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7 hours ago, ignatius said:

maybe hillary was right?

I doubt that she's right, she really sucks hard. This link lists the upper-level staff members for the 2020 presidential candidates: https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_election_key_staffers,_2020

It looks like Kamala Harris' campaign is stacked with the same people who ran Hilary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. Gabbard attacked Harris in one of the debates, caught her off her feet and Harris had no intelligent or rational response/rebuttal. I imagine Clinton is shilling for Harris. The 'this-person-is-a-Russian-asset' argument might prove bad-news for the democrats, they are already starting to lump Bernie into that type of conspiratorial thinking: https://www.foxnews.com/media/democratic-strategist-ex-hillary-clinton-staffer-unleashes-vulgar-attack-on-bernie-sanders

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6 hours ago, Drum Up said:

I doubt that she's right, she really sucks hard. This link lists the upper-level staff members for the 2020 presidential candidates: https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_election_key_staffers,_2020

It looks like Kamala Harris' campaign is stacked with the same people who ran Hilary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. Gabbard attacked Harris in one of the debates, caught her off her feet and Harris had no intelligent or rational response/rebuttal. I imagine Clinton is shilling for Harris. The 'this-person-is-a-Russian-asset' argument might prove bad-news for the democrats, they are already starting to lump Bernie into that type of conspiratorial thinking: https://www.foxnews.com/media/democratic-strategist-ex-hillary-clinton-staffer-unleashes-vulgar-attack-on-bernie-sanders

regardless of what hillary does or doesn't say.. or anyone.. the fox news people are going to spin and twist all the things all the time and it's only going to get crazier and weirder and make less sense... and then the advertising will start and who the fuck knows where all of it will come from especially on line. 

gabbard could be a play for manipulation even if she isn't aware. anyway.. she's basically spouting republican talking points with regard to the impeachment proceedings and wtf w/her not running for reelection in the house to focus on her presidential run as if she's going to ascend the polls?? it smells funny. if she runs as a 3rd party it's gonna be a shitstorm. 

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Tulsi Gabbard echoes Republican frustrations with impeachment inquiry: 'I don't know what's going on in those closed doors'

https://www.foxnews.com/media/dem-tulsi-gabbard-echoes-republican-frustrations-with-impeachment-inquiry-i-dont-know-whats-going-on-in-those-closed-doors

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4 hours ago, ignatius said:

she's basically spouting republican talking points with regard to the impeachment proceedings

idk, feel like there's more nuance than some allow with this. I fucking hate Lindsey Graham with a passion, the warmongering scumbag, but he mentioned that he disagreed with the proceedings being done secretly, and his rationale was that the democrats were selectively leaking information from the proceedings as a way to influence the president's polling numbers. I actually agree with him, in spite of my intense hatred for the man. This could be what national politics descends into in the future, each party trying to impeach the president of the opposing party, exacerbating divisions. My ultimate worry is that all of this plays into Trump's hand. Even without Tulsi running as a third party candidate, even if she weren't in the race at all, the career-politician democrats are already very disorganized in that there are strong divisions within the party on almost all major social, economic, and foreign policy issues. It is a cliche, but the message that 'Trump-must-go' might not be enough to replace a cohesive, humane, and persuasive political message, especially once a candidate is finally chosen and the national debates begin. Trump's debate style is like that of an irascible, overly-emotional and stupid child, but it is worth mentioning that he defeated all of the establishment republicans and Clinton in the 2016 debates (defeated them in the sense that he won the election). 

tldr - Hilary Clinton sucks big time

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31 minutes ago, Drum Up said:

I fucking hate Lindsey Graham with a passion, the warmongering scumbag, but he mentioned that he disagreed with the proceedings being done secretly, and his rationale was that the democrats were selectively leaking information from the proceedings as a way to influence the president's polling numbers. I actually agree with him

 

It’s a bipartisan committee though. There’s a misunderstanding that the democrats are in this closed room, cooking up strategies on how to fuck over the republicans, but that room actually has republicans in it too... even when they aren’t storming in like a mob of proud boys. 

