Potentially dangerous, yes — but not serious.
Sanders campaign puts out Marianne Williamson, anti-vaxxer in the midst of a global epidemic, as their CNN surrogate to counter the Biden unity rally.
— Ben LaBolt (@BenLaBolt) March 3, 2020
This was not a last-minute “response” rally; it was scheduled in advance of the Biden/Buttigieg/Klobuchar lovefest tonight:
If you’re in or near Los Angeles, join me Monday night for a Get Out the Vote event for Bernie. 7 to 9 PM at the Montalban Theatre, 1615 Vine Street in Hollywood. Bring your friends!https://t.co/yIcXjsUqBs pic.twitter.com/qiwc9vkF1g
— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) March 1, 2020
I checked the ‘donate’ link; the funds go to Bernie, through Williamson’s account — I assume she takes a percentage, but I’m a cynic that way. But the rally is credited as “Featuring Spiritual Teacher and Author Marianne Williamson and Bernie’s Daughter Heather Titus, Director of Sedona Yoga Festival,” so I guess it’s a joint grift.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota:
Speaking of coronavirus, Ilhan Omar is asking everyone at this Bernie rally to hold hands
— Molly Hensley-Clancy (@mollyhc) March 3, 2020
Attract a clown, expect a circus…
Yikes!
Here's Michael Moore dismissing Joe Biden's big primary win by saying "South Carolina is not representative of the United States" pic.twitter.com/r5ONvhEQVe
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) March 3, 2020
Yikes at Bernie claiming that he won working class voters in South Carolina. The only way that is true is if he only counts white people. This is what Trump does with polling- only citing white voters.
— Ben Tribbett (@notlarrysabato) March 2, 2020
The moderate wing of the Democratic Party is consolidating- but make no mistake the @BernieSanders campaign knew it was coming. This is how Sanders responsed to @elizacollins1 question on the topic:
“Why should I be surprised that establishment politicians are coming together?” pic.twitter.com/W0NbF03Mwn— Ryan Nobles (@ryanobles) March 2, 2020
Sanders and his aides have made it exceedingly clear that they won't be moderating their message to appeal to such voters. "What would that look like," @AriRabinHavt told reporters today. "Bernie Sanders has had the same values for his entire career and he isn't changing that." https://t.co/l1T1QUrcqU
— Ruby Cramer (@rubycramer) March 3, 2020
It is totally unfair that Bernie Sanders only had **checks Wikipedia** 30 years to make inroads with his Congressional colleagues. pic.twitter.com/pZi16OJK5x
— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) March 3, 2020
Leftists: All the other candidates are CIA imperialists, corporate shills, they want you DEAD. Some of the truly worst people. They make ME PHYSICALLY SICK. Alt-fascists!
Also Leftists: WTF the other candidates are endorsing not-Bernie!?!?
— AdotSad (@AdotSad) March 3, 2020
genuinely can’t believe that “shut the fuck up and endorse my candidate you snake” hasn’t worked yet, maybe if people are more aggressive about it????
— dan solomon (@dansolomon) March 2, 2020
So old, I remember when David Sirota "single-handedly knocked Joe Biden out of the race" by posting (false & misleading) tweets about him. Imagine actually believing that. https://t.co/C0ahoOzdwS
— Centrism Fan Acct ?? (@Wilson__Valdez) March 2, 2020
Here is my answer. pic.twitter.com/41lvB0m0VU
— Luka Doncic stan account (@gdigitalzsmooth) March 3, 2020
Poe Larity
Socalism comes in many forms
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m guessing their response would be something along the lines of “Even trump can see what the Corporate Dems are up to!”
Brachiator
This is where Sanders and his supporters show why Bernie should best be eliminated from contention. He refuses to learn from past mistakes. Instead of saying that he will try harder and do better, he resorts to crazy Trumpian illogical thinking to support a dubious proposition and insult voters he should be trying to cultivate.
joel hanes
Vote your heart in the primary.
You know what to do in the general.
And may God have mercy on us all.
Just Some Fuckhead
Thanks for the new thread, Anne Laurie. Wow, those folks downstairs. Nothing energizes Balloon-Juice like the opportunity to engage in Obama apologia.
