.
“Democratic political strategist” Doug Sosnik has a piece in Politico explaining “How the left took over the Democratic Party“. I dearly, dearly hope Professor Krugman’s review is correct:
… For a long time, it wasn’t just Republicans who believed that history was on their side; a lot of Democrats seemed to feel the same…
But things have changed, for the reasons Sosnik describes and more. Democrats have, after all, won the popular presidential vote in five of the past six elections. Despite all the craziness & challenges, they have made big progress on their generations-long quest for universal health insurance. They have a network of think tanks that is a lot less lavishly funded than the right-wing tanks that is a lot less lavishly funded than the right-wing apparatus, but intellectually runs rings around its opponents.
And as Sosnik says more or less clearly, the craziness of the right in some ways empowers the moderate left…
How it all turns out is anyone’s guess — maybe we eventually see a California scenario on a national basis, with the growing diversity of the electorate and the evident madness of the right delivering an overwhelming Democratic majority; maybe we see some exogenous event tip the balance back to the GOP despite what looks like a trend the other way. But what I don’t think we’ll see, even if there’s a Clinton in the White House, is another Clinton era in which liberalism is afraid to take a stand.
***********
And as we all work towards that glorious day, what’s on the agenda for the day?
cokane
Dems/progs don’t even need a national “california scenario” just north carolina or georgia tipping into battleground status will have major consequences. not to mention texas, eventually.
Hal
I saw Congressman Sean Duffy R-Real World Boston, on msnbc yesterday, and he was repeating the bullshit statement that Obama has invited people to send their children to the border in hopes of becoming a us citizen. I’ve heard this statement several times now this past couple of weeks (Obama as the worlds sugar daddy etc), and really, is it that hard for our media to simply ask; “Please provide one specific instance where President Obama has invited people to send their children to the border.” Pretending that this crisis is simply Obama sending out invitation to central american nations to send their kids to the border is idiotic.
Tommy
I was in my 40s. I was out side of my grandfather’s funereal. This dude told me my mom had been married before my dad. He beat her. I didn’t know this. I cornered by father and asked and he begged me not to bring up the topic again. I had no idea mom was married before.
I now know why I think my mother has spent her entire adult life working for women issues. Why she works at a rape crisis center. Gives so openly to a women’s center.
BillinGlendaleCA
@cokane: DC seems to be doing what they did in Sacramento with about a 10 to 15 year lag.
Amir Khalid
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I’ve heard that this is generally true: California leads the rest of the nation in social and political trends by about a decade or two.
Amir Khalid
The headline writer, at least, of this Forbes piece seems prematurely certain of who shot down MH17 and why.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Link? Was the headline written by B-in-P?
ETA: Ah, link fixed. No, obviously not BinP.
David Koch
@Hal: What’s pathetic about his demagoguery is Duffy’s wife is the daughter of mexican immigrants. And of course, being irish, Duffy is a descendent of one of the most hated and harassed immigrant groups in US history. Either he’s stoopid or a sociopath or both, but now he’s echoing the xenophobic hate of nativists
Amir Khalid
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I’ve edited the comment to add the link. It’s Forbes, remember, so don’t expect a Bob in Portland byline. I have some trouble with the writer’s apparent belief that Vlad did this on purpose. That’s not the narrative that’s been emerging since the shootdown, and he’s not that dumb.
Groucho48
Individually, liberalism has always been willing and able to take a stand. Politicians, not so much.
I was one of those awful folks who voted for Nader in 2000. Because Gore did everything he could to run away from liberalism. Not only from liberalism, but, from the mish-mash liberal-conservative soup Clinton served up.
I emailed and called the Gore campaign numerous times…Guys…you are losing liberals like me and we can absolutely win this if you run as a liberal.
I don’t see Clinton taking a liberal stance if she is elected. I mean, convince me, is there any political position out there in which Clinton will be equal to or more liberal than Obama? And, Obama ranges from liberal on the environment to conservative on education and on financial reform. He is pragmatic on foreign stuff, which I think is great. Clinton won’t be. She’s a hawk.
On the state level, I’m more optimistic. I think we’ll see a significant move to the left in state politics, which bodes well for the middle distant federal level.
But, I think Clinton is absolutely afraid to take a liberal stand.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: I caught the link when i refreshed. I agree that Putin’s not dumb, he is however arrogant.
I didn’t know you had a garden here in LA.