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1 hour ago, goDel said:

From what I'm reading in your post I've got to conclude nuance is dead. And rational thinking. 

Maybe you can respond with some of your thoughts then. Rational thinking always deserves to be revived if it is dying.

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fair!

if you begin by responding to the criticisms towards gabbard there's more nuance to it and then directly go into "i fucking hate lindsey graham", it's immediately into cuckoo territory to the point where i wonder whether i should even continue.

but ok, lets continue (and waste time, i'm afraid). you hate him but he had a point with respect to the 'secrecy' of the current house sessions regarding impeachment investigation. perhaps this is the nuance you're looking for (because gabbard was arguing this as well i guess)? feels like you put in that you hate graham to create some kind of opening. otherwise it's just a useless side point. but whatever.

his argument being this is about democrats trying to influence polling numbers because it supposedly allows them to selectively leak info. let me begin here that this is a very flawed argument. for a couple of reasons. first it's a baseless accusation. is there proof dems are selectively leaking info? is it even reasonable to believe nothing will leak? and if gop members are also part of this "secret" investigation, why don't - or can't - they leak info which could improve trumps polling numbers? and this is just the start how awful grahams argument is. the real pain comes when you understand why it's preferable to have the sessions outside of the public eye.

trey gowdy gave a good explanation back in the day (see how non-partisan my thinking is... hur hur). the reason is because in the public eye these sessions were unproductive and mostly showed partisan bickering. so in order to do a proper investigation without all the partisan BS, it's to be preferred to do these in private.

another reason which is currently used is that you want the various testifiers unaware what is already said and therefore give as independent statements as possible.

to me these seem like perfectly good reasons. we've witnessed many bullshit partisan bickering in sessions like these in the past. if you can avoid that, please do. so the arguments coming from graham and co are not particularly strong to begin with. and the public part is basically a given anyways, because this isn't a criminal investigation but a political one. everything will end up in public because in the end impeachment is a political 'thing'. 

imo, graham willingly creates confusion by arguing 'political' should imply that everything and every step along the way needs to be public. which is not the case (by laws put forward in a gop run congress). so there's nothing forcing the investigation itself to be done in public.

next up in this mess:

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This could be what national politics descends into in the future, each party trying to impeach the president of the opposing party, exacerbating divisions.

in the future? we're already there. long before this impeachment procedure.

also, there's nothing wrong with the current process. and, i'd argue, there's a very good reason to start an impeachment procedure. or rather, many good reasons. and many have argued it should have been done earlier btw (criticisms towards pelosi).

if you don't think there's a good reason to start an impeachment procedure, you're are in disagreement with career politicians and likely bolton the uber-gop hawk himself as well.

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My ultimate worry is that all of this plays into Trump's hand. Even without Tulsi running as a third party candidate, even if she weren't in the race at all, the career-politician democrats are already very disorganized in that there are strong divisions within the party on almost all major social, economic, and foreign policy issues.

you are exacerbating here. sure there are differences. but please take a breath and realise we're in the middle of a primary where politicians need to exaggerate differences in order to appeal to different voters. in reality, the differences aren't nearly as big as they might appear. 

and there's also the effect of politicians selling stuff they can't deliver. thinking of sanders revolutionary ideas here. i will get shit on for saying this, but the sanders revolution is just a selling point which he will never deliver even if he does get elected. (democracies...how do they work)

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Trump's debate style is like that of an irascible, overly-emotional and stupid child, but it is worth mentioning that he defeated all of the establishment republicans and Clinton in the 2016 debates (defeated them in the sense that he won the election). 

you are on the verge of contradicting yourself. you hastily move past the question whether trump indeed won those debates. he won the elections even though he lost the popular vote, one might argue. so did trump won the debates? against hillary?

my personal view is that both didn't lose or win. the debates were good enough to keep the needle largely where it already was. the anti-hrc crowd was never compelled to support her. and similarly, the anti-trump crowd were never put onto different thoughts. 

