Star Wars – the tale of 2 kids whose mom died cuz a Senator & a religious fanatic decided domestic violence & depression weren't treatable.
— IntelligencePr0nStar (@ZeddRebel) May 4, 2017
Hillary Clinton to launch 'resistance' PAC aimed at funding groups that are standing up to Trump https://t.co/F1w9eE4DoL
— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) May 4, 2017
… “I’m now back to being an activist citizen and part of the resistance,” Clinton said in her sit-down with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. At other events she has heralded the work of small organizations that have grown in response to Trump.
“Activism is more important than ever, and it’s working, from the women’s marches across the country and around the globe to helping to bring down the Republicans’ terrible health care bill,” Clinton said earlier this year in Texas. “But we have to keep going.”
The organization — Onward Together, an homage to her campaign slogan — will look to identify groups that could benefit from outside funding. Clinton will act as the connector, said one source, bringing donors to these groups and helping raise money for them, too…
The group will have a small staff, including the few aides that are still working with Clinton day-to-day, but the former secretary of state is in the process of finding a board of directors. Dennis Cheng, Clinton’s campaign finance director and longtime fundraiser, and Judith McHale, the former secretary of state’s deputy at the State Department, are both currently working with Clinton on the project…
A number of top colleges have reached out to Clinton about using them as a venue for her future advocacy, said people who have talked to the former Democratic nominee. While a decision is far from imminent, Clinton did spend time earlier this month at both Wellesley College, her alma mater, and Harvard University, where she sat for an extended interview for the American Secretaries of State Project.
Clinton has also made clear at a series of events that she is not done with political life and hopes to help Democrats win back the House and Senate in 2018.
Aides and advisers say she is not going to run for president again, but doesn’t want to be silent in the coming years.
Some will say that she should’ve taken a vow of poverty and gone from rural enclave to rust belt town, letting Trump voters throw rocks at her… but I prefer that she keep fighting.
Mike J
For those of you wondering if we should support Levin or Applegate against Issa:
https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/860287862691987463
Fuck Applegate. Yeah, he’d be better than Issa, but there’s no reason to support him now,.
Goku
INB4 Baileef shits all over this thread
Ian
@Mike J:
Do we have more information on this? The twitter thread made it confusing as to where Applegate and Levin stand. I want more info than tweets.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: I don’t mean to seem credulous, but there seems to be a lot of missing context here.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku: Who? Did one of our friends return under a new sockpuppet nym?
Major Major Major Major
Why would she go there? No cell service for miles.
*ducks*
Elizabelle
@Adam L Silverman: Yup. Someone named “Bailey” was littering up the overnight threads.
@Mike J: Come on, dude. Yesterday’s healthcare vote, and your first issue is taking apart Democrats? Applegate’s tweet seems to be snark.
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: Get me a link and I’ll take a look.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: @Mike J: according to the replies on that tweet, if you have the context, it’s obvious that he’s making fun of “the mob” for being hypocrites.
Goku
@Adam L Silverman: No. Its an old troll from election days. She? has ruined a few threads so far with concern trollery about House Dems singing “Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye” after the vote for AHCA to the repukes. Exactly the same as voting to take away healthcare from millions. No one will give a shit about it after Trump opens his mouth next. Too east to wind up though
efgoldman
@Mike J:
I’m 3000+ miles away and have no dog in the fight, but I really don’t get what’s objectionable about what he said. In context he’s daring the assholes to follow thru on their bullshit; I don’t see a problem there.
Again, I’m not there, but someone who ran last cycle and almost won seems to me to be the better bet.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: nothing actionable, just one of the insufferable bore trolls we collect during setbacks. Not this one’s first time.
@Goku: well, let’s not waste any more pixels talking about it on a new thread then, and take off our shoes before we come inside.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman: Same name as when you banned him, if my memory is correct, during the primaries.
Elie
I always wanted her to fight this thing. Sure, I realize that she had to heal enough to do it. I hear that and she has my 100% support. She is my warrior queen. Oh I know the assholes will be on her from the first second. I could care less and hope she is prepared for it. I would love to hear Mama throw it down on some of these orks, but I know she has more class than I do — :-)
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: Never mind, I found him/her. Appears to be someone new.
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: @Goku: @efgoldman: The name isn’t familiar, but if you all say its a resurrection, that’s good for me. I’ve taken care of it.
Mnemosyne
@Mike J:
Keep reading. The tweet was taken out of context and Applegate himself responds in the replies.
Frankly, this makes me much more anti-Levin. Smells like Russian trollbots at work.
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m pretty sure he’s not new. There was a “Bailey” who posted here a lot in 2016; same MO, same concern-trollishness, I think he and Applejinx used to tag-team (perhaps not in fact, but at least in appearance).
Not that I wouldn’t like to see him gone, however. His schtick is tiresome, and willfully ignores contravening information, or pretends it says what it doesn’t. In other words, a typical RWNJ, although claiming to be a Dem.
Goku
@Adam L Silverman: Take that Failey! Haha! That’ll show you to insult my tastes in music
Good show, Adam
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: It’s not Russian trollbots. Just one longtime HRC staffer that saw it, didn’t get all the context, and then doubled down when challenged when presented with the context.
amk
@Adam L Silverman: Bravo. Insert golfclap gif.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Sorry, I wasn’t clear — I didn’t mean that the original Tweeter was a Russian trollbot, but that I suspect some in his retweets and replies.
amk
watch out boeing & airbus.
SFAW
So 20 comments in, and only two are regarding something other than Bailey and Applegate. Outstanding.
efgoldman
@Elie:
It would be a lot easier to take if half the assholes weren’t leftier than thous, Wilmerbots, and some nominal Democrats.
I expect total lying bullshit from RWNJs and their enablers in the Village.
Steve in the ATL
@efgoldman: hell, I’ve been a lawyer for over 20 years and I don’t lie as much as they do!
Ruckus
@amk:
You might want to check how much content of a jet liner is made in China these days.
Mike J
Kropadope
Helping disparate groups develop stronger political questions is an excellent idea. I wonder how the media will spin it into a nefarious plot.
