the “that’s not iiiit” club. They did eventually give my pie filter a small boost. Life is too short, etc …
lowtechcyclist
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
From one of your links:
Demand for housing units to hold as investments rather than occupy or rent is still demand. The law of supply and demand is still working, it’s just not going to solve by itself the problem of getting housing for everyone.
The real problem, as it so often is, is that there’s far too much money sloshing around at the top levels of our economy, and so it finds its way into all sorts of esoteric corners of our economy in order to find safe investments with good returns. Including this one.
(Maybe Democrats should connect these dots for people: having too many people with too much wealth has a lot of weird effects on our economy, and making housing more unaffordable is one of them.)
Unless and until the underlying problem is addressed (I hope to see this in my lifetime, but I’m not sanguine), the best that can be done is to impose other costs on housing as investment, such as higher property taxes on rental properties, and stratospheric property taxes on unoccupied housing.
But the law of supply and demand isn’t broken; it’s working here. But it’s no longer a helpful tool for solving this particular problem.
Princess
@Professor Bigfoot: the trolls are out n full force for this post, aren’t they?
Princess
@satby: yeah, the “news” is that it’s not only the Republican Party that’s full of racists. Lots on the centre and left who are so so full of concern.
davek319
@Professor Bigfoot: Your labels are showing. If you’re not embarrassed, than nor am I.
Professor Bigfoot
@davek319: Oh, really? Do tell, what are my “labels?”
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@The Audacity of Krope: To be fair, i count you among the people who can handle criticism.
The Audacity of Krope
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Well, I truly appreciate that. Nicest thing I’ve heard on here in weeks.
Bokonon
We need to consider Obama’s audience, and we need to frame with reference to the stuff that Obama is probably hearing (with consultants and fund raisers and party insiders quarreling over engaging with the GOP, talking about messaging and projecting a moderate image to voters as opposed to being confrontational … all that futzing around that is clearly going on).
Obama is being blunt to THAT particular group of people that this is NOT the time to engage and play nice with Trump and MAGA. He’s not telling the party rank and file that they need to shape up and get tougher.
Ruckus
@Martin:
It has to start somewhere.
Now think how much of the press is looking at either following an ex president or listening to the current one. Now sure the current one is having an old fartitus meltdown because he’s who he is, a 79 year old, seemingly aging out, seemingly not all that bright, and seemingly losing context and control. Versus a man that had a reasonable 2 terms in the same office, who is 14 years younger, and not aging out, at least at anywhere near the same rate.
Hell I’m not all that much younger than the current president and I wouldn’t/don’t want anywhere near that much daily pressure. To me none of this bodes well for this country. I don’t believe he’ll actively destroy it but I also believe he’s not doing well at all. And I didn’t believe he did well the last time. And it’s in my mind more difficult as one ages.
It’s not an easy job to have that much pressure. My job before my last one had me traveling to most of the states in a public facing job in professional sports, eight months a year and that is a lot of effort and very little time for one’s self, and not even within miles upon miles of the pressure level of being a realistic president of a country. Now sure he has a lot of support and assistance in doing this job, but the pressure point is all on him.
Ksmiami
@Professor Bigfoot: yup. I blame the cross currents of late stage capitalism, laziness and propaganda disguised as news for where we are. Add a heaping scoop of racism that we’ve never fully dealt with and here we are. Like Rome
columbusqueen
@Professor Bigfoot: Yes, I can see that.
Martin
@Geminid: I wasn’t giving recommendations, I was trying to cast my net as far as possible in the hopes I might accidentally hit someone that OP thought was pure enough for the message.
Democrats still watch MSNBC so it reaches the correct audience. Democratic hosts like Maddow are still extraordinary deferential to Obama – regardless of whatever other accusations people are leveling at the entire media apparatus. We can’t jump down the same hole as the GOP and distrust everyone and only listen to our own brain worms. Chris Hayes would also have been a good choice and they could have had a nice conversation around the subject of Chris’s book.
dnfree
@Kathleen: Sadly, Joe Biden sank his own boat. I suspect Obama was among those who thought Biden should have stuck with one and done.
Geminid
@Martin: Hasan Piker will seldom be confused with purity. Piker is like a left-wing Andrew Tate, but without the sex trafficking.
dnfree
@Professor Bigfoot: I won’t go to my grave believing this, because I’m open to contrary evidence, but my own viewing of the Biden-Trump debate convinced me that even if Joe didn’t look that out-of-it all the time, he looked bad enough that he did not have another four years in him and shouldn’t have run again. I know about Joe’s lifelong stutter and what I saw was not stuttering. Fairly or unfairly, he fed the rumors of dementia at that debate.
