The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

[Atlas Force]

As someone who thinks the term "garbage poll" gets thrown around a little too freely, this poll is absolute garbage, for a multitude of reasons...

1. Gravis would have you believe Trump's favorability is at 47/51%, in *California.*
2. They'd also have you believe that 1 in 4 California *Democrats* views Trump favorably.
3. They'd also have you believe Trump's favorability breaks even with California Latinos (47/48%). Meanwhile, 2016 exits indicated Clinton carried Latinos with 71% of the vote
4. They'd also have you believe that 34% of California African Americans view Trump favorably (only 9% voted for him in 2016).
5. Their sample finds Clinton defeated Trump in 2016 by 14 points. The actual margin was more than double that.

Obviously, I left out several glaring issues (like Cox leading the Governor primary), but yeah, you can throw this one in the dumpster...then set the dumpster on fire.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Can a Democrat explain to me why a work requirement to use social services isn’t just common sense. If you were personally paying a homeless person to eat wouldn’t you want that person to make an effort to get out of their situation before writing a blank check? That just seems obvious to me. I’m not talking about cutting benefits (indeed I would be fine with reinvesting the savings from a work requirement back into social programs) but it is insane to me that one of the major parties opposes having any incentive to not be homeless.

The farm bill failing is also sad, could someone explain to me why Dems oppose that as well? I really don’t get Dem opposition to this at all. Couldn’t give less of a sh**t what the Freedom Caucus thinks.

Cheap labor is drying up...so you Republicans are trying to increase the labor supply by making all kinds of rules and regulations that whips people into working so business can keep wages low.

People have a right to eat.  You do not, nor does the government, have the right to peoples labor or time.  People don’t work for plenty of reasons and like a parent feeding a 17yo physically capable child as per the law...society has to feed the vagrants and everyone else.  And we should do so with a smile.

[YE]

Yeah, Steve Bannon, the guy who started Breitbart Jerusalem, is totally as antisemitic or dangerous to Jews as "from the river to the sea" BDS. It is also outright laughable to put Trump in category "c" after opening an embassy in Israel and being the most pro-Israeli U.S. president ever, while left-wingers who keep parroting their malicious anti-Israel nonsense get a pass from you as long as they conceal their nonsense in accepted terms. And how the hell would Josh Mandel be a "fellow traveller to antisemitic groups"? I always tended to respect your views on this issue, but your hackery is really showing now.

- Steve Bannon has repeatedly gone to the mat for neo-Nazi and white supremacist elements on the far right.  Quite frankly, Bannon is far more dangerous to the Jewish community than BDS because while the latter are ultimately a bunch of disorganized morons with little serious political influence or credibility, Bannon has managed to get the mainstream media to refer to literal Nazis and blatant white supremacists as the "alt-right" (a term which carries far less of a negative stigma for whatever reason).  This is arguably the single biggest messaging victory these groups have won since David Duke got the media to start gobbling up the "it's not about racism, it's about preserving our [treasonous Confederate] heritage."  Given that you're apparently opting to close your eyes to Bannon's anti-Semitism b/c you like his politics; you'll have to forgive me if I don't take your accusations of hackery very seriously.

- Unconditionally opening the U.S. embassy building in Jerusalem was terrible for both Israel and the Jewish community in the long-term and the idea that Trump has been pro-Israel in any truly meaningful way is laughable.  The four Presidents who have done anything truly consequential for Israel are...
1) Harry Truman (no explanation needed),

2) Nixon (ironically a notoriously anti-Semitic individual) who really cemented the American-Israeli military alliance,

3) Jimmy Carter (ironically a category C-type himself) since the Camp David Peace Accords with Egypt made a serious Arab military invasion of Israel more or less impossible,

and 4) Obama who was willing to condemn the settlement construction, support a two state solution, enacted the Iran deal which would've ensured that Iran didn't get nukes for at least the next 10 years while simultaneously bringing it further into the international community (and thus making it more susceptible to economic pressure) and pressure Netanyahu to stop trying to derail the peace process at every turn (long-term, Israel will not be able to exist as a democratic Jewish state without a two state solution; this is a simple fact). 

Donald Trump's disingenuous virtue signaling hasn't done jack for Israel's security and his inexcusable decision to shred the Iran deal has both dramatically increased the likelihood of a nuclear Iran and crippled American credibility abroad (as it should).  Meanwhile Trump has actively given aid and comfort to Nazis in the U.S. whom he has literally referred to as "very fine people."  And of course, there are (as with Bannon) his incredibly extensive ties to far right anti-Semites. 

- Please name for me the anti-Semitic left-wingers whom I'm supposed to have given a pass, I seem to have forgotten.

- Re: Josh Mandel: He has repeatedly condemned the Anti-Defimation League while praising various anti-Semitic bigots such as Mark Cernovich and Jack Posobiec.  The fact that Mandel is the descendant of Holocaust survivors only makes the way he's thrown his own people under the bus to advance his political career even more disgusting.

[YE]

Right I feel that a few things need cleared up here:

The big issue i have is I want to be a doctor who works with individual patients.

