Hair On Fire
I suppose the reality has still to set in, but everything seems to be about Trump and nothing else.
State of Play:
President and Executive : Republican
Senate : Republican control
House: Republican control
Republican Governors: 33
Republicans have complete control [trifecta] of 25 States +2 where they can override a veto. Whereas Dems have 6+2.
SCOTUS: Tied but not for long
Voter Turnout around 58%
Hillary Clinton got around 2 million fewer votes than Obama did in 2012.
View of the 2 main candidates 2016
Clinton 54.2% unfavourable RCP average
Trump 56% unfavourable RCP average
In 2012
Obama 46.1% unfavourable
Romney 44.6% unfavourable
In 2008
Obama 23% unfavourable
McCain 41.5% unfavourable
In 2004
Bush 46% unfavourable
Kerry 43% unfavourable
Even G W Bush at the end of his first term was regarded more highly than either Trump or Clinton.
Bernie Sanders unfavourable percentages were running at between 30 and 35 even after the DNC tried to tar and feather him.
Yet it's better [or more fun] to run around screaming blue murder apparently
A reminder to Democratic Partisans is that we live in a Union and all States matter. We have an Electoral College and the rules state clearly how you have to win.
In my opinion, keep ignoring fly over territory and you will keep on down the same path, unless of course you can change the rules, its only been proposed 700 times before.
Since you would not listen before perhaps you will listen now, once you have stopped setting your hair on fire that is, you have less than two years and the clock is ticking.
One plea on my part, stop trying to polish turds.
I would much rather a viable third party, but I might be tempted to support a much better second one and not the "not as bad" one that you currently try and sell.
You cant keep upon hoping that Trump will do the work for you.
Comments
Wow!
Did obama's approval rating ever drop between 2008 & 2012.
In the end pretty much average and below the 50%
In the end pretty much an average President
But It Was Her "Time"
The coronation was already planned, the fireworks were at the ready. All she had to do was step into the spotlight and tell us scary stories about the rich asshole that would make us march into the polls and anoint her as the chosen one.
Never mind this was the fight the republicans had 20 years to prepare for. Never mind her husband's record she was running on was an internet bubble and a trade pact that made an actual "giant sucking sound" exporting jobs. Never mind that the rabble simply didn't like her. It was her time.
Sorry, but I don't think the democrats will ever get it.
The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.
A little tell will be how many disregard Warren's warning
on the 21st Century Cures bill, which has been hijacked by big Pharma.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/11/28/watch-elizabeth-war...
A big tell where I'm sitting
Barry and company believe their legacy lies in how profitable a foundation they will have.
"It is time for Democrats - Democrats and Republicans who should be ashamed by this kind of corruption -to make it clear who exactly they work for. Does the Senate work for big pharma that hires the lobbyists and makes the campaign contributions or does the Senate work for American people who actually sent us here."
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
You know the answer!
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
And it was good!
not to steal your thunder
[video:https://youtu.be/A1s12VfvS2g]
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Yes, it will.
Experience says far too many.
The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.
A bigger tell will be whether Warren calls them out if they do.
I want to see if things really are different or whether they're only attempting a new messaging strategy.
Just messaging is my belief, a very few actually give a shit
Well said.
No. No, they will not. They got their asses handed to them in the most epic fail in the history of US politics, and all they can do is blame someone (anyone) else. Upton Sinclair got it exactly right: 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.' Just like Sinclair Lewis's 'wrapped in a bible and carrying a cross' quote, which is becoming brutally true as we speak.
Glad I'm done with them. There is no sense in tilting at that windmill: they won't learn, because structurally they no longer can. They have now fully evolved to take advantage of the post-truth, "but it's not my fault" world. Time for a new party, and definitely not the Greens- they don't seem any too inclined to learn, either.
The Pubs will get to burn the country to the ground for four years, at a minimum. Perhaps in that time, those who survive will organize an actual opposition.
Its not just this election, its the last 3
6 years of failure, and they cant figure it out. Have they even asked?
Usually failure is an opportunity to learn something new, but not this crowd. They paralyze policy by taking the wall street go juice, and wonder why they don't get votes.