Ruckus
On to the gist of the post.
@Elie:
Like you I’m glad she’s back. Would be nice if she’d just once, tell drumpf to go fuck himself. But you’re right, she has too much class.
Mnemosyne
@SFAW:
We got to 117 in the previous thread without mentioning either one.
amk
@Ruckus: Lotsa difference between being a cheap subcontractor and being a competitive manufacturer.
Mnemosyne
@Elie:
We already had naysayers earlier today, but they had only seen the fucking NYT’s dumbass tweet and not the actual story.
Because I’m pissed off today, I’ll say that I’m starting to think Ann Coulter had the right idea when it comes to the New York Fucking Times. Fuck those fascist enablers right in their fucking ears.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Also, now the original tweeter is tripling down.
If Levin thinks he can piss off Ted Lieu and other CA Dems by sabotaging Applegate with out-of-context Facebook posts, he’s got another think coming, and fast. Running as a Democrat against the Democratic Party is an express ticket to Nowheresville out here.
Major Major Major Major
@Kropadope: She’ll probably do it with emails. Case closed.
Calouste
Local elections in the UK today, 5 weeks before the national election, and the good news is that UKIP is getting wiped out. The bad news is that the Tories are winning big and Corbyn seems to achieve his goal of destroying Labour.
Kropadope
@Major Major Major Major: Oh, no! Not…
emails
.::shudder::
Timurid
Since Adam’s here, I’ll repost this from a dead thread below. I really think we are nearing the Rubicon today, and I’d like to hear his take:
Ruckus
@amk:
I’ve build airplane parts, with my own company. I work on airplane tooling, which is used to to build parts of airplanes, almost every day. Including today. Parts are either done right or don’t get accepted. China may be less expensive but they have to produce good parts or they don’t get accepted or get to keep doing it. Whatever you may feel about the Chinese or their politics, they are an intelligent and industrious people. A good reason they do build airplane parts is that they have invested in modern equipment, and training, mostly because they didn’t have much to fall back on. That means it is possible for them to build parts rapidly, which is in some cases faster than in the US, which has not kept up in the manufacturing area. Not that there isn’t a lot of high quality US manufacturing as well, there is, but the growth hasn’t happened here as much as there.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
And then YOU had to go feed it!
Just kidding, I loved most, if not all, of your responses to him.
And you’ve probably already noticed, but apparently Adam has cleaned troll out of that thread.
At some level, I get a minor kick out of seeing how many different ways I can call him a fucking moron or liar or both. Probably means 100 Ave Marias and 100 Pater nosters for me. Or it would, were I not an atheist.
OK, enough about troll, back to Hitlary and her e-mails!
Glidwrith
@Mnemosyne: Levin smells too opportunistic to me. Applegate put in all the hard work to show Issa was vulnerable and Levin just parachutes in? Nope.
minachica
@Mike J: I mostly lurk here, but I’m repeating the reply I left on your twitter rant re Applegate: “I’m surprised that you of all people can’t recognize sarcasm.”
I’ve enjoyed your comments for years and am with Hillary completely. Please don’t jump to conclusions that will only help the assholes that deserve to DIAF.
Kropadope
@Calouste:
Seems to me the bulk of the work on that was done a long time ago. Oh, wait, you mean the party.
No Drought No More
I’ll care what Hillary has to say about the 2017 republican party after she admits to putting her presidential ambition before country when she supported the Bush-Cheney plot to war, or when she admits that she was outright deceived by the war criminals that unleashed the catastrophe. Because its one or the other.
That goddamn war was an even greater abomination than today’s vote, and yet the democratic the rank and file has ever since has been expected to rally around the politicians who acquiesced in unleashing it. Their sinister collaboration somehow became the de facto position of the entire party. As though the war was a matter of simply being- as Hillary so casually puts it- a “mistake”, an honest misjudgment made by honorable people.
It wasn’t, and they’re not. There is a direct correlation between that war and the rise of the fascist right in this country, and the votes they cast today.. Had the democratic leadership possessed the courage to confront the ugly truth about that Big Lie war, and the courage to speak honestly to the American people about it, they would have deserved and received the thanks of their country. But they refused. What had been billed as a “conscience vote” by congressional democrats somehow became the de facto position of the entire party. And after all, if a political party refuses to speak honestly about war and peace, why the hell should anyone be expected to respect and support it?
Mnemosyne
@Glidwrith:
Yeah, that just has the distinct smell of a deliberate ratfuck. I wish Mary G was here tonight — she’s in that district and may know who this asshole Levin is. But based on what I’ve seen so far, he’s an unscrupulous asshole trying to take down Applegate.
SFAW
@Ruckus:
I don’t recall whether it was here, or LGM, or some other blog, but I got into it with someone who was trying to tell me that where stuff was manufactured was immaterial, and that China (for example) would never choke off a US-bound supply of finished goods (or fabricated goods) because I-can’t-remember-why. Speaking only for myself, I think that’s a dangerous/ridiculous viewpoint, because controlling the manufacturing end is a much stronger position than being dependent on someone else.
But that’s a discussion for another day. I think.
Ruckus
@No Drought No More:
That’s a lot of bullshit in one comment.
War fucking sucks.
I know, if for no other reason, I’ve served during a major war.
And that’s still a lot of bullshit in one comment.
dm
@efgoldman: Yeah, I have no problem with the quote. But for you, just pretend Bernie Sanders had said it, and you’ll probably see why it’s so vile and objectionable and flame-war worthy.
NR or Bailey should pretend that Hillary Clinton had said it, then they can be hot and bothered, too.
I’m not trying to start a flame war: I’m offering an object lesson in how the frame of mind you bring to reading a quote colors the meaning you find in it. I’m asking for a little charity in reading words of people who approximate our allies.
The ratfuckers are going to try to divide us, but it’s up to us to decide whether we’re going to saddle up our purity ponies and ride off to civil war.
SFAW
@No Drought No More:
Maybe you can ask her again in 2028, in case she supports some candidate during that election cycle. Or, if she’s still alive, 2040.
