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PoliGAF 2017 |OT6| Made this thread during Harvey because the ratings would be higher

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I just feel like Obama needs to take the public space a bit more. Come on dude enough windsurfing. That's the only way these people will stop going but hillarryyyy.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
I just feel like Obama needs to take the public space a bit more. Come on dude enough windsurfing. That's the only way these people will stop going but hillarryyyy.

It's just going to give Trump a new way to deflect and might allow him to re-solidify the GOP electorate.
 
It's just going to give Trump a new way to deflect and might allow him to re-solidify the GOP electorate.
Only the KKK part of the GOP electorate. Obama has probably 65% approval rating right now. He can take on Trump without anything to lose. Hillary unfortunately is hated by not only GOP, but the media (Chris Lizard, Kirsten Powers, Maggie Haberman, etc) as well as a huge vocal minority on the left. By all means she should speak up, but Obama should as well. Otherwise these clowns will paint her as "leader of the democrat party!", and have begun already with shadow president nonsense.
 

pigeon

Banned
yeah it was a combination of

-the American voter being so uneducated and unengaged that the Republican party was able to run an obese babyman with brain slugs

-the American political system being so broken and obsolete that a small coterie of billionaire sociopaths can hijack the entire country

-John Podesta being dumb enough to click on a dick pill link in an email from a Russian hacker

-the virulent and resilient racism that has defined American politics since American politics began

It's not like Vladimir Putin woke up one morning and said "I know, I'll put a white nationalist into the White House, which is totally uncharacteristic of American politics and which I alone will accomplish with no preexisting conditions or helpful tailwinds."

The fact that Russian hackers were anywhere near able to make this happen is a damning indictment of American democracy. I know you don't think that things were perfect under Obama or that America was completely immune to fascism until big bad "global supervillain" Russia came around.

Much of this is probably true, but none is relevant to the actual topic under discussion. You cannot sensibly claim that Russia is better than America because America is run by a Nazi while ignoring that Russia worked very hard to install that Nazi. Regardless of whether conditions in America helped them do so, it should be obvious to anybody who gives it the slightest consideration that the fact that his ascension was desired by the Russian government means that any moral animus that attaches to America as a result of Trump's election attaches equally to Russia.

On the one hand Putin exploited the badly broken political system of a country that was already killing brown people all over the planet and had special forced deployed in 70% of the countries of the Earth. On the other hand, ISIS exists right now for fuck's sake.

Vladimir Putin is an authoritarian dictator who should be in prison, and interfering in the American election was a crime, but any sane evaluation of people's material conditions around the world will result in an understanding that the United States is a bigger net negative force than broke-as-fuck mafia run petrostate Russia.

Sure, that's why the world's states have all united in condemnation and imposing crippling sanctions on the United States of America, and have left Russia alone.

Oh, no, wait, everything you wrote is absurd historically ignorant nonsense that demonstrates exactly why these left keeps sabotaging itself with foreign policy ideas that bear no relevance to real-life situations. Please stop being a socialist, you are ruining it for everybody.

The politician's fallacy is not a practical doctrine. Is the status quo bad? Sure! It's super bad. But that does not logically mean that every possible change to the status quo is good. Lots and lots of very plausible outcomes would be much worse than the status quo. Stop trying to uproot Chesterton's NATO coalition.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Much of this is probably true, but none is relevant to the actual topic under discussion. You cannot sensibly claim that Russia is better than America because America is run by a Nazi while ignoring that Russia worked very hard to install that Nazi. Regardless of whether conditions in America helped them do so, it should be obvious to anybody who gives it the slightest consideration that the fact that his ascension was desired by the Russian government means that any moral animus that attaches to America as a result of Trump's election attaches equally to Russia.

I should note that they haven't just done this in America, they've been attempting to do this in Europe since at least the financial crisis. Who do you all think was funding the Golden Dawn in Greece? Hint: he likes to drink vodka and doesn't own a shirt.

Putin has been attempting to destabilize not only the US but the EU for at least a decade now. We've just only started catching on and paying attention.
 

mlclmtckr

Banned
1) Do you think the title of global supervillain should apply to the country with the worst intentions or the country that actually kills and harms the most people?

2) I didn't say anything about NATO, what are you even talking about? What do you think is ahistorical about what I said? The only part that's even really a matter of opinion is the part about ISIS.

Edit - also lol at the richest and most powerful nation state in human history not having sanctions placed upon it equaling some kind of moral victory.

My bad, America, I was mad at you for Iran, Chile, El Salvador, Iraq, Vietnam, Nicaragua and Cambodia but then I remembered that you don't have any economic sanctions placed on you. There I go believing that imperialism exists and ruining socialism for everybody when a quick look at the number of sanctions placed on you obviates the need for any further moral consideration

Edit 2 - also how can you be the person who attacks any attempt to reach out to trump voters or the white working class as capitulating to white supremacists and simultaneously argue that Russia is morally culpable for the entirety of American racism
 

kirblar

Member
In a positive sign, my local Delegate candidate is putting out microtargeted Facebook ads. I wonder if that's why I haven't seen as much in the way of physical advertising as I'd expect.
@4everNeverTrump

On Friday, @MooreSenate had 27K followers. Today he has 47K followers. The vast majority of his new followers look like this:
DMReJSOUIAA7AxX.jpg:large
And they're still at it.
 