Cacti
@Just Some Fuckhead: Go jump up your own ass.
Anne Laurie
@Just Some Fuckhead: Haven’t read the comments in the last post — but should I be saying “Welcome back, JSF?”
Kraux Pas
Nothing to apologize for there.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Anne Laurie: I missed you, too. Little surprised to see so many of the “old folks”. The cream rises to the top, I guess. And no, I’ll be vanishing mercifully.
MisterForkbeard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have been seeing this response for weeks.
Morzer
Every revolution must have its Marianne, although the Ms. WitchyWitchy WooWoo cosplay edition is one of the less convincing efforts from the costume department.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Anne Laurie: I’d be willing to consider a commissioned role. Maybe me and Cacti could do a regular Crossfire segment or something.
Morzer
@Brachiator: Bernie Sanders: tribune of the Insufficiently Silent Generation
Yutsano
@Just Some Fuckhead: Bring ahi for Steve and dog treats. Those critters get hungry at chéz Cole.
Aussie Sheila
@Just Some Fuckhead:
No need to engage in Obama apologia. It wasn’t his fault that US liberals thought they could go home once has was elected. Post racism and all that bs. But this time round, if old unca joe wins, there will be no excuse for not engaging in tried and true parliamentary tactics, including threats of deselection and caucus revolts.
The monarch who is elected, is still elected. Hold your leaders to account. I am no fan of the parade of defenstrated leaders in the Oz system as such, but it acts as a salutary lesson to leaders that stray too far from their base. That’s what happened to Rudd in 2010, and to Turnbull in 2019. Less sentimentality and more ‘business’ might produce better results for the us centre left.
Mnemosyne
I had to double-check but, yeah, the Montalbán is not a huge venue. Under 950 seats. It was probably all they could get at short notice, but yikes.
Anne Laurie
@Just Some Fuckhead: Not if ‘Medea’ is one of your alters, thanks!
(Started reading prior post comments from the bottom, but I need to go work on the nightly coronavirus update now.)
Mnemosyne
@Aussie Sheila:
Okay, I’ve been fairly quiet, but if you think that the center-left is our problem in the US, you have REALLY been reading the wrong news sources. And I don’t think you get the nuances between our systems. Hint: votes of no confidence don’t exist. In some states, you can’t recall an elected official at all, even if they’re convicted of an actual crime. You’re stuck with them for four years or until the next election, whichever comes first, which is why several US congressmen have served part of their terms from jail. And one or two of them got re-elected even after that.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mnemosyne: Good on you for even understanding that shit.
Villago Delenda Est
Wilmer is a sack of shit. He’s as narcissistic as Donald, and his follower are cultists.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer: Heh.
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est: Trump has been squawking to all points that the coronavirus is no reason not to hold yet another of his weekly campaign rallies. Given that older men are the most at-risk demographic, well, the more the merrier, say I. Let ’em all hold hands and wheeze on each other. Let’s see how the MAGA/anti-vaxxer brigade do in a world where Mike “Plague Rat” Pence is leading the combined medical knowledge of Donnie, JarJar and Wanka to battle.
opiejeanne
@Morzer: Trump’s been telling his MAGAts that they are perfectly safe from the virus at his rallies. If they believe that shit, then it’s on them.
Before this got so serious here I had a little fantasy that a bunch of Democrats should go to a Trump rally and cough loudly as they move through the crowd, making sure to crowd up behind a group of them and cough in their general direction. Now I think we can just watch what happens to them without any of that.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The kewl kids get FP gigs these days. #jussayinzall
NotMax
@Yutsano
Oh my star and garters. Whence my vial of smelling salts?