Maybe there’s also something in her e-mails incriminating her re: her support for the AUMF.
Kropadope
@No Drought No More:
Distributed denial of reality? Or acknowledgment of the unfortunate reality that no matter any Democrat’s failings, virtually every Republican will be worse on just about every aspect
amk
@No Drought No More: enjoy your new twitler’s wars. dumb ass of a moron.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Given California’s system, is there a chance that both Levin and Applegate could come out on top and be the two candidates for the election? Or will they have to battle it out in the Dem primary and only one can be in the election against Issa? I’m unclear on how it works.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Kropadope:
on twitter the usual DC media suspects were saying this was really an effort to set up a run for 2020.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
There’s a difference between one out-of-context Facebook fight and a series of statements that all have to get explained away one by one because he keeps making them.
If my distaste for Sanders was solely about the primary, I’d be over it by now. But he just keeps saying the same goddamned things without any sense that they’re pissing people off, and that bothers me.
dm
I’m glad she’s setting up her PAC — it’s not surprising, given her history of “git it done”. I’m sure I’ll disagree with at least a third of her PAC’s choices of whom to back, but it’s all pulling in the correct direction.
I hope Obama does something similar (though I pretty much trust him to “get it right”, if he chooses to do something less partisan and more… Saul Alinsky).
Adam L Silverman
@amk: Actually I’ve restored him/her. He/she reached out to me and I’m convinced this isn’t a new sockpuppet nym. You all will have to work it out.
Yarrow
That’s a great picture of Hillary up top. She looks relaxed and happy. I hope she’s enjoying her life. She certainly deserves to, especially after 2016.
SFAW
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Hitlary? Or Pocahontas? (Who’s about the same age, and has shown no inclination to run.)
NotMax
Blog seems extra-prickly today.
Except for Mr. Cole crowing about vase shopping, which was – um, er – idiosyncratic .
Ruckus
@SFAW:
I think you are 100% correct, it does make a difference, it’s not immaterial at all. Having said that, the reality is that in this day and age there is even far more danger in isolationism than there ever has been. And that’s been a bad thing for a long, long time. The world has gotten effectively a lot smaller and a lot more cohesive in my short lifetime. There is at least one reason we have to purchase airplane parts from offshore, we can not make enough here any more. It may also surprise you to know some of the airplanes we have sold to China. The world is not all cut and dried, all good or all bad. We have by far the largest military and spend more than what, the next ten combined? Look at things from the other direction, that makes us what, the good guys? Or rather dangerous?
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
We do have jungle primaries (first two past the post regardless of party) but Issa’s district is still very red, so the worry here would be that Applegate and Levin spend so much time fighting each other that they split the Democratic vote and a second Republican or third party candidate manages to sneak in instead.
The fact that Ted Lieu is getting involved says a lot. If Levin or one of his staffers started this, Levin is going to seriously regret it before much longer. Lieu has a lot of pull both with voters and within the CA Democratic Party.
Yarrow
@dm: If they’re all setting up PACs, I hope Biden calls his the Diamond Joe PAC and shows up to events wearing aviator shades and driving a Trans Am.
efgoldman
@Ruckus:
Isn’t there a history, in this country, of some airlines being less… umm… compliant – yeah “compliant” – than others to save a few bucks?
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Bailey’s not a sockpuppet, just a whiny asshole.
I suspect him of being an annoying commenter from the past, but it was one who stormed off in a huff voluntarily, not someone who was banhammered.
Timurid
My thoughts on today, more succinctly…
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Thanks. I am tired and couldn’t remember how it all worked in California. I just glanced at the tweet but did see Lieu had commented. That has to be a good thing. I really like him. He’s fun to follow on Twitter.
Maybe it’s just a rogue person not connected to the campaign. Or Russian bot ratfucking. They know how the system works. They did a good job with the Dems in 2016.
dm
@Mnemosyne: You see, my trouble with this argument is that when I chase down these “same damned things”, I find them pretty unobjectionable, and think their damnedness is often largely in the eyes of the beholder — in the manner of the object lesson I suggested to EFGoldman.
I’ve given the example of the “Perez got booed” case a couple of times now, I’m not going to repeat it.
I would think that someone who saw what has been done to Clinton for 25 years would understand this — we just had another refresher course after the Amanapour interview, after all.
SFAW
@Ruckus:
Agree with some/much of your comment, but I think there are areas where you and I could have a “spirited debate” (in a good way, not a “fuck you!” “No, FUCK YOU!” way) over a beer or 10. But, tonight, I’m about shot, gotta be up in 4 hours.
PS: I know you would never use the F-word, as you’ve pointed out to Omnes in the hijacked thread. (To which you respond “fuckin’-A right, bubba!”, by the way.)
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@SFAW: Hitlary. the DC media’s CDS is incurable.
dm
@SFAW: “Fauxcahontas” please. I won’t say much positive about Scott Brown, but at least that was cleverish in a racist, boorish frat-boy way. Trump can’t even get that right.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Presuming it is the same face behind the nym, B’s been here intermittently for a long time; when active persistently demonstrating a penchant for threadjacking.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
I doubt seriously in part quality.
Maintenance efforts no doubt.
We are still pretty rigid as these things go. More so than some countries. I see it in the mfg end regularly. And I’ve been inside a part mfg plant in the last 60 days.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
United Airlines is sending a few “goodwill ambassadors” over to your place, to help you adjust your attitude. Might want to lock your doors.
efgoldman
@No Drought No More: Hey, look. A new Wilmerbo troll right when we were rid of the other one for the night.
Do you assholes have some kind of alert system, or something, to make sure all the blogs that think you are shitstains are covered?
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: You making up fresh lies and false interpretations for each statement isn’t technically those statements needing to be explained away. You’re creating artificial demand for those explanations
SFAW
@dm:
Yeah, I was lazy.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
Heath Mello, the guy Sanders chose to support in Oklahoma, is a pro-lifer who voted for pre-abortion “voluntary” vaginal ultrasounds (after the mandatory version was vacated by the Oklahoma Supreme Court) and a ban on abortion after 20 weeks.
