Dems 2019: Dem Hard With A Vengeance

I am not an expert, but I don’t think Klobuchar is doing this right.

We’re not really serious about this is a hell of a way to start a negotiation.

From a pure political strategy perspective, I’d say Klobuchar’s “aspirations” comments are a response to numbers like this (from 538):

She knows she’s not going to out-compete the field on being the most liberal, so she’s aiming to appeal to that moderate section. Which is still quite a bit larger than the liberals even with recent growth.

Of course, that’s the electorate as a whole. It’s probably a poor primary race tactic (that same 538 article says a majority of Democrats are “liberal”). But who knows? Maybe she’ll get some votes from the “we need elect-ability” crowd this way.

Not in the primaries it isn’t.

Gee, wish I’d thought of that.

Oh, I did.

Yes, you did. Sorry.

I think part of the reason that conservatives find AOC so dangerous, is that she is doing exactly what Trump said he would do (but hasn’t) She is 100% about “draining the swamp” and she isn’t all talk. She is able to effectively communicate her issues and concerns with young voters directly.

I love it.

Claire McCaskill actually sponsored legislation to get rid of that practice, but it went nowhere.

Like all such polls there is a huge asterisk. Because this poll is self identified ideology, and people, for a host of reasons, are more likely to self identify as moderate.

In practice, however, when rating on policy positions, people come in significantly more liberal. Which indicates that many liberals self identify as moderate, due to the negative stigma, when they are really true liberals. There is not an equivalent for conservative. Thanks Reagan!

Yes. The argument against the proposal was basically that this is actual pay that homeless people in the area can earn for ‘work’ that they would otherwise not get because these lobbyists wouldn’t normally spend their groups’ funds on charity. For example, the NRA or AARP would normally give $0 to homeless shelters in the area, but thanks to this practice, they’ve paid homeless people thousands of dollars in exchange for their time.

One of my son’s friends roommates (a recent college grad) did that in DC; it’s one of the “gig economy” bits I personally dislike, but it was apparently very lucrative. It wasn’t just Capitol Hill stuff, but also shows, restaurants, etc…

Oh hey look, another example of the “gig economy” that is dehumanizing and serves as a thin layer of wet toilet paper over the unsustainable underlying problems with our dipshit implementation of late stage capitalism.

True enough. I mean, it’s getting paid for your time, which is a key aspect to any job. But it’s neither reliable nor capable of building to anything better, which most other jobs could. Not to mention a lack of any benefits.

Come on, doesn’t she look happy?

The culture of lauding sleep deprivation as heroism is probably second only to the sugar industry in wrecking our health.

She looks like Lisa Bonet

OK, this is a little hard to follow along on, but I have a point to make at the end.

In November, my local Virginia State Senator decided to run for congress. She won. That left her state senate seat empty.

So one of the state delegates ran for her seat in a special election (back on Jan 8). She won with 70% of the vote. That left her delegate seat open.

So we just had a special election for that state delegate seat.

The GOP put up a reasonably moderate candidate; some businessman or another. White; upper 40s or lower 50s. Nothing to really like or dislike about the guy.

The Dem candidate was Ibraheem S. Samirah, a 28-year-old son of a Jordanian refugee. His father was denied (re) entry into the US so he grew up half in the US and half in Jordan.

Samirah just won with 60% of the vote.

So this is notable in that this was a reasonable chunk of Loudon County; cited in other threads as being one of the top 5 richest counties in the US, and up until recently pretty reddish. This same district was blue before, but only by a couple percentage points. The fact that a super-young Democrat with an non-anglo name could win there with double-digits is pretty fucking impressive.

Unlikely that this will convince any Republicans to actually stand up against Trump, but it’s nice to see someone saying it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/adam-schiff-an-open-letter-to-my-republican-colleagues/2019/02/21/9d411414-3605-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html?utm_term=.2d05661f6a75

AOC having a close encounter with one of her constituents.

For the dogs…

Tonight on Hannity - is extreme liberal socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez planning to offer free healthcare and education for chihuahua’s immigrating from Mexico? Why should your hard-earned money go to the free steak dinners AOC wants to feed homeless dogs three times a day? When is enough enough? It’s time to stand up for hardworking American purebreds, before it’s too late.