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: I’ll never get confused for one of the cool kids. On the other hand, I am sweet motherfuckin’ Internet Jesus. /Ric Flair whoop
Aussie Sheila
@Mnemosyne:
Hi there. I know the difference between the semi monarchical systems of the us and parliamentary democracies, but thank you anyway. Nothing stops us activists from threatening and carrying out preselection challenges to leaders who don’t perform. That is the issue. There are plenty of a’ holes who simply don’t perform. Whether from the right or left. The issue seems to be that the us centre left can’t be bothered to to challenge a’holes who don’t perform, while your political opponents don’t have any compunction in shivving their leaders that don’t deliver. What was the name of that republican leader that the base defenestrated in 2010? ?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Villago Delenda Est: I voted for that guy in the 2016 primary. Fuck that guy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Just Some Fuckhead: well, that’s illuminating
Chetan Murthy
@Aussie Sheila:
Uh, we -do-, they’re called “primary challenges”, and they netted us AOC, Ayanna Pressley, and probably a few others whose names I don’t know. Notwithstanding, Mnem’s right, that it’s tough to turf out elected officials before the next election. Really, really tough. And it’s not just the Prez: she alluded to a number of lower-ranking officials who’ve managed to hang on after being indicted and even convincted. Heck, re-elected even. I mean, who would have thought Collins, or Hunter, would have hung on so long?
WaterGirl
@Just Some Fuckhead: Hey, JSF. Long time, no see.
Mnemosyne
@Aussie Sheila:
Uh, there was no Republican who got defenestrated in 2010. What happened was that the Democrats got wiped out in a wave election after getting Obamacare passed, and they were not able to re-gain that majority until 2018. The Republicans were in full control of Congress for 8 years and were able to get up to all kinds of fuckery. But, sure, it was all the center-left’s fault. ?
Just Some Fuckhead
@WaterGirl: Hey!
Morzer
@opiejeanne: Older men and people with compromised immune systems are the preferred victims of coronavirus. If the MAGA/HeartBerners want to hold hands and rant in their usual spittle-flcked way, who am I to stop them from exercising their freedom to self-immolate before the gibbering Beast of their personal Apocalypse? That’s pretty much how the coronavirus got going in South Korea – via a cult called Shincheonji who specialize in sitting in rows close to each other and chanting for hours on end.
WaterGirl
@Just Some Fuckhead: So do you do a Rip Van Winkle kind of thing during your (seemingly years-long) periods away from Balloon Juice?
Or do you just get up one day and say to yourself, “I wonder what they’re arguing about on BJ today?”
Morzer
@AskAKorean
Felanius Kootea
@Mnemosyne: Also don’t know if Australia has gerrymandering, which is a huge factor in the US.
Maybe she was referring to Republican Eric Cantor’s defeat by Dave Brat in 2014? The seat now held by moderate and initially anti-Pelosi Democrat Abigail Spanberger. I don’t think a Berner would have won that district.
opiejeanne
@Morzer: Yes, I thought of that cult, but also a megachurch that is still holding services there, with almost no one in the pews, Or maybe that’s the cult’s home base, but I thought there was a regular old too-big church that was also a major site of infection.
MisterForkbeard
@Mnemosyne: I think they’re talking about Cantor, but I can’t remember if that was 2010 or what. And it’s too lat efor me to look it up. :)
Chetan Murthy
@Mnemosyne:
She might mean Cantor, who got defenestrated by Brat in the primary in 2014?
Aussie Sheila
@Mnemosyne:
My bad . It was Eric Cantor in 2012. But still, a salutary lesson no ?
Less sentimentality and more business might work for the us centre left. That’s why you get candidates that you hate, like Bernie sanders. I am no particular fan, even though his political demands make absolute sense to me, because he hasn’t been able to work sensibly with the political party he now purports to represent. However it is fair I think to put part of that down to a base of well meaning people who want to fall in love, rather than get real stuff done for people. This is not directed at anyone here in particular, but rather at the unbelievable sentimentality of the us centre left when faced with the obvious.
Morzer
@opiejeanne: Shincheonji (full name Shincheonji, Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony) claims to be a Christian church, although I would say they are very clearly more cult than church. They are the “megachurch” you are thinking of. They have a track record of extreme secrecy, paranoia, shady financial dealings and attempts to infiltrate and take over other churches. They also used to hold their own version of the Olympic games in packed (and color-coordinated!) stadiums. Not sure if the alternative Olympics are ongoing. Anyway, patient 31 was the person who really kicked the coronavirus into gear in Korea – a 61 year old woman who attended Shincheonji meetings regularly, refused to be tested twice and went to 4 Shincheonji events before finally being tracked down. She’s almost completely responsible for the city of Daegu being shut down and the transmission of the coronavirus to the rest of Korea via her fellow-cultists.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aussie Sheila:
Fixed it for ya.
