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- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Current Events Thread
My favorite outrage of the day is the current "BREAKING NEWS" that a criminal investigation has been launched into what happened with Secret Service text messages from January 6th. The same people who handwaved Clinton admittedly destroying cell phones and hard drives after a House subpoena are now outraged at the mere suggestion the Secret Service didn't maintain perfect records after a House subpoena. Weird that the House Select Committee hasn't called a single Secret Service agent who can corroborate the hearsay masqueraded as "evidence" that Trump tried to grab the wheel and force his detail to take him to the Capitol to join the riot.
Ignore the record inflation, soaring violent crime, looming recession and genuine risk of WW3. A bunch of horrible, disgusting people who are all being prosecuted and handed serious sentences rioted due to the rhetoric from the orange man that caused 1.5 million dollars in damage and delayed the certification of the election by hours. This is somehow vastly different than the millions who rioted and looted due to our rhetoric that costs over $2 Billion in damage, and shouldn't even be acknowledged.
Now excuse me while I pass a law to ensure interracial marriage isn't overturned by a Supreme Court who provided a very detailed and coherent message on why a right to abortion is fundamentally different than the privacy laws related to marriage and consensual intercourse. It doesn't matter that no other country in the world has a constitutional right to an abortion or that we can't justify the arguments of Roe or Casey. Just be outraged at the shit that doesn't affect you in anyway and ignore all the damage our policies and nonsense have caused that actually affect you in your every day life.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Current Events Thread
Now that Russia has all but ended its gas supply to Western Europe, what is the sentiment like over there? Is the average European willing to continue being harmed for Ukrainians or is the idea that harming ordinary people so western leaders can pretend they’re more noble starting to lose traction with the normal folk?
I can’t imagine what this winter will be like for your average German without gas to heat their homes.
Re: Current Events Thread
Anyone read the Washington Post? Interesting article today. Carville blames what's happening to the Dems on "wokeness".
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Current Events Thread
Anyone read the Washington Post? Interesting article today. Carville blames what's happening to the Dems on "wokeness".
Embarrassing question, but how do you get behind the paywall?
Re: Current Events Thread
Here....
It’s no surprise that Democrats are up against it this fall. The president’s party generally does worse in midterm elections. Inflation is at a 40-year high. Crime is up. And the centerpiece of President Biden’s domestic agenda has been torpedoed by united Republican obstruction — and a West Virginia Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin III.
But a critical factor was revealed in a recent New York Times-Siena College poll: Though they enjoy a huge 20-point advantage over Republicans among white college-educated voters, the Democrats have a working-class problem.
The Democratic Party is losing support not just among White, but all non-college educated voters, trailing the GOP by 12 points. It is becoming the party of upscale urban and suburban voters, while Republicans are beginning to consolidate a multiracial coalition of working-class voters.
Why is this happening? A chorus of armchair pundits and centrist think tanks believe they know who’s to blame. Not Biden, not Democratic centrists, not the gerontocracy that runs the party in the House and Senate, nor the party establishment.
No, it’s all the fault of the left. “Wokeness,” splutters James Carville, “is a problem and we all know it.” Ruy Teixeira argues that the left has poisoned the “party brand” and dismisses the idea that campaigning for more gun control and against the assault on abortion and Donald Trump’s “big lie” about a stolen election will save Democrats this fall.
It’s hard to make sense of this house of mirrors. After all, the president is Biden, not Bernie Sanders. Nancy Pelosi and Steny H. Hoyer lead the House, not “the squad” nor the Progressive Caucus. Centrists such as Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema sabotaged Biden’s economic plan, not the left. Crime is up in red and blue states alike and Biden has called for funding the police more than reforming them. The economy is growing faster than ever, with job creation setting records. Abortion, gun control and defending democracy enjoy majority support and are central reasons Democrats have that lead among the college-educated.
And if the problem, as the pundits argue, is that working-class voters feel looked down upon, nothing Black Lives Matter or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have done has been as poisonous as Hillary Clinton’s calling Trump voters “deplorables,” or Barack Obama’s disdain for those who “cling to guns or religion.”
Headed into a low turnout midterm election, Democrats ought to be concerned that the activists of their base — the young, African Americans, climate activists, Hispanics — are demoralized, while those on the right are aroused and on the march.
Republicans deliver to their base, even when most Americans disagree. Trump’s administration was a hot mess, but the corporations got deregulation, the evangelicals got their zealous judges, the rich got tax cuts, Big Oil and King Coal got climate action blocked. And for those communities ravaged by plant closures and jobs getting shipped abroad, Trump called out the elites that had failed them and broke with the neoliberal “free trade” shibboleths — torpedoing Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership, renegotiating Clinton’s North American Free Trade Agreement, imposing tariffs on China. He didn’t have a coherent plan or policy, but he did something.
Democrats, by contrast, spurn their activists. Promises on student loan relief have been broken, action on climate and immigration stymied. Biden is more pro-labor than his Democratic predecessors, but the National Labor Relations Board hasn’t been rebuilt, labor law reform is going nowhere. The party is going all out on saving abortion, but it didn’t keep Pelosi and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from putting real energy into fending off a pro-choice primary challenger to Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who opposes choice and much of the rest of the Democratic agenda.
The Democrats’ problem among the working class isn’t Black Lives Matter or pro-choice activists. It’s that this economy doesn’t work for working people. The rich capture the rewards of growth, while working people’s conditions grow less secure. Working-class Americans may be able to buy more stuff at Walmart, but they struggle to afford the necessities — health care, housing, education, retirement security, and now food and gas.
Centrist Democrats from Bill Clinton to Obama championed the neoliberal policies — deregulation, free trade, privatization — that led to this result. What Democrats need isn’t a turn to the right on social issues but a populist agenda on economic issues. They have to be clear that they are willing to tax the rich and invest in rebuilding America, to take on the monopolies — from Big Pharma to Big Oil — that are driving inflation, and that they will empower workers and hold CEOs accountable. And they have to deliver. Biden offered the boldest agenda of any Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson, but he couldn’t deliver.
In the end, if our corrupted politics mean that Democrats can’t produce for working people, while Republicans continue to serve the corporations and the rich, the anger and fissures in America will fester and deepen. And the attraction of a strongman who will shake things up will only grow.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Current Events Thread
I just saw an ad on YouTube when watching a news clip on China's military threat due to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
It was Desantis asking people to join the fight with him against Biden and "Bidenflation".
I think this is a sign of things to come.
I saw this too. How many foreign policy fuckups can this administration have before they're held accountable? I hate to beat a dead horse, but anyone who thinks we're better off under Biden I genuinely wonder if they suffer from mental retardation. Especially the way the media attacked Trump and predicted doomsday, while he had arguably the most successful foreign policy chops of any American president since Eisenhower.
So let's send over Pelosi, someone who has no input on foreign policy (the House doesn't even vote on treaties) and will be removed from any position of power come January 2023, to piss off China even more. We truly are in Orwellian times, and half the population is willing to believe a woman has a cock. When WW3 or this American Civil War finally happens, I'm positive those confused about basic biology will have to wait a century before they're even allowed to be in power.
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
