Last week we had the first week of the WA legislative session, the State of the Union Address, Republican and Democratic debates, and big things happening on the foreign policy front. Oh…and the Seahawks. So let’s call this a Debriefing Edition of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally. Stop by and chat about it.
We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. We start at 8:00pm.
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings happening this week. Tonight the Tri-Cities, Vancouver, WA, and Shelton chapters also meet. The Lakewood meets on Wednesday. And on Thursday, the Tacoma, Bremerton, and Spokane, chapters meet.
There are 186 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find—or go out and start—a chapter near you.
Michigan Republicans are little better than those boiler room scammers who prey on the elderly. They specialize in stripping the assets of poor communities of color for private gain. Now, one of the nation’s worst Republican governors is in real hot water, and calls for his resignation are growing louder.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/he.....er-crisis/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Of course, the GOP-controlled legislature will never impeach him. But this is an election year, and in just over 9 months voters will have an opportunity to term-limit many of them. If I were the guv I’d be looking for a country willing to grant him asylum.
http://bitterempire.com/presid.....bar-fight/
If you want a good laugh, the link is a ranking of the president candidates in a bar fight.
@1 Oh, the irony of your post under “Drinking Liberally”.
Anyway, I want somebody in the media (as if) to ask these Republicans why they think their version of Christianity is better than, say, Mormonism or Catholicism.
Game on.
15-674 UNITED STATES, ET AL. V. TEXAS, ET AL.
The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. In
addition to the questions presented by the petition, the parties
are directed to brief and argue the following question: “Whether
the Guidance violates the Take Care Clause of the Constitution,
Art. II, §3.”
@ 2
You’re just enthralled with the mental image of Graham in a pile with three other guys.
Most accurate headline of the day:
Sarah Palin Expected to Continue Endorsing Sarah Palin Today
At Redstate.
Goldy @GoldyHA
I dreamt that a leaky pipe in the 2nd floor bathroom soaked the upstairs carpet, and awoke to find the upstairs bone dry. Coincidence?!!
Or gravity. Check the downstairs carpet.
That’s OK. On a night when the wind chill factor dropped the perceived outside temperature to 15F, Birmingham’s homeless probably warmed themselves by feeling the Bern.
Boutwell Auditorium, typically used as a warming station in such situations, was not available Monday night because presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders spoke to a crowd of thousands. Factoring in wind chill, it was expected to feel more like 15 degrees on the streets of Birmingham.
Last week, the auditorium housed about 300 people a night when it served as a warming station for three nights.
“We’ve never had a night like this where it will be in the teens and we weren’t able to open,” said Don Lupo, of the mayor’s office of citizen’s assistance.
http://www.al.com/news/birming.....bb911883fd
The judge was appointed by Obama.
A federal judge has rejected President Barack Obama’s assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress access to records pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, a gunrunning probe that allegedly allowed thousands of weapons to flow across the border into Mexico.
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department’s public disclosures about its response to the so-called “gun walking” controversy undercut Obama’s executive privilege claim.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/.....z3xidSrFsa
Since Team Obama can appeal, a new administration likely will be handing over the documents that Obama doesn’t want to see the light of day.
Might make for an interesting Fall debate question, tho.
@4,
you sound excited. Is this because, as a strict constructionist you yearn for clarity regarding the President’s Constitutional obligations to carry out Congressional Statutes? For instance, do you long to see the question of President Bush’s suspension of habeas settled?
Or is it that you just hate the dirty Mexicans?
Oh, and today is the 302nd day since the Canadian born Wall Street fraudster Rafael Cruz declared his personal ambition to control the White House. And still he keeps Republican voters in the dark by withholding the documents establishing his citizenship status.
@ 10
See, and here I was thinking the Constitution is already clear that the president can’t cherry-pick what stuff he wants to enforce and what stuff he doesn’t.
If I’m ‘excited’, at all, it’s because it won’t just be an argument about standing to sue. If it were, then the order to argue possible violation of the Take Care clause wouldn’t have been added.
