Progressives (Liberals)

There's plenty of real estate on the surface of the sun. I suggest that the Palestinians move there to set up their state.

oralloy calls for the incineration of an entire people...someone else actually tried that.

Spare me the histrionics. If the Palestinians want a state based on 1967 borders, they can agree to peace. If the Palestinians refuse to stop murdering innocent people, the surface of the sun is too good for them.

Besides, we don't really know that the sun will incinerate the Palestinians until we throw them in and see what happens.

dehumanizing your opponent is the best way you got to make yer points?.

Understand I don't think this necessarily applies to every single (Democrat) poster on here.

Returning to

On first reading, I actually didn't even catch the third word, "here". But I'm going to argue that the same applies for anyone on A2K or in the national liberal camp.

I'm going to take a more extreme position than Hightor. I do think that any Dem candidate (drawn from the pool already or soon to be announced) will do. The immediate and critical goal must be to remove Trump from office. The smart people I read suggest that the Senate will be very difficult to flip (structural features including gerrymandering). So even if the House remains in Dem control, nothing will change.

If nothing changes and Trump wins, likely two more Supreme Court seats will be taken over by Gorsuch type extremists. That means Roe v Wade will be overturned. It will mean the Koch crowd and all the corporate entities will be permitted to eviscerate controls on their behaviors. Global warming will remain totally unaddressed at this point where immediate address is critical. Further and more extreme gerrymandering moves will mostly be permitted. Attacks on the mainstream press and legal findings that penalize and silence reporters and papers for criticizing Trump will increase in the direction of authoritarian governments. The present appointments of industry lobbyists to government positions (meant to police those industries) will increase. The on-going project of education falling under private control will have nothing other than citizen protest to stop it and that won't stop it. The religious right will make many further gains not merely in school curricula and abortion control but also in criminalizing behavior they deem ungodly and in legalizing discrimination on the basis of creed, race and religion. Gun control laws will be challenged up to the SC and NRA-friendly rulings should be expected. Military adventures abroad? Try to imagine how ugly that could get. The growing tendencies in Europe towards white nationalism and anti-migrant policies will be encouraged by Trump and those around him and those entities will coordinate with their counterparts in the US.

That is some of what will happen and if that wasn't bad enough, we'd also better face what will happen to the left if Trump wins again. Fracturing, anger, grief, apathy will all mark the emotional state of each of us. The Dem party may not survive this. And even if it does, the left in America will become like the left in Israel - fundamentally disorganized and powerless. America will be done for as a representative democracy.

So, yeah. Any Dem arriving in the WH will be not merely better but absolutely necessary. This is the sort of crisis that marks a possible turning point in world history. One direction is a struggle. The other is a total disaster.

NBC's Chuck Todd interviews Mayor Pete Buttigieg looks damned impressive, I think. Smart, calm, good speaker, good set of value too it appears. I like the guy.
https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/full-buttigieg-i-m-about-as-different-from-this-president-as-it-gets-1478322243505

How the Hell can you speak of values?

Miss Ocasio-Cortez draws that fire becaues she uses Twitter with the ease of people of her generation, and it's sucking all the oxygen out of Plump's "Twitterverse." I think it's hilarious. If you watch vids of her performance in committee in the House, you'll see an intelligent, courteous and relentless committeewoman who is working specifically for her constituents. She's everything Plump ain't.

I posted it somewhere around here. Three have released some or all—in a field of 12 or 13.

Gillibrand, all; Warren, most; somebody else, all (can’t remember who.

Feel better about Sanders now?

Indeed. And she's such a sharp contrast with Ted Cruz as well who won office and then immediately began bullying himself onto the stage for reasons of personal ambition. She got down to work.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/01/amy-klobuchar-tax-returns-1247624

Klobuchar releases 12 years of tax returns

The returns cover from 2006-2017 – every year she has been a candidate for federal office.

This woman would make a wonderful president.

She could get a fork if she was president. She is a big government suck puppy. She would make a terrible president.

They did!

Rashida Tlaib. Ayanna Pressley. Ilhan Omar. Pramila Jayapal.

Five young women of color, all assertively progressive in a way DC has not seen much of in recent decades.

There's been a couple of rookie mistakes, given outsized coverage in ways less mediagenic politicians wouldn't have received. But overall they've been a breath of fresh air, and a tantalizing hint that a new generation will bring a new brand of unapologetically left-wing politics to Congress.

Omar is getting serious death threats.

According to this piece from about a week ago, Inslee's released 12 years of his tax returns; Klobuchar, as mentioned, released 12 years of hers; Warren released 10 years of hers; and Gillibrand released her 2018 tax returns.

So that's four of the top 10 declared candidates - Biden hasn't declared yet, and Sanders, Harris, O’Rourke, Booker, Castro and Buttigieg don't seem to have released theirs yet.

One obvious difference between Sanders and the other five there, though. Bernie already ran four years ago. Faced the same questions about releasing his taxes. Had the whole primary race to do so, and didn't. Had four years to prepare them after all, if was going to run again. (Compare Warren, who released hers months before she even declared that she'd run.) Promised multiple times that he would, but refuses to give a date for it. It's just ... weird.

This is what I think about Bernie’s tax returns:

“As a protest candidate in the last cycle, he barely campaigned until December 2015, only hitting the trail when the Senate was out of session. He didn’t expect to win the nomination, so he didn’t bother with releasing what he considered to be mundane tax returns that would just back up his financial disclosures. The louder the media demanded his returns, the more convinced he became that the issue was manufactured trivia.

For Sanders, the trappings of politics and campaigns are by default either corrupting or absurd in comparison to the scale of the true crises facing the American people. It’s not about political expediency: He doesn’t want his opponents caught up in frivolous debates, either, even when it means giving up some advantage. “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” he famously said in an October 2015 debate with Hillary Clinton, then went on to add: “Let me say something about the media as well. I go around the country, talk to a whole lot of people. Middle class of this country is collapsing. We have 27 million people living in poverty. We have massive wealth and income inequality. Our trade policies have cost us millions of decent jobs. The American people want to know whether we’re going to have a democracy or an oligarchy as a result of Citizens United. Enough of the emails, let’s talk about
the real issues.”

That’s the curmudgeon I know and love.
———————————————
https://theintercept.com/2019/04/05/bernie-sanders-tax-returns/

I think you left out a few.

Hickenlooper
Gabbard
Delaney
Ryan
Messam
Williamson

https://mondoweiss.net/2019/04/slaughter-buttigieg-responses/

Buttigieg takes a bad step toward Israel...if you’re a progressive.

It really wouldn't matter if the list of names totaled 30 or 40 or 50. Many already have released their returns. Sanders gains no pass merely by being numbered among others who have failed, at least so far, to publish their returns. It is a matter of ethics. And honesty.