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April 25, 2016 07:27 AM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 47 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“The mill cannot grind with the water that is past.”

–Daniel David Palmer

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47 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

  2. A federal court has ruled NFL commioner Roger Goddell has power to suspend tom brady after all.  Brady's 4-game suspension is back.  See, while legislatures handle minor stuff about who pees where, the courts are busy dealing with the REAL problems facing this country. No word yet as to whether Brady can use any rest room he is comfortable with at his buddy Donald Trump's tower.

     

     

  3. Should be common political sense by now:

    [T]he anti-establishment sentiments unleashed this election year of a different magnitude. The Trump and Sanders candidacies are both dramatic repudiations of politics as usual.

    Being the "establishment" candidate, on either side, is a dicey proposition this year.

    If Hillary Clinton is perceived to have won the Democratic primary because of insider “superdelegates” and contests closed to independents, it may confirm for hardcore Bernie supporters the systemic political corruption Sanders has been railing against.

    Similarly, if the Republican Party ends up nominating someone other than Trump who hasn’t attracted nearly the votes than he has, it may be viewed as proof of Trump’s argument that the Republican Party is corrupt.

    …

    But, unlike previous elections, a good number may simply decide to sit out the election because of their even greater repulsion toward politics as usual — and the conviction it’s rigged by the establishment for its own benefit.

    That conviction wasn’t present in the 2008 election. It emerged later, starting in the 2008 financial crisis, when the government bailed out the biggest Wall Street banks while letting underwater homeowners drown.

    Minor fixes to student loans will not diffuse this perception, people.

    Both the Tea Party movement and Occupy were angry responses — Tea Partiers apoplectic about government’s role, Occupiers furious with Wall Street — two sides of the same coin.

    Robert Reich and Zappatero agree! 

    Then came the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in “Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission,” releasing a torrent of big money into American politics. …

    That was followed by a lopsided economic recovery, most of whose gains have gone to the top. …

    As a result of all this, many Americans have connected the dots in ways they didn’t in 2008.

    Will the political pros, the Consultants, the Senior Advisors, the Sympathetic Bloggers, connect the dots in the same way that voters have? I'm not so sure they have…. 

    1. They (establishment politicians) will only see it, Zap, as a phenomenon they might exploit for their own gain. They cannot see it any other way…they are who they are…Republicans, Democrats….they all want to believe the mutiny is worse on the other side…they suffer from the same delusions…

      Their defenders will be along in a bit…. 

    2. It's one of a number of issues. The voters will weigh their buckets of issues as they always do, and if "the system" comes out on top, then perhaps we'll see some interesting results.

      But come November (and October for those with early voting) there will be two and only two major candidates in the Presidential race who the nationwide electorate would conceivably put in to office. Barring a major turnaround, Sanders (my first choice) will not be on that ballot. Trump likely will be. I won't be voting for the "anti-establishment" candidate, I will be voting for the one who will take us forward on the environment, in civil rights, and in the empowerment of the people. That's a clear choice – not just on the Presidential line, but on every line on my ballot this year.

      1. I remember how many here decried the possibility of a Clinton/Bush contest as being too boring to contemplate…

        well, are we happy now? At least we have something to write about. If, by some set of circumstances, this becomes a Clinton/ Cruz contest, we may not be able to have an election on schedule. We will be too busy dealing with a political insurrection. These people are serious.

          1. Aye…

            I wouldn't look past the most radical element of Bernies supporters getting a little crazy, too. They will dishonor him if they do any stupid violent shit…but there are nutbirds in every aviary.

            1. Bernie crazies may exist Duke, but most of his supporters that I have met are friendly and eager to cooperate with me on non-hillary/bernie issues.   Even the few fringe bernie's I met only threaten to go back in their hole and hibernate,   Could there be a violent nut in the ranks of millions of Bernistas — sure,  But I'd guess the chance of that is far less than among the population at large,   Now, if you want to get scared, look at Trump's people sucker punching protesters and promising to kill them next time.   Then remember that they have guns — lots and lots of guns — with 100-round magazines, and tripods, and bayonet mounts, and a convenient little pouch to hold their two IQ points while they are at a trump rally and don't need them.   From that crowd, I don't fear violence.   I guarantee it.

              1. Bernie crazies may exist Duke, but most of his supporters that I have met are friendly and eager to cooperate with me on non-hillary/bernie issues.

                Remember the PUMAs? Just barely? Made a lot of noise. Fizzled in the harsh light of the real choices of the general except for those of them (I spoke to quite few on the 16th St Mall back then during the convention) who were the kind of white married suburban women who are registered R or vote R most of the time anyway. Overwhelming majority of actual Dem and Dem leaning indie HRC supporters had more sense. Obama (every bit as centrist as HRC and Bennet BTW but that's another subject) won decisively despite their threats.

