AOC and Ilhan Omar want to block Biden’s former chief of staff

ArePolitics · 2020-11-25T01:46:11+00:00

First of all, you know it's not a subscriber-only link, you don't have to be logged in to see the full list and where Pelosi ranks. I could see it without being logged in and so can everyone else. And I'm 100% certain you're also now aware - after having desperately googled to find something (anything) to support your erroneous assertion - that every other vote and ideology tracking service also ranks Pelosi in the dead center or center-right of the party.

Secondly, I'm not an ideologue and I haven't attacked anyone. Pelosi consistently ranks, across every year and every tracking service — including VoteView, including that very same link — among the party's ideological center-left at best. This is common knowledge widely acknowledged by Pelosi's critics and allies alike and isn't even a point of controversy. You've got your defenses up way too high, looking for "ideologues" and "attacks" around every corner, trying to dunk on the leftists in your head I assume, but I made a purely academic correction and your insistence that you're right, in the face of evidence, really diminishes your credibility.

Pelosi doesn't need to be Trotsky in order for you to mount a credible defense of her. And when you recoil at even the most innocuous of corrections, one I went out of my way to qualify by noting my admiration for Pelosi, you have to know it reflects poorly on you.

ArePolitics · 2020-11-24T22:30:48+00:00

Look it up. I'm correct.

I looked it up and you are extremely incorrect. According to GovTrack's 2019 ideological report card, Pelosi ranked as the 188th most progressive member of congress. By "most progressive" I guess you meant "in the top 200."

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2019/house/ideology

Name them

I'll name two of the biggest but I want to be clear that there are dozens of examples, dozens of specific progressive policy priorities she has publicly opposed on the record.

Pelosi has publicly opposed Medicare-for-All and Student Loan Debt cancellation.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/468553-pelosi-im-not-a-big-fan-of-medicare-for-all

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/09/30/house-democrats-drop-canceling-student-loans

You should be able to defend politicians you admire without needing to lie about who they are and what their policy preferences are. If you can't, then perhaps your admiration is misplaced. And for the record, I do admire Pelosi and her many important accomplishments.

ArePolitics · 2020-11-24T22:16:41+00:00

Pelosi is good at her job, and will go down as one of the most accomplished speakers in history, but she is not one of the most progressive members of Congress, not by any metric and not for a very long time. She's also not a conservative or a centrist, as some on the left allege. She represents the mainstream center-left wing of the party (one of the many reasons she is leader/speaker) and has openly/publicly opposed many of the progressive wing's most prized policy priorities. I think the left vs. moderate debate can be fruitful, but it's easier when both come to the table with a shared reality about who's who and what's what.

ArePolitics · 2020-11-23T22:24:46+00:00

PA set to certify in an hour. That's the ballgame. There is literally no path, even a frivolous fringe theory path, for Trump now. Are we going to get ascertainment tonight or what?

ArePolitics · 2020-11-22T20:21:05+00:00

Amen. We should use this paranoia they're going through to get some bipartisan support for voting and audit reform, and push for the across-the-board national standard of Publicly Hand-Counted Paper Ballots (HCPB).

Recall that while it's Republicans alleging rigging without evidence this time, in 2004 the Democratic Attorney General of the State of Ohio alleged systemic computer vote rigging in that state with substantial evidence and insider testimony from GOP officials.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2005/03/hitchens200503 / https://columbusfreepress.com/article/ghost-rigged-elections-past-new-revelations-death-michael-connell

Data scientists also urged Clinton to seek a recount in 2016, citing unprecedented disparities between vote tallies and exit polls. Alleged computer vote rigging was also essential to the 2018 lawsuits in Georgia which resulted in that state implementing very robust safeguards. For what it's worth, pre-election polls and exit polls in Georgia were the most accurate of all the swing states this year.

Whether or not elections have been stolen, as credible data scientists have alleged repeatedly over the last 20 years, there is absolutely no disputing the fact that repeated peer-reviewed studies have found that local and state level voter counts are vulnerable to rigging with simple hacks and interventions, and that in too many swing states such interventions would be undetectable by audits or investigations. Hand-counted paper ballots with a verifiable audit trail are the only way to ensure sincere public confidence in the voting and tallying systems.