I have not checked back to see if Sanders has dropped his support of Mello, but I hope he did. That was an own goal that someone on the Sanders team should have seen a mile away, but instead they had Jane tweet about people being oversensitive when Mello’s background first came out.
NotMax
OT:
Bothers me much more than it ought that Dennis Miller is guest hosting on TCM this month.
efgoldman
@dm:
I read it as sarcasm aimed at the lock her up assholes, and I don’t see anything different to change my mind. The date is when last year sometime? ennarr and his (?) buddies can interpret Applegate and me any fucking way they want. I’m not in a mood to give a shit today.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
I got a repuke email today. Wrong day to lob a shell into my bunker. The most used word in the reply I sent? You guessed it, FUCK. And yes I capitalized it 3 times in the first line of my request for them to FUCK OFF. I was nice though, I didn’t suggest that they should engulf themselves in a fire.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Yes, please explain how Mello’s support for banning abortions after 20 weeks is way more pro-choice than Hillary’s support of Roe v Wade.
Though I do love it when men carefully explain to me that the state-mandated vaginal ultrasound bill that Mello co-sponsored is supposed to be voluntary, so there’s no possible way a woman could be coerced or pressured into allowing an unnecessary medical procedure.
dm
@Kropadope: She’s not “making up lies”. Her readings are credible, from a certain point of view. That’s the curse of ambiguity in our language. Context means a lot, and we also bring a lot of context to how we read something.
@Mnemosyne:
Look, I had this same argument 17 years ago with someone who said, “Why does Al Gore keep saying these things that are so easily mis-interpreted? Don’t you think it indicates some sort of character flaw?”
And in the last thread I thought I saw you defending Hillary Clinton against the same charge that she “keeps making statements that have to get explained away”.
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
Ew. Last I heard from him, he was doing car dealership radio commercials in LA. Seriously.
Shalimar
@Mnemosyne: Bailey is definitely a concern troll from last year. Probably never been banned because he is careful not to cross a line. But his style is always the same, complain about Dem messaging and tell everyone they are making a big mistake saying X was a good thing, then absorb lots of attacks.
efgoldman
@NotMax:
And this is a surprise, why, exactly?
People are some combination of scared shitless and pissed off enough to take a 2×4 to somebody. Then some asshole troll parachutes in and tells us we’re doin itt rronggggg. Last I checked, there aren’t a lot of Dalai Lamas or Ghandis hanging around here. I know for fucking sure I’m not.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
I will be honest with you — this Mello thing has really, really pissed me off. I know it’s just a mayoral race, but the guy is a pretty extreme pro-lifer.
This isn’t a speech on entrepreneurship to Goldman Sachs. This is Sanders declaring that he’s going to show us a new direction for the Democratic Party, and then championing a pro-life candidate. For me and millions of Democratic women like me, that’s a huge problem. If he has not backed off backing Mello, it’s a potentially insurmountable problem for a lot of Democrats, but I will admit I don’t know if Sanders has backed off.
dm
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, Mello (Omaha, Nebraska, not Oklahoma) is one of the reasons I said I don’t agree with Sanders’ priorities. You have to wonder what else is going on for that endorsement. Who’s the opposition? What other issues are involved? At least Mello claims to have seen the error of his ways, though I with-hold judgment. And, at least “mayor of Omaha” probably can’t do much in the way of restricting abortions (though, of course, this is no doubt a stepping stone to other offices).
mapaghimagsik
@Yarrow: Lieu’s twitter feed is great. I’m not in Issa’s district, but used to be. He was a smarmy creep then, but sure knew how to play San Diego olds.
I’m glad Hillary is back in the fight. I hope they all are. All this concern trolling about making money when not paying taxes is ‘smart’. Jesus so many folks can’t see how they are being played.
I think the most important question for any of these primary candidates is if they will support their opponent, and carefully watch just how they wage their fight. But I’ve been wondering if there wouldn’t be grifters coming in to cash in on the resistance wave. But so far, I’ve really liked a lot of the people who have stepped up.
efgoldman
@Mnemosyne:
Whatever team he has, I think he doesn’t listen to them very much.
Adam L Silverman
@Timurid: I’m getting ready to rack out after a very busy ten day and I’m sore as all from the gym, so I’m going to try to answer this quickly and, hopefully coherently.
First, the last thing you want is a color revolution. Every single one of those either failed outright or stalled and failed as a result or was pushed back and reversed.
I don’t think we’re at the Rubicon yet, let alone crossing it. In a lot of ways today was just the 56th or 57th time the House of Representative, under the GOP majority, has voted to repeal the ACA. It still has to make it through the Senate, which is itself uncertain. And if it does it may not survive reconciliation with the House. And, even if it does and gets signed, both NY AG Schneiderman and MA AG Healy have already stated they’ll fight it in the courts. So even if this becomes law, that itself is a long and uncertain road, and should it be traversed it will be fought in the courts and we can watch movement conservatives and Republicans freak out about states’ rights with the shoe on the other foot.
And all of this is going to take a long time. Remember the Senate, as well as the House, is now on an 11 day work in the home district/state recess. When they come back they’re in session for only about ten days before going out on Summer recess in order to begin campaigning for 2018. The Senate can’t adjourn for 1/2 an hour so members can use the restrooms in an easy and efficient manner, they’re not going to get to this quickly. Call me cynical, but the victory party we saw this afternoon is, I think, the House GOP leadership’s recognition that they got their win (they finally passed one of these things that might actually make it into law) and the administration’s that the President can now go on and on and on and on about how Obamacare has been repealed and replaced, even though it hasn’t. And the target is now of off sad sack Reince Preibus’s back (for the time being) as he was being blamed as Speaker Ryan’s ally for screwing all this up for the President. What we saw today is the equivalent of me putting six hundred lbs on the squat bar at the gym and claiming that I’ve successfully squatted 600 lbs. Not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.