I'm assuming that you're talking about general practice here since that's the only way in which this as an idea makes any sense (if you're a specialist in a hospital then you're seeing whoever comes in for treatment in the area that you specialise in: no matter where you work.  In the UK Doctors work with individual patients: people are registered to local medical practices that are owned generally by the Doctors that work there on a non-profit basis.  The National Health Service provide funding to cover the wages of Doctors plus the costs of the treatments that they can do on-site (referrals to hospitals or prescriptions are covered by other sides of the Health Service); and that funding is contingent on them meeting certain conditions; the biggest one being that the care provided is free at the point of use and that they follow NHS practice.  These are generally the exact same restrictions that GPs in countries that have an insurance-based system have to follow: only that its easier for everyone since rather than every insurance company having their own sets of rules and restrictions about what they will and will not cover, you only have one set of rules in NHS practices (private healthcare exists but its irrelevant to this discussion.)

I do not want the government running my work place, and effectively making me a government worker. If i wanted to do that i would'nt be busting my ass for pre-med and med school in the fall.

There are plenty of professionals who work for the government already: why is working for the State automatically less worthy than being in the private sector?  Additionally Doctors in the UK are paid very good wages - my sister only qualified a few years ago and she's still a Junior Doctor and she's earning significantly above the average wage and in only a few years that will be a comfortable income probably in the six figure range.  Also because they are government employees they have a high quality pension scheme that is guaranteed by the state (while private sector companies have recently been raiding the pensions of their employees: in many cases resulting in there simply not being enough money to cover the costs meaning that old people suddenly have their main income taken away from them); strong representation from their Trade Union plus significant support from the public for what they do.  My sister has genuinely never thought about going private and she would bitterly oppose the imposition of a private system here even if she would financial benefit from it.

We already have a single payer type system here. The VA. The VA is an absolute disaster which shows exactly what government run healthcare does to people.

It shows the importance of properly investing in your health system rather than letting it wither and die in order to justify cuts to service levels or privatisation or both.  The same issues that the VA has were exactly the same issues that the NHS had in the late 90s after eighteen years of Tory misrule; significant underfunding led to a service that was almost on its knees.  Shockingly after the next government began funding it properly the quality of the service provided dramatically improved.

Our system right now int perfect but we dont have the ridiculous waits that people in other countries have, which is why we have a big medical tourism industry in America. I for instance have been diagnosed with skin cancer twice and i was able to get it treated on the spot with no wait. In other countries, who knows, it couldve eveolved into melanoma before the bureaucracy got around to it.

For procedures like that there generally is no waiting period if there is any risk that the condition may worsen - you would naturally skip the queue and be treated as an emergency in a case like that.  Waiting lists that exist are generally for things like organ donations - which is pure supply and demand and could be corrected by an opt-out organ donation policy rather than an opt-in one - and procedures which are not emergencies and which require specialised help that cannot immediately be provided.  Besides: someone in your condition who could not afford health insurance would have absolutely not chance at not developing melanoma while in the UK that is not a problem and from that perspective I think that it is clear that it is a significantly fairer system.

People from Canada, Asia, and Europe come here for procedures that they would otherwise need to wait in some cases several years for.

This is a heavily overblown story: the number of people that leave the UK for medical treatment for reasons of waiting lists are insignificant.  More leave because of a wish to try experimental procedures but in the US many of those wouldn't be covered by insurance companies so there is no difference - again: private healthcare exists in the UK.

Additionally, if you put the government in charge of the medical system, they will be able to step in and make decisions for the doctors and the patients, not allowing them to make their own. See the recent story of the 10 month old baby in England whose parents raised over a million dollars to bring him to the United States for a potentially life saving expirimental treatment. The NHS stepped in and refused on the grounds that it would cause the child to suffer, and they are pulling life support either today or tomorrow. For the government to not allow parents to make one desperate attempt to come to the US and save their child's life is disgusting.

But this is the most egregious part of your post; since it is wrong in almost any way.  Let me explain the case that you are talking about in detail.

Indeed; there have two cases like this in recent UK history; that of Charlie Gard about a year ago and Alfie Evans a month ago.  I'm going to look at both cases in detail.  The principal of both are the same: the idea is that the child has rights; that one of those rights is not to suffer un-due and unnecessary suffering if improvement to their condition is impossible and that those rights trump the rights of their parents.  It is also the case that the Doctors involved in the care of the person are the ones that judge on whether or not they can apply for a request to remove life support (not "the NHS"; not some faceless government official: those who've been looking after the patient for a significant amount of time and who know more about them than anyone) and a Judge; looking at all of the evidence; has the right to make the best decision for the patient based on their interests - not those of their parents or the NHS; their interests.