    3. "If Hillary Clinton is perceived to have won the Democratic primary because of insider “superdelegates” and contests closed to independents, it may confirm for hardcore Bernie supporters the systemic political corruption Sanders has been railing against."

      Uhhh, how about the fact that Clinton won big time in primaries open and closed, while Sanders  mostly ran up the score in caucus states where most voters never had a chance to participate.  Which is why Hillary is winning big time even without the super delegates.  Damnit, reality seems to have a moderate bias this year.

      1. Name recognition might have helped with her edge in the primaries just a little bit though…don't you think? Who has more name recognition than Hillary Clinton? Do you actually know someone who doesn't know who she is?

        1. Of course she has high name recognition after decades of working for children and health care and a thousand other progressive causes.    And that is cruel and unfair because???  Anyone?  Bueller?  Bernie?  Anyone?

      2. I'll say. Listening to some of this crap you'd think Bernie was the one ahead in pledged delegates and the popular vote. You'd also never know it's Camp Bernie talking about trying to turn super delegates despite the will of the people as evidenced by the pledged delegate count and popular vote. Not to mention remaining state poll showing consistent  preference for HRC in state after state.

        Guess Bernie's most fanatic supporters must be viewing the contest through Alice's Looking Glass.

        1. Problem. I'm getting editor and that gives me a chance to review but the spell check is not catching spelling errors. It said no writing errors when I could see that I had spelled think as thnk. Odd thing is sometimes it does catch something.

          2. I have no editor at all for comments. BC.  Bizarrely, I do have editing powers for every thread heading.   I could go into the opening quote and screw it up to my hearts content,   But fix my own typeaux?  Not a chance.

            1. Mine will underline initials like "HRC" as an error but tell me a post with multiple errors such as "votng" is error free. Do you have to make sure you're carefully centered on the check mark and not the catching the ABC instead? I'll experiment.

        2. Agree with that for the most part. However, while Sanders is attempting to woo superdelegates, it's Clinton that has the vast lead in them already. I would certainly be unhappy if Sanders were in the lead and the superdelegates tipped the race to Clinton. But let's face it – at this point, Bernie is not likely to pull into the lead; Clinton won't win because of superdelegates. The ongoing "fantasy rage" about this contest being "stolen" from Sanders is delusional and unproductive.

          Superdelegate votes should only ever come in to play when multiple candidates in a race fail to lead to a simple majority for any candidate, or for when a candidate in the lead (but short of an outright majority) develops a major flaw such as a felony indictment.

          1. First, discussing how super delegates should be used is strictly academic since they can vote however they want according to present rules. Valid part of a discussion on changing those rules but not relevant to this election.

            Second, as you say, this time around a majority of the pledged delegates also support HRC so the establishment candidate isn’t stealing anything from the plucky insurgent. The plucky insurgent is the one contemplating some stealing but …. good luck with that, Bernie.

             

            1. The original perception was that Hillary "cheats" by using the superdelegates to win. It's not about Bernie here; Hillary has played the superdelegate race to her advantage, and if it were a matter of Bernie being ahead but not with an outright win and the superdelegates came along and gave the race to Hillary, there would be some righteous indignation – and for good cause.

              Bernie is currently playing catch-up to Clinton's superdelegate plan. I don't consider it cheating or stealing or anything else sneaky; as you note, supers can do what they want. And I think Bernie supporters see the portrayal of his late campaign in those words as "less than friendly"; as a Bernie supporter, the view is (and the facts are) that it's Clinton that jumped the gun to get superdelegate support before the actual primary race was even started.

              As for rules, etc – I'm just stating my "if I ran the party, here's what I'd tell the superdelegates to adhere to" preferences.

              1. I don't really understand what you're saying because HRC is winning even without reference to super delegates and most super delegates would never in a million years have supported Bernie over her in the first place.

                How much "playing" do you think was necessary to get overwhelmingly centrist supers to support a fellow Dem centrist over a far left indie who just switched from calling himself a socialist to calling himself a democratic socialist about 15 minutes ago.  Remember this is the same Democratic party that's been terrified of being called so much as "liberal" ("progressive" was coined out of terror of that word) much less any kind of socialist, since the Reagan era.

                While it's true that the Clinton juggernaut has been crushing potential viable challengers for years in preparation for HRC's coronation, the idea that if HRC hadn't "jumped the gun" on sewing up super delgates they would have supported the likes of Bernie Sanders is, forgive me, laughable. Most voters haven’t supported Bernie over HRC either so the whole Bernie got cheated thing is a huge fantasy that flies in the face of all objective reality. In fact he’s done so amazingly well, all things considered, that that any possible cheating against him must be seen as having been wildly unsuccessful.