It all seems great between elections, money is flowing and they are dutifully making connections and staring at fundraising spreadsheets, they dont even have to worry about policy in a minority status, but all of a sudden its showtime and they flop again.
A credible plan to improve peoples lives, with credible candidates to present them and we would win big. Obama got that, and he faked it so well in 2008 people worked their ass off to great success. And in 2012, he survived as the best of a bad lot.
Right?
"A credible plan to improve peoples lives, with credible candidates to present them and we would win big."
How freaking hard is that for politicians to understand? It's only been true since ancient Athens.
But there it is. There has been no effort on their part to dig out how to improve people's lives. Or having done that, they decided there's something more important to do
Instead they believe that's all that's needed is messaging. Virtue-signaling to people (and now almost entirely on the basis of identity), they calculate is enough since we know the Republicans ain't going to offer real shot either.
I'm taking your quote and going to try to turn it into a meme. It can't be said any plainer.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
Well if you're in the 0.1%
Then the last 36 years has been marvelous!
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Its not just this election, its the last 3
6 years of failure, and they cant figure it out. Have they even asked? They all went on their donor retreat after the election like it was totally normal, and their donors policies are not what sunk them.
Usually failure is an opportunity to learn something new, but not this crowd. They paralyze policy by taking the wall street go juice, and wonder why they don't get votes.
It all seems great between elections, money is flowing and they are dutifully making connections and staring at fundraising spreadsheets, they dont even have to worry about policy in a minority status, but all of a sudden its showtime and they flop again.
A credible plan to improve peoples lives, with credible candidates to present them and we would win big. Obama got that, and he faked it so well in 2008 people worked their ass off to great success. And in 2012, he survived as the best of a bad lot, but the sequels keep getting worse and the whole storyline is no longer believable.
My son and I have decided that the Dems are the
Teddy character from HBO's "Westworld." It's just there to keep us from really making a change.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
There are 72 million registered Democrats in the US
It is foolish to lump them all together and say that they will never "get it." The current leadership of the Democratic Party will not "get it" because they are too well compensated by Wall St. and their corporate lords and masters. The Democratic Party's transition from a party that favored keeping corporate power under control and doing good things for poor and middle class people to a second party of Wall St. was a disaster for the American people and an electoral disaster for the Democratic Party. It was a very lucrative transition for the corporate putains that run the party, however. They are doing very well by doing very badly. Incompetents make lots of money by running very bad campaigns and Democratic Party politicians often do very well after they leave office (speeches, boards of directors, lobby firms). The majority of registered Democrats are well-intentioned people, however. They have been fed BS and many have bought it (just visit TOP for scores of examples), but any realistic or semi-realistic hope of getting rid of the asses that run the country will have to involve Democrats. Climate change will not wait for the Greens to become a viable party, nor will it wait for yet another progressive party to be formed and come to power. The only viable (and I would consider it to be barely viable) path toward achieving functional government, before the planet is devastated with accompanying social upheaval is to excise the leadership of the Democratic Party and replace them with people that are not corporate whores.
Point taken. There are a lot of D voters,
some of whom (fewer and fewer each cycle) actually show up and vote. Used to be one of those, in fact, and got active and participated in the caucuses and all that dreck. The lesson learned is very raw for many of us who used to be democrats (I #DemExited after 40 years, for example), and it is as follows:
The rank and file dem voter simply does not matter to the party.
The management *is* the party, and the rest of us are simply expected to show up, shut up, hand over money, quietly do what we are told, and let the machines turn up whatever numbers they are programmed to turn up. After all, where else are we going to go, right? It *doesn't matter* if the rank and file voters get it, or don't get it, or even show up at all at this point. Only the management matters, and they aren't taking any input from anyone outside their bubble.
I feel very sorry for those people who think they can fix that. It can't be fixed until it wants to be fixed, and it is far too profitable for the party management to be willing to change. If this bloodbath was not sufficient, and it certainly appears that it was not, then nothing else is likely to be. The midterms will tell the tale, and I believe that it will be bloodier still. It will be Somebody Else's Fault, and the solution will be (as always) to Clap Louder.
We are talking about realistic or semi-realistic paths forward? Well, speaking simply for myself, the only realistic path for me takes me far, far away from that party. I have been given my walking papers as a #NeverHillary person, and I do believe that I'll continue my walk. May never vote for another winner again, but then that may apply to the remaining dem voters as well. Your mileage may vary.
