Democratic (Party) Direction

Is it my understanding that Capuano was far from awful? I mention it only because this race doesn't fit the cable news binaries of establishment vs progressive. Now the district has a legislator who looks like most of its constituents.

His concession was in good taste.

This take on Pressley/Capuano makes sense to me:

Michael Capuano is a completely acceptable progressive legislator who votes the right way on most issues. But that’s not a lifetime ticket to reelection, nor should it be. Ayanna Pressley ate his lunch last night because of the people of that blue Massachusetts district wanted a lefty fighter, someone who would represent their anger and fury at what has happened to the nation. Capuano also embraced some blue lives matter ridiculousness toward the end and tried to make it an issue in the campaign, demonstrating that he was increasingly out of touch with his district. But the broader point is this–moving districts to the left, even those already on the left, is a good thing. Electing fighters is a good thing. Electing more women is a good thing. Electing people of color is a good thing. Democracy is a good thing. I don’t care if someone is an acceptable legislator. If people want a new voice, then that’s a good thing. In other Massachusetts districts, voters chose the incumbent over progressive challengers who are also women of color. That’s fine too if that’s what the voters want, although I would have voted differently. But this is a good day for democracy and Pressley’s win should be celebrated by those who want an active fight for a better tomorrow.

as a resident of the district i completely agree with that sentiment

That's from LGM, right? Yes, I read it this morning and agree.

i don't know how much to worry about my state

good day for the shifting Overton window - O offers an endorsement of M4A, and

Zephyr Teachout, who's increasingly seen as the frontrunner in #NYAG: "We need to abolish ICE. You have an already broken system being abused by a bigot."

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) September 7, 2018

rad

jim carrey / kamala harris 2020. attorney general michael avenatti. eisenhower income tax rates. libertarianism is stupid and anti-american

sorry qualms jim's a canuck

foiled again

he has dual citizenship, maybe he can be Vice President?

all the Canadians I know who have moved to the US have gone super #resistance

VP has to be eligible for the Presidency, you'd have to make Carrey a Cabinet Secretary of some kind.

shucks

i thought this photo was pretty cool:

https://i.imgur.com/5I1suZA.png

Governor Cuomo is mad that @CynthiaNixon has called him out for never attending a mosque in 8 years in office.

Now the official NY Democratic Party is paying for his mailers that are trying to divide and conquer New Yorkers. Shameful.

[Also, Cynthia is raising her kids Jewish.] pic.twitter.com/Ouu2uTWQLF

— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) September 8, 2018

https://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/look-up-not-down-a-message-to-young-trump-supporters/Content?oid=15698154

I’m not sure which thread that belongs on. Clearly we need an entire board for politics

lol

that 11th-hour flyer shit is right on time; I guess "Vote for Cuomo, not the homo" was considered too '70s

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NY-Democratic-Party-Sends-11th-Hour-Mailer-Calling-Cynthia-Nixon-Weak-on-Jewish-Issues-Anti-Semite-492809821.html

Zephyr Teachout got to shake my hand last night because I got off the subway in Park Slope to have Szechuan food.

was it numb-your-mouth serious Szechuan or just the diluted American stuff

well, sometimes i need my mouth to talk, so whaddya think

hopefully the serious stuff, then

i'm sorry i don't see cynthia can overcome bagelgate

why the fuck should tax money fund yeshivas?!

good luck cynthia nixon

https://bklyner.com/heres-who-simcha-felder-is-accepting-campaign-contributions-from/

Data from the NY Campaign Finance Board show that Felder’s campaign received $18,000 from a pro-charter school group, “New Yorkers for Putting Students First.” Another pro-charter school group, Great Public Schools PAC, donated $3,000. Felder has been a staunch supporter of less oversight of Yeshiva education standards.

The NY Post reported that Felder was able to help the Agudath Israel organization — focusing on social services for the Orthodox Jewish community– by getting them grants “totaling $850,000 — $350,000 for community-services programming, $300,000 for a legal-services initiative and $200,00 for educational-access services.”

“Two dozen other facilities in Felder’s district also shared in the windfall, from the Sephardic Bikur Holim community-service network ($90,000) to the Yaldeinu School for autistic children ($50,000),” NY Post further reported.

In 2013, Felder pushed to propose expanding bus service to private school students who attend late afternoon classes– many of the students who attend yeshivas, the Daily News reported. In 2015, NY provided $8.1 million in funding to provide transportation home to private school students, but the new bill would provide an additional $4.5 million in funding, as well as requiring buses to drop these students off no more than 600 feet from their homes. At the time, many city officials argued that it was a “political giveaway to the Orthodox Jewish community.”

That's a higher level of bus service than public school students get, btw. That "600 feet from their homes" thing would be really helpful to some of our students who would literally have to take a city bus to get to their assigned school bus stop.

I hope this candidate doubles down on the "fuck the military" rhetoric, it's time for a backlash

Arizona Senate: Kyrsten Sinema's anti-war group blasted 'U.S. terror,' depicted soldier as skeleton in 2003 flyers

It’s not the fault of the fank and file soldiers.

whatever, dude. the uncritical worship of the military needs to stop.