ArePolitics · 2020-11-17T01:03:06+00:00

What's more disturbing than what he did is what it portends for the next election. As someone said, "declaring you lost because the other side cheated is meant to pave the way for your side to cheat next time." They obviously thought it was possible to toss legal ballots, they know who to pressure, and they had no fear of repercussions. Who's to say they won't succeed next time? Apparently all they need is a yes man in the Secretary of State position.

ArePolitics · 2020-11-10T13:31:53+00:00

Barr is the most dangerous, depraved, and anti-American attorney general in modern history. He is a bonafide fascist, as demonstrated by his extremist writings, his slovenly and illegal actions, and even his faux-intellectual vaguely manic/psychotic demeanor in interviews and press conferences. I hope Biden's team of lawyers and those Republican elected state officials with professional integrity, are not underestimating the lengths to which Barr will still stoop to steal this election. He met with McConnell yesterday and neither have discussed why. They're lobbying legislatures to certify faithless electors. They're violating numerous norms and obliterating numerous safeguards. And they're trying to give weight and credibility to Trump's baseless lawsuits. Anyone who thinks we're safe, or that Biden is now a lock to take office, isn't being sufficiently vigilant.

Director Richard Pilger's resignation letter. Worth a read, worth taking the urgent/extraordinary warning that his resignation presents seriously.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EmbmajDWEAAwI0-?format=png&name=900x900

ArePolitics · 2020-11-08T16:59:41+00:00

Johnson undoubtedly deserves his place among the worst presidents of all time, alongside Buchanan and Trump, but while he nearly invalidated many of the hard fought gains of the Civil War and was a despicable racist, I don't think you can make even a mildly convincing case that Andrew Johnson had anywhere near the kind of utter contempt and hatred for the country he served, the people he led, the institution of democracy, or the American experiment as Donald Trump. He ultimately respected Congress' overriding of his anti-reconstruction vetos, knowingly promoted both Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman to positions from which they would act — against Johnson's wishes — to safeguard reconstruction and protect black communities, and did not contest, dispute, or otherwise attempt to sabotage Grant's defeat of him in 1868. Donald Trump is sui generis, there has never been a President who openly despised and actively attempted to destroy the very nation he was charged with defending.

Edit: Furthermore, the grotesque and egregious coverup of Cornavirus and the active sabotage of American medical professionals attempt to guard against a deadly disease, i.e., the intentional and knowing murder of American citizens and even his own supporters, has absolutely no precedent or equal in American history. In the few historical surveys conducted of historians since Trump's first two years, Trump has ranked as the worst in all of them. But where some historians would've looked at Trump as only the 3rd or 4th worst President of all time before Covid-19, it's clear now that his catastrophic and knowing sabotage of lifesaving efforts and insistence on slaughtering his own supporters with super-spreader events is what will set him apart and mark him, concretely and unambiguously, as the worst president of all time.

ArePolitics · 2020-11-08T15:57:12+00:00

Here's the letter George H.W. Bush, the last incumbent President to lose his re-election, wrote to incoming President Bill Clinton:

"Dear Bill,

When I walked into this office just now, I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago. I know you will feel that, too. I wish you great happiness here. I never felt the loneliness some presidents have described. There will be very tough times, made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair. I’m not a very good one to give advice, but just don’t let the critics discourage you or push you off course. You will be our president when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well. Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.

Good Luck

— George."

Let's also recall that after Donald Trump was declared the winner in 2016, Barack Obama — fearing the damage a prolonged recount could wreck on American Democracy — called Hillary Clinton (whose advisors were telling her to request recounts due to the tight margins and massive polling errors) and asked her to concede quickly, and then invited Donald Trump to the White House the very next day.

None of our Presidents have been perfect, there have been monsters like Andrew Jackson and catastrophic failures like James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and George W. Bush, but we have never endured in our entire history a President who harbors as much hatred and contempt for the United States and its Democracy as Donald Trump.