Charlie Gard suffered from a rare genetic disorder called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome (MDDS); which causes brain damage and muscle failure; has no known cure and in the vast, vast majority of cases causes death in infancy.  Dr Hirano (based in America) was researching a possible experimental procedure that might have been able to prove Charlie's condition.  The doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital were in contact with that Doctor while Charlie was on life support and said Doctor made the decision to not come to the UK to examine Charlie at that time although there was an agreement made between the hospital - an NHS hospital - and the Doctor to try the procedure out.  In January he suffered a series of seizures that caused significant brain damage and the Doctors at GOSH made the decision that the experimental procedure - that it had been agreed would be carried out in London without Charlie needing to travel - could not save Charlie and they applied for an order to remove life support.  This went through several months of legal wranglings and during that period Dr Hirano travelled to the UK to examine Charlie and came to the exact same conclusions as the Doctors at Great Ormond Street did: that the experimental procedure was fruitless and pointless to try after those seizures, and that the best thing for the interests of Charlie was for life support to be removed.  The decision was made on the basis of the best interests for wee Charlie by the Doctors that cared for him for a significant period of time as well as an independent arbiter who is only concerned about the interests of the child and nothing else.  Exactly the same processes exist in American hospitals as well: as I'm sure you are aware being a medical student there comes a point where keeping a person on life support without any prospects for improvement is only cruel for everyone involved and that was the case in this situation.  Not an easy situation for anyone but I agree with the decision made by the courts in this case - if only Dr Hirano had made the decision to travel to the UK earlier then perhaps this might have been avoided but no one can truly know.

The case of Alfie Evans is very similar although a lot weirder (him being given Italian citizenship was... a bit odd).  In that case there wasn't even a theoretical experimental cure: an Italian hospital offered to keep him on extended life support until some future date where theoretically something might be possible - since they hadn't diagnosed exactly what neurodegenerative disorder he had then there was no real prospect in a cure being found.  However they said that because of Alfie's condition plus the fact that he'd suffered several very bad seizures that there was a significant risk involved in him being transferred to Italy and that the risks involved may have caused further brain damage and made transfer very, very risky.  Additionally the doctors made the decision following a series of brain scans that demonstrated that the white matter in Alfie's brain was being progressively destroyed and that by their decision to apply for a court order very little remained; that the child was effectively brain dead.  This one seems clearer cut and it is based on the same situation as above: the Doctors made the decision to apply for a removal of life support on the interests of Alfie; since there was absolutely no prospect: no hope of any improvement and that keeping him on life support was incredibly cruel.

I'm from a family with a lot of people who work in the health service: my sister is a Doctor; one of my cousins is a Nurse and her husband is a surgeon and I have heard all sorts of stories about their work.  Once one of them had to make a decision on this .  And you know what; its a lot fairer than the US system when critically ill people can be thrown out onto the streets by hospitals if they cannot afford to pay for their treatment.  The NHS has problems - everyone knows this; and everyone accepts this.  However; in the UK pretty much everyone - doesn't matter if you are a Socialist like me; a Liberal; a Conservative; or whatever - agrees with the basic principle of the system: that no one should be barred from receiving medical treatment because of their inability to pay; that care should be available to everyone in the country on an equal basis.  A yougov poll in May last year found that 84% of people in the UK feel that healthcare should be run by the public sector - only behind the police (87%) and ahead of the armed forces (83%) and schools (81%).  Anything that has that level of mass public support even when its many issues are well known must be doing a lot of things right - and that support only rises when the American healthcare system and the significantly deeper problems that it has comes to the attention of the public again.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Good. The Irish-Catholic nationalism of old was a pox on Ireland.

[Xing]

This sort of argument is something folks don't know to be true, but because folks like to repeat this mantra to others, it feels like the truth.

I am a public employee.  I won't discuss what I do online, but I will tell you that folks crassly disrespect me when they call me and my peers "Bureaucrats".  That term is, in fact, a vicious slur against folks who are public employees.

Folks who chose public employment DO get good pensions.  They get them because (A) they often have had to adhere to a higher standard of personal conduct than those in the "private sector", and (B) they understood that they would not be getting rich on the public dime.  (I've only received two (2) one-thousand dollar a year raises in over 10 years, except for when I was promoted in 2016.)    We traded other opportunities for promised stability, and most public employees perform functions that are necessary for the stability of a middle class society, but cannot be profitably delivered by the private sector  And there are some occupations that, as a matter of morality, should be delivered ONLY by the public sector.  The next time you here of a lobbyist for a Private Prison company urging legislators to pass bills involving longer sentences and more minimum mandatories, upgrading misdemeanors to felonies, remember this post and think about whether this is an issue public safety or private greed.

Much of the folks who attack public employees resent their security (which is not what it used to be; pols are always jerking us around, threatening budget cuts, etc.).  These are the same folks that cry foul when someone here would point out the ratio of a CEO's pay to his employees.  They act as if there is no social contract that is involved here, but I remember my first week on my present job (decades ago, now), my employer sold the job with the explicit promise of long-term stability.  What saddens me about so many of my fellow blue avatars here is that they wish my employer to have greater latitude in dealing with me capriciously and unjustly.  (Fortunately, I do have a union, of which I am a dues-paying member.)

I've called the left out on their Chicken Little cries of "racism" and such.  Now I'll call the right out.  Just exactly what are these egregious examples of "incompetance" that mandate changing the rules on this matter?  Just who are these "bureaucrats" that are incompetant; indeed, what is a "bureaucrat"?  If "bureaucrat" is a job description, and not a slur, just exactly what does the job of "bureaucrat" entail, and how can one be incompetant at it?  I really want to hear answers on this from those here who seem to resent the very ideas of public employees.

[Badger]

This sort of argument is something folks don't know to be true, but because folks like to repeat this mantra to others, it feels like the truth.

I am a public employee.  I won't discuss what I do online, but I will tell you that folks crassly disrespect me when they call me and my peers "Bureaucrats".  That term is, in fact, a vicious slur against folks who are public employees.

