[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

Perhaps that was hyperbola but I don't honestly think you can kill your way out of hate.

farley3k wrote:

Perhaps that was hyperbola but I don't honestly think you can kill your way out of hate.

Perhaps, but let treason slide once and it will be a constant part of your history.

farley3k wrote:

Perhaps that was hyperbola but I don't honestly think you can kill your way out of hate.

An estimated 10 million Black people died over 4 centuries of slave trading across the Atlantic. At some point you have to start killing to put an end to that kind of hate.

We certainly f*cked up reconstruction and are still paying for it.

But allowing, and not having any accountability for, massacres in Wilmington, Tulsa, and others just kept making things worse.

House Democrats pick Hakeem Jeffries to succeed Nancy Pelosi, the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in Congress

House Democrats chose caucus chair Hakeem Jeffries of New York to succeed Nancy Pelosi as leader of the Democrats in the chamber next year, a historic move that will make him the first Black person to lead one of the two major parties in either chamber of Congress.

House Democrats met behind closed doors Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill to make their decision.

Jeffries ran unopposed as leader, with Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark, current assistant speaker, running as whip and California Rep. Peter Aguilar, previously vice chair of the caucus, and was expected to win the spot to lead the House Democratic caucus.

Republicans have the majority in the next Congress, so Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar will all lead in a Democratic minority, the first in two terms.

At 52, Jeffries will represent a generational change from the current triumvirate of House Democratic leaders, who are three decades older than him. He became the chairman of the Democratic caucus in 2019, making him the youngest member serving in leadership.

His rise in leadership comes after Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn announced they would be stepping down from their current leadership positions. Clyburn is expected to become assistant leader in the new Congress.

Pelosi – who was designated “Speaker Emerita” in a unanimous vote by the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee Tuesday night – blessed the new trio of leaders expected to succeed them in a statement when she announced she would step down and return to being a rank-and-file member in the new Congress.

“A new day is dawning — and I am confident that these new leaders will capably lead our Caucus and the Congress,” Pelosi said.

For months, Democratic lawmakers have whispered that Pelosi’s potential exit from Congress could pave the way for Jeffries.

Jeffries said he hopes to “lead an effort that centers our communication strategy around the messaging principle that values unite, issues divide.” He also praised the past leadership but said “more must be done to combat inflation, defend our democracy, secure reproductive freedom, welcome new Americans, promote equal protection under the law and improve public safety throughout this country.”

Another proud accomplishment for my state.

Gov. Reynolds among 21 calling for repeal of COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Armed Forces

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and the governors from 20 other states are calling on the Biden administration to repeal the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for people in the U.S. Armed Forces.

In a press release, the governor’s office said a joint letter was sent asking for immediate action during a time when the Armed Forces are reporting major recruitment shortfalls and thousands of people have been discharged for refusing to comply with the mandate.

“The Biden vaccine mandate creates a national security risk that severely impacts our defense capabilities abroad and our state readiness here at home,” Gov. Reynolds said in the release.

So we let them in but they get sick which impacts our defense capabilities too.

a "national security risk"? How? Because China will tap into the Bill Gates microchips or something?

I assume she thinking that they won't be able to hit recruitment targets if they don't accept people who are not vaccinated.

I’m thinking that folks likely to believe in dumbass conspiracy theories self selecting out of military service will leave the institution better off.

Paleocon wrote:

I’m thinking that folks likely to believe in dumbass conspiracy theories self selecting out of military service will leave the institution better off.

Absolutely. I wish the white supremacists would self-select out, too.

JLS wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

I’m thinking that folks likely to believe in dumbass conspiracy theories self selecting out of military service will leave the institution better off.

Absolutely. I wish the white supremacists would self-select out, too.

The Venn diagram is nearly a circle.

Paleocon wrote:

I’m thinking that folks likely to believe in dumbass conspiracy theories self selecting out of military service will leave the institution better off.

but then how will we spread syphilis to our enemies?

Paleocon wrote:
farley3k wrote:

Perhaps that was hyperbola but I don't honestly think you can kill your way out of hate.

Perhaps, but let treason slide once and it will be a constant part of your history.

At the least all assets and wealth should have been seized and redistributed to former slaves and interim local governments to oversee a multi decade rebuild of all various institutions. Jail time if not execution for many conspirators should have absolutely been done. Who knows if things would have turned out different but for sure it couldn’t turn out worse.

