The Lief Reservoir of Simple Truths and Smart One-Liners

[YE]

wow yall are creepy and being inappropriate.

Let's not chase female posters away with creepy messages please.

[YE]

Big bravo to Tester for voting no.

His seat just went from tilt D to tilt R.

Shut up literally no one except some wrinkly faced NRSC guy will give a sh*t about the shutdown in like a month and a half.

I hope Democrats keep the Government shut down as long as possible. They should not reopen the government until Dreamers are granted permanent status.

[YE]

As someone who has talked to voters in the heartland (and actually lives there), tax reform isn't the thing riling them up. Most of them don't care about it (a lot like it, although a surprising amount don't) It's the culture wars (especially immigration) that get them going.

George Bush passed tax cuts that had 60% approval and no one gave a damn about those come election day 2004. People forget very fast lol.

[YE]

Democrats picking up any R+20 (or higher) District is less likely than Democrats making a triple digit total net gain in the House, in the 2018 elections.

Apparently now all districts completely conform to national cook pvi ratings on all levels at all the time, barring a Mooreing.

[YE]

Conor Lamb giving a victory speech

And not a good one either... lol

It's fine. The best part was when he reasserted his commitment to organized labor. He could be a major power player for organized labor in Congress if he stays around.

[YE]

I support Newman but holy moly are some of her other supporters in this thread being massively hypocritical assholes right now.

[YE]

Democrats need to stop talking about Gun Control or we're going to get wiped out in the Senate Races this year (ND, WV, MT, IN, and MO will definitely flip if Gun control is a big issue come November). Honestly, I'll never understand why Democrats don't follow the successful strategies of Bernie Sanders (promote Far-Left economic policies and a Non-Interventionist Foreign policy, and remain silent on social issues), instead of the failed strategies of Hillary Clinton (promote Far-Left Social policies, Moderate Foriegn policy and remain silent on economic issues).

Because of Silicon Valley and Wall Street money.

[YE]

Might I remind everyone on this forum that there is no evidence that Bashar al-Assad authorized the use of chemical weapons against his own people. Besides, what would he gain from that kind of action?

[YE]

This is damning. Kucinich should drop out.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-latest-kucinich-paid-20k-by-pro-syria-government-group/2018/04/17/7a264768-4288-11e8-b2dc-b0a403e4720a_story.html

It gets worse:
https://twitter.com/im_PULSE/status/986372134703419393

Not to engage in whataboutism (I’m tepidly pro Cordray) but I eagerly await everyone jumping on the establishment’s connections to the Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati royal/noble families, or to the Mubarak regime back in the day and no doubt the Sisi regime in the future with the zeal we’re all jumping on Kucinich for association with Assad.

We’re the imperial hegemon atm (or at least we were, and are a great power now). Really unpleasant people the world over want our politicians’ support. I should hope that we’re all not so naive as to judge Kucinich for merely backing a loser in the lobbying game of “Get Washington To Forgive Your Atrocities.”

[YE]

I'm definitely voting for the guy again but you can't say he's without flaws, not least the fact that a sizable portion of the party has been trained to despise him on a Pavlovian level. In real numbers this group is not that large, but unfortunately Twitter has a stranglehold on the media discourse, because that's where all the media people happen to be.

[YE]

By Atlas: Bill Clinton. God does Atlas seem to love to hate him.

I agree with this. People on Atlas seem to not understand the context of the times Bill was governing in. Obama seems to get much more of a pass for his attempts at Rockefeller Republicanism (grand bargain) than Bill Clinton, and Obama governed in a much more liberal time than Clinton.

Bill Clinton literally worked with Republicans to pass legislation that actively hurt people that voted for him.

[YE]

The interesting thing is that Gorsuch just passed the buck over to Congress just when Democrats needed to win back blue collar workers. We shouldn't be reacting to this by whining about "Muh stolen seat", we should actually be campaigning on this as an issue.

[YE]

Seeing all of these "hot takes" online, I cannot help but roll my eyes. I have been following California politics since I was 12-13 years old and while a lot has changed since then, two things have remained fairly constant: 1) it takes forever to count all of the votes (roughly 1/3 of the ballots still have not been counted in OC—my home county) and 2) one should never try to extrapolate the general election results from the primary results. With the jungle primary format, it is much easier to try and do so, but I would warn everyone against that because as people have said before me, primary voters ≠ general election voters.

The problem being that many of our members actually are 12-13 years old, psychologically if not biologically (and in some cases both.)

[YE]

Watching the debate between Mumph Naso and YE has been fascinating and educational

In my experience, political nerds, map nerds, geography nerds, and weather nerds are often very intertwined on social media. I believe there was a visualization of twitter "subject groups" that showed exactly this. Anyways, it doesn't surprise me that there are some weather hobbyists on Atlas.

[YE]

Eh, the DSA's electoral influence was understated before OAC and overstated afterwards. While last night might change the narrative, I don't think it signals an actual change in the trajectory of the American left.

[YE]

Satisfying to see Ing doing so badly. Not that I like anyone else running, but at least they don't use campaign donations to pay off their credit cards.

