@Olivier5,
This is perfect. In areas where more liberal candidates can run and win (these two don't even have republican challengers) they should run.
@edgarblythe,
Very important for Dems to back progressives if they want to beat Trump.
edgarblythe wrote:
Democrats, get off your ass. If you don't talk issues instead of ridiculing and talking Trump hate 24-7, if you don't be real progressives, Trump will get reelected.
Robert Reich
3 hrs ·
This morning I phoned my friend, the former Republican member of Congress.
He (laughing): Shall I reserve a seat for you in Oslo?
Me: No way Trump gets the Peace Prize.
He: What if Kim gets rid of his whole damn nuke program because Trump scared the sh*t out of him?
Me: Even if Trump becomes Pope, it won’t stop the blue wave.
He: Be careful, my friend. Trump’s approvals are rising.
Me: Yeah, from the sewer to a toilet. He’s gonna be a huge problem for Republicans this fall.
He: Let me tell you something. Voters aren’t hearing a damn thing from the Dems. Nada. Zilch. If your party thinks it can win by sitting on their duffs and spouting anti-Trump crapola, they’re wrong. You think average Joe and Jane really think Dems are standing up for them? (He laughs.) Pelosi and Schumer? Give me a break.
Me: Doesn’t matter. We flip 24 seats, we retake the House. And 23 Republicans are trying to defend seats where Hillary won. Should be a cinch.
He: Don’t bet on it. And you can forget the Senate.
Me: Whatever, Trump won't make it to 2020. If Mueller doesn’t skewer him, the Stormy Daniels stuff will.
He: You still don’t get it. Mueller and Stormy won’t lay a glove on him, and I’ll tell you why. He’s a jerk but he’s shaking things up, and voters like that. Every time he takes a dump on somebody important, they cheer. Whenever he skewers another sacred cow, they applaud. The more offensive he is, the more people say “this guy is real.” Doesn’t matter what Mueller finds or what a porn star says. Trump is Teflon.
Me: Whatever happened to your prediction that the GOP would dessert him once they got their tax bill enacted?
He: I wasn’t paying attention to the Trump coalition.
Me: What coalition?
He: Trump has pulled together the white working class and the moneyed interests of America. No one thought it possible. It’s the new Republican Party. Racist, anti-foreigner, deregulation, tax cuts. Reagan on steroids. Unbeatable. If he wants a second term, he gets it.
@Lash,
Even if the Democrats win, we will see a continuation of war and selling weapons as a generational cottage industry. We will see the "Well our increments don't seem to work, but at least we said we were going to try," resentfully stated. They are not going to let progressive values enter the equation, except as token speeches, until it's all over with. - That's if the Democrats win. At this point I can't see them winning back the White House.
@edgarblythe,
You don’t think that the US is going to stop selling weapons when most of its own citizens support owning weapons do you?
I mean if the USA doesn’t think restricting its own citizens from owning arms is a good thing then why would they think not selling them to other countries as a good thing?
I don’t see how a country that thinks there is a god-given citizen right to own arms and amass a military the size of ours has any moral justification in restricting selling arms to our allies.
Once again Democrats help the Republican agenda. She's confirmed
(WASHINGTON) — The political schism in the Democratic Party is playing out in the confirmation vote for Gina Haspel as CIA director, as support from red-state senators facing re-election bumps up against a more liberal flank eyeing potential 2020 presidential bids and rejecting the nominee over the agency’s clouded history of torture.
Haspel’s confirmation became all but certain with a favorable 10-5 vote Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Yet the division in the Senate is set in large part by the election calendar, home-state geography and personal views — and it may define Democrats for years to come.
On one side is a growing list of a half-dozen Democrats whom many see as the future of the big-tent party. They are rural, noncoastal representatives of states won by President Donald Trump, places where some say the party needs to win back voters to grow beyond its urban core. Several of them have supported many of Trump’s nominees.
On the other side are those living in the comfort of blue-state incumbency, including liberal leaders who may take on Trump with their own campaigns for the White House. Their opposition to Haspel fuels a fired-up base of voters who are pushing a more progressive, battle-tested party to resist the Trump agenda.
With the Senate possibly voting as soon as Thursday on the new CIA director, “this is a soul-searching, defining moment for the Democratic Party,” said Elizabeth Beavers, the associate policy director at the liberal group Indivisible.
Beavers said senators are making a political miscalculation if they give their support to confirm a nominee “who has helped carry out torture.” It’s a vote, she said, “they’re going to have to explain for a long time to come.”
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Haspel’s nomination reopened debate about the CIA’s now-defunct program of detaining terror suspects overseas at secret lock-ups and subjecting them to harsh interrogation techniques. Haspel supervised one of those detention sites in Thailand, but details of her work there have not been declassified.
Pressure on Democrats mounted late Wednesday after a third Republican, Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, announced his opposition to Haspel. He joined Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and fellow Arizona Sen. John McCain, whose long-distance rejection of Haspel as he battles brain cancer at home hit a political nerve. Considering the GOP’s slim 51-49 majority, Democrats could easily block the nominee, a career intelligence officer who would make history as the first woman to lead the CIA.
But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., did not take that tack. In fact, rather than forcing his caucus in line against Haspel, Schumer continued to keep his vote to himself, a gesture that allows senators to chart their own courses without the overhang of leadership.