Folks who chose public employment DO get good pensions.  They get them because (A) they often have had to adhere to a higher standard of personal conduct than those in the "private sector", and (B) they understood that they would not be getting rich on the public dime.  (I've only received two (2) one-thousand dollar a year raises in over 10 years, except for when I was promoted in 2016.)    We traded other opportunities for promised stability, and most public employees perform functions that are necessary for the stability of a middle class society, but cannot be profitably delivered by the private sector  And there are some occupations that, as a matter of morality, should be delivered ONLY by the public sector.  The next time you here of a lobbyist for a Private Prison company urging legislators to pass bills involving longer sentences and more minimum mandatories, upgrading misdemeanors to felonies, remember this post and think about whether this is an issue public safety or private greed.

Much of the folks who attack public employees resent their security (which is not what it used to be; pols are always jerking us around, threatening budget cuts, etc.).  These are the same folks that cry foul when someone here would point out the ratio of a CEO's pay to his employees.  They act as if there is no social contract that is involved here, but I remember my first week on my present job (decades ago, now), my employer sold the job with the explicit promise of long-term stability.  What saddens me about so many of my fellow blue avatars here is that they wish my employer to have greater latitude in dealing with me capriciously and unjustly.  (Fortunately, I do have a union, of which I am a dues-paying member.)

I've called the left out on their Chicken Little cries of "racism" and such.  Now I'll call the right out.  Just exactly what are these egregious examples of "incompetance" that mandate changing the rules on this matter?  Just who are these "bureaucrats" that are incompetant; indeed, what is a "bureaucrat"?  If "bureaucrat" is a job description, and not a slur, just exactly what does the job of "bureaucrat" entail, and how can one be incompetant at it?  I really want to hear answers on this from those here who seem to resent the very ideas of public employees.

Speaking as someone who spent almost two decades in public service with my law degree until 2 years ago, this whole post cannot be embraced enough.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

His first mistake is believing that politicians in general are good role models for kids. The one good thing about the Trump era is we can ditch the stupid idea that the America President represents an epitome of the ideal person, rather than whatever random hack managed to slime their way into the big job.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Opinion of Giulio Andreotti?

Other than 'hilarious person', you mean? An intriguing figure: a genuinely devout man widely accused of believing in nothing, the 'right wing' DC who headed up the two most left-wing (in terms of policies) governments in the history of the Italy, the fervent anticommunist and key component of Gladio who was the PCIs contact with the political establishment during the last decades of the First Republic and who had good personal relations with many important figures in the Kremlin, the man of impeccable personal probity who deliberately filled his faction with the most brazenly heinous crooks in a notoriously crooked party, the kindly giver of alms who had some sort of relationship - exactly what is still unclear and always will be - with the Sicilian Mafia and was almost certainly in part responsible for the murder of a journalist who was blackmailing him, and (of course) the politician who clearly had some kind of relationship with the Sicilian Mafia who launched the State's somewhat belated but rather fierce all the same crackdown on it.

I tend to think that the key to understanding him is to accept that the common view that he believed in very little politically is false; that actually all of the paradoxes can be explained by the white-hot intensity of his political beliefs. Essentially he believed in the need to protect two things: the Catholic Church and the Italian State. Anything could be justified in order to do this; anyone who might help could be an ally, anyone or anything that presented as a threat had to be destroyed or at least neutralised. And he would not be in a position to do this if he were not in a position of power, therefore anything was also justified in order to gain and maintain political influence. Sorrentino's film Il Divo basically made this argument and his reaction to it was interesting: he normally responded to anything he regarded as criticism with a shrug and a witticism and then moved on, but not in the case of that film. Firstly he angrily walked out of a screening of it and made vague threats of litigation, then (when a little time had passed) he began to argue that while the film was admittedly well made* and that he felt a little flattered that a film about him was up for award and winning them it was still a pack of lies, thirdly (when further time had passed) he started suggesting that perhaps he should be awarded a share of the royalties. A very uncharacteristic set of reactions that hints - I suspect anyway - that the film got pretty close to the bone.

_{*Incidentally, Andreotti was a personal friend of Fellini and once wrote an excellent little article about the meaning of La Strada.}

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Every public statement and action since the election has lowered my opinion of the man.

The idea that Obama was "early" also strikes me as incredibly wrong. His politics have already aged poorly, and started looking dated as early as the Recession and the rise of the Tea Party.

The reality is that he has more in common with the Democratic Party of the '90s then the one that is emerging today, and nothing meaningful to say about the major challenges facing the country. Even if he did, his time in office exposed much of his 2008 campaign rhetoric as either empty or hypocritical.

It's not difficult for ex-presidents to remain popular, though - after all, somehow W., Bush Sr., and Bill Clinton remain so.

[Atlas Force]

If he had reached out to Congress once in a while and wasn't intellectually distant, his presidency might have had more tangible results

What does the first part actually mean? Like is there an actual example from his first term where he didn’t reach out?

He gave massively benefits to red state democrats with Obamacare, spend the entire summer with John Boehner trying to fix the grand bargain and did virtually all of his 2009-2012 stuff through Congress.