Amir’s Garden in Griffith Park
I’m planning to hike up there when the weather cools a bit.
Keith G
I wonder how the passion imbalance will be dealt with. Passion powers political action. The Left has better ideas, while the Right has a type of “don’t fuck with us” emotional orientation that gets out-sized results with undersized numbers – they show up and their political leadership knows that there is a price for crossing them.
In Texas, if Hispanic voters behaved in such a way (along with the other non-conservatives), the state would be well into it’s eventual transition to purple already. It’s not about waiting for the demographic shift, It is about building and supporting, and demanding, the type of leadership (local and national) who both inspire passion and know how to use it.
recurvata
I don’t see a ‘left’ in politics today. It’s the Overton window. What’s considered left today was considered at most center right 30 years ago. Today’s ‘serious person’ conservatism’ was bat shit crazy in the ’70s and even in the Reagan ’80s. Bread and circuses will only work for a while, at least I hope.
BillinGlendaleCA
@recurvata:
Worked in Rome for a few centuries.
Baud
I don’t see the left’s problem as being afraid to take a stand on liberal issues. Their bigger problem was the loss of organizational aptitude and political savvy. But I do see those things slowly getting better.
David Koch
emoprog horseshit.
30 years ago no one could have imagined gay marriage and a black guy named Hussein as president. 30 years ago there was only 1 female in the senate, now there are 20 and a women (warren or clinton) will be the next president.
OzarkHillbilly
Enjoying my granddaughter. She helped me pick tomatoes last night and I gave her a yellow cherry to try. As always she was initially reluctant (an adventurous spirit has to be nurtured, I try) then finally popped it in her mouth. At first nothing, than her eyes got real big and her mouth formed an “O” followed by the biggest grin on her face.
@Tommy: It’s a funny thing about parents, they had lives before we were born, some of it good, some of it not so good. I have a pic of my old man in my brain (the actual pic I have not seen in years) from WWII. He is in his hootch on Saipan with his crew mates between missions. They are all young, desperately handsome and dashing (as only a bomber crew can be), and obviously as drunk as all hell as they lounge about in shorts without shirts. My old man is balancing 4 whiskey bottles stacked end to end in his hand and all are laughing their asses off. 10 young men, full of life, living every moment as tho it might be their last, because it might very well be.
I think of that picture and it is hard to reconcile with the man I knew.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Here’s my old man with crew members of the USS Crosby in the Pacific in those days.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Which one is he?
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Shirt unbuttoned next to the guy in the darker shirt.
raven
He’s sitting in this one and it has to be staged, he hated coffee!
Baud
Weird thing on Reddit yesterday. Usually, any political posts that make it to the front page are libertarian in nature. Yesterday, however, there were several front page posts about Obama’s call to end the tax break for companies who move overseas. Seemed like an odd issue to catch people’s interest, but who knows?
Mustang Bobby
Another judge in Florida has tossed out the state constitution’s ban on marriage equality, making the score 2-0. This one is in Miami-Dade County and it is for Miami-Dade County only, and it has been stayed pending appeal.
This ruling joins one from Monroe County handed down a little over a week ago, also local only and also immediately stayed. But there is another case pending in Tallahassee before a federal judge that could decide it for the whole state. If it does, I’m sure it too will be stayed pending appeal.
But we’re getting there.
Amir Khalid
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I didn’t know that either. I guess my empire is more far-flung than I knew.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Maybe John and Gary can really get married instead of the “commitment” ceremony they had here before they moved to your burg!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: I’d like to hike up there, the old zoo and Mt. Hollywood(no that’s not the one the Hollywood sign is on, that’s Mt. Lee).
NotMax
It ain’t the left, it’s the center left. The DLC may be gone but its legacy lingers.
NotMax
Oh, and if the Clinton presidency is now the touchstone of “liberalism,” FSM help us all.
scav
@raven: never fear, that’s just evidence of coffee cups, not of contents of same.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: 2nd link went back to the same pic. Good looking guy. I have an official portrait of the old man and his crew in front of their bomber. It’s dated 8-1-45, so less than a week before Hiroshima, and shows they had gone on 26 missions to that point. They were flying over Tokyo Bay when the official signing of the treaty took place and he took a lot of pics that day. Really impressive. In one you can actually see the people formed up on the deck of the USS Missouri. The whole harbor is just full of US warships and the air is wingtip to wingtip bombers.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Now I got it. Funny, love the look on his face. Maybe it was Navy coffee that made him hate it?