With this case and Friedrichs likely to be decided at term-end, the #BLM types might as well take the month of June off, perhaps using the time instead to prepare to
riotdemonstrate at DNC. Few on the left will give a shit about #BLM when they’ve got the public sector union members and Latinos to mollify.You myopically seem to think it’s about immigration. It’s not. This decision, if sufficiently broad, will affect executive power choices across the board.
@1,
and to think the Republicans used to consider their state executives as the national JV. Now their base wants to burn Nikki Haley at the stake.
Are any Republican Guvs left in the race?
Without the promise of the big nationwide grift, what’s the incentive for working within the party at that level? The Kochs have abandoned little Scotty. Daddy’s oil patrons have left Jeb! for the Wall Street Canadian. Christie lost his money battle months ago. And Kasich is like the Republican’s crazy uncle in the corner. This populism wave could spell trouble down the road.
@ 13
Are any Republican Guvs left in the race?
Why, yes, yes there are.
Two more than in the Democrat primary race, in fact.
” This decision, if sufficiently broad, will affect executive power choices across the board.”
That’s indisputable. But that door will swing both ways. What’s basically at issue is the extent to which the Executive can intervene with career civil service employees within any department whenever such employees decide they have their own interpretation of the law. That’s pretty much what the people at Burns bitch about every day, if you bother listening to them. If The Court chooses to empower federal employees to disregard Executive orders, then we have to rely on a functionally broken Congress to micro-manage through legislation. With the door swinging shut on Republican majorities time will be short. And current Republican Congressional leaders have no legislative track record. They can barely keep the government funded.
Be careful what you wish for is all I’m saying. You may find you traded Dreamers and Gitmo for an independent EPA. That’s not what Republican funders are looking for. The Jade-Helm, mailbox sticker paranoia can be costly in more ways than one.
@ 15
What’s basically at issue is the extent to which the Executive can intervene with career civil service employees within any department whenever such employees decide they have their own interpretation of the law.
WTF?
The executive order in question was accompanied by a DOJ legal memo that provided for prosecutorial discretion on an individual basis. So that’s been there, and someone several layers down from Holder/Lynch can ‘intervene’ any time they want, on any individual case, if a career employee gets out of line.
That’s not really what is at issue in this case.
What is at issue is that the effect of Obama’s executive order has made a collective decision not to prosecute a whole class of individuals. That’s not case-by-case. That’s disregarding the law.
Make it a grey-zone issue of a couple of dozen immigrants and it’s 7-2 in favor of Obama, or maybe 8-1 in favor, once past the standing argument. But it’s not an issue of a few cases. It’s a whole class he’s protected, which is in violation of law.
To address the ‘be careful what you wish for’ point, yeah, it’s a good one. I think enthusiasm on the part of the traditional Democrat-leaning electorate won’t be great this Fall the way it has been in the past two presidential elections. A decision favoring the 26 states supporting the Texas suit may substantially increase voter anger in affected demographics, and that may translate to substantially increased turnout. Point not lost on me. Elections have consequences.
Fox News headline, November 7:
Hillary Clinton signed non-disclosure agreement to protect classified info while secretary of state
Not unlike the one signed by Petraeus, BTW.
Fox News headline, today:
Inspector General: Clinton emails had intel from most secretive, classified programs
The Inspector General’s letter is here:
http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....grams.html
Apparently there’s a 2009 Obama Executive Order that has been ignored by Hillary, if the Fox News piece be believed.
Goldy @GoldyHA
“There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum & livable income for every American family.” MLK
I forget. Was King a PC guy, or a Mac guy?
“What is at issue is that the effect of Obama’s executive order has made a collective decision not to prosecute a whole class of individuals.”
Correct. Subsequent to a very lengthy and widespread disregard, throughout the agency, of previous Executive orders and enforcement directives. At a time when, as a direct result of Executive intervention, enforcement actions and deportations were accelerating. I’m not disagreeing with you about the statutes. The law does not grant special status. And I won’t be surprised if the Court finds that the President lacks the power to grant it on his own. So strictly in terms of checks and balances, I guess that’s good. But despite what the leading Republican Presidential candidates have to say about it, rational people understand that we lack the resources, and we will always lack the resources, to deport every single undocumented alien. Congress refuses to act in the face of that reality. So the President gave specific direct guidance to the agency to focus enforcement resources in the way he judged best. Again, so far as I can tell, the statute doesn’t explicitly grant that authority. And the Constitution may not either.