It’s obvious that Obama should have done better with congress but I can’t see how this applies as anything other than a talking point.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/politics/john-boehner-republican-party/index.html

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How do you interpret Boehner's remarks?

"He's a scumbag, but he's OUR scumbag!" - John Boehner

Trump's not a scumbag for his tweets, of course.  He's a scumbag for orchestrating a Hostile Takeover of the GOP.  So, in that sense, Boehner's correct; he gives a proper interpretation to Trump's rise.

That, btw, is why I rofl over these #NeverTrump types who didn't endorse Hillary and vote for her.  I mean, if Trump was THAT BAD, THAT AWFUL, THAT BIG AN HP, why would you NOT vote for Hillary?  And if you couldn't do that, why didn't they endorse Gary Johnson, who, by any measure, was "better" in the context I'm speaking about?

They couldn't because they wanted it both ways.  They wanted to wash their hands of the dirt from the Tweets and the comments and the Trump-being-Trump, but they wanted a "Signer-In-Chief" turning their legislation into law.  And that's what they have in Trump.  How hard is it to take Trump when he'll sign the legislation your House of Congress passes if you're a Republican?

[Atlas Force]

2020 will be a re-do.  A democratic socialist non-Democrat vs. a former liberal Republican female elitist with a major phony streak.

It's not just Hillary Clinton I can't stand.  It's that slimy John Podesta.  It's that whiny Jen Palmieri.  It's that snot-nosed Robby Mook.  It's the whole slew of Clintonistas that represent the Democratic Party's morphing into the party of elitist latte faux liberalism where they will drop everything for someone's right to an abortion or their right to trans (regardless of age), but will do nothing to significantly reverse the flow of more and more money to fewer and fewer people.  The avant garde fringe social issues are front and center with these folks, while the needs of working families get lip service.

No, thank you.  That's a faux solution to the problems of working folks.

While I have mixed feelings about Bernie Sanders, I'd love for him to crush Warren at this point, if THIS is the cast of characters she's going to run with.

Warren has her own professional, somewhat insular, staff and inner circle. These are drowning rats looking for another ship. Look at the language used to describe who these people are.

Aside from the one anonymous "Clinton Aide" these are the people that even the Clintons kept at arms' length. Adam Pachinko Machine famously longs for attention that the Clintons never give him. And what, half the quotes in this article are him and the spokesman for his PAC? Grifters and cultists are going to be grifters and cultists, but that tells you more about them than the people they cling to.

I understand disliking Warren's play if you're a cultural conservative, but you have to understand that there's an inside and an outside game for populists in the Democratic party. Warren, because she can play the Northeast Liberal Professor role extraordinarily well, has gotten a ton of access to the elements of the national party that are frightened by Bernie. Heck, she basically extracted wholesale carte blanche on banking policy and staffing decisions from Clinton by the end of the primaries. If playing a latte liberal gets you inside the castle gates...

I believe she's a latte liberal at heart.  A real working class advocate would never have felt the need to push that phony Pocahontas crap.

So you honestly think she's fighting like hell to prevent Wall Street deregulation just for the sake of appearing progressive and if she were to get elected, she'd govern as a corporate Democrat? I realize you despite the culturally liberal aspects of the Democratic Party, but you should at least appreciate the work she's done as a professor and as senator fighting for consumer protections. I also think you're jumping the gun on Pocahontas a bit. Isn't it possible she honestly could have thought she had Indian heritage and turned out she didn't? It's one thing to distrust the Clintons, who actually over 20-30 years have a repeated track record of dishonesty that stem far beyond the email scandal, but thinking Elizabeth Warren is a phony just based on that alone is the opposite of giving someone the benefit of the doubt.

[ON Progressive]

It’s fine if electing more women isn’t a priority for you, but attacking people for making it a priority for them is pretty counterproductive.

Also, Prag, we talked about this. You need to stop being triggered by me. It’s unhealthy to fixate on a random stranger’s political leanings so much.

Despite my earlier post, I want to be fair here, so I'm going to try to have a real discussion about this with you.  The reason you get folks so riled up is two-fold.  The first and most obvious problem is that you're waaaaaay too trigger-happy about accusing folks who disagree with you of simply being motivated by sexism.  Good people can and often do disagree, even when trying to advance the same general goals.  For example, if there was a female Democratic candidate who couldn't beat a misogynistic male Republican in the GE and a male Democrat who could beat said Republican, there are obvious reasons to support the male Democrat in the primary which have nothing to do with either Democratic candidates gender.  By the same token, someone might end up being more ideologically aligned by pure coincidence with a male candidate in a particular primary.  That doesn't mean the person is sexist, but you often act as though not blindly/unconditionally supporting a female candidate in every contested Democratic primary where one is running automatically makes someone a sexist.  With all due respect, that is ridiculous and essentially causes folks to perceive you as the boy who cried wolf and it can get pretty tedious given how frequently you do this. 

Secondly, you act as though nominating the maximum possible number of female candidates is the only priority this cycle.  I'll be blunt, it isn't nor should it be.  Electing more women is definitely very important, but it is not the only important thing.  Both America's democratic institutions and the rule of law itself facing serious external and internal threats, our President is an incompetent, authoritarian, corrupt, treasonous sex predator and general sociopath who is being enabled by a morally bankrupt Congress.  2018 and 2020 are not normal election cycles.  For the sake of the country, the first, second, and third priority in 2018 needs to be ensuring that Democrats gain at least one house of Congress and enough Governorships/state legislatures to undo many of the Republican party's gerrymanders. 