Mustang Bobby
@raven: My parents are hoping that before too long — they’re both in their mid-80’s — I will meet another nice guy and get married. “We want you to be happy,” they tell me. (Actually, I think my mom just wants me to get laid on a regular basis; not sure marriage is the way to go on that.)
Best wishes to John and Gary!
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: The air war in the Pacific is often short changed.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
There’s always swinging.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby:
It’s the truth, it’s what every parent worthy of the title wants for their children.
NotMax
@Baud
A music cue if ever heard one.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: He was funny, he didn’t drink so he’d sell his beer ration when they had liberty. He was a great poker player and sent lots of dough home to the family.
Raven
@Mustang Bobby: Yea, John is teaching atFIU and Gary is anMD so they are fine as long as they have their bicycles!
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: You mean there was an air war in the Pacific? I never would have known… Really, it is just forgotten. Never have figured out why. Nowadays I kind of wonder how much racism had to do with it. (the war in Europe was a Noble Endeavor ™ against Men of Honor ™ but in the Pacific, they just took out the garbage).
Elizabelle
It’s that number again.
“Ambitious” Republican agenda? Try “devastating”?
How do you write a story about how ugly NC’s politics have become and never, ever mention the name “Art Pope”? The only money mentioned (twice) is “outside groups” spending to defeat Republicans.
Entitled “Move to the Center Divides GOP” — as in, candidate Tillis wants to look less scary, and he’s from the NC House, which is less heinous than the NC Senate.
Optics.
PS: note the “liberal outrage” — aren’t “moderates” outraged too by the hard right turn? One suspects they like good schools, healthcare, and unemployment benefits too. If they aren’t, why would Tillis have to move to the center at all?
One of those articles where you know “moderate” means “Republican who won’t scare children.”
satby
@Baud: Not sure it is odd, even libertarian and tea bag types are very angry about all the offshoring of jobs and the revenue dance corporations do to hide profits. I think it’s a good move to end any tax breaks for companies that do that. No one likes the idea that GE pays less taxes than them and gets a break too.
David Koch
If Hillary becomes president what would be her agenda?
I imagine she’ll try to pass immigration reform, universal pre-K, raise the minimum wage, pass a full ENDA, a fix for VRA, and maybe lowering student loan rates. but that’s about it, is there anything else?
(And I don’t blame her for having a small agenda list, it’s not her fault, rather Obama has enacted a lot of major policy.)
p.a.
Despite a lot of criticism (some deserved) from fellow lefties, the GOS deserves a lot of the credit for starting and/or mapping the strategy that empowers the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.
And after all, criticizing allies has been what the left is all about ;-)
Tommy
@Mustang Bobby: My parents think this. Their kid 45 and never married. My mom sees me with my niece, a six year old little wonder women. My mother is like how do you not have children? Just never happened.
Baud
@satby:
Teabaggers, I can see. Libertarians, not so much.
OzarkHillbilly
@David Koch: To be honest, considering today’s political climate, that sounds like a pipe dream I’d be happy with. I’d like to see real progress on the environment but then a unicorn in every pot sounds good too.
Mustang Bobby
@Raven: Sounds like they are set up well. Just tell them to be really careful on their bikes; some drivers on Old Cutler Road seem to enjoy using bicyclists for target practice.
Baud
@p.a.:
GOS was great during the Bush years. Most of the criticism, at least from me, is how that community handled the transition to Obama. I think they’ve been much better lately, and I do give credit to kos for creating a central site that has the potential to do positive things.
Botsplainer
@Groucho48:
Your post has everything awesome. Optics. Losing “liberals like me”.
Clearly, there will be no daylight between the policies of President Hillary Clinton and the policies of President Ted Cruz.
Nader 2016, electric boogaloo.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Not to be an idiot, OK I am an idiot but that is beside the point, what is GOS? I google it and I get a whole smorgasbord of options none of them having anything to do with politics.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Dailykos. GOS stands for Giant (or Great) Orange Satan. Don’t know who came up with the term.
satby
@Baud: A lot of IT people are libertarian. And the offshore stuff hits them very hard.
Edited to add: and those are the guys writing on Reddit.