But the point is the President, someone the vast majority of us voted for twice was intervening in the operations of the agency to overcome the obstruction of career bureaucrats who none of us ever voted for ever. I’m sure those career bureaucrats know just as well as the rest of us that we will never have the resources to remove every last undocumented alien. But they’d sure like to see us try, wouldn’t they? And if that’s your idea of “smaller government” it’s no wonder your party base has had it with you people.
@ 19
Pretty sure the number of times elected or the electoral margin won’t be considered by the Supremes. And I take issue with your use of ‘vast’ but that’s irrelevant.
…I guess that’s good.
Do tell.
Goldy @GoldyHA
Maybe moderate establishment Republicans haven’t consolidated around Marco Rubio because he’s not a moderate establishment Republican?
Or maybe it’s because
• he’s not the only moderate establishment Republican in the race this season
and
• we haven’t had the first state primary yet.
Kevin LiptakVerified account
@Kevinliptakcnn
NEW CNN/WMUR poll in New Hampshire:
@BernieSanders 60%
@HillaryClinton 33%
Meanwhile Goldy wonders why GOP establishment hasn’t rallied around one of several possible establishment candidates.
Is something wrong with Stephen Hawking? He says the biggest threats to humanity come from science and technology!?! Uh, I’m no genius, but humans, and everything they do, is a threat to humanity. Humans have not lived in harmony with the planet. I can just picture the mountains of garbage clogging all the oceans in a century from now. The chemicals poisoning everything in the ground and in the air. Populations approaching increasingly unsustainable numbers because more and more is horded by the few. Religions and races growing ever more hostile and deadly because of climate change. No, it’s not just science and technology. It’s everything about us. We are a flawed species that is no longer adapting. The minute we picked up a rock and used it as a weapon, our fate was sealed. We’ve outsmarted ourselves.
This must be what it looks like when a party coalesces around its establishment candidate.
The focus on Iowa, which still haunts Mrs. Clinton after the stinging upset by Barack Obama there in 2008, has been so intense that even organizers in New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Feb. 9, have complained to the campaign’s leadership that they feel neglected.
On a call with supporters last week, Mrs. Clinton’s aides laid out a scenario in which the race against Mr. Sanders stretched through April, a prospect that they said would require about $50 million for a national ground operation and other expenses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01.....v=top-news
@6. Graham isn’t my type. If i had to choose someone Rubio is nice to look at, too bad he has that drinking problem.
@20,
well, it’s not as if a ruling from the Court is going to change very much going forward. Removals will slow and ICE mouth breathers will go back to cherry picking enforcement, wheedling for more officers to carry out pointless “inland” checkpoints, and shooting children.
But it’s not as if James Watt wasn’t sued hundreds of times and lost. And it’s not as if that sort of thing won’t happen in the future. It looks like your investment in this doesn’t extend much beyond political trophy hunting. Which at least is consistent. But the career bureaucrats aren’t going anywhere. And if this suit succeeds it will tend to embolden them.
More conservative values.
Wait for the DUMMOCRETIN spinmeisters to get this working… http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....grams.html
PuddyCommentariat: Wait for it from the HA DUMMOCRETIN to call Fox News liars!
You realize if hillary goes down, Sanders is even more likely to be president
Oh look… peeps HA DUMMOCRETINS support blame the rape victims! http://www.breitbart.com/londo.....e-perfume/
@2 I can’t imagine Carly coming out of that very well.
@4 When have Republicans ever cared about faithfully executing laws, except when it serves as a useful talking point? The Take Care Clause didn’t stop Reagan from selling guns to the thugs who murdered American nuns in El Salvador. It didn’t stop Chimp from secretly spying on law-abiding American citizens or torturing people in violation of U.S. laws. The only laws Republicans worry about upholding are the ones making it a crime to feed hungry homeless people. Your hypocrisy is breathtaking.
