It’s amazing what happens when the Republican news-o-sphere stops calling all the good economic indicators lies and instead says they’re the truth. Suddenly it’s not a vast post-apocalyptic American hellscape out there.
Unemployment being low is great and all, but how are median wages doing compared to the cost of living? For way too many people (not me, thank goodness), the lousy wages aren’t enough to pay the bills unless you moonlight and then you have no leisure time at all.
Spoken like someone who obviously hates freedom. The obvious solution is to give all the money to “job creators” and watch the rising tide lift all boats. And that will happen, eventually. We promise.
And then to balance the budget, we should dismantle the safety net too. Things will always be this good, unemployment will continue to be low in the forseeable future, so it’s safe now to dismantle the safety net.
Well, duh, and also, without a safety net, all these people who would normally just be lazy and collect unemployment checks will instead start their own companies and become millionaires. Win/Win.
I mean Trump literally campaigned on those numbers being lies. But now that he’s in charge those same numbers are completely legit. I’m betting that the people who voted for him aren’t seeing the difference.
Actually I think the solution is to increase the military budget so that the U.S. has 300 million soldiers.
a) health care for all
b) employment for all
c) imagine the adorable toddler uniforms!
That diminutive soldier has a rather intense stare, doesn’t he?
You would too if you’d seen what he’s seen, man.
Did my part today by voting in the Ohio primary. As an Independent, when I showed up the woman asked me if I wanted Republican, Democrat or Issues Only for my ballot. She may as well have asked Insanity, Democrat or Apathetic? I hesitated for a bit, weighing the option of attempting to play spoiler in the Republican races…but in the end choose Democrat because it’s more important to make damn sure the right candidates get through to November than it is to try to play one crazy person off of another crazy person. I couldn’t help but notice a couple of the old white pool volunteers scowled at my choice, while an older African-American lady volunteer nodded her head several times. I could literally hear her thinking “Uh-huh, that’s right.” I resisted the strong urge to hug her. =)
At least this will bring to an end the Republican candidate primary ads here where they attempt to outdo one another in their slavering support for Trump and opposition to all things Killary. It’s frankly ridiculous, as neither Mike DeWine or Mary Taylor was at all supportive of Trump during the election, and neither was very vocal about Hillary at the time either, but from their ads now you’d think they were the Scott Baio of Ohio during 2016. I hope those same ads come back to haunt them in November.
Oh, and in addition to making sure solid Dems like Kucinich (Cordray is OK too, but Kucinich’s support for single-payer healthcare won my vote), Sherrod Brown and Aftab Pureval get the nod for November, I also got to vote on an Issue that would dismantle much of the GOP gerrymandering of the states districts, putting them back in line with geographical maps versus political ones. I doubt that will ever see the light of day in the state legislature unless Dems win a bunch of seats in November, but it’s a start at least. Also voted for levies for the Cincinnati Zoo (gotta feed Fiona!) and the library (which my kids and I use all the time).
Civic duty mission accomplished until November!
What are Richard Painter’s odds?
I figure he’s much more like me than most democrats, so I’d assume he’d lose in a primary. But still, he’s the personification of Sam the Eagle, so that’s cool.
Shit, the primaries are today. I should look into that.
I appreciate that he never skips a chance to scowl at Trump from his position of ethicist. However, Tina Smith has really jumped into the Senate seat that was thrust upon her and has been doing all the things that Senators do, especially when campaigning for reelection. She has been touring the length and breadth of the state, talking to constituents and local business reps at home and in her Senate office; she has sponsored or cosponsored bills that positively affect mental health, which is beneficial and lacks controversy; she has yet to miss a Senate vote. Also importantly, she talks about all of these things on various social media platforms. In short, in her short Senate career, she has assumed the mantle of incumbency. Not bad for an upjumped Lt. Governor, especially for one that used to work for the regional Planned Parenthood.
(Remember last winter when Al Franken had that Senate seat? It seems like six years ago.)
I haven’t seen primary polls, but I feel like both would be good members of SPQM, and I hope Painter does in fact enter public service, if his Senate plans don’t work out.
Painter represents what I expect/hope will happen with the GOP…
That is, that the GOP will die completely, and no longer exist, and then the Democrats will split again into two non insane parties… where the old GOP members who weren’t terrible, like Painter, will form a conservative democratic party.
So this past week(s), I’ve been doing a deep clean of the house. So many books I own remained sitting in the same packing boxes they were in back in 2007 when I moved, for instance.
So I’ve been going through those boxes of books I haven’t read in over 10 years – about 10 boxes in all, so heavy – and trying to get things down to two boxes that can be easily shelved, donating the rest to the public library (after making sure said books are available digitally). One book that I stumbled onto is the oral history of the 1992 presidential campaign, as told by James Carville and Mary Matalin.
That book made me remember that back in 1992, Bill Clinton was portrayed as the everyman, a sort of aw-shucks outsider and man of the people. The campaign spun the Bush incumbency campaign that ran on the latter’s experience and perceived competence as being elitist and out of touch with the problems of everyday Americans. And it obviously worked.
And that got me thinking: when was the last time a non-incumbent won the presidency while campaigning on their own perceived competence and experience and intelligence/wisdom? (Note the “perceived” qualifier in that question and apply it to all of those descriptors, before you angrily slam down that reply button…)
I mean, I think the answer is GHW Bush in 1988. Maybe Nixon in '68.
But as far as I can tell, those guys are exceptions – and even in '68, Nixon ran a bit as an insurgent agent of change. Besides that, though, it seems like every successful non-incumbent candidate for President was someone who ran as either a populist “man of the people” or an insurgent agent of change.
All of which gets me to this point: holy shit was Hillary Clinton’s foundational strategy to win the 2016 election fatally flawed at its very core.
And an additional point: whomever the Democrats nominate in 2020 had better keep those lessons in mind re: “(wo)man of the people” and insurgency/change agent.
That would be great. I’d love to see that too. It isn’t going to happen by itself, though. It’ll take a lot of national and local organizing to get the neo-whigs or Real GOP or whatever you guys want to call yourselves past the level of electoral success as presently realized by the Green Party, the Reform Party, the Libertarian Party, the Communist Party… and so on. What traditional constituencies would you like to slough off from the GOP (business, right-leaning religion, etc.) and which would you like to poach from the Dems?
The book that got me really interested in politics was Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
California now does the open primary thing. The top two vote getters qualify for the general election. The change that caused this was GOP sponsored. I think after only two elections they already regret this.
While I can respect the sentiment and I fully support single-payer, I could never bring myself to vote for Kucinich; he’s just such a populist opportunist.
My sample ballot looks pretty funny.
What are folks saying about this challenger to Feinstein, Kevin de Leon?