I was talking about the so called leaders
not rank and file democrats. I think that's why so many stayed home. They had enough.
The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.
72 Million Democrats Are Idiots
Is this a joke?
Any American who voted for Hillary is a damn fool. They are ignorant, uninformed and beneath contempt.
You may be one of them:
The Green Party is already a viable party. The Greens may very well be mankind's last best chance for survival.
Is this some kind of joke?
Because there is a viable process for replacing 95% of currently elected Democrats prior to the 2020 election? I would love to see your plan for how we get that accomplished.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Thank you
"A reminder to Democratic Partisans is that we live in a Union and all States matter. We have an Electoral College and the rules state clearly how you have to win. "
And those rules are an important section of the Constitution. Wish more people would look at the "blue states" on the map - all the elites of the two coasts. Her Highness who is really Her Lowness ran campaign based on her Blue Wall(not!) - lazy, arrogant, entitled, and thank the gods & goddesses, Not Her Turn.
Would be an especially lovely day if Pelosi, after 14 years, steps down too!
the democratic party
Has no credibility any more. Even Elizabeth Warren...the so called hero...is a disappointment to me (and Jimmy Dore - 7.5 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPySqqMNVNw]
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I'm guessing she's been told she'll get the Bernie Treatment
from the DNC in 2020 if she comes out against a the treatment of the water protectors now. Or anything else that might affect the Dem's reliance of Wall Street, may of whom have loaned a lot of money to DAPL.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
So DC runs like the Mafia, orders from on high
Soros may be one of the puppet-masters, I am not convinced tat he's been sucked into a larger con game. I find the DC silence with DAPL the end of responsive governance of the US. We have been testing for responsive legislation long enough to know it will not happen in the current regime, no hope in the next regime.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
We need to watch every wretch we send to Washington and who
feeds their face and that of their spawn off the public purse. If they abandon these people who are only trying to keep WHAT IS THEIRS by right and by treaty, then we need to flush them down the old political poop chute. Most of the bastids get into 'public service' to feather their own nests anyway. And as far as the New Democratic Party goes, it needs to go the way of the whigs and the tories. The idea that another Clinton was forced upon us just shows how far down the rabbit hole the 'party' truly is.
This new generation with their identity/gender politics are not a plus. Not all think that way by any means, but enough to know that there are plenty out there more than willing to hit the streets demanding that the Clinton creature be crowned based on the fact that her sexual organ is an innie and not a dangly outie. They should all just crawl back into their safe place and leave reality to those who will actually deal with our problems rather than pissing and moaning about their delicate little psyches all the time. If that sounds like "get off my lawn" that's just too damn bad. You never hear these same people call for safe spaces in any of the countries that we're currently bombing and droning. They NEVER stop to think how much of that death and destruction can be laid at the feet of the incompetent schemer for who's benefit they're trying to overturn the election.
And Jill Stein needs to disappear right along with them.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Thomas Frank's 'take' on the state of the Democrats...
In today's Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/29/how-the-democrats-...
Frank is one of the few sane voices over at that place at the moment.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
He is right on the money
Great article. Thanks for the link.
A few weeks ago, in another thread, I said that Thomas Frank should be the new chair of the DNC. Almost every Democratic elected official is IMO, tainted by the money sucking orthodoxy that the Democratic party has embraced. The DNC should literally BEG Mr. Frank to lead the party. But that would take the kind of introspection that Frank describes in the article; you know, the type of self examination that will never even occur to them.
"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey
Thomas Frank has been the clarion voice this election season
He's nailed it with his latest book. When he started making the rounds doing interviews for it I peppered clips all over TOP. The Neoliberal coffee klatch hid their heads in the sand. But our people rejoiced that finally someone was saying what we all knew to be true: the Dems and the Clinton Way of soliciting Wall St while jettisoning the concerns of Main st was a losing strategy.
Love when he illustrates what is probably going on behind the scenes, with these purposefully out of touch insiders:
Re: the Guardian. They've joined the Neoliberal ranks I guess, haven't read there much lately.