Morzer
@Aussie Sheila: You might want to read up on this guy called Mitch McConnell and how the Senate works.
Morzer
A really good piece by Martin Longman on the problem of Bernie Sanders as a candidate for this Democratic party:
https://progresspond.com/2020/03/03/i-dont-enjoy-being-the-bearer-of-bad-news/
Chetan Murthy
@Aussie Sheila:
wait, wut? The American center-left isn’t Bernie’s constituency: that’s the “leftier-than-thous” as we call ’em. And for sure, sometimes they primary somebody and move the party to the left, and heck, sometimes that’s even a good thing. I mean, AOC is turning out well, isn’t she? She supports Bernie, but she’s not a nut, and she understands she’s gotta play well with her team-mates. Bernie? Not so much.
I don’t really understand what your point is. I mean, YES I also want the Dems to move much further left, and heck, at least a little more left *yesterday*. But I recognize that that’s not going to happen, when we have to beat Shitler or lose our democracy. And sure, we want there to be primary challenges, and successful ones. And that’s happening.
I was reading a good piece by Martin Longman just now: https://progresspond.com/2020/03/03/i-dont-enjoy-being-the-bearer-of-bad-news/
that I think gets it about right. I mean, like @Felanius Kootea: wrote, Brat primaried Cantor and won. But the Dem who beat Brat was Spanberger, and … she’s no leftist — far, far from it. Heck, the big surge in 2018 wasn’t of *leftists* — it was swing-districts, with center-left candidates. Remember when Pelosi was so reluctant to start impeachment? And then it became clear that the -reason- was, she was waiting for these swing-district Dems to come around and support impeachment. Which they did, when they finally realized that their necks were on the line if Shitler could pull any shenanigans he wanted regarding elections. But Pelosi had to wait for them.
Like it or not, the Democratic Party has to keep their coalition together. So as a national party, they’re not going to to go hog-wild on leftist fantasies, regardless of how much you or I might like them. It ain’t gonna happen. But that doesn’t mean that in really solid, really safe Blue districts, they won’t move left — that’s already happened, and I expect it to happen some more.
P.S. It’s still true that successfully primarying a pol from the left is hard, hard work. But you’d expect that to be the case, right? And you’d expect that unless that pol were really awful, their work-colleagues would support them. That’s why AOC is working hard to build up her ties with other Dem pols now, right? And you also wouln’t want massive churn in the population of Dem pols, b/c that would mean that the average Dem was inexperienced, which couldn’t be good, either for our Party, or for governance as a whole. [As has been pointed-out many times, term-limits merely results in handing power to lobbyists.]
Morzer
If anyone needed cheering up, Trump has just suggested using the flu vaccine to protect people against the coronavirus. How lucky we are to live in an age dominated by a very stable genius
https://twitter.com/JoshuaPotash/status/1234661401488052226
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer: Well good thing I got my flu shot, I feel so much better now. (cough, cough)
Aussie Sheila
@Morzer:
Actually I do know how it works. Better than you know how our Senate works. In fact you probably didn’t know that we have a Senate at all. Let alone that while all six states get senators based on proportional representation, Senate reps are not elected by first past the post systems. One of the things that makes Sanders part of the us sentimental left is his unwillingness to eschew the filibuster.
Warren is my favourite partly because she gets this. Junk crappy norms that favour old white men, and demand simple majority votes in a chamber that is posssibly the most undemocratic upper chamber in the so called democratic west. I get you can’t abolish it, but for ffs, make it work like a basic meeting in bum f..kistan somewhere. Make Puerto Rico and Washington states, and abolish the filibuster. That’s four Senators in the bag. Then just roll over the votes for electoral reform. Any Democratic rep that whines about norms needs to be deselected, even if the replacement is more conservative on other issues.
I am an old style lefty, but I prioritise basic democratic norms above every thing else because the working class has little else in this most reactionary time, but the right to vote, and the left has nothing more important to do than to organise the contemporary working class. Sanders’ sentimentalising of the US Senate shows he doesn’t have the political instinct that old Irish ( and often quite conservative) pols in oz had when they went after undemocratic upper houses like rats up a drain pipe.