As a result, electability has become more important than usual.  No one really complained (including the Democratic establishment, btw) when Amy McGrath won in KY-6 because she was clearly the strongest candidate.  No one complained when Susan Wild or Mary Gay Scanlon defeated establishment backed male candidates in their primaries because both women will likely win in November.  The DCCC alone has actively recruited a number of female candidates this cycle including Juanita Perez Williams, Chrissy Houlahan, Mikie Sherrill, Elaine Luria, Abigail Spanberger, Jennifer Wexton, Kathy Manning, Nancy Soderberg, Lauren Baer, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Elissa Slotkin, Angie Craig, Lisa Brown, and Ann Kirkpatrick. 

However, there are some female candidates who are simply far less electable than one or more male candidates in the race.  For example, Sara Jacobs is probably the only Democratic candidate capable of blowing CA-49 in the GE and that random some dude running against Jeff Van Drew in NJ-2 is basically a joke candidate.  Conner Lamb was objectively a stronger candidate than Gina Cerilli in the special election earlier this year and given how close it was, Cerilli would've almost certainly lost.  Tim Walz and Tony Evers are simply the most electable candidates in their respective primary fields.  Prioritizing electability, especially in a cycle like 2018, does not make one a sexist and to say that it does makes a mockery of the widespread sexism that does exist today at nearly every level of our society. 

Additionally, there can also be ideological considerations at play.  For example, Mike Capuano has been a consistent champion of progressive causes in the House.  It's not sexist for liberals to support someone many of us consider to be an excellent Congressman over some random primary challenger, regardless of said challenger's gender. 

However, you seem to consistently take a militantly absolutist view in which the only options are 1) "you blindly support every female Democratic candidate running against a male Democratic opponent in a remotely competitive primary," 2) "you simply don't care about electing more women/combating institutional sexism," or 3) "you're a sexist."  With all due respect, this is such an obviously false dichotomy that it can sometimes come across as a male sexist's caricature of a feminist.  Such a nuance-free view of politics also ignores the fact that there can be perfectly legitimate reasons to support a candidate which have nothing to do with his/her gender. 

If you want to talk more about this, shoot me a PM and I'll get back to you when I can, if not, that's fine too.  I've kinda said all I have to say on why folks react to you the way they do.  Hopefully, you're not just trolling and can read this with an open mind.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Just your moderator dropping in and making a statement that "____ is _____ country" threads will be deleted as spam. Put this gag in the wastebin next to the Arrow to the Knee memes, thanks.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

You impecunious and hunchbacked Democrat teenage virgins do understand that;

1. Vermont has no party registration.  Sanders could not register as a Democrat even if he wanted to. 

2. Sanders would have qualified in 2016 with this statement alone he made in a Feb. 2016 town hall; "Of course I am a Democrat and running for the Democratic nomination."  Which is all the proposed rule asks of a candidate. 

3. It is effectively unenforceable, pointless, and only comes off as spiteful. 

And I have no clue why calling oneself a "Democrat" is some kind of badge of honor to you dweebs.  Donald Trump called himself a Democrat from 2001-2009.  Tribalism is a bad, you see. 

Anyway, register on Atlas After Dark, you losers.  Free hat. 

http://atlasafterdark.freeforums.net/

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

You impecunious and hunchbacked Democrat teenage virgins do understand that;

1. Vermont has no party registration.  Sanders could not register as a Democrat even if he wanted to. 

2. Sanders would have qualified in 2016 with this statement alone he made in a Feb. 2016 town hall; "Of course I am a Democrat and running for the Democratic nomination."  Which is all the proposed rule asks of a candidate. 

3. It is effectively unenforceable, pointless, and only comes off as spiteful. 

And I have no clue why calling oneself a "Democrat" is some kind of badge of honor to you dweebs.  Donald Trump called himself a Democrat from 2001-2009.  Tribalism is a bad, you see. 

Anyway, register on Atlas After Dark, you losers.  Free hat. 

http://atlasafterdark.freeforums.net/

[Politician]

Going high is just another word for nothing to say. If someone rape your daughter, are you going to go high? No, you are going to F that muthaf--- up. "Going low" is not the same as dirty tricks here.

I cringed so hard when Clinton used that line during her horrifyingly disastrous 2nd debate. She should have said something like, "Donald, you think I enjoyed that? Do you think I liked being humiliated in front of the whole country and having everyone know my husband wasn't faithful to me, and that he had betrayed everything I've stood for in my public life? It was horrible. It was. Don't you think there weren't many times when I was ready to pack up and walk out the door? Donald, I hated that more than you ever regretted your sexual harassment. But there's something else. My family is none of your darned business and I wasn't going to leave Chelsea with a broken home to grow up in. So yes, I made a choice. It was a harder choice than you'll ever know, and sure as hell isn't comparable to you bragging about sexual assault."