@5 That image never occurred to me, but it apparently did to you.
@ 31
It was in the linked piece, but you seldom comprehend what you read and you’re typically spewing too much to read anything carefully.
@ 25
I stated above @ 12 that I found your perspective myopic and I still do.
It’s less about immigration than it is about the boundaries of executive orders in situations in which EOs conflict with existing law. How much is too much. Once past standing, this may be too much.
@7 et al. – Bickle is enthralling us with his genius today.
@9 Good, I’m in favor of open government, not just when the other party is in power, but all the time, which is where you and I differ. It also warms my lawyer’s heart to see judges following well-established precedents and making reasoned decisions, instead of pandering to partisan interests like Republican appointees do.
@10 Don’t you know? He hates the dirty* Mexicans, because he can’t bill them to Medicare.
* They get dirty by working in the fields for slave wages so Bickle can enjoy cheap food.
@12 “See, and here I was thinking the Constitution is already clear that the president can’t cherry-pick what stuff he wants to enforce and what stuff he doesn’t.”
Can I sue him for not enforcing the law against thugs who trespass on public land and drive stolen government vehicles into town for supplies?
@13 “Are any Republican Guvs left in the race?”
Yeah, the Bridgegate scandal guy is still in. So is Kasich. Also the Bible thumper who believes Scripture overrules the Supreme Court.
I wonder what bleating we’d hear from Bickle about the Take Care Clause if a Republican got in and refused to enforce Obergefell.
I think it’s safe to say every adult gay person in America who can walk or crawl and still has a pulse is going to turn out in November.
Probably all the blacks, Hispanics, and Muslims, too. This is shaping up to be a VERY high turnout election on our side.
@14 Don’t overlook the fact our governor is way, way, way better than your governors. Or that Fort Lee, New Jersey, voters are well aware of it.
@16 “I think enthusiasm on the part of the traditional Democrat-leaning electorate won’t be great this Fall the way it has been in the past two presidential elections.”
Really? Have you been sleeping through Donald Trump’s speeches? The only constituency he hasn’t insulted is New Yorkers, who normally vote 95% Democratic. The best Republicans can hope for is they might vote only 92% Democratic this time.
@17 “Not unlike the one signed by Petraeus, BTW.”
Hillary didn’t (a) sleep with her biographer or (b) plead guilty to mishandling classified information.
Sarah Palin stumping for the Duck. She’s filibustering – I think even the duck can’t wait for her to shut up.
Man Palin is pathetic.
@18 King’s civil rights revolution was a pipsqueak compared to what will happen if workers are replaced by robots and have no other way of getting income. The Russian aristocracy was stupid not to feed the peasants. Look where they are now.
@19 In other words, this lawsuit is a make-work project for glorified security guards?
@20 Pretty sure you’re wrong.
@21 “he’s not the only moderate establishment Republican in the race this season”
True, but the other one is getting only 2%. This is unsurprising, though, because Rubio is no moderate, and calling even 2% of Republicans “moderate” is stretching the definition.
@24 Not to mention his inability to manage a checkbook.
@26 … sez the whiner from the party that deliberately blew Valerie Plane’s CIA cover in retaliation for her husband calling them liars when, in fact, they were liars.
@28 You’re forgetting the Muslims with this shitty attitude toward women are ULTRACONSERVATIVE RELIGIOUS FANATICS. They have a lot in common with our own misogynistic ultraconservative religious fanatics, so you should feel right at home with this bunch.
@32 Why do you ASSume I looked at “the linked piece”?
@32,
That’s why Puddy calls the dumb wabbit R senile! Becoming more stooooooooooopid 24×7!
@34,
More than you have been lately!
Sooooooooooooooooooo Obummer releases the Iranian 14 immediately and Iran takes 2.5 days to release the five Americans!
Yes, Obummer is still being played the fool he is!
Hillary didn’t … plead guilty to mishandling classified information.
YET!
@45,
” In other words, this lawsuit is a make-work project for glorified security guards?”