Tommy
@Raven: My grandfather was a HUMP pilot. You know China, India, Burma during WWII. I didn’t know any of this about him. He never talked about his service. Never. Only in his death the local paper did a feature on him. He was also known as the “baby doctor.” He delivered something like 4,000 babies, including myself. In it they talked about his service and it was stunning. I had no idea that family history.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Hmmm… very interesting and reading the context I know it has absolutely nothing to do with Boehner. So let me elaborate on your elaboration: WTF is the “Giant (or Great) Orange Satan”?
Botsplainer
As it turns out, nobody, not even leftish folks, likes the spoiled, clueless whiter than white PETA idiots.
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/07/peta-dumb
The comments are a hoot. It seems to be running about 6 to 1 in favor of raw, naked hatred of PETAs people and principles at MoJo, both on their site and on Facebook. Had it been less, I’d have offered to buy another package of bacon (wonderful, delicious bacon) in honor of their latest campaign.
geg6
@Baud:
My feeling about GOS exactly. It was my first toe dip into the left blogosphere in the darkest days of the C+ Augustus. The place went nuts from 2008-11 or 12, but it’s much better now. And has a real mission and always has, no matter how nutty the diarists and commenters may be at any given time. A real force for good in the big picture and all kudos to Markos.
Tommy
@Botsplainer: I want to like PETA, but they are just so over-the-top. But they do things that just make me not able to support them when I want to.
Baud
@satby:
I guess ideology stops at the front door.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m not sure what you are asking. It’s simply a nickname for Dailykos.com. The Orange comes for the color scheme at that blog. The Satan comes from, I believe, that blog’s post-Obama firebagger period.
TS
@Hal:
Every last thing GOP politicians say about the President is idiotic – but the media repeats it verbatim and tells us this is all very serious stuff.
mai naem
@David Koch: Actually DUffy’s wife is the daughter of Cuban immigrants – y’know the special brown immigrant snowflakes…
I hope Sosnik is true. I think Hillary is more liberal than Bill and,furthermore, things have changed – she’s going to be forced to be more liberal. I don’t think she’ll get away with hippie-punching like Bill would. Also, if Hillary does become president, I doubt she’ll run for a second term. She would be 73. 77 when her second term is over. Look at Obama who was in better physical shape to begin with. Obama could have passed for his 30s in 08, and now looks like he’s 60. Hillary would look like an old bag lady by the time 2020 rolls around.
PurpleGirl
@Tommy: It isn’t surprising that your grandfather didn’t talk about his service in WWII. Many, many servicemen haven’t talked about what they saw and did during the war. I guess they wanted to put it all behind them, it was an extreme experience and a hard one to go through. It was probably something they never imagined happening and they didn’t want it invading their post-war lives. And in your grandfather’s case, a post-war life where he was bringing babies/people into the world.
Tommy
@TS: My family came here in 1872 from Scotland. We are letter writers and the letters are stunning. We built railroads in this nation and worked our way to southern Illinois. Where we have lived out entire lives. My first immigrant family member here became a judge. The letter he wrote asking for the vote is heartbreaking. The American dream was full on. I want the same for everybody else. That they have what I had.
PurpleGirl
@mai naem:
Actually DUffy’s wife is the daughter of Cuban immigrants – y’know the special brown immigrant snowflakes…
It depends on which group of Cubans you mean. The first group, who came here fleeing Castro, were quite white. The middle and upper classes reminded people of their heritage in Spain and how high they might have been in society in Spain. I dated once such Cuban during college and his family replicated as much of their life in Cuban here as possible.
The Raven on the Hill
My application for ACA insurance in Washington state has now been in process for over seven weeks; I have been without insurance for three weeks. Apparently they have to check to make sure that I am poor enough to get the tax credit, and they don’t have enough people to do it.
This is a national problem. It appears that no-one realized how many mid-year applications there would be. Personally, I suspect it’s a result of the uncertainty of income of the working poor. Considering that $15/hr full time is about 250% of a single person’s FPL, working poor is pretty large chunk of the people getting the tax credit.
As to the subject at hand, I think the transformation of the Democrats into America’s conservative party is almost complete.
Baud
@geg6:
I’ve noticed the improvement in the front page posts, although I haven’t brought myself to being a regular at that site again.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
THAT’S what I’m asking!!! Never heard DKos referred to in that way. For some reason the way you phrased your first answer didn’t click for me. See? I told you I’m an idiot. ;-)
Suffern ACE
@OzarkHillbilly: Boehner hasn’t always been orange. The banner at Daily Kos always has been orange. Why daily kos became known as the orange satan even to liberals is unknown to me. I wasn’t a veteran of the blog wars.