my expectations wrt the coming national debates will be: more of the same. trump and his opposing dem candidate can't win those debates. they can only lose. and the most likely outcome will be that nothing changes the needle. elections are being won by creating turnout. which is created by a mostly grassroots movement. (which happens to be stimulated by social media in significant ways nowadays. the debates are a relatively small part of the puzzle. they just happen to carry a high risk if a candidate fucks up. and given trumps baseline performance in these debates, he can not fuck them up more than he already has done. his supporters don't mind him fucking up)

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tldr - Hilary Clinton sucks big time

yeah, so about this nuance thing you started with...i guess nuance is only a strategy to defend your own position nowadays? attacking others is still without nuance i see. btw, this is why i initially felt your post didn't warrant an actual response btw. it looked like trolling.

not sure where the nuance is wrt gabbard, btw. if she's really going to run as a third candidate, she's really sold her soul to the devil. what is she trying to achieve as a third candidate? if there's nuance here, do tell!

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1 hour ago, goDel said:

not sure where the nuance is wrt gabbard, btw. if she's really going to run as a third candidate, she's really sold her soul to the devil. what is she trying to achieve as a third candidate? if there's nuance here, do tell!

if she's anything like Jill Stein then the answer is money, she's just a grifter.

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3 hours ago, goDel said:

fair!

damn, thanks for the thoughtful response! I was not trolling, I really do despise Hilary Clinton, but I guess my main point is that the impeachment proceedings could potentially elevate Trump (and secondarily that the democrats have internal divisions on central policy issues - no central message on, say, healthcare, foreign policy, taxes, no cohesive political vision to oppose Trump and the republicans - and this could weaken whatever candidate faces Trump). You make an excellent point about the need of candidates to exaggerate in primaries in order to carve a space for themselves, but the differences on healthcare alone between Warren and the rest of the crowd (and in different ways depending on the individual candidate) do not seem easily reconcilable with caucuses approaching. There are big differences on lots of other issues as well. On impeachment, right now polling shows that there is majority support mostly in coastal regions. People in, say, Wisconsin, do not support it in the majority. Democrats will have to make their case public and soon. If they fail to convince a majority of the country, then their plan will backfire and they will not only appear disorganized but also weak and like they waste time, spend tax-payer money on investigations that do not pan out, and so on and so on, more fodder for Trump. 

Not sure why Gabbard would actually run as a third party candidate. She's been saying in interviews that she does not plan to, and she could obviously be lying, but she must know that she wouldn't be able to win. If 2016 proved anything, it was that our system could benefit from having more than two people to chose from, but it does not seem likely that this will change anytime soon. Maybe she thinks she could outdo both Trump and whichever democrat is picked on the national stage, but like you say the grassroots stuff doesn't seem to be going so well for her and she is low in the polls. I definitely do not think that she is an agent of influence, and I think she has the best message on foreign policy of the crowd. I'm sure one or two other candidates probably think a lot like her on these issues but just use their camera time for talking more about domestic stuff. 

 

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yeah, one point: you don't need to worry about Trump being elevated. he already is. has been since 2015. and he will be for the coming years. that's a given. and not necessarily a reason why he would win a coming election cycle, btw. 

and i use elevated in the most broad sense possible btw: getting attention. or a platform to get attention. he's the current president. his platform can't be more elevated than it already is. any fart he drops is important, because he's the president. and the media treats it like it's gold.

if the next president is based on the amount of attention a candidate gets, trump has already won. i'd hope the us electorate uses more braincells when voting however. or rather, i'd hope the people growing tired of trump are smart enough to get off their ass and vote wisely the coming election.

wrt your other points, i'll repeat what ive prolly said earlier: nothing about the coming election is normal. in a normal election you want someone to make a case. in those circumstances id agree. 

but the coming election is basically a vote on what you think a democracy should look like. do you want an authoriarian jackass who doesn't give a f*ck about other elected officials, or the democratic process, or government? or do you want someone who vaguely portrays an understanding of how a democracy should function? if people need a better case than this, all is hopeless - imo - and you (=us) probably deserve trump. nothing any dem can say will change this.

