The Politics Thread

[DRW50]

I'm shocked that you think Maher is a liberal. He is a libertarian who says crazy things to get attention and to try to draw attention to himself. He doesn't like war and he likes pot, and that's about it. No liberal would have given Ann Coulter a major platform for years, one that allowed her completely unchecked power.

Sullivan is also a contrarian, one who works very hard to show he's not like those "other" gays.

This is a bizarre question, because most people who work for socially conservative private entities likely don't have employees who donated against Prop 8.

It's a fairy tale for people to assume that socially conservative organizations allow their employees to ever make these types of donations. And it once again shows just how out of touch Andrew Sullivan is.

Which gay groups were behind this?

I have a difficult time believing that OKCupid was essentially shaken down by gay rights groups.

Sometimes companies make their own choices for their own reasons.

Edited April 7, 2014 by DRW50

[DRW50]

Oops.

Well he's macking on a woman, so I suppose Duck Dynasty still loves him above all.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/vance-mcallister-kissing-staffer-video

[quartermainefan]

The Bundy episode is just the latest example of the GOP heavyweights being exposed as the lightweight flakes and ideological zealots they all are. To be a frontrunner for the republican nomination apparently means you just have to be a lunatic or embrace lunatics. They all came out like nice little troopers supporting that crackpot and claiming it was on small government lines, nevermind how they all forgot notions of property rights and how everyone sharing the land equally in some home on the range utopia is actually communist nirvana put into words, but like so many republicans and tea partiers, the guy showed just how racist he is.

I am sure there will be those who say he doesn't represent republicans, but therein is the joke: he literally did. The entire republican party ran to rally behind him and say "he fights for us". They could not believe Harry Reid called his followers terrorists. And if you think about how close the republican ideology is to these so-called "militias" and their anti-american, gun toting nihilistic desire for shootouts on the prairies it is frightening to think this is the party that seeks to gain control of congress. Rand Paul, whose father was the darling of Stormfront.org--the site recently named as the site responsible for most murders--wants to be president and there are people who would actually vote for him.

And to make it all the more delicious, the very clowns who paraded out to support Bundy were the exact same fools who championed Zimmerman, of the I want to shoot people Zimmermans. So lets see if Zimmerman and Bundy have anything in common, although I can't possibly imagine what that could be, and then lets ask why republicans always wish to support them? I mean, does the KKK have a corner office at Republican HQ?

PS: Obama's color has no bearing on why republicans hate him with a passion.

[DRW50]

This man reminds me of that man from Duck Dynasty - they're both old white men who think they are full of smarts and great intellectual theories (but not the kind from those evil America hating colleges and book reading liberals...). They think it's clever and somehow sympathetic to say that black people are "slaves" to the "welfare state" and were so much happier, or would be happier, if they remembered their place. Both men seem to have a need to take us back to cotton fields.

http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/the-difference-between-cliven-bundy-and-phil-robertson-is-that-bundy-didnt-invoke-religion/361197/

Here is a writeup of those who supported him and their current backtracks.

http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/a-list-of-cliven-bundys-supporters-now-that-we-know-hes-a-pro-slavery-racist/361154/

As the article mentions, many Republicans did avoid him, as they had brains in their head.

This happens again and again. The far right - and many in the media - desperately try to elevate racist, extreme white men (and occasionally women) as the voice of freedom and the public.

[marceline]

I'm loving this Cliven Bundy debacle. This guy is the perfect embodiment of tea party principles: lawlessness, violence, anarchy, racism, ignorance of history, etc... all wrapped up in one aging, bloated grifter.

Sadly I'm already seeing some weak ass liberals claiming "Why are we talking about this guy? Stop giving him attention!!" The truth is we should NEVER stop talking about him. He should be thrown in the face of every Republican who mentions "personal responsibility" or wants to cut food stamps because of all the "fraud" or any gun fetishist who blathers on about the government coming for their guns.

Cliven Bundy is the left's Benghazi (except he has the benefit of being a real issue.) I just hope we have the sense and the balls to use him effectively.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

Yep if Democrats are smart they'll use this idiot as a tool to increase voter turnout and paint him over the rest of the Republican Party.

I'm more fascinated however with the new Elizabeth Warren book and all the buzz surrounding her and whether or not she will run for President. Personally I take her at her word that she's not going to run. However Mika B. from Morning Joe is annoying me to no end about Elizabeth Warren and her lil nods and winks. I get it Mika...you're a fangurl for Elizabeth Warren. But lets not pretend like Hillary Clinton isn't popular in her own right and authentic about what she believes in or what a Clinton 16 message would center on.

And if for some awful reason Hillary Clinton decides not to run well I'm def looking at Gov. Martin O'Malley, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo BEFORE I seriously consider Elizabeth Warren. She needs to serve one term in the Senate at least.