The Raven on the Hill
@David Koch: Cut Social Security and Medicare.
Maybe not. She seems to have held to her feminist ideals, and these would be exceptionally hard on women and children. But she’s awfully conservative.
Tommy
@PurpleGirl: It is a strange thing. There is a III after my name. My parents live in the town my grandfather lived in. Heck the same house. When I head back and am introduced I am often told the happiest day of their life my grandfather was there. Delivered their kid. Not having kids myself I guess I don’t totally understand. But a happy thing none the less.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: From the article you linked:
WTF? What prosperity? Russia is a crony capitalist state and the prosperity is isolated to the 1%, just as it is here. Putin and his cronies are the ones benefiting…the average Russian is being screwed, and the average Russian knows it. Furthermore, the neanderthals of the Orthodox Church are running the show socially, and people don’t like that very much, either.
As for Putin deliberately shooting it down…bullshit. This was a fuckup. Putin’s role is stupidly letting the hotheaded separatists get their hands anywhere near that hardware,
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
No worries. Sorry if my original response was unclear.
raven
@Tommy: I saw some of the pictures!
Chyron HR
I’m sure the Ready For Hillary 2016 brigade will soon be swarming over Krugman until he recants and admits that she’s not running SHE’S NOT SHE’S NOT SHE’S NOT.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Naw, it wasn’t unclear, after rereading it was plainly obvious what you were saying, it just didn’t click in my brain and I can’t blame lack of coffee as I have been up since 4:30 so I have no excuse. Oh well.
Schlemizel
@Baud:
A lot of those claiming to be libertarians are really socially liberal kids who have been raised on “government can do anything right and we are being taxed to death” bullshit. The first part has been true since St. Ronnie stuck the Koch Bro’s dick into the machinery of Washington so it looks true. The second is a lie that needs to be pushed back against harder and harder.
One thing the DLC did to the Dems was to give away a lot of that populist agenda in exchange for corporate cash. It worked in the very short-term but it is killing us with that slice of the libertarians that we should easily get and would put many races into the D column.
Corporations pretending to move just to avoid taxes deeply offends many non-liberals and we need to force the GOP to own it since they make it possible.
Schlemizel
@Botsplainer:
So, saying you wish we had a more progressive candidate than HRC and admitting that recent Dems have not been all we might wish for or need is the same as electing Cruz? You need more grays in your paint box.
People whine about Dems criticising the Dem but think how much better we and the world would be today if the god damned GOP had objected to Boy Blunders many fuck ups. Its a feature not a bug.
dmsilev
@Baud:
No, GOS pre-dates Obama getting elected. A very quick Google finds references to the term going back at least to 2007. Earliest reference I see in the first two or three pages of Google hits is Atrios from April 2007.
Schlemizel
@Baud:
Bill O’Reily, seriously, It was BillO that coined GOS
The name was picked up by libs to mock the very mockable falafel man
jurassicpork
SOA/WHINSEC has been linked to Pinochet and overthrown democracies, rewriting Wikipedia entries pertaining to them, suppression of free speech and human rights and the possible murder of an activist. And now, their goons at the United States Army Information Systems Command are trolling my blog.
Baud
@Schlemizel:
Ha. Ain’t that a trip.
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
I have to agree. Vlad’s not acting like he instigated the shootdown. If he had, he’d be on the attack right now, taking credit for it, pressing his advantage. But instead he’s on the back foot, trying to deflect the blame for it onto the Ukrainians and not succeeding. The Forbes writer didn’t pick up on that.
Biscuits
@Tommy:
My grandfather was a Seabee in the South Pacific. He told great stories of going in to build air strips and what not soon after battles. Said he could still hear gun shots from the fighting while they were working. But the one story he told that stands out for me was when he was still training in Mississippi, he was at base and getting on a bus to go into town. Behind him was a sailor from Chicago who was his friend and happened to be African American. The bus driver told this man in colorful language to sit in the back. This sailer then grabbed the bus driver by his collar, lifted him out of the seat, and with a clenched fist smacked him good and hard in the face while using equally colorful language telling him that was not gonna happen. Bus went into town and the driver never, to Grampa’s knowledge, never said a peep to anyone. It was Grampa’s first exposure to such blatant racism.
the Conster
Democrats need to be as worried about being primaried from the left as the Reps do from their right. Apparently for every member of Congress, there is an endless supply of raving lunatics who can be up and running the second the guy with an (R) after his name makes a feeble attempt to govern. I hate them, but you’ve got to give them credit for their ability to pull that off. Maybe it’s all that sweet sweet Koch-cash, but hey, whatever it is it works. Instead of bitching on blogs, we should all be out there ready to run for every available office, from water commissioner on up.