Among other things. The underlying history is complex and extends way beyond Bob’s partisan trophy hunting. The second time Republicans in the Senate blocked consideration of immigration reform the President, at the urging of border states governors and law enforcement among others, issued a series of memoranda directing CBP managers to de-emphasize certain removal enforcement actions. The idea was to do something productive with limited resources by focusing enforcement and removal on criminals. Part of that meant leaving gainfully employed families and their children the hell alone. That didn’t sit well with some CBP employees for lots of reasons. Since CBP is notorious as a low-pay dumping ground for unfit federal LE, for most of them it probably seemed like too much work. See, roofers, gardeners, hotel maids, and their kids are just a whole lot easier to fuck with than para-military narco-terrorists. Focusing enforcement and removal on criminals makes CBP jobs harder. Higher up the chain, in the new era of budget reconciliation, they started to see all this as an opportunity. If border state LE, mayors, and guvs were faced with enough headless corpses Congress might open up the spending firehose again.
At about the same time a consortium of immigrant rights groups started to engage in some border action that put the hypocrisy of the agency in the spotlight. Undocumented college kids from all over the U.S. (think Freedom Riders) started heading to the border states to turn themselves in to CBP in order to infiltrate the detention centers, document the conditions, and identify the detainees. Embarrassed that the conditions were illegal, that most of the detainees were harmless, and that most were being denied access to the immigration process dictated by statute, many CBP managers started to fight back by taking a hard line against “troublemakers”, in the process ignoring the directives coming from the White House. Backs against the wall, some of the worst of them declared it was all about “following the law” rather than covering their fat asses. Congressional Republican partisans picked up their tune. President Obama signed his Executive Order. And the rest is history, with lots and lots of interesting wrinkles and bureaucratic agendas thrown in.
The point is, Republicans have done everything in their power to prevent sensible immigration reform legislation from ever getting a vote. But at the same time, they are using the courts to prevent the Executive branch from trying to salvage a humane policy from their utter failure. And they are so naked in their partisan hypocrisy that they can’t be bothered to consider how handcuffing the Executive branch might backfire on them. This is not just a make work program for CBP. It’s a make work program for environmental and labor attorneys too.
Wow, those Dow futures are already negative this evening!
“Too many employees based in high-cost centers are doing work that can sensibly be done in lower-cost centers,” he said. “Now is the time to tackle head-on our infrastructure costs.” Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman…
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026710058
PuddyCommentariat: Puddy always has a DUmmies comment ready to go for Heilary!
Morgan Stanley – Heilary’s wall street bud! http://www.redstate.com/2016/0.....rse-video/
Wow. Bernie has a point.
Ahhh the truth is coming out… http://www.redstate.com/diary/.....hind-left/
PuddyCommentariat: Of course the DUMMOCRETINS don’t want you to know that the left wrong foundations have way more money and control more than the Koch Brothers. Yet all we see in libtard left wrong msm is Koch Koch Koch!
An excellent article on left wrong foundations!
NBC headline tonite:
Hillary Clinton Emails Held Info Beyond Top Secret: IG
Good thing she didn’t sleep with her biographer @ 42, or she might have some things to worry about.
Deep Thought
Each and every one of the GOP supporters on this blog voted for McCain/Palin in 2008; the ticket which purported Sarah Palin has what it takes to be one heartbeat away from being President.
Perfect timing for his mom to endorse Donald Trump! Mama Palin should have gone to her son’s in-custody arraignment/bail hearing in Alaska today, instead of flying to Iowa to make a controversial endorsement. One which will surely be even more controversial as news of her son’s arrest spreads.
Her son allegedly committed the assault of girlfriend (punching injury of left eye, kicking of right knee) at his parents’ house with alleged 0.189 breath alcohol, allegedly tossed girlfriend’s cell phone to keep her from calling 911, then allegedly picked up AR-15 assault rifle and threatened to shoot himself.
Track Palin may very well have PTSD from serving a year in Iraq, and probably needs treatment for that. And he deserves his rights in court as much as anyone else. But why wasn’t his mother there for him today, when he really needed her? Instead of being 3,400 miles away and potentially embarrassing the politician she wanted to support?