I just want to note here that if you were thinking that Democrats were not doing enough to push progressive causes, the Respect for Marriage Act passing the Senate (and certain to become law) should give you pause. They were able to move damn quickly with a fully developed bill ready to go. What made the difference? The fact that Dems were able to turn 12 Republicans to vote with them, giving them a solid majority. This is what I've said all along; the problem is not primarily with Dems being weak-kneed and ineffective, it's with the need to bring in Republicans to get things done. That's how things get done.

This is a huge achievement, it makes me incredibly happen, but I can't but think this is Mitch McConnell's big middle finger to the Trump wing of the Party that blew the opportunity they had to take both branches. The fact that it will *force* the Supremes to support gay marriage is, well, not just icing but another whole cake on top of the cake. We should be dancing in the streets.

Oh, and the stake in the heart of the DOMA, with zero chance that Republicans will be able to revive it in the next few years? *chef's kiss*

House committee receives Donald Trump’s federal tax returns from IRS

The House Ways and Means Committee now has six years of Donald Trump’s federal tax returns, ending a yearslong pursuit by Democrats to dig into one of the former president’s most closely guarded personal details.

The Treasury Department has complied with last week’s court order to hand over the documents, a spokesperson from the Treasury Department confirmed to CNN on Wednesday.

The Supreme Court declined last week to intervene after courts said the House had power to request the returns from the IRS.

The committee, led by Democrat Richard Neal, had sought six years of Trump’s tax records, primarily from the time he served as president. That included records about both Trump personally and several of his corporate entities.

The documents are not expected to be immediately released to the public.

Think they can actually do something in the short time they have left?

'Put Up or Shut Up,' Says Sanders as Progressives Move to Add 7 Sick Days to Railway Deal

"If you can't vote for this," said the independent Vermont senator, "don't tell anybody that you stand with working families."
farley3k wrote:

House committee receives Donald Trump’s federal tax returns from IRS

The House Ways and Means Committee now has six years of Donald Trump’s federal tax returns, ending a yearslong pursuit by Democrats to dig into one of the former president’s most closely guarded personal details.

The Treasury Department has complied with last week’s court order to hand over the documents, a spokesperson from the Treasury Department confirmed to CNN on Wednesday.

The Supreme Court declined last week to intervene after courts said the House had power to request the returns from the IRS.

The committee, led by Democrat Richard Neal, had sought six years of Trump’s tax records, primarily from the time he served as president. That included records about both Trump personally and several of his corporate entities.

The documents are not expected to be immediately released to the public.

Think they can actually do something in the short time they have left?

Do what SCOTUS does and leak them.

Robear wrote:

This is a huge achievement, it makes me incredibly happen, but I can't but think this is Mitch McConnell's big middle finger to the Trump wing of the Party that blew the opportunity they had to take both branches. The fact that it will *force* the Supremes to support gay marriage is, well, not just icing but another whole cake on top of the cake. We should be dancing in the streets. :-)

It is a huge achievement, and it is a wonderful thing.

However, it's a law and not a Constitutional Amendment, so it doesn't *force* the Supremes to do anything. They can still strike it down, probably under some BS 10th amendment pretext that the Constitution doesn't explicitly give the federal government the right to force states to acknowledge marriages that they don't want to. Note that at the same time this would allow states to annul interracial marriage, too.

The Cochise County board of supervisors don't have a lawyer for tomorrow's court hearing.

They voted to hire Bryan Blehm, the lawyer that represented Cyber Ninjas, but he said "nah" which really says something about their case.

It was also unclear how they were going to pay for Blehm because they don't have any budget for a lawyer and they can't accept outside donations to pay for one.

So it looks like these idiots are going to disenfranchise about 47,000 Arizonians and flip two elections from Republican winners to Democratic ones.

Keldar wrote:

However, it's a law and not a Constitutional Amendment, so it doesn't *force* the Supremes to do anything. They can still strike it down, probably under some BS 10th amendment pretext that the Constitution doesn't explicitly give the federal government the right to force states to acknowledge marriages that they don't want to. Note that at the same time this would allow states to annul interracial marriage, too.

I don't think they can strike it down without striking reciprocity for regular marriages, driving licenses, and whatever other certifications are recognized nationally. They are based on the same principles. But we'll see. It's a good point.