But isn't George Monbiot still there? He's excellent.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Tom gets a lot of things right
I think he doesn't fully appreciate a couple of things, however. One is the perceived economic self interest of the corporate media. They are corporations and behave like corporations, restrictions on corporate power scares them. It is not realistic to think that a candidate like Bernie will be treated fairly. The second is that he seems to believe that the interests of the leaders of the Democratic Party are the same as the members of the Democratic Party. A telling example: The Democratic Party has gone to hell since Bill Clinton came into power, but Bill and Hill have accumulated $100,000,000. Winning is secondary for the leaders of the Democratic Party.
OMG!!! Did you hear what Trump wants to do now?
It's on the front page over at TOP and the morons are in a state of outrage! There's hand ringing and screams of angst! Seems The Donald was tweeting about proposing a law banning the burning of the American flag. He even tweeted that he thought stripping a person of their US citizenship or a year in jail would be reasonable punishment.
Now make no mistake, I think this is about as ridiculous and as unlikely as deporting 11 million people from the country. But what the morons over at TOP don't seem to understand is that The Donald was just extending an olive branch and trying to gain some support from the Hillary fans. He probably figured this might be a good idea since Hillary Clinton proposed something similar in 2005, The Flag Protection Act of 2005. Apparently, you just can't please some people.
We are really in for a bizarre next four years!
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
George W. Bush
Certainly the Clinton and democratic party supporters have
zero room to talk now. But that's another example of what we're headed for with Trump and his republican administration, ultra-nationalist type crap leading to greater fascism and imperialism.
Oh no, they still have lots of room to talk!
You see, by reading the morons comments I now understand that Hillary's proposal was okie dokie because it was only a crime if you burned the flag to incite violence!! Your run of the mill burning the flag in the middle of the street was still allowed as long as no one threw a rock at you or something. I didn't really understand the finer points of their morons point of view. I did come away with the understanding that, Trump bad, Hillary good!!
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
George W. Bush
A pretty moronic comment thread all told
Fucking hilarious is it not, all the memory of a burnt out
hrd drive
You know, maybe there's something good in that.
Cancel someone's citizenship for protesting? One of the problems with going expat is that you never get the US government off your tail: they own you from cradle to grave, and relinquishing one's US citizenship (and therefore one's US obligations, like eternal taxation) has been nigh-unto-impossible to date.
Now, if Drumpf really wants to make it that simple, I suspect that there are many who will take him up on it. I'd personally use my still-good passport to get the fuck out, get my permanent residency set up offshore, and then do my protesting from outside the country (since politics no longer ends at the shoreline, as it used to be in the olden days). You want my citizenship, Bucko? Here you go.
I now believe that the man is completely incapable of rational thought...
On edit: just saw a comment on Facebook calling Drumpf "Money Boo Boo". I am so stealing that- that is just flat spot on...
Protesting from overseas?
That would probably get you put on the terrorist watch list, no fly list, charged with sedition and probably get a personalized drone with your name on it! Then, if they didn't blow you into a couple thousand small pieces, they'd try to get you extradited so they could charge you and imprison you in a US dungeon for 20 or 30 years.
I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free!!! And can barf at will when I hear such nonsense. Free my ass! Fortunately for me, I've been an expat for the about 11 of the last 17 years. I'm not coming back any time soon!
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
George W. Bush
My money would be on getting droned.
Cheaper than extradition. Besides, the Obama administration has *already* normalized unsanctioned drone murder of anyone, anywhere, at any time, and for any reason (or no reason), so realistically I'd have no more fear than I do now. There'd probably be a number of people ahead of me in the queue, though.
Nobody even blinks at the concept of "collateral damage" any more. I'm honestly quite surprised that they haven't droned Standing Rock yet.
The veneer of civilization is _very, very_ thin now. I'm glad that I'm old and won't have to watch too many more of the steps that will be taken during the decline. It'd suck to be a twentysomething.
Standing Rock: the next Kunduz Doctors Without Borders hospital?
It’s a wonder the Powers That Be haven’t already deployed an AC-130U gunship to Standing Rock “by mistake.”
https://infogalactic.com/info/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike
You are correct
If one wants to expatriate, the absolutely must set up citizenship (say Costa Rica) and move your money before relinquishing your U.S. Citizenship. Otherwise, you will find yourself without a country but a remaining tax liability.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Elizabeth Warren not speaking on MA pipe line
If the length of time it took us to get our Senator Warren to speak out against the pipeline we were fighting is any example - our sympathy to those fighting DAPL. Like Obama, excited when she was elected, very, very, very disappointed in her since.