Teggy

Member
In a positive sign, my local Delegate candidate is putting out microtargeted Facebook ads. I wonder if that's why I haven't seen as much in the way of physical advertising as I'd expect.

And they're still at it.

Yes, and Moore actually claimed this was done by the Doug Jones campaign lol.
 
I just feel like Obama needs to take the public space a bit more. Come on dude enough windsurfing. That's the only way these people will stop going but hillarryyyy.
He’s doing precisely what he needs to. An occasional reminder that he’s around with a tweet or a statement about a relevant topic when necessary.

I see no benefit for him going around going on late night shows, doing speeches responding to whatever Trump’s latest stupid comment.

He could. But he wants to windsurf. He’s earned it. If we need him to come out and say something then that’s just more indicative of how poor our current leadership is. Someone has to take charge. Him being out of the way also puts more pressure on the democrats to get their act together.
 
Who on earth is arguing that Russia is culpable for racist America being racist.

This is ridiculous. The US has a history of doing stupid shit under various administrations. Cool. Everybody knows this. It's stupid populace has inexplicably installed a senile baby as it's head of state. It is still engaged in a bunch of stupid wars and it keeps terrible bedfellows.

Vladimir Putin is an actual despot. Who assassinates his enemies. And annexes countries. And suppresses his people. And kills and disappears them. And has warped what little democracy there was to installing himself as permanent ruler. And actively funding and propping up and working to elect extremists to destabilise global democracy. Now. Today. As I type this.

Is this what a "tankie" is. I was wondering.
 

pigeon

Banned
Is this what a "tankie" is. I was wondering.

The term "tankie" comes from a bygone era where people would do this about Josef Stalin, but otherwise the principles are pretty much the same.

edit: To be clear, it comes from when people would do this about Stalin killing his political enemies with tanks.
 

Ecotic

Member
I just feel like Obama needs to take the public space a bit more. Come on dude enough windsurfing. That's the only way these people will stop going but hillarryyyy.

I wouldn't mind the unorthodox move of him getting back in the Senate. I think the general idea of an ex-President being above-the-fray and only speaking out once in a while with a lengthy facebook post is overrated. He just feels wasted if we're only going to whip him out during election season.
 
I just feel like Obama needs to take the public space a bit more. Come on dude enough windsurfing. That's the only way these people will stop going but hillarryyyy.

Doing the right thing for his base explicitly isn't Pres. Obama's style. In addition, the limits of his bully pulpit was demonstrated last election. He tried to push people to participate and support his endorsement but many of them didn't do it despite multiple asks. And as someone else implied, a more visible Obama may counter intuitively hurt the "resistance" because the GOP will have a familiar enemy they can use more often as a punching bag.
 
Julie Carey‏Verified account @JulieCareyNBC 2h2 hours ago
Newest poll shows tighter Va Governor's race with Northam 48% - Gillespie 44%. Last @WasonCenter survey had Northam up 7 pts @nbcwashington

Time for the FUCK FUCK?
 

FyreWulff

Member
I just realized the fact that Trump is scared of stairs is probably due to always taking the elevator his entire life due to being rich enough to only live and grow up in places where he'd only take the elevator or escalator

dude is so privileged he only knows how to walk on flat ground
 
Presidential as fuck people.

In the footage unearthed by NowThis, Trump is shown lecturing at a seminar, where a woman in the audience asks him how many jets he owns and how she can apply to be his flight attendant.

Trump invites the woman to join him onstage and as she makes her way toward him — to the sound of catcalls — he says, ”I think she's hired."

Trump then embraces the woman, puts his arm around her waist and tells her, ”You're hired."

With the woman still by his side, Trump launches into a story about the teenage waitress he hired for her looks.

You know, I had a case, it was very interesting. A beautiful girl, who was 17 or 18, applied to be a waitress," Trump said. ”She's so beautiful, she's like a world-class beauty."

”And my people came and she said, ‘Mr. Trump, she has no experience.' So I interviewed her anyway because she was so pretty. And I said, ‘Let me ask you, do you have any experience?' She goes, ‘No, sir.' I said, ‘When can you start?' "

After concluding the story, Trump kisses the woman from the audience on the cheek and promises that she can ”work on [his] plane anytime."

Trump tells the crowd that if the woman actually worked on his plane it would be ”like a death wish" for him, and goes on to equate his feelings about women to alcohol addiction. ”This would be my form of alcoholism," he said.

I was going to bold more of it, but the whole damn thing is batshit crazy and absolutely deplorable...
 
Tom Marino withdrawing his name from the position of, as Trump puts it, "Drug Czar":

Rep.Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar. Tom is a fine man and a great Congressman!
 