Most in the Democratic caucus are expected to vote against Haspel — with Sen. Kamala Harris of California among those setting the progressive pace with her “no” vote Wednesday in the committee.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massacusetts and Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, already announced their opposition. Warren tweeted that Haspel’s involvement in the torture program “makes her unfit to lead the CIA.” Other potential 2020 contenders, including Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kristen Gillibrand of New York, are also likely to vote against Haspel.
One red-state Democrat who has said he’ll oppose Haspel, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, has already signaled his willingness to buck Trump. He drew the president’s Twitter ire after he publicly aired allegations against Veterans Affairs nominee Ronny Jackson, who later withdrew from consideration. It’s an election strategy that depends on keeping his state’s liberal base engaged as he fends off Trump’s attacks.
I don’t think owning personal guns is any indication that the gun owner would support the US selling weapons of war.
Bernie Sanders: Trump administration
‘heartless’ toward immigrants.
By REBECCA MORIN
05/13/2018 11:16 AM EDT
Quote:Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday said President Donald Trump and his administration are “heartless” toward immigrants.
“I think it is heartless. I think the entire Trump views on immigration is heartless,” Sanders said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Last week, chief of staff John Kelly told NPR that “the laws are the laws” and that the technique of separating families who cross the border illegally is one that “no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long.” Kelly also said during the interview that undocumented immigrants coming to the U.S. “don't integrate well” and “don’t have skills.”
Since the start of his presidential campaign, Trump has called for a border wall to be built along the U.S.-Mexico border. In addition, he has labeled some Mexicans as “rapists” and “killers,” and referred to some of the nations from which many immigrants come as “shithole countries.”
Sanders said that in the latest polls he has seen, nearly 80 percent of Americans believe the 1.8 million people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program should be provided legal status. Though Sanders did not specify which poll he was talking about, a Harvard CAPS-Harris survey in late February found that 76 percent of voters say DACA recipients, also known as “Dreamers,” should be given a pathway to U.S. citizenship.
“The American people believe that we should move forward to comprehensive immigration reform, and Trump is moving in exactly the wrong direction and we see the cruelty of his immigration policies when you talk about the United States government separating children from their parents,” Sanders said.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/13/sanders-trump-immigration-heartless-584240
@Lash,
I was referring to selling war weapons around the globe, to friend and foe alike.
@Real Music,
Bernie “attributes” anti-Clinton sentiments on his website to Russians.
I’m not Russian, yet I was one of thousands who decided not to vote for Hillary after she cheated Bern out of the nomination, and we all flooded sites online, asking like-minded liberals not to award Clinton for her theft. Some Russian groups may have tried to capitalize on the raw anger across our country, but they didn’t cause it, and they didn’t make a difference. It was a distinctly organic movement that is still building steam.
Bernie hates third-party spoiling, and seems to have chosen the Russia narrative as preferable to the fact that his supporters turned against the Democrats. It definitely wasn’t his fault. He campaigned so vociferously for her, I was disgusted.
@maporsche,
These appear more socialist than liberal. In any case, the left side of the Dem party (I suppose we can agree on this terminology) needs to run everywhere, and reclaim the party of the people for the people.
@Lash,
Bernie is right, as always. You fell victim to some pretty sick propaganda. Partly coming from the russian bots, partly coming from FAUX News and co.
@Olivier5,
They (at least Sara) appear to support the Democratic party's platform almost in lockstep.
https://www.saraforpa.com/priorities
But yes, run everywhere in the primaries and in November regroup around the candidate with a D next to their name (whether 'socialist-enough' or not).
@Olivier5,
Ridiculous. I decided what I was going to do as I watched what happened. I made my choice, and I'm glad I did. Millions others made the same choice. If the Dems don't stop being Republican Lite, we'll do it again.
@Real Music,
I don’t think I’d seen this before. It’s amazing to see how successful marketing can work. If done well, you can be convinced that you need/want or believe something and not even know it.
Branding too.
No one believes that advertisements make them change their minds on something or makes them more likely to do something but several hundred years have proven that marketing and advertising works. Billions are spent on knowing this. It’s got its own major in college.
It’s why we buy new/better TVs that display images our eyes can’t see, why we think certain brands of cars are more reliable when statistics disagree and apparently in part why we cast our votes the way we do.
@Real Music,
This actually surprises me. I don't remember ever reading that piece or even remember anyone discussing it in February. I find it pretty significant.
Some of it is likely true. What it misses is the fact that persons who paid attention, such as myself, already had made up our minds that the Democrats had cheated and were against progressives, long before Bernie attended the convention. We could not be so influenced because our minds were already set against both parties.
@edgarblythe,
I know pretty disappointing. Which is where I disagree with some here about supporting all people with a D attached to their name. While it only a very small number, it was enough to confirm the awful woman. I think we can still win and keep our democrat/leftist values intact. There are enough leftist in the country, they only need to be encouraged.
On the other side of equation, if Democrats were in control, she would not have been confirmed, I think we could have turned enough republicans to stop it. If a democrat were in the WH, she never would have come close to being picked.
If Russia is running the DNC, by god, they turned me against the Democrats.
https://www.google.com/amp/observer.com/2017/05/dnc-averts-democracy-lawsuit-bernie-sanders-supporters/amp/
Reason 1 I hate the party:
Excerpt:
Throughout the proceedings, the DNC argued that Sanders supporters were aware that the primaries were rigged and that neutrality is a political promise that cannot be enforced by a court. In October 2016, the court deliberated as Judge Zloch would announce a hearing to deliver his decision of the DNC’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