Morzer
@Aussie Sheila: Why, pookie bear, I even know about Scott Morrison holding up a lump of coal in your parliament and how the gloriously enlightened voters of Oz rejected Bill Shorten. You don’t know the basics about American politics and yet you think you’ve got some sort of magical insight that the rest of us haven’t managed to stumble upon. Here’s a phrase for you to ponder: “Bless your heart.”
Mnemosyne
@Aussie Sheila:
Let me try and explain this to you with some fake numbers:
Let’s say that Congress has 20 people in it. 15 of them are Republicans and 5 of them are Democrats, so the Democrats keep getting outvoted on every law they want to pass.
Leftists get mad that the Democrats keep getting outvoted, so they primary the 5 Democrats and replace them. Yay! Except they keep getting outvoted because they have fewer members than the Republicans do. What they need to do is replace at least 6 Republicans with Democrats so they’ll have 11 Democrats and 9 Republicans and can get some shit done.
Eric Cantor getting replaced by someone from his own party did nothing change the balance of power. The vote didn’t change, only the person casting it.
If the Democrats were in power, we could talk about primarying Democrats we don’t like, but doing it when the Democrats are out of power is just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic because it doesn’t gain us more VOTES. We could replace every current Democratic Senator with a fiery leftist and it wouldn’t do a damn thing because the Republicans would still vote everything down.
Morzer
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
*cough cough*?
Bill, I love you dearly, but for the public good I must now shoot you and burn your corpse. Unless, that is, I can persuade you to attend as many Trump rallies as possible to repay your debt to society…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aussie Sheila: Even if Sen. Warren were elected President, she couldn’t do jack shit about the filibuster. She could ask, maybe cajole a bit, but that’s it. The filibuster is part of the Senate’s rules and the Senate makes their rules. There are a good number of Senators, Democratic Senators, that do not want to get rid of the filibuster.
As far as admitting two more states, that can’t be done by Presidential fiat either; the House and the Senate(remember the filibuster) would have to go along with that idea.
Mnemosyne
@Aussie Sheila:
Democrats can’t end the filibuster unless THEY HAVE A MAJORITY.
Do you really not know that the Democrats are the minority party in the Senate?
Morzer
@Mnemosyne: You could make a somewhat convincing case that Dave Brat was even kookier and further to the right than Eric Cantor, so his defenestration was not quite the object lesson our confused antipodean thinks it is.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer: I’m in California, Trump doesn’t do rallies here. When he comes here, it’s to get cash from his developer friends(we’re his ATM).
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead: I hear Hardball is looking for a new host….
Morzer
@Mnemosyne: You can’t expect an intergalactic statesman to care about such trivial details. No fair using those nasty old facty things!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Even if the Democrats HAD a majority in the Senate, there are enough “traditionalists” (DiFi) that want to retain the filibuster.
Morzer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Including Sanctus Wilmerus Vermonticus.
Chetan Murthy
@Aussie Sheila:
Warren’s my preferred candidate, too., btw. There was an interesting article recently about AOC. She was describing how the GrOPers have been assholes her entire life, so she’s just not afraid of them, nor nostalgic for a time when they were tractable. To her (and her cohort) they’re just the Enemy, to be beaten to a pulp and destroyed. But for older generations of pols, that’s simply not how they see things. I mean, take the senior senator from Vermont (I know, I know, I know ….) Pat Leahy. He fucking RE-institituted the “blue slip” rule after the GrOPers had abolished it during the terms of the Chimperor. I mean ….. the mind boggles. That rule allowed senators from a state to block judicial nominees who would serve in their states (or something like that). Leahy gave that weapon back to GrOPer senators, after they’d taken it away from Dems under the Chimperor. Insane. A lot of older pols remember a time of bipartisanship ….. when the parties were a lot less sorted-out and when, to be frank, racism and misogyny were bipartisan, too.
Now you may say that we should just turf those guys (and they’re almost all guys) out. And you might even be right. But that’s a recipe for intraparty civil war. What a gift at a time when the opposition party is fascists. What a gift. Change is coming, even if Bernie doesn’t want it. Just …. not as fast as you and I would like it.