Expect only those on Medicare, paying fees for Medicare Part D Prescription Coverage really understand how evil our government, and Big Pharma ( both working together) are - not only Epi-Pens, but anyone needing asthma medication, steroid inhalers, are paying hundreds of dollars per prescription, that is, IF it's even covered. Sad to think Obama thinks his "legacy" of ACA, in which he sold out to Big Pharma allowing them to get away without allowing government to negotiate drug prices - sick & sad.
My Medicare-covered cousin in MN just found out her clinic
will be out-of-network next year by her supplemental insurance. Apparently having to drive for a 65+ y/o over 50 miles each way is a good thing. We are being poked. Don't wake the sleeping bear.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Possible alternatives, riverlover
Contact AARP - only a few days left for Open market for changing for this year.
Also, if too late to change, check out cash prices at COSTCO. Amazing how much you can save paying cash at COSTCO - don't have to be a member to use their pharmacy.
AARP, in MA, is teaching BCBS a damn good lesson. Reducing Part D fees to less than 1/2 what BCBS is charging - and NO copay for meds which BCBS is charging high copays for -
Hope there's time for your cousin to change this year.
Right.
Elizabeth Warren = just another conservative with a few nice noises about Wall Street.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Trump is the Democrat's wet dream.
A person who they can denounce constantly.
And who conveniently draws attention away from the day to day activity in Washington. Every single damn day.
It's like an elephant playing a banjo. Everybody keeps going over there to see it, and he keeps changing up the act whenever people think that there's more important things to do. Right now he's up to Playing the Banjo, waving the flag, eating his own feces, and beating a small zebra with a midget riding it.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
They could not have hoped for better.
A good read, to go with a good essay.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/how-the-global-left-destroyed-it...
Meanwhile the global Left looked on from its Ivory Tower of identity politics and was pleased. Capitalism was spreading the wealth to oppressed brothers and sisters, and if there were some losers in the West then that was only natural as others rose in prominence. Indeed, it went further. So satisfied was it with human progress, and so satisfied with its own role in producing it, that it turned the power of language that it held most dear back upon those that opposed the new order. Those losers in Western labour markets that dared complain or fight back against the free movement of capital and labour were labelled and marginalised as “racist”, “xenophobic” and “sexist”.
This great confluence of forces reached its apogee in the Global Financial Crisis when a ribaldly treasonous Wall St destroyed the American financial system just as America’s first ever African American President, Barack Obama, was elected . One might have expected this convergence to result in a revival of some class politics. Obama ran on a platform of “hope and change” very much cultured in the vein of seventies art and inherited a global capitalism that had just openly ravaged its most celebrated host nation.
But alas, it was just a bit of “retro”. With a Republican Party on its knees, Obama was positioned to restore the kind of New Deal rules that global capitalism enjoyed under Franklin D. Roosevelt. A gobalisation like the one promised in the brochures, that benefited the majority via competition and productivity gains, driven by trade and meritocracy, with counter-balanced private risk and public equity.
But instead he opted to patch up financialised capitalism. The banks were bailed out and the bonus culture returned. Yes, there were some new rules but they were weak. There was no seizing of the agenda. No imprisonments of the guilty. The US Department of Justice is still issuing $14bn fines to banks involved yet still today there is no justice. Think about that a minute. How can a crime be worthy of a $14bn fine but no prison time?!?
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Thanks Ginsberg for hanging on for Clinton
The symbolism of having her replacement nominated by the first female president was too much for Ginsberg to resist. Now she has given Trump another SC pick.
Thanks RBG!
Of course if she makes it through to 2021 and a new president...
then for a rare moment the word "epic" might be appropriate. But more likely it will be "whew!"
As long as she breathes she will be better than Clarence Thomas.
This is more of an opinion on Thomas than it is on a potential 90+ year old Justice.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
2024
If employment is marginally better and the mideast forever war is over, Trump will be re-elected.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Dims are working HARD to make it so!