Robear wrote:

I just want to note here that if you were thinking that Democrats were not doing enough to push progressive causes, the Respect for Marriage Act passing the Senate (and certain to become law) should give you pause. They were able to move damn quickly with a fully developed bill ready to go. What made the difference? The fact that Dems were able to turn 12 Republicans to vote with them, giving them a solid majority. This is what I've said all along; the problem is not primarily with Dems being weak-kneed and ineffective, it's with the need to bring in Republicans to get things done. That's how things get done.

While RFMA is unabashedly a good thing and extraordinary to see, it's only by contrast to the current situation that it looks so good and is hardly "progressive." There's a bunch of Republican amendment nonsense that got tacked on and that's how it got passed. It's barely centrist to force red states to recognize other state's marriages, define marriage at the federal level to be any two adult people (and no more), and guarantee a private right of action for violating that. It doesn't force all states to allow gay or inter-racial marriage, it doesn't do anything about people using "religious freedom" to be assholes. In fact, it reiterates f*cking RFRA garbage.

This is a good thing and a huge step forward in some ways. But it's not "progressive," it's another weak compromise with red state bullsh*t.

With Democrats Things Get Better - Video, 12/6 Live Presentation

To help celebrate and promote Joe Biden's far-sighted economic agenda and important accomplishments, NDN has rebooted its signature presentation, With Democrats Things Get Better, and will be showing it once or twice or a month throughout 2022.

With Dems is updated with every showing, so it is always new and fresh. Our next showing will be Tuesday, December 6th at 1pm ET (RSVP) but if you cannot wait till then you can watch our latest presentation recorded on Friday, October 21.

To learn more about the big arguments in With Dems start with our recently published analysis The Economy Remains Strong, 10m Biden Jobs and an essay, The Case for Optimism, Rejecting Trump's Poisonous Pessimism. which was the basis of the earliest version of this presentation. We also strongly recommend reviewing David Leonhardt’s recent NYT essay "Why Are Republican Presidents So Bad for the Economy?" It makes very similar arguments and has lots of terrific and useful charts. Our discussion with noted economist Rob Shapiro, and his 2 recent essays on the Biden Boom, also provide useful context.

Maria Cardona cites our research in her CNN column, as does David Rothkopf in this USA Today essay. Mike Tomasky’s rave review of With Dems in a recent Daily Beast column is a great read. Mike writes: “Simon Rosenberg heads NDN, a liberal think tank and advocacy organization. He has spent years advising Democrats, presidents included, on how to talk about economic matters. Not long ago, he put together a little PowerPoint deck. It is fascinating. You need to know about it. The entire country needs to know about it." We agree of course!

You can find even more background below. Thanks for your interest, and we hope to catch you at one of our upcoming presentations!

Background on With Dems

The impetus for With Dems comes from the big argument Donald Trump started making in his 2016 campaign - that this new age of globalization ushered in after the end of the Cold War had weakened the United States, leading to his infamous phrase "American carnage."

At NDN we always found that argument misguided and wrong. When Trump came to office the US had a very low unemployment rate, record high stock market, declining deficits and rapidly growing incomes for American workers. The uninsured rate was the lowest of the modern era, crime rates were half of what they'd been, and the flow of undocumented immigrants to the border was a fraction of what it was in the Bush and Clinton years. The world was largely at peace, a great deal of the world was modernizing and growing, and a global effort to address climate change was picking up steam. While things weren't perfect, what President Trump inherited when he came to office were some of the best overall geopolitical, societal and economic conditions America had seen in decades. It is something Simon discusses at length in this Medium essay.

So over the past few years we've been talking about just how wrong former President Trump was about this great country and its achievements. It has driven a great deal of our research and advocacy and the creation of an earlier version of With Democrats Things Get Better called Patriotism and Optimism. In the spring of 2020 we retooled Patriotism and Optimism into our new presentation, With Dems, which is a data filled look at America during this age of globalization, and how each party has navigated its challenges while in the White House.

Central to this presentation is the notion that the Democratic and Republican parties aren't mirror images of one another, but rather that they have followed separate, organic pathways in a big, diverse country like the US. The result of this differing evolution is that the Democrats have been a remarkably successful governing party since 1989, while the Republicans have presided over three straight recessions, historic foreign policy failures and a deeply dangerous embrace of illiberalism.