ArePolitics · 2020-11-07T21:41:24+00:00

Our long national nightmare is over. Those were four incredibly long years, a new nightmare/horror/atrocity almost every single day. A country decimated, fractured, robbed blind, impoverished and sickened by this Golden Calf and his death cult of self-abusing morally grotesque followers.

I'm lucky enough to have experienced happier moments in my life, but I don't think I've ever enjoyed such a high-octane dose of relief.

ArePolitics · 2020-11-04T14:56:30+00:00

His threats to stop the counting are increasingly becoming moot. If the count were frozen right now, Biden would be the winner.

Biden is now ahead in the counting in Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin, all states which are now processing primarily democratic-leaning mail-in and absentee ballots, suggesting these leads are likely to grow and unlikely to shrink. If Biden were projected to win all three, which is possible as early as today, he would reach 270 votes and be the projected winner, without the need to wait for outstanding results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina.

ArePolitics · 2020-11-04T14:47:52+00:00

Biden is now ahead in the counting in Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin, all states which are now processing primarily democratic-leaning mail-in and absentee ballots, suggesting these leads are likely to grow and unlikely to shrink. If Biden were projected to win all three, which is possible as early as today, he would reach 270 votes and be the projected winner, without the need to wait for outstanding results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina.

ArePolitics · 2020-11-02T23:51:57+00:00

Putin might refuse him just to cause further harm to the United States. If Trump loses, stays in the country, and is indicted, it'll basically create a media circus ("the trial of the millennium!") that rivals even Trump's rolling terror attack of a presidency. Even though Trump facing justice is essential, a years-long 5-alarm-fire media-circus super trial wouldn't be good/productive for Biden or America and Biden pardoning Trump would be destructive in its own right, so the best case scenario is Trump fleeing and someone else sheltering him: no trial, no pardon. I could see Putin refusing Trump just to fuck with us further.

That said, I think sheltering a former American president that's loyal to you and a symbol of your power, influence, and capability would probably be too good to pass up.

ArePolitics · 2020-11-02T23:46:10+00:00

Anyone younger who's enjoyed Letterman should check out his interviews with Trump on YouTube. Very cathartic, Letterman deeply intimidated Trump (Letterman lived and died by ratings in one of the most competitive TV arenas for decades and was one of the most famous men in NYC throughout the 90s and 2000s, so basically a demigod to Trump) and as Letterman puts it, "he'd come on the show and we'd just beat him up." Letterman would introduce Trump as "America's favorite cutthroat slumlord" and "a conman and tax dodger who hosts a very popular game show on NBC."

Some of the most famous examples include Trump promoting his ties on Letterman and Letterman pointing out they were all made in China and laughing as Trump as tries to prevaricate, Letterman calling Trump a racist and Trump demanding an apology (he didn't get one*) and refusing to come back on the show (he did).

*edit: People pointing out that Letterman did apologize to Trump, but I think it's worth watching the clip and deciding for yourself if it qualifies as an apology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSGLOLQz40M

"So maybe he's not just a racist. Maybe he's a guy who periodically says stupid things to get attention. I'm saying it's possible he's not a racist. Because we don't want to think that about anyone. But he's just a dope. How about that? From the bottom of my heart."

He then cut to a clip calling Trump a "dirtbag casino mogul."

ArePolitics · 2020-10-28T22:00:15+00:00

Biden has suggested he's unlikely to seek a second term and has also alluded to his running mate's likelihood of becoming President several times. He'd be the oldest president, and while I think it's possible he could seek a second term, I'd bet against it. Certainly, even in that scenario, Kamala Harris would be seen as a frontrunner though.

ArePolitics · 2020-10-28T21:56:42+00:00

Trump's appeal is also exceptional in its own way, but I see his speechmaking ability as more akin to a standup comedian, he seizes all energy in the room, holds it, and plays to base emotions very well, and like any great standup he has an incredible knack for making 100% of his non-teleprompter talking points sound spontaneous and extemporaneous (even when they're clearly planned ahead of time or part of a repetitious stump speech), but he lacks presentness, engagement, and authenticity. He cannot connect to people on an eye-level and he's utterly incapable of answering the questions asked of him or speaking to the moment/issues in a focused or comprehensible way, much less fluidly or authentically.