P.S. FWIW, I agree with you about DC/PR, and also that we should increase the size of the House of Representatives to correct mal-apportionment due to low-pop states getting a Rep even when their populations fit handily inside a stadium in some Blue state cities.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady: I think Fuckhead might have problems with Standards and Practices.
Morzer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Well, if you could contrive to stand very close to Peter Thiel, I dare say we could overlook your recent leprous state…
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer: Yup, the Patron Saint of Burlington is among the “traditionalists”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Morzer: Nah, that’s northern CA, down here he meets with downtown LA developers at one of their homes in Beverly Hills.
different-church-lady
@?BillinGlendaleCA: So he’ll fit in seamlessly.
Morzer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Why do you have to crush my few remaining dreams, Bill?
Morzer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: A revolution that can be crushed by a filibuster isn’t much of a revolution.
different-church-lady
OH SHIT I JUST TOUCHED MY FACE AGAIN!!1!
Morzer
@different-church-lady: Think of the cognitive agonies Trump must now endure to smear that orange fecal matter on his own oozing, pasty countenance.
different-church-lady
OK, so you’re not surprised by it, you merely utterly failed to prepare for it?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@?BillinGlendaleCA: St Bernard is on record* saying he wants to retain the filibuster and says he can pass his revolution with a simple majority vote by…. (checks notes) …. holding rallies in Kentucky until Turtle gives in.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Is that related to the million young folk outside Moscow Mitch’s window?
Yeah, even if elected President, Sen. Warren could do jack shit about the filibuster.
Morzer
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
This one weird trick gave Bernie Sanders the body of a 78 year old man and enabled him to levitate the Pentagon when nobody was watching.
Aussie Sheila
@Mnemosyne:
Well that is the point of electing someone like unca joe that has long coat tails isn’t it? I know the Senate rules can’t be changed in absence of a dem majority. But they can be if you have a majority. That is the point. As to ‘antipodean’ . Yep absolutely. I also dislike the Sanders ‘stans’ ‘ and their childish anti political idiocies, but the sentimental and defensive crap from people who here who believe rightly, that tRump is an existential threat to democracy, but who deliver nothing but excuses and abuse to those who point out that there are ways to f..k over those who are your opponents, well you are part of the reason that you are faced with a candidate that makes you gag. Pity you. His methods make you mad, but you can’t and won’t find the way to get what he is doing, and learn. I don’t mean you have to like him. Far from it, but does anyone here wonder how how he got to where he has?
Magic?
Or maybe all those Walmart and and amazon workers that donate. Yes, I know, they are not the totality of the Dem base. But your problem is, that they believe that the Democrtaic party is not their base at all, as evidenced by the fact that they rarely vote. This is a problem shared by all centre left parties in the Anglo sphere and elsewhere, but is doesn’t excuse not wanting to work out how everyone could do better.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Wow, looks like a bakery in here.
Now I’m hungry.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aussie Sheila: As far as the filibuster goes, as I noted above, a Democratic majority is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to change it.
Morzer
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Welcome to the American Pie Glee Club.
Chetan Murthy
@Aussie Sheila: You cite Walmart and Amazon workers, and by this, I take it you’re referring to the parlous state of working-class Americans. Indeed, things are bad-off for them. And many of them don’t vote for Democrats. Funny enough though, there is a subset of working-class Americans who -do- vote for Dems: black Americans. You might want to think about why, esp. since overall, black Americans are vastly poorer than white Americans.
Amir Khalid
I just discovered that the made-in-China black aftermarket pickguard I bought for Queen DOES NOT FIT. Fifteen ringgit down the drain. Plus shipping. Grr.
There are none so blind as those who will not see. Wilmer’s flaws are many and painfully obvious, but Wilmeristas will not see. Harrumph.
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Re million-Wilmerista marches chéz McConnell: I’d like to ask the old coot, “Mitch shuts his window. Your move, President Sanders.”
Aussie Sheila
@Chetan Murthy:
I understand the difference between the black and white working class experience of the intersection of race and class. But do you honestly think that amazon and Walmart workers are white?