[marceline]

I love Elizabeth Warren but it annoys me to see people trying to push her into a presidential run. We need her in Congress. Her and a few hundred more like her. What good would it do to have her in the White House if she ends up with a Congress full of loons?

Obama's color is just the frosting on the hate cake. They hate all Democrats. They hated Bill Clinton and tried to de-legitimize his presidency. They hate Hilary too. The fact that Obama is black just ratchets up the hatred and affects how they express it but it goes much deeper than that.

[Roman]

I just had to stop, shake my head and laugh when I saw someone post the President's skin color has nothing to do with why Reps hate him.

That is just.....hilarious.

[Max]

Cruz, Paul, Hannity, Dean Heller, and a few others I never heard of do not constitute the entire party. A lot of Republicans were smart to avoid him, and they won't be hurt at all by this debacle.

I think we all know that there are some people who don't like the idea of a black president and that there are also some people for whom the reverse is true. (This is why Obama lost 59% of the white vote in 2012 and also why African-American turnout was at an all-time high last election.) Obama pretty much admitted this in an interview:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/27/140127fa_fact_remnick?currentPage=all

But in many cases, race doesn't explain why certain people hate or love this president, even though there are people who want to assume otherwise.

In any event, I am surprised that you want to point fingers at "racist" Republicans, Qfan, given that Roman has unfairly demonized you when you have previously criticized this president.

I give you a lot of credit for acknowledging that Obama wasn't the first president subjected to immense hate from the other side. I remember the Clinton hate to be every bit as intense as the Obama hate. Although birth certificates weren't demanded, the Clintons were accused of murder on several occasions (which I think more slanderous than the birther stuff).

And let's not pretend that Democratic partisans didn't show Bush the hate (which goes well beyond Florida 2000). To this day, some fringe nuts can't accept that Bush was legitimately elected in 2004 (as he won Ohio by over 100,000 votes). These nuts were the "tolerant" ones who mocked his (supposed) dyslexia and called him a chimp. And they were also the ones who wanted him to rot in a jail cell for "war crimes," even though Hillary, Reid, Biden, Kerry, and others all looked at the intelligence and came to the same conclusion as Bush did.

I certainly don't want Elizabeth Warren as president. But I honestly can't understand this reasoning, as she can obviously accomplish far more of her agenda as president than as a member of Congress. (And the chances of her being replaced by a non-liberal are extremely slim, so her exiting Congress to become president shouldn't be a concern.)

I think that Hillary is very popular, but only within the more moderate half of the party. IMO, the more stridently liberal half deeply distrusts her because of her allegedly racist campaign in 2008, her husband's legacy of triangulation, her neo-con tendencies, and her Wall Street ties. However, this activist wing of the party knows that Hillary is the only Democratic nominee who can win in 2016, so they'll hold back any serious reservations they have about her until after her election. Although I do think that chances favor Hillary winning in 2016, I just don't see how she can possibly keep the fragile, modern-day Democratic coalition in place through 2020. If she governs as a moderate, she will invite a primary challenge in 2020 (most likely from Warren), but if she moves too far the left in order to appease the Warren wing of the party, she'll lose her appeal to independents.

I think that Warren would love to run for president in 2016 but knows that Hillary would be too difficult to beat in a primary. I am guessing that the purpose of this book is to keep her issues (as well as herself) relevant throughout 2016, and to force Hillary to pay attention to the progressive wing of the party. If Hillary loses in 2016, this book not only positions Warren well for a run in 2020, but also positions herself nicely as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party post-Obama.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Max

[Max]

Joe Biden has broken the barrier for all plagiarizers. After he became VP, nobody seems to care anymore if one has plagiarized. We can witness this by the fact that Rand Paul wasn't hurt after his plagiarism scandal. Nor will businessman Tom Wolf, the man who is favored to become the next governor of PA, be hurt by it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/tom-wolf-plagiarism-_n_5208267.html

Edited April 26, 2014 by Max

[quartermainefan]

Who even bothers to respond to someone that dense? He is so on the lookout for proof everyone is a racist that he couldn't even recognize my sarcastic comment on this very page for what it was. Everyone else in the thread did, but when your prism through which you look at literally everything is "he's a racist, she's a racist, I'm a racist, you're a racist, wouldn't you like to be a racist too?" you can't expect him to appreciate subtleties of english.

Edited April 26, 2014 by quartermainefan

[marceline]

Acknowledging the behavior of one side isn't denying the behavior of another. That the problem with false equivalence. You're so busy looking for excuses that you skip what gets said and go right to what you imagine is being said. Bush was mocked for things he said and did. The Republicans hate Obama for what he is: young, black, Democrat. They also hate him for what he represents: a world where white men no longer call the shots.