Redshift
@lowtechcyclist:
It was morphed into an issue advocacy organization, to advocate for the Obama administration’s policies; I’m not sure how much the tax status has to do with it. I was on the meeting where it was announced, and I was pretty annoyed, and I agree it was a major mistake.
I don’t doubt they needed a way to engage the grassroots in getting support for their policy agenda, but the OFA volunteers wanted to keep working on electing Democrats
Kosh III
@davek319: Larry Summers, the bankers made whole after the 08 crash while millions of homeowners got nothing,
I remember hearing Obama say he would prosecute any and all Wall Street/Banker crooks.
Instead they got a bailout and he cozied up to them for donations.
Remember how Countrywide/BofA got fined about a weeks worth of profit and it was deductible on the taxes?
Who went to jail? Certainly not Hank Paulson or Jamie Dimon or ANY of the crooks who were able to keep on crookin’.
He kept the Bush billionaire tax cuts as well though he did give a plausible excuse for keeping the fat cats fat.
I voted for him in 08 but didn’t in 12 instead voting 3rd party since it didn’t matter.
dnfree
@Professor Bigfoot: We are still using old cloth diapers, last used for their intended purpose probably 42 years ago, as polishing cloths.
WTFGhost
@SpaceUnit: Use a dictionary, dummy. It has the definition of all of the standard English words.
@no body no name: a good therapist can be had on a sliding scale. I’m not here for your Obama-rama-whine-off, okay?
(emphasis added)
Wow. So, with one look at him, on the debate stage, you knew he didn’t have four more years in him And, you knew, from appearances, that he should not have started a run for re-election six months prior, because he would look really bad on one night.
Do you realize how stupid you already sound? “He should have known, he would look bad on one night, and that *PROVES* he doesn’t have four more yeas in him – just his *appearance* proved it! – and his appearance was such proof that it should have been apparent during the primary season.
Yeah. You’re basically saying “he was a poopyhead and should have known better”.
As for his stutter, I know what a stutter is like from the inside, and yes, most of what people saw was a stutter, combined with a minor illness. I’m sorry – I actually deal with a stutter, so, I’m proclaiming myself more of an expert than someone who believes one glimpse, on one night, provides evidence *six months in the past*, as if they couldn’t even think their way out of a wet paper bag, if it was open, and they were told the instructions were on the outside.
And I know, I know, I KNOW, he was supposed to “win” somehow, and he didn’t, and Republicans were making you have bad fee fees, so….
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@davek319: This has so little to do with anything I posted and hit so precisely all the forever talking points that are deader than a beaten horse that I’m tempted to think this is a bot. One of Muskrat’s bots too, so extra dysfunctional.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: To some ostensibly on our side (they say they are on our side, but their actions don’t match their words) whatever the Ds do they do it wrong.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@SpaceUnit: Illinois has organized exceptionally well against ICE. Just some food for thought.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@columbusqueen: who knows?
President Obama gave us all some glorious laughs based in reality.
Maybe a better question is why did the press not run those remarks on a loop instead of following mr. trump around like lost puppies and airing his every utterance live in 2016?
Just my two Lincoln penny cents
dnfree
@WTFGhost:
It wasn’t “one look at him”. It wasn’t “one glimpse, on one night”. It was an entire debate. Some felt he recovered slightly after twenty minutes or so. Others thought that if so, it was only slightly. I saw a feeble attempt at recovery, unsuccessful. When he wasn’t speaking, he was standing there, mouth agape, eyes vacant.
What we heard from others who were close to him or knew him well, after the debate, was that it wasn’t a one-off. It had been going on for a months. Sometimes he seemed fine, sometimes just tired, other times he didn’t seem to know where he was or what was going on. Some of those people spoke anonymously and others were brave enough to speak publicly.
I’ve seen Biden’s stutter for more than forty years. I saw it worsen to some extent with age. I was understanding of all that. This was more than that. The look in his eyes during that debate was often vacant. I’ve seen that look close-up in relatives with dementia. Sometimes they appeared to be fine also, and other times the degree of dementia was apparent.
Mock my “bad fee fees” and tell me how stupid I sound if you will. It wasn’t just feelings or snap judgment. It was my observation, based on my own age (not much less than his) and experience. You’re the one here who often speaks for understanding where someone is coming from and how they could reach a different conclusion.
Ella in New Mexico
@Martin:
Tell that to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerburg.
Ramona
@Archon: Martin was answering a question somebody asked about where Martin would prefer Obama mentioning YIMBY and something else. I saw no ‘huff’.
Chris T.
@JCJ:
Exactly: he’s not saying “protestors need to toughen up”, he’s saying “you millionaires in your protected enclaves need to toughen up”.