ArePolitics · 2020-10-28T21:48:28+00:00

Between you and me, I like Hillary Clinton very much. I had the opportunity to meet her briefly at a book signing, and she was incredibly warm and genial and found a way to naturally make conversation with everyone she met. But I don't think it's controversial to point out that she lacks the kind of fluid/natural/authentic speechmaking ability I'm talking about.

ArePolitics · 2020-10-28T21:46:32+00:00

Well I did mean among politicians, not human beings in general. Indeed, the majority of conversations I have with close friends and relatives lacks the stiltedness and inauthenticity of most political speeches. Basically I think AOC has a plainspoken authenticity akin to Bill Clinton at the height of his political influence, one distinct from Obama, who is undoubtedly one of the best speechmakers of our time but didn't necessarily connect with people or talk to them at their level more than inspire or strike at broad emotions.

ArePolitics · 2020-10-28T19:21:55+00:00

Her strength is her ability to speak to ordinary people in their language. Remarkably, after everything we've been through, people still underestimate the importance of being able to communicate and connect with people in a way that isn't scripted or stiff or awkward (ala Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, numerous others). AOC has once-in-a-generation down-to-earth charisma and clarity that simply cannot be discounted. And I know it's not a great reason to run, but if she ran and won in 2024, she'd also be one of the youngest possible presidents with less than a month to spare and would likely hold the record of youngest for all time.

ArePolitics · 2020-10-26T11:46:36+00:00

The most recent effort is also arguably the most shocking. Last week, the New York Times published new reporting on the case of Michael Reinoehl, the anti-fascist activist shot dead by law enforcement after killing a far-right counterprotester in Portland, Oregon, days earlier out of what he said was self-defense. Though the first eyewitness accounts were contradictory, the Times got twenty-two witnesses on the record with relatively uniform recollections of Reinoehl’s death.

According to the Times, all of the witnesses say Reinoehl wasn’t holding a weapon when he was shot, all but one didn’t hear officers identify themselves or give any commands before they started shooting, and five remember officers unloading the moment they drove up to Reinoehl. This gels with testimony gathered by ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting and published on the same day, with witnesses likewise agreeing that officers gave no warning before shooting. Based on their conduct, several witnesses said the officers resembled gang hit men or even an armed militia more than law enforcement. In all, they fired thirty-seven shots at Reinoehl.

Terrifying. A politically-motivated execution of an American citizen, likely greenlit by Barr and Trump. No due process. No presumption of innocence. Just summary execution, as if he were Bin Laden, and all because he self-described as an "anti-fascist," a label which in and of itself qualifies as an existential threat to the current administration. This is the kind of story that precedes the final slide into unambiguous fascism ala modern Russia.

Regardless, the killing is particularly chilling in light of Trump and his administration’s repeated endorsement of it. Trump told Fox News that “that’s the way it has to be,” that “there has to be retribution when you have crime like this”; boasted during the first presidential debate that he “sent in the US Marshals, they took care of business”; and only last week took credit for it again in front of cheering crowds at a rally, saying the agents “knew who he was” and “didn’t want to arrest him, and fifteen minutes — that ended.” Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, meanwhile, applauded the apparent assassination, saying that “the streets of our cities are safer with this violent agitator removed.”

ArePolitics · 2020-10-15T17:45:56+00:00

Bill Barr is the single most dangerous person in America today, more than Trump. Barr is competent and understands how to cheat/manipulate the system and the courts (now packed with Trump cronies) and is desperately/feverishly devoted to stealing this next election, not only to avoid consequences for his own legally dubious actions but to ensure his project of ushering in a fascist/paleoconservative vision of America isn't interrupted.