Blader

Member
When and why did we start using 'czar' to describe project managers in the federal govt?

The one Manchin vote that irks me a bit was him voting to confirm Sessions. He could have easily symbolically voted against him but still voted for him and I can't really figure out why. Must have been internals showing Sessions as decently popular in WV or something.

He talked about it on PSA a few months back. Basically, his defense was that he feels being the lone Dem (or one of the lone Dems...was there more than one?) to vote to confirm Sessions gives him some credibility to weigh in on DOJ policy changes and have Sessions' ear. Not that I think Sessions would ever give a shit about what any Senate Dem, regardless of how they voted, would have to say about how he runs DOJ, though.
 

DTC

Member
The sample of that poll is noticeably less dem than VA is as a whole. (34 dem to 31 repub compared to 40 dem 33 repub in 2016). I wouldn't be too worried about VA being close. Independents went for Northam in that poll - if they go for Northam in November, Northam wins easily because VA has far more dems than repubs.
 
A Roanoke poll has Northam up 6, 50-44.

Everything seems to be converging around a 5 point lead, the only question is whether the polls will hold up this time around.

Just can’t wait for everyone to be freaking out when NoVa is last to come in like usual and carries Northam across the finish line.
 
On the Registered Voter subsample of the CNN poll, Democrats hold a whopping 16-point lead at 54-38. According to Nick Gourevitch, that’s the first time Republicans have been under 40 since 2006.
 

teiresias

Member
On the Registered Voter subsample of the CNN poll, Democrats hold a whopping 16-point lead at 54-38. According to Nick Gourevitch, that’s the first time Republicans have been under 40 since 2006.

Left leaning PACs need to pour money into tying the GOP to each insurance premium increase going forward. Widen it further.
 

mlclmtckr

Banned
Who on earth is arguing that Russia is culpable for racist America being racist.

This is ridiculous. The US has a history of doing stupid shit under various administrations. Cool. Everybody knows this. It's stupid populace has inexplicably installed a senile baby as it's head of state. It is still engaged in a bunch of stupid wars and it keeps terrible bedfellows.

Vladimir Putin is an actual despot. Who assassinates his enemies. And annexes countries. And suppresses his people. And kills and disappears them. And has warped what little democracy there was to installing himself as permanent ruler. And actively funding and propping up and working to elect extremists to destabilise global democracy. Now. Today. As I type this.

Is this what a "tankie" is. I was wondering.

Pigeon is arguing that.

Saying that America's actions overseas are "stupid" and that its current wars and propping up of brutal regimes as also "stupid" is a morally reprehensible abdication of responsibility. They're not well-intentioned blunders or accidental. They're not unforeseeable or unintentional.

Signature strikes and triple taps and regime change and the current state of the Middle East and the funding of apartheid states and the funding of fascist political movements (yeah, Russia didn't invent that) and all of the other brutalities that America perpetrates against the Global South are not silly bone headed blunders.

Let's remember that this discussion started with the term "global supervillain." And any materialist evaluation of America's foreign policy should prove that it deserves the title.

The only way in which Russia is actively worse than the United States is the way in which it fucks up liberals' West Wing / fifth grade American history class view of the world where no one acknowledges American imperialism at all and warmongers are euphemistically called "hawkish" and considered patriots.

Vladimir Putin is an evil, brutal, murderous gangster who should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. All of the things you mentioned are horrific and sickening. But any honest look at the numbers will tell you that he's not actually hurting or killing more people, currently, than the American natsec establishment.

I'll ask you the same question I asked pigeon: do you think the title of global supervillain should apply to the country with the worst intentions or the country that actually kills and harms the most people?

I'm not a tankie. Firstly because implying that Russia is still the USSR is bottom tier shitlib lazy propaganda that is only compelling to Pod Save America listeners. And second because tankies traditionally actually defend the actions of the USSR (and Stalin specifically) and I have not done that with Putin. All I've said is that if there is a "global supervillain" right now it's sure as shit the United States, however much ignorant insular libs might try to minimise its actions.

Again this is the materialist reading. I'm sure that Russia offends your sensibilities more than America does. But using aesthetic considerations as a substitute for morality is, well, immoral.

The term "tankie" comes from a bygone era where people would do this about Josef Stalin, but otherwise the principles are pretty much the same.

edit: To be clear, it comes from when people would do this about Stalin killing his political enemies with tanks.

People would deny the holodomor or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and get called tankies. They didn't get called tankies for, uh, acknowledging the existence of imperialism. That's just the entire Left.

Also to be clear but also like factually correct the term comes from the people who defended the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 not from Stalin executing people with tanks which I have never heard of
 
Ah, here come the panic emails about the VA governor's race, from random liberal groups Louis Slaughter and/or Hillary Clinton and/or the ACLU gave my email to after I donated.

Gotten 5 of them in the last 12 hours.

BREAKING: We're going to lose unless you donate RIGHT NOW

I don't know why I don't mark these as spam.
 
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