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireS.....e-36385746
@51 See #50.
@53 Yes, for Republicans, war is always the preferred option in any and all circumstances. Of course, they never fight in the wars they start. For them, wars are profit opportunities in which to invest other people’s children.
@61 Palin, the dumbest great divider, is back! According to Palin, conservatism no longer exists, or at least no one can be as Comservative as her. Except in her own personal life, she brought up her kids pretty liberal, they fuck like rabbits and drink like fish and divorce like monkeys fucking a football. Complete hypocracy and stupid to even talk about it. She has no solutions to any problems but to blame everyone except herself.
Unfortunate that a grizzly hasn’t been able to get a paw on her.
@54 Here’s a suggestion … take a deep breath and see if you can hold it until she does. C’mon, I wanna see if you can do it!
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
@56 Gee I hope so, because I still have some unspent cash from the dividend payments constantly flowing into my brokerage account, and the stocks I want to buy aren’t cheap enough yet.
After hearing Palin talk about “establishment” I said to myself that I am sick and tired of hearing the word establishment. It is nothing more of a deflection. About 1/2 hour after feeling this way, David Crumb(Frum) said on msnbc that he doesn’t think establishment means anything anymore. Dah, you fucking morons come up with words and hijack them like they have some value, but sorry, completely worthless.
@67 I think they mean the Wall Streeters, CEOs, and bankers they’ve voted for since the 1970s who returned the favor by ripping them off, sending their jobs to China, sending their kids to Iraq and Afghanistan, stealing their pensions, foreclosing their homes, and kicking them to the curb. As for me, I’m tired of trying to save these idiots from themselves, and I say let them fend for themselves.
No second Oscar for you.
Halle Berry: “I’m Related to Sarah Palin”
http://www.usmagazine.com/cele.....n-20121510
I mean, Cat Woman was just awful.
“The public interest is served by having rewards for people who have the time and the skill to spend years if necessary in court to uphold the people’s right to know,” he said last week.
http://www.heraldnet.com/artic.....verett-45K
I’d like to know just exactly what ‘intimate embrace’ really means.
Anybody happen to know the name of the spouse of Trump’s personal assistant?
The film overflows with juicy moments about Mr. Weiner. As the second scandal unfolds in July 2013, Mr. Weiner is shown panicking, misleading the news media and, at one point, racing through the back halls of a McDonald’s to avoid a woman with whom he traded inappropriate texts, whom his campaign code-named “Pineapple.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01.....d=pl-share
Depending upon how the FBI investigations play out, we may remember Huma Abedin for stuff a lot more captivating than this.
Latest polls say Bernie has a 2-to-1 lead in New Hampshire.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/19/.....index.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Let’s play a mind game. Let’s say Bernie wins the Democratic nomination. Benghazi – pfft! Emails – pfft! Iran deal – pfft! Bill & Monica – pfft! The Repubs will have nothing to run against. What will they do then?
@71 Milk that cow for all she’s worth, baby! Then see #72.
This is funny! The GOP has invested 25 years, tens of millions of dollars, and countless manhours building a case against the Clintons. But what if Hillary isn’t the nominee? In 2008, they had to run against a black guy, and lost big. What if, in 2016, they have to run against a funny-looking little old white guy from Vermont whose platform is no more wars and Medicare for everyone. WHAT WILL THEY DO THEN?
@ 72
The Repubs will have nothing to run against. What will they do then?
I dunno….Celebrate? Hire David Brock for his research on Sanders?
Republican Operatives Try to Help Bernie Sanders
http://www.bloomberg.com/polit.....ie-sanders
You’re about to watch three to perhaps several months of Hillary, possibly with increasing urgency, explain to Democrats why nominating a socialist would be an electoral disaster for the party. Once the GOP picks up where she leaves off, they won’t have to go easy on his age and possible health issues.
When I posted @ 75 I was half-joking, and I certainly hadn’t seen this:
Mr. Brock gave an interview Tuesday and put Mr. Sanders’s socialism front and center.