9/10 people who complain about "denigrating the troops" actually mean "denigrating the american war machine" which is exactly what the flyer represented, so fuck those people.

the 2003 invasion of iraq was u.s. terror resulting in upwards of one million deaths. old flyer otm.

but don't be insensitive to the troops!

That's actually more important!

also maybe if more troops had been convinced by these flyers they would have refused to prosecute the war, and thus saved countless lives

several of my friends returned home from that war with PTSD, one killed himself shortly afterward. another ended up doing a lot of work with an anti-war veteran's group. always kind of ironic how the Respect the Troops crowd totally ignored and resisted them at every turn.

otm, because people don't really mean "the troops," in most cases, they mean "our bullshit feelgoody sense of patriotism." Don't burst my bubble is what respect the troops usually means.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBoZnF-ef-A

the troops really fucking resent the respect the troops assholes

it's a job and you get paid for it, everyone who's able should give it a try sometime

i respect this

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/09/13/mcraven-former-socom-head-resigns-from-pentagon-board-following-trump-criticism/

i sometimes think that the troops respectin thing (among veterans, not civilians) is v much generational/what conflict did you serve in. some of this is colored by the fact that i've done some troop whispering in clinical settings where vietnam era vets are overrepresented, and some of those dudes are p much permanently decked out in caps/shirts/vests that advertise their military service. but they were also almost all drafted, and never had the opportunity to treat service as a job they got paid for. military service happened to them.

which imo makes it even uglier that the political cohort that most stridently venerates veterans is led by a bunch of dudes who managed to not get drafted, and who decades later sent off a bunch of young men and women who joined up to get some job skills and maybe the GI Bill

gbx otm

The ugliness of that is not lost on the current cohort of VFW-eligible progressive democrats

some interesting stuff in here

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/how-elizabeth-warren-is-dominating-the-democratic-2020-race.html

(god i hate these fucking clickbait headlines, sorry)
(yes, this is jonathan chait)

plus this depressing poll
https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/11/11-capitalism-vs-socialism.nocrop.w710.h2147483647.2x.jpg

in the fallout of the worst financial crisis since the great depression in 2010, 61% had a positive view of capitalism. in august 2018, after bernie sanders and AOC and what seems (in my bubble) to be a rising tide of interest in socialism, the overall support for it is pretty much unchanged. it's true, democrats are more receptive (57% have a positive view, vs 16% of republicans). but that support is also pretty much the same as it was 8 years ago.

Warren has taken the opposite tack, defending her agenda as a plan to save capitalism from its excesses. She has called herself “a capitalist to my bones” (or, at other times, her “ankles.”) “There are so many people right now who argue against these reforms and other reforms, who claim they are pro-business,” she told Franklin Foer, “They’re not. They’re pro-monopoly. They’re pro–concentration of power, which crushes competition.” It is also notable that Warren has directed some of the messaging for her early moves at economic liberals like Foer and Vox’s Matthew Yglesias, who would have a more skeptical view of Sanders-style socialism. She even touted her plans in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

You might think such rhetoric would alienate Warren from progressives. But what she probably recognizes is that, while identifying as a socialist did not harm Sanders in the primary, it does not account for his support. People who supported Sanders in the primary actually had views on the size of government that were the same as, or slightly more conservative than, those of Hillary Clinton supporters. So what accounted for his enthusiasm? Sanders tapped into a deep vein of good-government progressivism. Contrasting himself with Hillary Clinton, who was mired in scandals about donor access, Sanders presented himself as authentic and idealistic.

one possible reason for the lack of movement on capitalism and socialism: americans have no fucking idea what these terms even mean. my personal experience could be an outlier, but i can't remember either capitalism or socialism ever being brought up in my primary/secondary education, which is just astounding to me. i'm sure if there was a way to poll the understanding of the terms you'd end up with results even more embarrassing than "name any branch of the government" or "do you believe the earth was created 10,000 years ago"

Sanders tapped into a deep vein of good-government progressivism. Contrasting himself with Hillary Clinton, who was mired in scandals about donor access, Sanders presented himself as authentic and idealistic.

This strikes me as otm. People who responded well to Bernie are overwhelmingly in favor of creating a just, peaceful society where everyone is cared for, as opposed to responding to an ideology. Few of them are even capable of imagining a non-capitalist economy.

one possible reason for the lack of movement on capitalism and socialism: americans have no fucking idea what these terms even mean. my personal experience could be an outlier, but i can't remember either capitalism or socialism ever being brought up in my primary/secondary education, which is just astounding to me. i'm sure if there was a way to poll the understanding of the terms you'd end up with results even more embarrassing than "name any branch of the government🕸" or "do you believe the earth was created 10,000 years ago🕸"

i'm sure if there was a way to poll the understanding of the terms you'd end up with results even more embarrassing than "name any branch of the government" or "do you believe the earth was created 10,000 years ago"

I've said this before too, but there is easily a third of the population that can't score high enough on the ASVAB to drive a truck for the Army. It is important to never forget how many very stupid people there are.