Glidwrith
@Tommy: If you are willing to share, maybe those letters will help more folks understand (ie knock a bit more tribalism out of their heads) that the American dream has very concrete, attainable goals. The right to vote, creating and building a legacy that benefits the nation for generations, raising a family in safety. Perhaps if we define the dream as something other than vague argle-bargle word salad bullshit, maybe there would be less fear.
SiubhanDuinne
@mai naem:
@PurpleGirl:
According to Rachel Campos-Duffy herself, neither parent had Cuban roots.
mai naem
@SiubhanDuinne: I used to watch Real World when Campos was on and I paid a little more attention because she was from Phoenix. I could swear I remember her saying her parents had Cuban roots. I guess I’m confusing her with somebody else.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@OzarkHillbilly: Similarly, PBS (Powder-Blue Satan) is Atrios’s Eschaton. It’s just inside-baseball terminology. :-)
They’re in the Lexicon.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Keith G
@David Koch: I would be pleasantly surprised, no actually downright giddy, if that encompassed Hillary’s presidential agenda. That is, If she actually dug in and fought for those issues.
I know that more often than not she has the correct views on many issues important to me. I wonder how deep her commitment and her passion are to those issues.during this last round of interviews, I saw her so carefully measure and hedge her words. A cold shiver of the memory of triangulation went down my spine.
Given the political climate of the time, it is very possible that she could easily win the presidency. But I wonder if she would be the leader we really need.
OzarkHillbilly
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Damn, I never even noticed that. Anyone asks my wife she will be the first to tell you that I am not the most observant person in the world. I get so focused on what I am doing right in front of me that the rest of the world just disappears.
OzarkHillbilly
@Keith G:
I doubt she’d be the leader I want, but I suspect she will be the best I can get. I can live with that, especially when you consider the GOP alternatives.
Cermet
@jurassicpork: Know how you feel – during the nuclear melt down of the Japanese reactors (still out of control but people don’t seem to care), paid nuclear energy trolls attacked me here at this blog – amazing they even cared; John’s blog, at least, is noticed by some of the moneyed powers that be … . So, be happy someone with money/power cares enough about your blog – your not a “nobody”!
SiubhanDuinne
@mai naem: No worries. I never heard of her (or Sean Duffy, for that matter) until this morning, but I did some googling and happened on that article among others.
askew
@David Koch:
She won’t do anything on immigration or if she does the bill will be a conservatives dream. Her callous answers to questions about the refugees and her ineptness in Latin America while she was SoS show she doesn’t understand this issue at all. Plus, she’s a hawk.
If she gets elected, the domestic agenda will come from Congress. Outside of health care, she has never done anything major in terms of domestic policy and frankly doesn’t seem all that interested in it. On foreign policy, she’ll continue to be a hawk.
Mike in NC
@askew:
I’ve gotten at least four “Ready for Hillary” mailings this year and quite frankly I’m not ready for Hillary. But I’ll hold my nose and pull the lever given what the GOP will puke up in 2016. I’m starting to think Cruz/Paul…
askew
@Mike in NC:
I think it will be Cruz/Ayotte because I can’t see Paul agreeing to be 2nd fiddle and a Cruz/Paul ticket might be too much for the GOP business side to take.
I will never be Ready for Hillary and quite frankly it is pathetic that they are all doing the work of running her campaign while she flits around selling books and giving speeches for money.
Right now, I am backing O’Malley as he seems to be the only one setting up to do the work to run in 2016. Plus, he’s working his ass off for 2014 midterms. Hillary can’t be bothered. He also has a long list of progressive accomplishments and he is one of the few politicians saying the right things on the humanitarian crisis at the border plus he’s working to find homes for some of these kids. That impresses me.
He’s in Iowa this weekend again and he’s headlining the Nebraska Annual Dem dinner. The dinner has 4x the number of attendees/$ raised since he was announced. And he got a great response last time he was in Iowa. So he’s generating some excitement.