But it goes beyond that. This is Dave’s area of expertise not mine, but if I understand correctly all they’re really doing with today’s House bill is return things to the pre 2010/pre ACA status quo with a couple of fig leafs that actually don’t do much and some bits and bobs that make the pre ACA status quo worse. I think the GOP senators know that they’ve just watched the dog catch the Buick and look to them for help with what to do with it. Does that mean that the GOP majority in the Senate won’t either make this worse or make it only somewhat less worse? No, not by any stretch. But I’ve yet to see one interview with any of the GOP senators where they look at all happy about what happened today.
Pressure is going to build here. The key is to channel it into productive responses. This means voting, helping people get registered to vote, supporting candidates, leaning on party apparatusi (apparatuses?) at all levels – municipal/local, state, and Federal to ensure someone is running in each and every race in each and every election. It also means doing the small things of looking out for those that need it, showing small amounts of kindness (like cutting each other a bit of slack and dialing things back a notch or two in the comments…), and making sure that there is a political price to pay for those that voted for this. None of this is easy, none of it is particularly glamorous, but it is necessary.
As for various forms of self help. I think we’re a fair ways from the need to go from non-violent self help to either individual or collective violent self help. And I hope we never get there. Though hope is not a strategy. I’ve written here before that things are going to get bad for a while. For some more than others. And people who do not deserve to be are going to get hurt. What we’re seeing isn’t state terror. We’re seeing something else. It is certainly kleptocracy. It is certainly an attempt at oligarchy. It is certainly revanchist. And I think it is likely kakistocracy. But it is not yet despotism or tyranny. And if we all do our parts it won’t become despotism and tyranny. Though it will take a lot of work to set things right.
There has never been a period of progress in the US that was not met with a reactionary attempt at reversal. There is almost a Newtonian physics to American civic life and politics: each progressive action is met with an equal and opposite reactionary action. We are right now living through one of those periods.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: I don’t know why you’re always demanding I support points of view I don’t hold. But I thought a compromised Dem is always supposed to be better than a Republican. Or does that not count when Sanders is involved?
@dm: The thing is her readings often aren’t credible. They’re always severely exaggerated at best. Often they take several leaps that have no basis in the original quote.
jacy
@Shalimar:
The thing I hate about he/she/it, is they always show up when people are hurting and emotions are high, and then engages in pointless arguments just to stir the same old shit up. They never comment at any other time. In my book, that makes them an emotional vampire. Not a ban-able offense, but still sucks. That’s why I don’t reply to that type, even though what I’d like to tell them is to go fuck themselves before they find a fire to die in.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
I’m going to use the dreaded O word: optics. When many lifelong Democrats are already worried that Sanders wants to discard women’s issues and minority issues, supporting someone who’s as extreme a pro-lifer as Mello was tone-deaf, at an absolute minimum. And that worries me.
(And I missed the edit window but, yes, you are correct — I keep thinking “Tulsa, Oklahoma” instead of Omaha, Nebraska. D’oh!)
Sean
@Mike J: the rant is not artfully worded but he is basically saying to certain factions of the right: if she is such a criminal than prosecute and don’t just use her name as a lazy counterpoint to Trump corruption. The fact that they can’t speaks volumes. I think some people are misreading his post.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
No, it doesn’t count when a pro-lifer who wants to ban abortion after 20 weeks is involved.
If Mello was someone who co-sponsored a bill to prevent transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice, would that be fine with you as long as Sanders endorsed him?
dm
@Mnemosyne: I saw your back-and-forth about it the other day.
He sponsored some legislation we don’t like, but claims to have mended his ways — is it unfair to say that he has appeared to have embraced the Tim Kaine approach to being anti-abortion? He’s made promises about Planned Parenthood, as well as exaggerated his affinity for them.
I suppose I should check to see who his opponent is — what’s the purpose of an endorsement at all? Hope for one of Nebraska’s electoral votes (Nebraska, like Maine, assigns electors by congressional district, and that district has given an elector to Democrats in the past)?
Quinerly
Total OT but we need a bright spot in the day and chuckle: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/lewandowski-leaves-lobbying-firm-amid-accusations-selling-white-house-access
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
It’s almost as if it was baked in from the get go. People tired of being told what to do from thousands of miles away with no input. And so they revolted. And instilled an idea that we won’t all agree on things so we need an adversarial system. Which is of course exactly what we got. It’s easy to forget that there was a built in give and take system as well, and that’s been taken out, which makes an adversarial system a lot more so.
mapaghimagsik
@jacy: Well, if everyone was nice and stable and comfy, they’d laugh at their sorry ass. Trolls hit at moments of weakness to get people to react when normally they wouldn’t.
So fuck them with a dry stick. I could give two shits about them.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: Neither of those things are fine with me. But I know nothing of the man’s opponent. Supporting a candidate is not the same as supporting all their positions. A point you have made endlessly to the straw effigy you raised of me.
I bet your opinion would be way different if the bad policy in question was arbitrarily murdering tens of thousands of swarthy foreigners and literally any other Democrat were campaigning with him.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
He’s been more extreme in his positions than Tim Kaine was but, yes, he seems to be using Kaine as his model for trying to soften his image.
Those sponsorships are what’s killing him. If he had been just another legislator voting for the bill, he might have been able to play it off.
I actually have some tolerance for pro-life Democrats who put their emphasis on pre-natal care and healthcare access while saying they’re personally opposed to abortion. If needed, I could probably make excuses for someone who voted for a parental notification or waiting period bill.
But both an ultrasound bill AND a 20-week ban bill? As a sponsor? Get the fuq out of here.
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks for the response.
If nothing else, this thread shows us how scary a violent uprising would be. Imagine Berniebros vs. Hillbots once everyone is heavily armed and has lost any reservations about killing. I’m certainly not looking forward to or planning for violence, but others in more desperate… and deadly… circumstances might think differently.
I’m going to disagree with you on one thing and say that any government policy that causes an extra 20-40,000 deaths yearly of innocents for the purpose of enriching oligarchs and/or punishing “bad people” qualifies as “state terror.” Although to be fair, where we stand in the process we’re only at “attempted state terror” for the moment.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Probably, because I am a woman and know women who have had abortions. Sanders supporting a pro-life candidate is a very personal affront to many Democratic women in a way that supporting a war in Iraq is not.