Hooray for Iraq War boosters!

Pardon me for caring about ethics even slightly.

Iraq War is definitely more ethical than like $15,000 in money screw-ups

Not being able to afford a good campaign treasurer in your first couple of campaigns really doesn't compare to much the average center left/right politician gets up to morally.

But obviously ethics are a different cat - a sedated, desanguinated, legalized version of morality designed to protect evil as long as its i's are dotted and its t's are crossed.

So we're arguing in favour of crime now. Cool.

Starvation, poverty, and war are crimes, being unable to hire a good treasurer is an accounting error

As part of one's citizenship in a democracy, they sign a contract with the country- the country, with the three branches of government as its arm, keeps the order and prevents anarchy by creating and enforcing laws. In return you, well, keep these laws.

When someone wants to become a lawmaker, they should be held to a standard which includes following these laws. If they're unable to follow this standard, they're unworthy.

That's not to say that laws can't be unjust, and that all laws are created equal- however, financial laws are not unjust, and as far as I'm aware starvation, poverty, and war (lol) aren't part of the U.S.'s book of laws. Thus, they aren't crimes.

[YE]

Better question - why is Atlas so obsessed with a state that went R+44 in the last presidential election?

Because it needs to flip at all costs. It's worth it.

Seriously. WHY? Give one good reason West Virginia is worth so much more than other states and is not some weird obsession. Just one good reason.

Because a class based political divide with people voting their economic self-interest  would lead to a less polarizing political climate than the polarizing urban/rural divide we have now.

[YE]

Because these voters are in their tribe, where they rationalize that their side is right and the other side is wrong. Happens on the left as well. Impossible to tell if it happens more on one side than the other, since nearly everyone seems themselves as in one of the said tribes, and does not have the impartiality to determine that.

[YE]

I guess it's understandable in this hyper-polarized era, but holy shlt does this forum overuse the term "ever."  Either it's a complete ignorance of the history of the parties or a belief that we are in some "special" era and/or political alignment.  Either is incredibly short-sighted and misguided.  Of course there will be, eventually.

[YE]

Open borders is an ideal situation that will probably never happen though. I could support it down the line when it looks like it could work...if ever. But for now, and the foreseeable future, this gives Trump some prime fodder. I guess she figures that she won't have much of a presence in an increasingly crowded field, so f*** it, she's going all out.

No, it really isn't and I say that as a Gillibrand supporter.  Truly open borders would be a complete and utter disaster.  There's middle ground between open borders and Mortimerian xenophobia-fueled unconditional exclusion of anyone coming here from a poorer country. 

[YE]

Free trade = good

Unregulated free trade = bad

Tariffs = usually bad

Cooperation to ensure worker safety, consumer safety, environmental safety and fair competition as part of a trade deal = good.

[YE]

https://twitter.com/TheStagmania/status/1105255818520350721

Thank you for establishing how Warren is good at drafting policy and writing bills, and how Sanders is able to captivate an audience and sell policy to the public. Thats one of the big reasons Sanders is above Warren in my ranking, Warren is not charismatic but good on policy, shes more suitable for State Senate Majority Leader, and while Sanders doesnt have all the details, he oozes Charisma, which is what you need to win the presidency and govern as an executive.

[YE]

If they didn't hurt Trump they won't hurt Biden. This whole metoo thing is so dumb, just shut the up already nobody needs to endure your social justice whining any longer. Most of these claims are BS anyways. Just like with Trump.

Citation?

Oh you don't have one?

Do you have any citations? Just what come out of their mouthes?

Do you have any idea how difficult it is for women psychologically and socially to go forward with these accusations? Chances are they flat out are not making it up no matter how much you'd like for them to be making it up.  

Why don't they just go the the authorities and make the accusation when it actually happens instead of waiting until its politically beneficiary? Jesus, it just makes you more suspicious by waiting until the person is in an important time.

That's the point of YE's post...I think it's pretty clear you don't realize how difficult it is for a victim of sexual assault/harassment to report immediately. Victims are often ignored or not believed in the first place. Many even fear that if they do report, their lives would be impacted negatively (i.e. losing a job, fear of safety, etc.).

[YE]

Here's how this is gonna go:

1. Very early polls will have the Democrat leading.
2. Then the polls will shift and Trump will have a narrow to sometimes even a moderate lead. Dems in disarray. Sean Trende will say something stupid and Harry Enten will say that the polls have never been wrong in Nevada.
3. The polls will then tighten about a month before the election. Everyone will then call it a Toss Up.
4. Early voting will start and it will be strong for the Democrats initially, but then the Republicans will recover during the first week after Trump does a visit. Jon Ralston will say it's close.
5. Democrats crush the early vote in the last week. Jon Ralston says its essentially over.
6. Democrats win by 3-7 points.

[YE]

If Matt Bevin is re-elected, how insufferable will IceSpear be after election day?

The last time IceSpear was dead wrong (Alabama) he apologized for it and updated his later predictions (such as WV-Sen) with regards to that result. Unlike you, who have doubled down on all your incorrect takes without ever admitting you were wrong about almost everything in 2018.