4834

I’d like to judge your prescription. But you don’t actually seem to have one, so never mind.

4835

Dianne Feinstein made an absolute ass of herself today re: Green New Deal. Don’t hsve access to link atm but should be easy to find, was on CNN website.

4836

Here:

4837

She’s a million years old and grouchy. This is why she needed to retire.

4838

Honestly one of my first thoughts was dementia setting in because it seems that arguing with children isn’t a wise move.

But to take a look at the policy side of it (in addition to the juicy gossipy side):

She also released a statement about a draft resolution dealing with climate, apparently something different from the GND. So, even if they got snapped at the kids are making at least some impact.

And who knows, she might be right and maybe her proposal, whatever it is, will end up being the best we can get for now.

4839

It’s not like it matters. Humanity is screwed either way. But there’s still no call to dismiss teenagers like that…at least pretend to care, politician.

4840

She seems to think she was ambushed and the kids are being used by some politicized adults to make her look bad.

She’s probably got good instincts here and is right to be suspicious.

I think maybe what she doesn’t seem to get is that the GND is aspirational and she’s only thinking in terms of practicality. In practice (and in the devilish details) the GND is a wild ride, and it’s going to go nowhere as long as Republicans have any share of government. She probably thinks it’s a big distraction from “real” governing.

4841

She’s probably right about it going nowhere, but these are kids. She can encourage them. Even if she doesn’t like the Green New Deal she could encourage them to even write what they think is best, or send her a couple of the ideas they like best… engage them.

4842

And of course, since old people are old and stupid and clueless by default, and because the twitter monster needs to be fed constantly, no one bothered to question this Feinstein video at all.

And now the “Holy fuck, really?”

Threaded full video starts here.

Feinstein (also not a fan) has bad moments and good moments. The kids give as good as they get. They talk and it’s actually kind of a good discussion.

4843

I don’t know anything about edited videos or whose behind them. The one I saw was on Facebook and was around 10 minutes and claims to be the full interaction. In it, Feinstein occasionally pretends to be interested, but she’s mostly kind of testy and dismissive. The “you run for Senator and then you can do it your way” was an especially nice moment.

All of which is fine…she can be however she wants to be. The chances of her living out her current term are pretty small, so it’s doubtful she gives much of a shit what anyone thinks of her anyway.

4844

I agree that would have been the best way to handle it.

4845
4846

This seems really bad.

4847

Eh, I’m not sure it’s that bad. Not a good look, perhaps. Nor was her “I’m in charge” and “cheap seats” tweet. We all have crap days.

4848

But feinstein is… A Democrat? Seems bad that she’s attacking established Democrats.

4849

As Atrios likes to say, there is never money in America for nice things. That’s what practicality seems to mean: We can have wars and aircraft carriers and fighter jets and tax cuts until we’re up to our asses in them, but health care? A decent social safety net? An actual livable planet? How would we pay for that?

4850

Eh, Feinstein is a pretty safe target, as far as that goes. She’s 85. Her seat is safely Democrat no matter what.

And it’s not a great exchange for Feinstein at all. It’s just not as bad as the original video cut that made the rounds of twitter yesterday made it look.

Social media will find something and someone new to freak out about in the next few hours.

4851

Well sure, but that’s because conservatives have for the last 40 years, or at least since Reagan, developed into the party of No, the party of stasis, the party that wants nothing except to reduce, cut, and spend on debt. It would be great to not spend money on aircraft carriers and fighter jets, but a good 45% of the population, and over 50% of the political actors (thanks to gerrymandering) want that.

You often see in states dominated by the Republicans broken political systems unable to seriously function, since their aversion to taxes and regulation are so baked into their discourses and political ethos that when confronted with problems that require resources they all but throw their hands in the air and shrug, preferring to allow whatever disaster their state is suffering to continue.

But yea, she’s old and she sees reality. That’s why this is a clash between aspiration and reality, and why she’s been holding the line against the shit-eating-grin party for decades with realistic politics. And it’s why this GND scares the hell out of conservatives because fighting the rearguard politics the Democrats have done for decades doesn’t win battles, it just holds the line for another political cycle, a fact Conservatives have used time and again to spin and win victories, even if the pendulum inevitably swings back after a while.

The GND doesn’t make sense in any technical sense but it does reflect a push toward Green and conservation and that means, gasp, regulation and taxes. And of course even a single additional regulation leads to Venezuela and death camps, right? Or so will the politically connected wealthy, who see America as a place for wealth extraction and are indifferent to those not in their industries and social circles, will themselves believe and hope to convince anyone within earshot of the same.

If this was an ambush by AOC (which I’m doubtful of, btw, it sounds too convienent a narrative and I don’t put much stock in twitter narratives), then it does show a shift towards activism that is impatient, and justly so, with decades of talk and nothing to show for it, a desire to force the ancien regimes in America to change. But this may not be either politically astute or may be a political overreach.

4852

The GND at this point is a proposal to create a committee with a mandate to draft legislation to pursue some aspirational climate and economic goals. There’s nothing more technically sensible than that.

4853

Yeah, i get all that, but it seems like this is a bad thing for Cortez’s own political team to be focusing it’s efforts on.

Of all the things to do, attacking Democrats seems misguided.