If Sanders was supporting a candidate who co-sponsored racist legislation, you would see a similar outcry from minority Democrats. Would you also tell them that we all have to look at the big picture before deciding whether or not to support a racist candidate?
dm
@Kropadope:
I have not observed this, really — not such that I couldn’t understand the leaps, certainly. I have observed people having violent disagreements over readings of ambiguous texts, usually substituting their own context for any context provided in the text. A little charity …..
… well, would probably make things boring.
But I can’t help but think that the only way to actually win an argument around here is to elect members of the Blue Team (Democrats and other Progressives), not sturm and drang in a blog forum.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: You mean a racist policy like the one I described above? Yeah, killing faraway strangers by the thousands isn’t nearly as reprehensible as making a health procedure unnecessarily, horribly, invasive. Still I think you’re perpetuating a double standard.
Are Iraqis not people to you?
jacy
@mapaghimagsik:
Exactly. That’s why I bite my tongue with people like that. I won’t slag somebody else for engaging, but I’m not going to. They get off on upsetting other people so I say let them starve.
Doug R
@No Drought No More: Please don’t stink up this thread with your tired holier than than sandbagging hackery
Yarrow
@jacy: How are you doing? I’m beat after today. No idea what the future is going to look like. Sending positive thoughts in your direction.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Yes, if I preferred Hillary over Sanders, that means I don’t think Iraqis are people. You sure have me pegged. I must have cheered the Iraq War on from day one since I don’t think Iraqis are people.
But, hey, thanks for dismissing the entire project of women’s rights and our struggle for bodily integrity as no big deal compared to being a pacifist. I always love it when men tell me I should shut up about my rights because women in Saudi Arabia have it worse than I do.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Is it possible that he’s trying to piss people off? He sure seems to be doing a bang up job even if he isn’t.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
Well, we have his acolyte Kropadope here accusing me of thinking Iraqis aren’t people because I’m pro-choice, so draw your own conclusion, I guess.
efgoldman
@Kropadope:
It doesn’t count when a woman’s right to basic health care is compromised by a candidate, and your hero Wilmer endorses the guy anmyway.
dm
@Mnemosyne:
That is a good point. But it appears he didn’t sponsor those bills:
This article from The Nation says that the Wall Street Journal “falsely claimed” that Mello had sponsored those bills.
However (all the following block-quotes are from The Nation article linked above):
The article goes on to say (later) that the story behind this was complicated — it was a compromise bill:
The article says his early legislative career was “conventionall pro-life”, but that later he evolved on the issue.
And, further,
(The article also draws invidious comparisons with Kaine — but read to the end! there’s a correction about that!, talks about local perspectives vs national organizations like NARAL.)
Opponent (the incumbent) is your basic Republican. Apparently generic enough that not even the Nation found anything particularly bad to say about her besides a broken promise to repeal a restaurant tax.
The story started with the Wall Street Journal eh? (Was repeated by the Washington Post.)
Anyway, I don’t think it’s quite as cut-and-dried as it has been made out to be.
John Revolta
@Mnemosyne: @dm: Mello’s opponent is the incumbent mayor Jean Strothart, a Republican. She countered the Bernie move by bringing in SCOTT FUCKING WALKER to stump for her. And yet, I think she’s doing a good job as Mayor. And Mello just impresses me as a smarmy opportunist. I live in Omaha, and I’m fucked if I know what I’m going to do on Tuesday.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I gave up on this one long ago. Never seems to make an argument in anything like good faith. For example……
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: You’re the one that keeps talking about these things in maximalist terms. I voted for the candidate who pushed racist foreign wars because her opponent was worse. Do you know anything about mello’s opponent’s position on abortion. I doubt it’s any better than mello’s, given likely partisan affiliation. Yeah, theyre all shitty policies. They’re the available candidates. Are u suggesting people should vote for a candidate who’s better on abortion, split the vote, and wind up with a mayor who wants to ban abortion and close PP? If so, I’ll gladly support your right to do so. But be honest about it.
You can’t handle a taste of your own medicine. Perfect. You’re a flaming fucking hypocrite. You’re purity is better than everyone else’s.
efgoldman
@Kropadope:
Oh, so THIS stand and past action is OK. and THAT one is abhorrent and would cost him your vote.
Sorry, Charlie, that’s not the way it works. I don’t think so, Mnem doesn’t think so, and my wife, daughter and granddaughter don’t think so.
Ruckus
@John Revolta:
That’s rock and hard spot territory there.
jacy
@Yarrow:
I’m okay. Didn’t get much work done. I’ll be better tomorrow. It gets tiring fighting the same fights, and sometimes I just feel swallowed up. Like why doesn’t shit ever get any easier? But tomorrow is another day. I’ll saddle back up and keep going. :)
dm
@John Revolta: Scott Walker vs smarmy opportunist, that is a toughy.
On the other hand, Scott Walkier is a smarmy opportunist….
….and all reports were that Sanders was a decent mayor of Burlington….
so maybe it balances out?
Shalimar
@jacy: I feel the same way. Never here except to mess with people. He obviously feeds on people fighting back and paying attention.
FWIW, Bailey self-identified as male last year. That is what stuck it in my mind, because I had been thinking of Bailey as a female first name based on WKRP in Cincinnati before seeing that.
efgoldman
@Kropadope:
You are being deliberately obtuse, which is your way. Any woman who looks at this klown and sees someone she can and should support, is probably a bible banging RWNJ hypocrite. It and killing a bunch of brown people are not mutually exclusive things to hate. It’s not a fucking contest “well Mello would only inconvenience a few thousand people a year, and they’re only women, but that (mythical) candidate over yonder wants to go kill thousands of brown people.”
It isn’t binary. In this case it’s a specific position abhorrent to millions of Democratic women and the people who love them. Setting up a false and mythical dichotomy is just a big fucking fuck you to half (and the half that does most of the work) of the party.
dm
@efgoldman: It appears you are misinformed about Mello? There were a number of non-RWNJ women quoted above at 113.