Mixolyde wrote:

This is a good thing and a huge step forward in some ways. But it's not "progressive," it's another weak compromise with red state bullsh*t.

Our political system, when it works, rarely achieves big steps in one go-round. We're lucky to get incremental advances, and those are based on compromise. Without that "red state bullsh*t", we'd have gotten *nothing*. I can't stress this enough. Democrats are not going to produce a revolution in anything like the current political climate. The approach of ideological purity is, at this point, a foolish one. We need to be happy we got any advances at all, and look to figure out how to get to the next one, and the one after that, until the political situation changes.

I am astounded at the fact that dogma continues to override practicality, and that even what is a big step forward in protections is belittled. It requires ignoring the realities on the ground, and the way politics work at the moment. If you want success, celebrate incremental steps, don't tear them down because "it's not enough". Chew away at this with your friends and relatives enough, and over time, as other people take the same stance, Democrats are just going to stop going to polls because "politicians never give us what we want". Then where will we be?

Beating up your own side is a recipe for Republican victory in the long term.

Politics is the art of the possible, right?

Like it or not, red state bullsh*t is part of that equation. You'll get nothing done without this kind of horse trading.

Realistically, we ought to be considering things like this as maximally progressive, given the constraints of the current political system, and cheering from the f*cking rooftops about it.

Is it perfect? f*ck no. Is it as close as we're gonna get right now? Yup.

It seems like no one has seen Salmon Fishing in Yemen.

Or GIGO, "live by the sword; die by the sword", etc.

We aren't 16 anymore. We know that the quicker and more jarring progress is implemented, the faster it can be swept out in similar fashion. This is true no matter how drastic the need is.

Ignoring the fact that it is reasonable to disagree with you (general you, not anyone here in particular) on a scale of gray is not going to curry any favor from people who would normally support you.

the-gops-election-denier-attack-on-hakeem-jeffries-explained

Tldr: gop accuses Jefferies of election denial for 2016.

I hate this for what it is but I got to admit it's a damn clever political move. It's completely in bad faith but gives them cover for whataboutism on election denial.

Weeks later, after Kayne's appearance on Alex Jones today, the House GOP Judiciary has deleted its "Kanye. Elon. Trump." tweet.

RE: Mr. Ye, I'm caught in two minds. The man is clearly in the mist of a major mental health episode (he managed to make Alex Jones uncomfortable) but the man also has so much previous go back so far that I think it's fair to say that these are his genuinely held beliefs.

Like, I'm trying to thread the needle between "sympathy for him clearly having an untreated ongoing mental health episode" and "f*ck this asshole."

EDIT: Put better...

To me the pertinent question is how much culpability we can assign to a man who obviously has mental health issues, but is now just propagating Nazism. Being bipolar isn't an excuse for antisemitism but it's hard to imagine a person in their right mind behaving this way.

If nothing else, what is clear is that he is being used by truly awful, cynical people and his own narcissism and ego are to rank to see that.

Prederick wrote:

Like, I'm trying to thread the needle between "sympathy for him clearly having an untreated ongoing mental health episode" and "f*ck this asshole."

Dudes had all the money and time in the world to get his treatment dialed in. As my bipolar wife likes to say "my disease is not an excuse to be an asshole". He's being an asshole.

"Predericks quote from someone else wrote:

....it's hard to imagine a person in their right mind behaving this way.

That person lacks imagination. Have they not read the news in the last 5 years?

Sometimes I listen to or watch the video to Get By and wonder what the f*ck happened.

Spoiler:

About F'n time...

In a major defeat for former President Donald Trump, a federal appeals court on Thursday halted a third-party review of documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate.

The three-judge panel of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed US District Judge Aileen Cannon’s order appointing a so-called special master to sort through thousands of documents found at Trump’s home to determine what should be off limits to investigators. The court said the judge should not have intervened in the first place

The law is clear,” the appeals court wrote. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.”

The opinion – which was issued jointly by the three-judge panel made up of all GOP appointees – dismantled Trump’s arguments for why a special master was necessary. The court said that only in extraordinary circumstances should courts intervene in Justice Department investigations that are still in their early stages, and that standard had not been met here. The three-judge panel that issued the ruling is comprised of appointees of Republican presidents, including two who were put on the bench by Trump