Instead, she said, "When they go low, we go hiiiiiiiiigh." That's why Trump won. No one bought the "going high" bs because it wasn't about going high, it was just to hide the impression that Clinton had no message.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Anti-intellectualism is nothing new in America, but it has definitely reached a deeply disturbing extreme, in that often a majority of the members of a political party believe many things which are easily proven to be false. It's undeniably true that one party is more at fault than the other (sorry, "both sides do it" folks.) A majority of Republicans (not Democrats) believe many things which are easily proven to be false. And Republicans who don't buy into "alternate facts" still often turn a blind eye to the magnitude of this problem on the right, and simply point out isolated instances of ignorance on the left, to "prove" that it's not worse among Republicans.

However, I don't think that the Republican Party is the only factor here. I think that our society as a whole has become much more isolated, and the prevalence of the internet and technology makes it easier for people to live in bubbles, and only receive and search for information which supports their world view. Many don't even do research anymore. They reach a conclusion based on gut feelings (or what they want to be true), and specifically search for evidence that backs up their beliefs, and dismiss any evidence which doesn't support their beliefs.

I will say, however, that "elitist" definitely is nothing more than an ad hominem attack used when someone has no counter-argument or evidence of the contrary that holds any water. And while there have always been ignorant people who refuse to accept that some people know more than them, this ideology now has more political power than ever before. Right now, it's like confirmation bias on steroids.

I also agree with the article's claim that it's absurd that smugness is seen as worse than ignorance. Not saying smugness is a good thing or that it should be tolerated. There are many smug academics, and it's incredibly grating and off-putting. But that's pretty much the extent of smugness. It's unpleasant and you come across as an ass. Ignorance, on the other hand, can have disastrous consequences if not addressed, and it's legitimately concerning how stubborn people have gotten in their ignorance. While smug people ought to get off the high horse, people who are ignorant of basic history and science need to swallow their pride, accept that they don't know everything and aren't always right, and actually educate themselves. I'm not suggesting that we mock and degrade ignorant people, but we should not be tolerant of ignorance as a concept, and should, as a society collectively search for the truth, rather than what we want to believe or what makes us feel good/smart.

tl;dr Many Republicans embrace anti-intellectualism (more so than Democrats), there are other factors too, ignorance is worse than smugness.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Movement conservatism (as opposed to the old pro-business, socially-nostalgic conservatism that promoted thrift and other forms of self-restraint as founts of prosperity) is a wealth cult in the sense that many Protestant churches are. In those churches you make allegedly-pious sacrifices (lots of tithing) and you will be able to get the bounties of American life. With easy credit just about anyone can get overpriced stuff at rent-to-own (when it is obsolete or broken-down trash) emporiums and slightly fewer can buy a spiffy Cadillac that someone cast off. If such fails, then the fault is with the backsliding schmuck who lacks faith. It is magical thinking, something questionable.

So what, I say. Proof of your wisdom is that you saved up for much the same stuff and have gotten a good credit rating so that you need not deal with shysters. If you must save for what you get, then you will recognize that going into savings to buy something means a real good-for-good transaction. Maybe you will do comparison-shopping. But this has no aura of religiosity. Not attributing economic success to any deities, I see no market magic in the formula. Back in the old days, pro-business conservatives never pretended that there was any magic in the free market.

Today it is different. The Right has abandoned thrift as a virtue for the common man. Get him in debt so that his fecal credit rating leads him to rent-to-own places and so that, if he has a college degree, he will take just about any job offer short of leaving the Big City to do ill-paid farm labor. (Let me say some good things about thrift stores -- we have a tile floor at our house, and anything ceramic breaks if it falls onto it. I have had to replace chinaware, and at times I have gotten better stuff than what broke -- dirt cheap).

The Hard Right has entwined itself with evangelical Christianity to push the idea that human suffering of the masses creates prosperity, and the greater the pain, the greater that society prospers. Of course the elites of ownership and management first get theirs -- and not surprisingly (as is so for amoral elites) they keep asking for more. They demand that people accept economic inequality characteristic of a fascistic regime if not a plantation, harsh management, and the destruction of the decencies of a liberal society so that in return for growth from which most people see no benefit that the elites get to live lives of ostentatious display -- and that the rest of us get vicarious delight from seeing people connected to the elites frolic in the few times that we get to see them.

As is so with other absurd ideologies, people need only a bare minimum of learning -- enough so that they can read propaganda, technical manuals, advertising, road maps, and warning signs... and do basic math. To learn more would be to do something inimical to monarchical despotism, fascism, Bolshevism, Nazism, Ku Kluxism, Ba'athism, Iranian-style theocracy, ISIS, evangelical wealth cults, and the ideology behind Trump: critical thought. People fitting such an ideology accept the promises but don't complain when the elites fail to make the promises work. Democracy works when people hold elected officials accountable for failure and success.

Yes, there are authoritarian religions such as Roman Catholicism that strongly promote secular learning. Learning may be a double-edged sword, as the very Church that promotes secular learning to allow people technical success that allows people to put more into collection plates and to study source materials also allows people the means to access of critical material.  Critical thought that allows people to condemn corrupt government and shady business dealings keeps business and government more honest than otherwise, whether because people be too moral to do bad things to people who did nothing wrong or because as good and intelligent people they demand fair play.