Congratulations! You’ve been ratfucked! I hope you enjoyed it, at least.
efgoldman
@Shalimar:
Or a dog’s name
Mnemosyne
@dm:
I can’t do pull quotes on the iPad, but the reporter at the Nation never talked to Planned Parenthood Voters of Nebraska, but HuffPo did, and they had a rather different perspective (it’s towards the bottom of the story).
Again, the 20-week ban was my actual bridge too far. I saw towards the bottom of the Nation article that they had corrected their incorrect claim that Tim Kaine voted for a 20-week abortion ban when he actually voted against it.
Kropadope
@efgoldman: Not at all. I’m saying Mnemosyne is being hypocritical in demanding people overlook their concerns with politicians she likes and demanding we just support Democrats, then turning around and criticising someone else for supporting a compromised Dem.
I see the merit in either point of view. Sure, reject a candidate whom you see as wrong on an issue important to you, but respect other people’s right to do the same. Or just support the party, fine. But pick one.
But she has been endlessly sanctimonious about the need to just support the Dem candidate. Now the person she spent the most time criticizing for *supposedly not doing so is clearly doing just that and it’s still a problem. I’m not defending mello or his abortion position, I’m trying to hold a smug asshole to a standard of consistency.
The fact that the policy she’s most willing to overlook is the one that causes, by a wide margin, the most human suffering just adds an extra layer of gross.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
I’m also talking about things that are in the actual Democratic Party platform. Abortion rights and women’s rights are part of the official party platform. Pacifism is not. If pacifism does someday become an official stance of the Democratic Party, then we can talk more about what to do about non-pacifist Democrats.
You are saying I should discard an official stance of the Democratic Party when evaluating Democratic Party candidates, and adopt your personal moral stance instead. I am willing to also take your stance into consideration when making candidate decisions, but not at the cost of discarding important parts of the Democratic Party’s platform.
dm
@Mnemosyne: Thanks, I knew I’d seen more discussion of Planned Parenthood somewhere. And yes, block-quotes on the iPad are a pain.
Their perspective doesn’t seem so different to me:
I assume the anti-choice legislation they refer to him introducing is the compromise bill that The Nation described.
The article also talked about how Mello’s claimed to have voted with Planned Parenthood 100% of the time “recently” did not mean he’d gotten a 100% rating from them, as had been reported in the press and elsewhere. And they hadn’t endorsed him.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Texas now has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world thanks to its legislators’ insane war on Planned Parenthood.
I’m sorry you don’t find that as disgusting as I do.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
You may need to get a little better at reading between the lines of a press release ?:
Basically, they’re saying that Mello claims in public that he supports Planned Parenthood but has never actually, like, talked to them or voted with them. They don’t want to reject him outright because a politician is a politician, but it sounds like they’re not holding their breath waiting for him to come around anytime soon.
jacy
@Kropadope:
The start of this whole mess, if I recall correctly, was that Sanders wasn’t sure that Ossoff was a “true progressive,” while full-throatedly endorsing Mello. Sanders, fairly, I think, has engendered the feeling that he’s willing to put women’s concerns on the back burner. That may not be what’s in his heart, but there was a definitely an air of misogyny about a substantial segment of his supporters that he didn’t do anything to dispel. When you put those two things together, women who care about bodily autonomy and reproductive rights are going to get their radar pinged by something like this and speak out. Do I care more about women’s bodies than I do about foreign policy– YEP. Because I’m a woman of a certain age and I know firsthand about what this feels like. Doesn’t mean foreign policy isn’t important to me, but I’m going to care more about issues that I have firsthand knowledge of. It’s personal.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne:
Where would we be without democrats to tell us what to believe?
No, I’m saying respect other people’s moral stances if you are going to make similar ones. Oh, and stop putting words in my mouth. Still.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
But that’s my point. Being pro-choice is not just a moral stance. It’s also a political stance that is written into the platform of the political party I support. If it is ever removed from that platform, I will leave the party.
I choose to support Democratic Party candidates based on the Democratic Party platform. That’s my baseline. If a candidate who wants to run as a Democrat doesn’t meet that baseline, either they have a really good explanation, or I don’t vote for them.
Sanders ran to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for president. Heath Mello is running to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for mayor. I don’t think it’s out of bounds for me to ask those candidates to adhere to the Democratic Party’s platform as a baseline.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: I find it absolutely disgusting. Appalling, even. People should have absolute control over their own family planning and proper support to carry babies to term healthily, if they choose. Calling you a hypocrite for dismissing people’s moral objections to candidates while having your own of the same doesn’t mean I disagree with your objection to the candidate. It means I think you need some fucking empathy.
@jacy: Dismissing the death and displacement of millions of people as just “foreign policy” is disgusting. They’re people, not policy.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Also, a question for you: would you have voted for Joe Biden?
John Revolta
@dm: Thanks for that article. Very interesting…..Ricketts, our wingnut Gov, was also at the rally with Walker. Seems like Mello has got under his skin a couple of times in the past. Anyway, I’ve got some more reading to do I guess!
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
I hope you realize you’re making a whole lot of false assumptions about my Iraq War stance.
dm
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, I saw that bit. Doesn’t seem particularly damning to me. I’m sure there are a lot of people he hadn’t talked to as of 21 April, when that article was published.
He’s made public, explicit promises that seem consistent with your wishes and the Democratic Party platform, so there’s that. And, “Over the course of Heath Mello’s campaign for Omaha Mayor he has said loud and clear he supports Planned Parenthood and wants to protect the work we do.”
@jacy:
I am only addressing this little bit — I agree with the rest of your post that I’m quoting — I agree that Sanders’ priorities aren’t right.
And I apologize for pulling this quote out of your post. It’s just that this was another example of the sort of thing I’m talking about when I dissected the “Perez got booed” faux-controversy.
This seems like another of those cases where the reading of Sanders’ words seemed particularly tendentious to me.
a) Sanders said, when pressed by reporters, “I don’t know. Some Democrats are Progressive, some aren’t”
b) Republicans had already been smearing Ossoff as a “Sanders-style Democrat” in their advertising, so it’s not clear a Sanders endorsement as a “Progressive” would help Ossoff (maybe discouraging donors and volunteers) more than it hurt him with actual voters in a 51%-Trump-supporting district.
c) Sanders has said (in another context): (paraphrasing) “To expect you can run same sort of candidate in Mississippi as you can in San Francisco seems silly”
d) Sanders did, in fact, endorse Ossoff a few days later.