40% of the US doesn’t vote, and 60% of the working class doesn’t vote. I would be prepared to take a bet that poc make up the majority of that 60%, simply because no one cares to organise them, and they won’t/ can’t be organised by right wing dog whistles used by the right to organise own working class. By the way, where I come from, they (right wing voting working class) are called working class Tories.
Morzer
@Amir Khalid: I imagine the answer from Wilmer is going to involve a generous amount of argle-bargle shout shout revolutionary underpants gnomes.
Morzer
https://www.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/diversity-and-inclusion/our-workforce-data
Geminid
I like Warren and will vote for her in Virginia today, but the idea of ending the filibuster is one of few instances where I think she is disingenuous. I don’t see the votes. Would Angus King (I-ME) go along? Manchin (D-WV)? And while Kirsten Sinema (D-AZ) doesn’t get as much attention as Manchin-at least not for her politics- she has already said she won’t vote to end the filibuster. And moderates like my senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner would probably advise Schumer not to put it to a vote. One reason is that they have memories, and know how much more destructive Trump could have been his first two years without the filibuster. John McCains vote saved the Affordable Care Act, and while I’ve heard people deride the ACA as “half a loaf,” it’s been of real value to people with preexisting conditions. And last year Virginia put 300,000 people on Medicaid (with 3 Republican State Senator votes). That’s just one example. But we have a chance to flip upwards of 10 Senate seats just this year. And if the Democrats show good governance we’ll get to 60 Senators, even if it might take till 2024. Donald Trump and his Tea Party crank allies have just about wrecked the Republican party, and they are not through yet. It was pretty strong in Virginia 10 years ago, but now it’s a pitiful mess.
Morzer
@Geminid: I like optimism, but I don’t see 10 Senate seats that the Democrats have a real chance of flipping. I could maybe be persuaded that they might flip 4.
Barbara
@Aussie Sheila: The filibuster has been weakened by both sides. Not eliminated but weakened.
Ken
Boy, those new CDC recommendations are hardcore.
Geminid
@Morzer: ME, NC, CO and AZ are well within reach. If there is a blue wave IA, KS, GA, TX and KY can be had. I think there is a strong outsider vs.insider dynamic going on that could carry MJ Hegar and Amy McGrathe to victory in TX and KY. Cornyn and McConnell rank low in popularity. Barbara Boullier may face the odious Kris Kobach in KS. Tenth would be SC, Jaime Harrison vs Lindsay Graham.
Mnemosyne
@Aussie Sheila:
I know this argument is dead but … no one here wonders how Trump got so far. It’s racism that got him there and props him up. It’s racism that makes us restrict who is allowed to vote and forces Black Americans to prove that they’re really citizens with paperwork that many older ones don’t have because of the Jim Crow laws in place when they were born. It was racism that convinced the American left that Trump and Hillary were exactly the same, and maybe Trump wouldn’t be so bad.
Racism is our original sin (via slavery). All of our current troubles stem directly from white people on ALL sides of the political spectrum being reluctant to cede power to Black people.
So, no, I don’t wonder. I just get frustrated when people come up with all kinds of other excuses because they don’t like the real reason.
Mnemosyne
@Aussie Sheila:
No. It’s because Republicans actively make it difficult for them to vote. They require them to have a photo ID that is expensive and difficult to get. They close the nearby polling places and require voters to drive 5 or 10 miles when they may not have cars. They don’t provide enough voting machines so that it takes 4 or 6 or 8 hours of waiting to cast a vote, and most working-class people don’t have paid time off that they can use to stand in a line that long for that amount of time.
I really don’t get why this is confusing to so many people. We have a lot of non-voters because some states make it very difficult for people to vote.
J R in WV
@Chetan Murthy:
Here in WV, when the Feds get a county/municipal/state elected official on voter fraud, stealing public funds, any offense related to their official duties, they have learned that they need to put it in the plea agreement or sentencing documents that the convicted official can never seek elected or appointed service in the future.\
Not to mention county school officials getting kickbacks on school buses, repair work, etc. It’s everywhere. So if they can’t afford to go to trial and want a plea agreement, or get convicted after a fair trial, they can’t work in government ever again.