Appearing on Bloomberg TV’s “With all Due Respect,” Mr. Brock got a question about how to stop Mr. Sanders’s momentum. Rather than mention Mr. Sanders’s voting record, Mr. Brock brought up what he called “the elephant in the room.”
“He’s a socialist,” Mr. Brock said. “… He’s got a 30 year history of affiliation with a lot of whack-doodle ideas and parties. Think about what the Republicans will do with the fact that he’s a socialist in the fall.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/.....socialism/
I’m thinking more about what they’ll do with a proposed middle-class tax increase that Sanders prefers to call a ‘premium’.
Right wingin’, bitter clingin’, proud clingers of our guns, our god, and our religions Itten-Mitten-Little-Kitten – Oaten-Doten-Little-Boaten – It-skiddly-Oaten-Doten – Bo-Doe-Ska-Deeten-Daten – Wha-Daten-Chu
If it comes down to voting for the socialist or the reality tv persona, Bernie is the much better choice.
You keep saying socialist like it’s a bad word, you don’t seem to understand what the word means. Federal payments to poor red states is socialist. The urban I-5 corridor supporting poor rural areas is socialist. Medicare for the elderly is socialist.
What is your alternative?
@75 “nominating a socialist would be an electoral disaster for the party”
Are you serious? Have you checked the capitalists’ favorability ratings lately? You guys should count yourselves lucky if you get Hillary.
@76 “I’m thinking more about what they’ll do with a proposed middle-class tax increase that Sanders prefers to call a ‘premium’.”
As I’ve pointed out before, there’s a certain electoral segment that thinks paying $2,000 more taxes to save $5,000 of insurance premiums is a bad deal, and generally speaking these are the same people who will go to a car dealer and gladly pay $5,000 for a $2,000 rebate, then go home thinking they got a fantastic deal and brag to their neighbors about it. Democrats understand they can’t do much with this group. So be it. But at least our party isn’t stuck with these voters, yours is, and it’s your candidates who have to appease them. We pity you.
The absolute worst thing that could happen to Republicans would be to win the White House and ovewhelming majorities in both houses of Congress, enact their agenda, and then have these voters find out the GOP can’t bring back their jobs, old way of life, or pre-Civil Rights era. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes when the Trump mob finds out these things are gone for good, and the Democrats didn’t cause their troubles but merely tried to save what they had left.
@78 The biggest socialists in Washington are those Republican-voting eastern Washington farmers living on federally subsidized irrigation water and electricity and Seattle-subsidized roads, schools, and mail delivery. The worst thing that could happen to them would be having their own separate state and paying taxes for everything they’re getting right now from the government they despise so much.
It turns out one of those Oregon occupiers made his living by taking care of foster kids, and when he became a criminal the state took away the kids. Now he’s complaining that he and his wife will have to live on rice and beans.
http://handbill.us/?p=66456
Roger Rabbit Commentary: He worries too much. He can look forward to years of free room and board after this is over.
@77
You Betcha!
You know I can see Russia, my friend Putin, from my house.
You Betcha my kids are whores and drunks that are going to have to live off the government teet just like me. You Betcha! Just look at Bristol, she’s going to make a fine VP Candidate one day, you Betcha.
Golly gee this is fun! Heck you think I’m going to go through the trouble of taking over a government wildlife refugee when I can live in the Whitehouse for free. Oh that’s like a rattle snake looking for a dark rock – you betcha.
Why do I get the feeling that Boob thinks politics is just a game like a football game and only in it for a win regardless what the outcome the winners will bring?
@77 she might have mis-spoke if she pluralized the word religions. What she meant was religion and only one religion and that would only be her so called religion, which i’m sure they’ll soon create a new word for seeing that they don’t like the Pope, their supposed leader, he’s not conservative, they’ll have to succeed with him – divide and conquer. You Betcha!
@82. You wondered about why they suspended his foster license instead of revoking it. Foster parents are few and far between and they are reluctant to get rid of any like the Catholic church was reluctant to get rid of priests just because they were pedophiles. There are way more kids than available foster parents and the more troubled the kid, the fewer parents will risk bringing them into their home. The right wing radical still could be a resource to house children if he doesn’t go to jail.