Yes, I can see how, if Clinton had said something like that, the Berniebros would have been furious about a nothingburger, as they are wont to do, and I think they’d have been wrong for the same reason I think Clinton supporters are wrong when they get upset at Sanders saying stuff like that.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: I haven’t made any assumptions about your Iraq War position. My argument has nothing to do with that. My problem is that you are declaring yourself the sole Arbiter on which bad policies it’s okay to overlook when voting for a candidate. This has nothing to do with any policy issues whatsoever. It has to do with your complete lack of respect for opinions you don’t agree with.
I’m not criticizing your opinion at all, in fact I agree with it. However, due to your history of distorting my opinion and at times even disparaging my right to have one, I feel the need to point out the double standard.
ETA: And I expect I would be voted for biden, just as I voted for Clinton. The only person I voted against in a general election due to the iraq war vote was John Kerry.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Yes, that’s why you asked me “Are Iraqis not people to you?” Because you were not making assumptions about my stand on the Iraq War.
But I don’t think you quite realize that we’re not making the same argument. I am pointing out that being pro-choice is not just a moral choice, it’s a political stance of the Democratic Party, and it’s a stance I feel it’s fair for me to expect Democratic Party candidates to adhere to, unless they have a good explanation.
Right now, being a pacifist is solely a moral stance, not a political one, because as far as I know, no major political party has pacifism as one of its planks (maybe the Greens? I don’t actually know). You can absolutely choose which candidates to support based on your moral beliefs, just like someone could have chosen not to vote for Bill Clinton because he was an admitted adulterer. What you can’t do is mix that up with a political stance and demand that representatives of a specific political party all conform to your moral stance.
I do think that part of the problem we have in the Democratic Party right now is that pacifists on the left who made common cause with Democrats during the Bush years can’t get over the fact that most Democrats who opposed the Iraq War opposed it because it was a stupid war, not because Democrats were anti-war.
You don’t have to like the fact that most of the viable candidates we have left on the Democratic side voted for the Iraq War, but that’s what we’re stuck with. In November, pacifists had a choice of voting between someone who voted in 2002 to authorize military action in Iraq and later regretted it, and someone who appeared to be a blank slate. Now we know that the “blank slate” candidate is far, far worse specifically about war than the person who vocally regretted her stance ever was. We’re already seeing sickening massacres of civilians in Syria and threats of a nuclear exchange with North Korea, and we’re barely 100 days in.
I do understand that it disgusts you to have to choose between a bad candidate and a worse candidate on your most important moral issue, but I think it should be obvious now that one party is infinitely worse than the other, and Hillary’s vote 15 years ago was less important this year than Trump’s being a genuine goddamned fascist.
TenguPhule
Can’t we all just get along on the agreed position that Republicans are shit and need to get fucked?
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Argh. I’m locked out of editing my comment, but here’s an ETA:
And I’m getting this hectoring tone at the end because I STILL see pacifists online (not you) desperately clinging to their illusion that as bad as Trump is, Hillary would have been worse. This is a VERY DANGEROUS illusion that is going to bite all of us in the ass if we’re not careful.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Going to? There’s teeth marks in all our asses right now.
Aimai
@No Drought No More: foadiaf.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: A couple things. I’m not a pacifist. I believe “no stupid wars” is the right standard. One that, as far as I can determine, hasn’t been met in my lifetime. But it is the right one.
Now as far as my question as to whether you see Iraqis as people, it may not have been entirely fair at the time. It doesn’t, however, really say anything about your stance on the war. But then a pattern of posts emerged where I was seeing statements like these:
So you conflate my upset that millions of people are being killed and displaced with pacifism. Even though this is the fruit of a stupid war that I didn’t support, and you are now strongly implying you didn’t either. Then you say that since this straw pacifism isn’t part of the platform, it doesn’t merit the same consideration that choice-related issues do. You even threw in race and LGBT issues. Because God forbid we voted for a candidate who didn’t support gay marriage in 2012…or one who did in 2008. But this whole line of thought treats war ravaged people as an abstraction, less worth defending than a party platform, in just such a way that makes your commitment to equitable treatment for all races questionable.
Now I don’t really think you think of Iraqis or the various other people hurt by out policies in the region as less than human. I just said it as an emotional response to things like this:
For the record, I think the first statement is abject nonsense. The second ignores the history of the bill which, to my understanding, didn’t originally make the procedure voluntary. I never suggested otherwise at any time. Yet you continue to ascribe this sort of position to me.
Despite the fact that my insinuation about you has far more textual support, I still don’t believe it’s true. What I really think is that you’re fishing for a reason why your purity is better than mine, why you’re a better Democrat (even though I vote for them without their consistent backing on several of my most important issues and you say you wouldn’t), and how you and your fellow white Liberal paternalists know best(I can hold Democrats to my standards, but you can’t hold them to yours). And you dug yourself into a weird, unintended little xenophobic hole in the process.
Really I should just learn not to feed you trolls.
different-church-lady
@SFAW: That and the inappropriate singing of old Motown* hits dooms us for 2018.
(*not meant to be a factual record label)
SFAW
@Ruckus:
Baby steps.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Uh-huh. You may want to read that link about Texas again and see which women, exactly, are most likely to die in or shortly after childbirth there right now.
I do care more about my fellow Americans than I do about people overseas, partly because I can do more for my fellow Americans. But, hey, if you think it’s racist for me to care more about African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Latin@-Americans than people overseas, I’m good with that.
Here, I’ll even make it worse: I care more about Muslim-Americans than about worldwide Muslims. Because I’m just a racist, xenophobic asshole like that.
burnspbesq
@Mike J:
No, fuck you and everyone else who can’t seem to figure out that WINNING MATTERS. Applegate is the ONLY Dem with a realistic chance of winning that district.