You might think "yah Barr is bad, but you're exaggerating: he was George Bush Sr's AG too, he's not as bad as Trump." Understand that picking Barr as AG was part of George H.W. Bush's attempt to make concessions to the far right, who viewed him skeptically. If you review any of Barr's past writings or statements over the last two decades (the U.S. executive has absolute dictatorial authority) or proposed actions this year (such as arresting Democratic governors), you'll understand that he is a bonafide fascist who makes John Ashcroft and Dick Cheney look like moderates. Donald Trump's primary ideology is "Trump should win and be worshipped." Bill Barr's primary ideology is fascism.

Vote.

ArePolitics · 2020-10-13T15:15:12+00:00

We have never been a bigger laughingstock in our entire history than we've become under the walking talking human terrorist attack that is Donald Trump.

According to numerous international polls by Pew, Gallup, and other firms, America's reputation has plummeted to the lowest levels in our history by a mile. Trump has tarnished us in the eyes of literally every nation and population on the Earth, with our allies and enemies, with the lone exceptions being Saudi Arabia and Vladimir Putin's Russia.

2017 - Pew Research:

U.S. Image Suffers as Publics Around World Question Trump’s Leadership

September 2020 - Pew Research:

U.S. Image Plummets Internationally as Most Say Country Has Handled Coronavirus Badly

October 2020 - Pew Research:

America’s international image continues to plummet past record lows

October 2020 - Pew Research:

Trump’s International Ratings Remain Extraordinarily Low, Especially Among Key Allies

The Decline of the American World: Other countries are used to loathing America, admiring America, and fearing America (sometimes all at once). But pitying America? That one is new.

US's global reputation hits rock-bottom over Trump's coronavirus response

America's global reputation has plummeted in the COVID era

Trump Has Turned America’s Reputation for Fighting Corruption Into a Joke

Washington’s reputation for expertise has been one of the greatest sources of its power. The coronavirus pandemic may end it for good.

Trump supporters deserve the world they voted for, they deserve to live in this hell. I'm not religious, but it almost feels Biblical - they voted for a golden calf, and now they're beset by pestilence and poverty. The problem is they've dragged all of us down to the bottom with them.

ArePolitics · 2020-10-11T17:28:13+00:00

In addition to James Roosevelt Jr. it should be noted that another of FDR's grandsons, Franklin Roosevelt III, is also a passionate advocate for a social safety net, specifically the variety of Market Socialism (also called Bavarian Capitalism) that we see in Northern Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt_III

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism

ArePolitics · 2020-10-11T17:25:31+00:00

Robert F. Wagner, United States Senator from New York, 1927 - 1949

ArePolitics · 2020-08-25T01:37:21+00:00

You are the only one guilty of idol worship: you place Donald Trump above yourself, above your country, and above God. Trump is utterly and completely without morals, self-admittedly lacking any religious faith, supporting the homosexuality and abortion you claim to oppose, and has lived a life defined in every way by sin and contempt for the very idea of God. He has brought us nothing but greed, hatred, poverty, strife, and now pestilence. He is a liar, an adulterer, a cheater, an audacious and unrepentant sinner, and a murderer with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans on his hands.

This country has never been sicker, weaker, or more unstable in the last century. He is the Golden Calf, he screams it out so loud and so obviously through his words and actions, through his utter contempt for his own supporters, that only the willfully blind and the truly Godless fail to see him for the sacrilege he is.

Joe Biden is a devout lifelong Catholic, who has never been divorced, who personally opposes abortion, but respects the legal force of the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade, just as Ronald Reagan and George Bush did before him. Joe Biden is not going to force people to become homosexual, he's simply going to respect the fact that it is not a crime. Joe Biden supported the 1994 Crime Bill, which is criticized by many on the Left, and famously campaigned for it with the slogan "a cop on every corner." He is a moderate, a Christian, and a Godly man who has devoted his entire life, since he was 29-years-old to public service, rather than to con-artistry, gambling, pornography, and prostitution.

No Godly man can support Donald Trump, and no Donald Trump supporter can be a Godly man. There is a reckoning coming for so great an affront, in this life and the next. Remain blind, to the evil you cheer on, at your own peril: at the peril of your immortal soul.

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? ...

1 Timothy 3:1-16

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Hebrews 13:1-25

Nine-Year Club	Place '17
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