PST
There was an Andrew Sullivan blog entry this morning that I liked a great deal called Why am I moving left? It is commentary on the similar Thomas Ricks article in Politico. The tenor of the piece is “I still consider myself a conservative but I wouldn’t vote Republican if you put a gun to my head.” I especially agreed with this observations:
One reaction, obviously, would be “Well, duh?” But I am a great deal less worried about the appalling things anyone has said or still says than I am fearful of a Republican senate in 2014. So it makes me very happy to see people I disagree with much of the time deciding that they cannot vote Republican. I plan to be welcoming to such people every chance I get.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@jurassicpork: Just so you know, the 101st is headquartered at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.
Davis X. Machina
@Schlemizel: .
There are forty-nine of them. I counted.
@Mike in NC:
@askew:
The reason we don’t have a functioning social democracy in this country is a shortage of actually-existing social democrats.
The reason isn’t Hillary Clinton. She’s an effect, not a cause.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@SiubhanDuinne: Duffy’s home in his constituency is about six blocks from my parents’ house – in the section of the neighborhood that is all McMansions now.
Skerry
@askew: O’Malley has been traveling so much that on Wednesday, he fell asleep during a crucial hearing on expansion of export of liquified natural gas from fracking. He missed testimony from citizens living near the proposed facility, and in the end, voted to proceed with the construction.
As a MD resident, I have supported him on many issues, but his lack of action on climate change is troubling.
kc
@David Koch:
I sure hope immigration reform and universal pre-K are not going to be the top two items on the next Dem predident’s agenda.
thefax
I know his show is hit-or-miss, but if you didn’t catch Bill Maher last night it’s worth seeing. He had two Republican/conservative startegists on, and pressed them for specifics on what Obama should be doing about Russia so he wouldn’t be perseved (in Republicans’ minds) as weak, and both visibly stuggled for an answer. One of them actually said ‘it’s called leadership’ and Maher dropped the hammer on him. The other guy said that blocking a sale of helicopters from France to Russia would scare Russia. It was a perfect illustration of the emptiness of the conservative critique of Obama’s foreign policy.
askew
@Skerry:
The meeting was over 2 hours long and boring as hell. Not really seeing that this was a big deal and I am sure the decision was made before the meeting was even held.
And he’s done a lot on climate change. He vetoed a bill delaying a massive wind farm in Maryland.
He also signed Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act of 2009.
I think he’s been pretty vocal on climate change issues and has gotten a lot done.
Is there something else you would have liked to see him do?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@TS:
actually it more like “and the Democrats will be saying something just a dumb,… just wait,.. any moment,…. well the Democrats really meant to, but were just to chicken. So there you go folks, that proves both sides do it”
ruemara
From your post to FSM’s ears. I don’t know. I see women sort of taking the loss of their rights with a kind of quiet I didn’t expect. There’s not much rumbling of a change, so I don’t know.
Suffern ACE
@thefax: yep. What Obama needs to do is sanction Russia in ways that hurt French industry. That’s the ticket.
geg6
@thefax:
Agreed. Maher was pretty awesome last night, regardless of how absolutely awful he was last week. The guy drives me crazy sometimes, with his anti-vax stuff (which he seems to be being quiet about lately, thank FSM) and other clueless things, but he made Kibbe and the Santorum flack just shut the fuck up. He hammered them pretty unmercifully.
CaseyL
@ruemara: The women who have spoken up have been vilified and threatened, including getting rape and death threats, so it’s not too surprising most have elected to stay quiet.
I’m less concerned with public utterances than I am with voting behavior: the women most likely to be affected by the War on Women are the least likely to vote.
I can fully understand why they don’t want to make themselves targets. But they’d damn well better VOTE in November.
kc
Im afraid if we don’t start focussing on what’s going in in our own backyards the headlines well be seeing in a few years will be along thd lines of “How Republicans Took Over the Blue States.”
AxelFoley
@David Koch:
Thank you. This, and the bullshit meme from certain professionals on the left that President Obama would be considered a Republican back in the day, need to be crushed by real progressives. President Obama has delivered on MANY issues that liberals have fought years for, and for emos to say the shit they do about him is so damn disingenuous.
Skerry
@askew: Were you there? I was. It wasn’t boring to me. Peter Franchot was very engaged. O’Malley walked out of testimony to get coffee, dozed off, and was generally uninterested.