A healthy community recognizes well-honed learning as a necessity for learning. The more widespread that high-quality learning is, the less special it is. That is a good thing. Where learning is rare, people with even modest amounts of formal learning who care capable of exploiting that privilege in commerce and bureaucracies. It is better that we have a few million people who can do differential equations and see little special about such. A healthy economy depends upon widespread prosperity -- which I define as savings accounts, insurance policies, and savings bonds. (OK, so perhaps you are 'in' the stock market as a buy-and-hold investor because interest rates are ridiculously low, and dividends alone are bigger than interest on a savings account).  Remember: it is thrift that makes real prosperity possible.    

Movement conservatism suggests that in return for monopolistic gouging, environmental ruin, poor public services (including educational under-funding), and privatization of the public sector to crony capitalists that prosperity will emerge. Of course it will -- and only for some tiny economic elites. People capable of critical thought recognize such as the fraud that it is. But that contradicts the idea that ignorance is strength.. or bliss. The fictional Oceania of George Orwell's 1984 turns language into a means of destroying thought by turning even words themselves into lies. A 'joy-camp' awaits anyone who shows signs of ideological backsliding, like recognizing the deterioration of life as something other than progress.  

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

AOC has every right to challenge Crowley and make her case. She’s a resident of the district and is presumably older than 25. Let her, like Ayanna Presley in Massachusetts, make the case for why she’d be better for the constituents of NY-14 than a potential future Speaker of the House. Will she be better at constituent services? Perhaps!

In the same vein, Crowley has been around for 20 years. He owes his constituents reasons to keep him there, other than “muh Machine.”

I’m personally not sure what the great crimes of Joe Crowley and Mike Capuano are, other than being old white guys in districts with changing demographics. They aren’t Dan Lipinski - hell, they’re not even Stephen Lynch. Part of the notion that a woman of color is automatically better seems a little overly focused on identity and ignores that people like Lydia Velazquez exist.

Maybe it’s just that NY Dems are terrible in general

[IceSpear]

The IG report confirms what we already knew from the Rosenstein memo. Comey, a hedge fund multimillionaire with a grudge against the Clintons going back to the early 2000s, a max McCain/Romney donor, a man photographed with a Trump sign on his front yard, an agent of the taxpayers, a government official in charge of the nation's highest law enforcement agency, in a breathtaking and unprecedented departure from his own's agency's practice, insubordination of his superiors, dramatically tipped the scales of a national presidential elections in the last 11 days.

Trump was right to fire him.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The IG report confirms what we already knew from the Rosenstein memo. Comey, a hedge fund multimillionaire with a grudge against the Clintons going back to the early 2000s, a max McCain/Romney donor, a man photographed with a Trump sign on his front yard, an agent of the taxpayers, a government official in charge of the nation's highest law enforcement agency, in a breathtaking and unprecedented departure from his own's agency's practice, insubordination of his superiors, dramatically tipped the scales of a national presidential elections in the last 11 days.

Trump was right to fire him.

Can we not pollute this thread with blatant lies?  K thx

[Badger]

The IG report confirms what we already knew from the Rosenstein memo. Comey, a hedge fund multimillionaire with a grudge against the Clintons going back to the early 2000s, a max McCain/Romney donor, a man photographed with a Trump sign on his front yard, an agent of the taxpayers, a government official in charge of the nation's highest law enforcement agency, in a breathtaking and unprecedented departure from his own's agency's practice, insubordination of his superiors, dramatically tipped the scales of a national presidential elections in the last 11 days.

Trump was right to fire him.

He deserved to be fired, but let's not kid ourselves that any of these things had the slightest bit to do with his dismissal. If anything, these factors helped him keep his job. The sole reason Trump despicably let him go is that Coney, to his one bit of credit, stood firm and wouldn't play Patsy Waterboy for Trump.

[YE]

I get why Democrats in more conservative territory are disavowing Pelosi, but it kind of annoys me that Republicans are allowed to get away with marching in lockstep behind Ryan/McConnell no matter how Democratic their district/state is, even though some polls show them as even more unpopular than Pelosi. It just strikes me as buying into and surrendering against a GOP narrative, when you could instead use their own tactics against them.

In fact, the only time you see Republicans disavowing Ryan/McConnell is in primaries because they're deemed as Soros-funded globalist cocaine snorting RINOs, lol.

It’s just another example of how Republicans are more adept at controlling the narrative, and forcing Democrats to posture themselves in awkward ways to try and get votes. They do this with many issues. They “warn” Americans that Democrats want to take their guns away, raise taxes on everyone, have open borders, etc. And what do Democrats do? They run scared/back away. “No, no, I fully support the second amendment! I want to lower taxes on almost everyone! I agree, we do have to protect our borders!” While Republicans never deny/cower away from the fact that they fully support the NRA and will do nothing to directly address our gun crisis, lower taxes on the wealthy, and deport millions. It’s no wonder Democrats are seen as spineless and lacking in any principles. Republicans dominated the narrative on gay marriage for decades, and Democrats let them do it (how many Democrats said “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman” before public opinion polls showed support for gay marriage at 50%?)

Democrats need to grow a pair and not allow Republicans to dominate the narrative by turning Democratic positions/politicians (or even just words sometimes) into boogeymen. They should wear Republican attacks on their ideas as a badge of honor, and stand up for them while showing that they work.