the dems can talk all day about medicare for all, but at the end of the day you know that even if they win, they have to govern a country which is highly bipartisan and close to 50% disagree with any dem plan to implement such a thing. and the political process to improve the healthcare system will take years and years to materialise. even if it's some middle of the road version which the gop can live with.

my guess is, people know this, so this democratic case has little to do with policies. it's more about some gut feeling people have.

or rather: how hard do trump voters want to keep trump and vote for him? and how hard do others want get rid of trump. there's a third group of principled people who want to vote for someone they want to 'support' and all that (in some overly rationalised way). that's a minority, imo. and a group of people with plenty ideals (to the point of being irrational) who will never be satisfied in a normally functioning democracy. but that's another discussion.

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the impeach proceedings thus far are standard operating procedure. it's like any trial when it's brought to the grand jury to see if the person should be indicted. grand jury is always secret and held in private. 

republicans on the relevant committees are welcomed into the process and it appears some of them are having their minds changed.  regardless.. the rules for this process were written by republicans as recent as 2015. so they should really just STFU. 

and as for leaking info of the proceedings to sway poll numbers.. that's just politics.. good or bad or however you feel about it it's been that way since the beginning. the press is always leaked bits of info. stories get planted. that's all normal and the republicans crying foul is hysterical since they do the same shit x10 all the time. 

this is a rare event in american government so it's going to seem strange and fucked up and all that. back when clinton was impeached the republicans did it because they could. it was a technicality basically. at the start of the drama when the story about lewinsky came out and they all knew about it newt gingrich said to hillary clinton that they weren't going to proceed with impeachment.. then clinton made his dumb statement and they found a lie in it and then decided.. well.. we can impeach him over this.. so we will. 

anyway.. as said.. we're in new territory with modern politics and donald trump.

as for gabbard.. who knows why people run as 3rd party candidates.. often it's to thumb their nose at establishment politics or hope the get the necessary minimum percentage of the vote in order validate their party for future elections and to be put on the ballot in other races etc.. 

but she's really casting herself into the wind here. she is polling at 1.5% or something. there's no way she could win.. so her giving up her seat in congress (though it seems she'd have a tough primary fight on her hands) is kind of nuts.. unless she has some other plan. 

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Re: 3rd party, nobody knows the outcome of a race until it happens.  Perception shapes reality, but is not necessarily.  Every political analyst worth their salt thought DonT was gonna lose.  They were wrong, and you can be too.  Just vote for who you think would be best for the job, it really is that easy.

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27 minutes ago, Claudius t Ansuulim said:

Every political analyst worth their salt thinks third party candidates don't win.  They are right, and you can be too.

fixt ?

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people run 3rd party in the US to make money, they can pay themselves and their staff a salary, pay for travel and accommodation, etc. after they inevitably lose they're left with a big wad of cash which they can do with as they please. if these people were really intent on breaking up the political duopoly in the US they would funnel all their cash into local politics, which would be the only way to make any inroads, try for a senate or house seat first, after you've created a local infrastructure capable of winning state senate or whatever. 

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Warren is cancelled.  Bernie or bust

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dow-breast-implant-case-spotlights-elizabeth-warrens-work-helping-big-corporations-navigate-bankruptcies/2019/07/15/06b0d676-82fc-11e9-95a9-e2c830afe24f_story.html

 

But the company has been resistant to making those payments, even though there is money remaining in the fund, said Ernest Hornsby, an Alabama-based attorney for plaintiffs.

He and others on both sides of the case said Warren’s expertise was used by a company fighting in court to limit its liability and payments to the women.

“There weren’t any voices on Dow Corning’s side saying we should pay these woman as much as possible,” Hornsby said. “Nobody ever said, ‘Well, we have a law professor out of Massachusetts who says we ought to pay women more.’ ” Payments were estimated at $2,000 to $20,000 for women with ruptured implants, according to news reports at the time.

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