Bush got the same treatment all presidents get. He got mocked when he said and did stupid things. That comes with the territory. That is vastly different than demanding Obama's birth certificate. Especially when you consider that they wouldn't accept it even when they got it regardless of how that meant that they basically called Hawaii's government illegitimate. And don't even get me started on the Tea Party which was formed solely in reaction to a black man running for office.

I'm not even going to play your little game of "Look over there!" by your trying to blame everyone else in Congress for the wars. Funny how every President is held responsible for the military conflicts during their regime except Bush. Do we blame Congress for Korea or Vietnam or any other military conflict we've gotten into? No we give the responsibility to the Commander in Chief. Only in the case of Bush do we have people who suddenly decide that Commander in Chief is a powerless position.

You mean like Obama has? We can't even gets a jobs or infrastructure bill passed because the Repubs are so focused on hating him that they are willing to shut down the government than accept the existence of a law that was passed, held up by SCOTUS and approved of by the people when the guy who promised to repeal it on day one resoundingly lost. Warren in office would just be more of the same until we get Congress fixed and functional again. Besides, I think she's simply better suited to make laws at this point. Watching her go after bankers in Congress was a thing of beauty. We need more of that.

[Max]

Qfan, this is an excellent response.

I acknowledged that some conservatives do hate Obama because of his race, and also acknowledged the intense hatred the right had for the Clintons. I mentioned the Bush hatred because you (incorrectly) seemed to imply that the hatred the GOP has for presidents of the opposing party was somehow unique.

You also seem to contract yourself, because in one post you seemed to suggest that race wasn't the biggest reason for the Obama hatred (it was "just the frosting on the hate cake"), but now the opposite supposedly is true because the GOP hates Obama because he is "young, black, Democrat," and represents "a world where white men no longer call the shots."

There are Tea Party members who are racists, but formation of the Tea Party goes beyond opposition to Obama. These people were truly pissed off at the bailouts of the banks and the auto companies, and oppose big government in all its forms. They feel betrayed by Bush (for doing these things, and for running up the deficit), and have developed a deep and destructive hatred of the Republican Party (which ironically has helped Obama). And far from hating all black people, they have eagerly embraced African-Americans such as Herman Cain who have touted their agenda.

And as long as we are talking about race, we have to admit that there are two sides of the same coin: there are people who won't vote for Obama because of his skin color, and there are people who wouldn't otherwise vote for Obama if not for his skin color.

I've already mentioned the substantive policy objections that the GOP has with Obama, so I won't spend time listing those again. If you're convinced that GOP opposition to the president is race based, nothing can be said that can change your mind.

Of course Bush bears the ultimate responsibility for the Iraq War (which is why he has such a bad reputation), but Congress authorized that war, and all those who supported the war in the wake of 9/11 came to the conclusion that Saddam had WMD. However, back in 2008, a lot of progressives certainly did seem to care about the individual members of Congress who voted for the Iraq War. If they didn't care, Hillary would have been the nominee. It's only now that the anti-war left doesn't seem to care, because Hillary is the only electable Democrat in 2016.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Max

[Roman]

Well, since you always know how everyone feels and what they think, I knew some comment such as this would be forthcoming. This is what i would expect for someone who puts everyone in groups because they are so closed-minded they can't deal with any one person in a direct way.

But, the ignorance is still on display from some people in this forum. Maybe ask sometimes why i make the comments I do instead of just generalizing....which you and Max love to do.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

RE Hillary I honestly think the part of the Democratic Party that isn't thrilled about her (due to the Wall Street ties and the strong foreign policy tendencies) represents at most 20% of the party. Now I'll admit I had NO stats to back that up and this is pure speculation on my part but I just don't buy this idea that the media (and people like Mika from Morning Joe) are trying to create...that like half of all Dems loathe Hillary Clinton and aren't excited for her to run this time around.

I don't think the liberal base is mad about the 2008 campaign and we've already hashed that argument out before. For my part and from all articles I've read no one has ever accused Hillary of running a "racist campaign". The only issue was with Bill Clinton and some of the questionable things he said during that campaign. Especially during South Carolina where it got very ugly. Again there was no bad blood after the convention and her working as Secretary of State erased any ill will for the vast majority of Democrats.

There's only two things standing in Hillary Clinton's way of running. The Wall Street conundrum (which really isn't going to be a big deal) and then dealing with the possibility that the wealthy donor class of Republicans will go totally ape sh*t totally nuclear in 2016 and do everything humanly possibly to get Jeb Bush or Chris Christie the nomination. THEN and only then will she have a real fight on her hands.

Some in the media (including Chris Matthews who I love dearly but sometimes says hilarious bs) are trying to pretend like Rand Paul has a decent shot but I think most people will take him only a little more seriously than they did Ron Paul. He's just a little too extreme for mainstream America to take seriously...esp when it comes to foreign policy and even some domestic issues.