I don’t doubt that his mind was made up before the hearing, but I’d like to see my Governor at least stay awake. The local citizens don’t get access to him nor his staff that Dominion Energy and natural gas lobbyists have.
Also, I would like him to conduct a Quantitative Risk Assessment before moving forward with any more construction at Cove Point.
Faction
@AxelFoley:
“The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican.”
Obama! Stop starting bullshit memes about yourself!
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Faction: Context? Of which policies was he speaking?
Davis X. Machina
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Context: Refuting charges that his policies comprise some form of socialism,
askew
@Skerry:
No, I wasn’t there. I thought it was a bit silly that he even had to attend the meeting. I think there are better uses of a Governor’s time myself.
AxelFoley
@Faction:
Emo Exhibit A
pat
@PST:
Another reaction is Where the hell were you the last 6 years? You just NOW figured that out??
PST
@pat re Sullivan:
To be fair to Sullivan, he’s been saying that for years and supported Obama twice. Much of his criticism of the President these days is really from the left: Obama has not done enough to punish torturers, Obama’s support of Israel is too unwavering, etc. But I don’t want to write a brief in favor of Sullivan, who still says some shockingly stupid things about race and abortion, for example. The thing that is bothering me is that it is just so difficult to convince lifelong Republicans that the congressional Republican Party has been captured by (and to an increasing extent is compose of) a faction that he is right to describe as nihilists. I’m glad to see Democrats stand up and be proud to be liberals, but I also want to welcome anyone willing to jump the fence even if they aren’t quite our kind. If the sort of enlightenment Ricks and Sullivan have achieved could infect just 5 or 10 percent of Republican voters, we could be see the remainder become a sulking and embittered minority for many years, which is what they are good at. I can live with newcomers that are disgruntled centrist Democrats as long as it means Democrats can keep electing presidents and Republicans don’t organize Congress.
Davis X. Machina
Not me. The whole point of having a tree house — they’re not very good houses, as houses go — is you get to pull up the ladder. They leak, they have no plumbing — but you get to keep people out and watch them dance up and down down there and call you names and beg.
Dog On Porch
@OzarkHillbilly: Paul Tibbets (pilot of the Enola Gay) claimed in an interview with Studs Turkel that definitive plans had been made to drop an A-bomb on Nazi Germany simaltaneously with the first bomb dropped on Japan (Germany’s surrender spared it that fate). That fact was news to me and Turkel, but Tibbets was lucid and matter-of-fact in his remembrance.
kc
@Faction:
LOL, perfect.
Villago Delenda Est
@jurassicpork: The US Army Information Systems Command is headquartered at Ft. Huachuca AZ (also known as “the damn desert” by some in its subordinate units). It’s primarily concerned with running “fixed station” communications for the US Army.
Ksmiami
@BillinGlendaleCA: but here we don’t give bread…
Bob In Portland
Where is the oil and who do we have to kill to get it?
Okay, natural gas, but same principle.
Bob In Portland
Don’t want to read the books? Save time and read the interview.
rikyrah
Love For the Elderly: Teen Boy Sends Letters to Seniors
13-year old Jacob Cramer wants to cheer up lonely elderly people and he’s chosen an old-fashioned way of doing it. He is writing letters. Since July 2013, Jacob has recruited friends, and even organizations, to help compose personal letters for delivery to senior centers. So far, strangers have reached out in friendship from all over the world; some close to the Cleveland suburbs where the effort began and some as far away as Europe and Asia.
The enthusiastic response for his nonprofit group, Love For The Elderly, inspired him to launch a website and social media campaign to spur more letter writing.[….] To help out, you can send a letter or card to the postal address below. They also have an online submission form.[….]
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/teen-boy-sends-love-for-the-elderly/
Bob In Portland
As opposed to Clinton overlooking Iran-contra, BCCI et al? Some say the principle was set with Gerald Ford freeing Nixon and Kissinger for their various crimes, but I think the precedent was LBJ letting the CIA and FBI off the hook for murdering and covering up the murder of the guy before him.
David Koch
@kc: ya know, I don’t really see anyone discussing future issues on the blogosphere. right now, it’s about personality (warren rokx/Hillary Saux). so lemme give ya a chance, what policy items do you think should be pushed.
sm*t cl*de
@Tommy:
The Hump Bar in Kunming is named after them, if you’re ever in Yunnan Province. They have drinkable beer.