    4. If Clinton is perceived to have won from closed primaries and caucuses, then the disgruntled independent voters can go back to their Bill of Rights and read about Freedom of Association and some legal texts on how it applies to groups and their right to advocate on behalf of group members.

      We have deep problems with our political system that perpetuate the two-party system unnecessarily, but they are not solvable by opening up primaries, constitutionality aside.

      1. I think the corollary to that is the "Bernie's not a real Democrat" nonsense.  We have a two party system (for better, or, as I think, worse).  Sanders is running for the nomination of the Democratic Party to be the country’s president, which its members (and others in some states) are free to give, not party chairman.  Yes the parties are private clubs, but the collective noggin pop that would happen across lefty blogs if Sanders were to say, "You know what, you're right, I'm an independent, I should run for President as one." would have us still cleaning gray matter off the walls months after Hillary Clinton got a plurality of electoral votes and had the election thrown into the House.  Although, I have to say, consensus choice Lindsey Graham would also be a (probably) groundbreaking choice as the first LGBT president, after promising to leave after one term.

        Be thankful Bernie chose to try to reform the system from within rather than without.

        1. You're assuming Bernie would have come anywhere near this far as an independent most people had never heard of. He's only running as a Democrat because he's a politician who knows you can only win the presidency as a major party candidate. As I've said, it's not an insult to say he's a not a real Democrat. It's simply an acknowledgement that he has never been and for all I know is not now a member of the Democratic party. 

          If that's the case then he quite objectively is not a Democrat. It's not a matter of sense or nonsense and there is nothing difficult to understand about super delegates who are party members, elected Dems, Dem party officials and the like who have worked together helping one another to elect Democratic majorities being overwhelmingly inclined to support a long time fellow Democrat.

          Bernie has been an independent throughout his political career and that is going to make a difference in the network of mutual support, favors, etc. that bind party members to each other and much less to an outsider. Nothing unfair or nefarious about that. It's the price an independent pays for declining to be part of the party structure.

          Of course since HRC is winning pledged delegates and the popular vote anyway there is nothing even vaguely nonsensical or improper or unfair about almost all super delegates supporting her. She is, after all (much as Bernie's supporters hate to acknowledge it) the choice of the people so far by all objective measures.

          2. Yeah, actually there is some impropriety about the superdelegates jumping in so early. Clinton had many of them behind her as the primaries were just getting started, and those are influential people giving endorsements early. It was an attempt to throw the race, just as it was back in 2008. I'm a big boy; I can choose my candidates on their merits, and the idea of a social bully coming along to persuade me is irritating.

            And, frankly, while Sanders has not been a registered Democrat ever, he's always been a reliable Democratic caucus vote and he has repeatedly helped Democrats get in to office over the years, and has been a vocal critic of Republicans. He has been everything you would want from a Democratic Party member, minus the membership. He's running under party rules this year because, as you say, he knows that the system only supports two-party elections.

            Sanders would probably agree with you that it's no insult, but you and I both know that saying he's no Democrat is meant as an insult and a negative against him when it's said.

            1. (BTW, being a social bully is part of being a political animal and it's certainly one way to run a legitimate campaign, but that doesn't make it any less irritating to me than, say, accepting large donations from Wall Street, or chemical polluters, or outsourcing firms as a way to get ahead in the campaign.)

  4. The Koch heart Hillary!

    Maybe, maybe not. But ya gotta admit, Charles' little flirtation with HRC this weekend provided a break on a slow news day.

    Question to Moderatus:  Do you think we'll see some Americans for Prosperity TV ads this fall trashing the GOP nominee? 

      1. They may have taken her out for a test drive over the weekend, but I don't think they're going to buy. (Remember, she doesn't have that new car smell about her as we were told last year.)

        I suspect he was trying to send a message to the leaders of his own party. He was pretty blunt in what he didn't like about Drumpf and Rafael.

    2. Oh Lord! Please don't tell mama or Zap about this. Especially Zap. He’ll be posting more of those Bennet links to stuff that doesn’t mention anything about Bennet.

      1. Sure, you definitely shouldn't "tell" me or Zap, because we don't read this blog at all, and definitely not anything ever in the mainstream or leftie press. So we would have no clue that the Kochs think that "it's possible" that Hillary might be better than a GOP candidate on freeing industry up from all of that regulation. (unless someone slips up and "tells" us).

        I read it as political triangulation – Charles Koch knows that his faint praise will harm Hillary with the progressive Dem voters, as well as dividing Democrats further, and as a freebie, is a pretty good dig at Trump and Cruz.

        Not interested in endorsements from people who deny climate science and try to make it harder for people to vote.

         

         

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