Open Thread For Nov. 12, 2018: How Dry Trump Is
Donald Trump did something that our soldiers didn’t do during World War I. Refused to go out in the rain. To honor their memory and the memory of all who who were part of the war that ended 100 years ago. The President Of The United States wouldn’t go out in the rain. President Obama? Not so much.
Trump to California: Drop Dead. Blames fires on poor forest management, threatens to withhold funds. Hey, he lost Cali, so they’re not really part of the United States.
Trump and Macron: Breaking Up Isn’t Hard To Do. He’s the Sulker-In-Chief.
Pelosi The Favorite For Speaker Because…Opponents Can’t Find A Credible Challenger.
That should get us started. What do you want to talk about?
What will LBR have to say?
Twitter thoughts last night on Pelosi’s ALREADY-obsequiousness: Nancy Pelosi: “We have an obligation to try to find common ground.” http://hill.cm/FTYvCLt
davidsirota
Hypothesis: When voters overwhelmingly vote your party into office after an election that makes the choice between you and your opponent clear, they aren’t voting for you to then immediately embrace your opponent’s policies, which those voters literally just voted to reject.
Legit asking here: why do you have an “obligation” to find common ground with white supremacy and corporate fascism? Do you believe voters want you to find some common points of agreement on that? https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1061486427429457921 …
matthewstoller
I don’t know how to explain this, but something has always been a bit.. off about the left and about Democrats. There’s not a sense that they are in charge or could be in charge. They don’t even really believe they have the right to wield power. https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1061486427429457921 …
Pelosi’s quote IS LBR’s quote, IS Carper’s quote, IS Coons’ quote, IS Carney’s quote.
More better Democrats, please.
Just say no to balance.
Yeah, rhetorical. We all know where this Delaware Way thingie typically leads.
I knew that. Rhetorical questions are worth asking.
heh, I knew that you knew that.
At the risk of being labeled a Delaware Way person, there is a way to find common ground and a reason to do so.
It doesn’t need to be common ground for ALL republicans, just the adults.
“Here’s a policy that we think is good for America. Republican Senator X from a blue state has said that he likes this idea in the past. Let’s put it to a vote.” I think we can define our boundaries and highlight where they overlap with some R’s (especially those that are up in 2020). If they are more loyal to their tribe than their ideals, we hammer that home for the next 2 years.
The point is, the D’s are always the ones reaching out, the R’s keep pulling the football away.
I’m tired of rinse, wash, repeat. The House D’s have the power to pass meaningful legislation. For the first time in a long time. By themselves. The first thing out of Pelosi’s mouth might as well have been crafted by Carper. No. Don’t compromise until/unless there’s a conference with Senate R’s. You HAVE to compromise then, but not before.
yes.
And I seem to recall Sarah Sanders justifying her action toward Acosta because Pelosi.
Where Acosta should not be attacking Trump and should accept that Pelosi and Trump had made some kind of truce when he called her after the election (AND HE IS A LYING LIAR WHO LIES!).
But then, I am very sleep-deprived today so my brain is mud.
In the hypothetical world of thought experiments and Senators called “X” maybe this is a great idea.
I’ve never lived in such a world and am unfamiliar with any that have ever existed.
Say no to balance. Win everywhere. Doninate. Crush fascists. Pulverize politically reactionaries and right wing scum.
Then execute on your political ideas.
This entire thread is based on the assumption that by taking the House of Representatives, Democrats are now in charge.
N.B. We’re not. We have the House, they have the Senate. Oh yeah, and the Presidency.
Liberalgeek has it right: “It doesn’t need to be common ground for ALL republicans, just the adults.”
Remember the aftermath of 2010? We had the Presidency, they had the entire Congress. Result? obstruction, negotiation, lots of hard feelings. But by then the all-Dem Congress had passed Obamacare.
We are in a time of protracted political warfare now. We have certain leverage, such as with the debt ceiling, and Pelosi will use it to extract what can be extracted.
The “reach out” rhetoric is a reasonable response, not just within DC but throughout the US. Our supporters, not just registered Dems but all over the place, want re-assurance that we’re the adults, not clones of Steve King.
The rhetoric is fine. I actually don’t care what Pelosi said. But shit like Obamacare isn’t good enough.
The House has a socialist caucus now, whether official or not. They should pass Medicare for All every two weeks.
What have the adults done so far? Fuck the adults. Because you’re talking about Jeff Flake, Susan Collins, Chris Coons, Chuck Schumer… Kavanaugh confirming, tax cut supporting, military carte blanche trash.
I’m not interested in what they’re selling, frankly.
This is the Obama argument. Make preemptive concessions and say how great Obamacare is.
I’m a hard no.
Not a Pelosi fan, she needs to go as does Schumer in the senate. Yes, she knows the speakers job and does it well, but she remains a part of the problem. As noted enough with reaching across the aisle, same for “finding common ground”, the Republicans have been fighting a political war for over a decade, those who cannot or will not fight back do us no good as a party.
One of them has to go.
Schumer was the one who was unable to win back a majority. The way Florida and Arizona are going, it seems like that surprise loss in Indiana is really gonna be significant.
Make Warren the majority leader. This next in line bullshit has to end.
I vote Schumer. Totally in the pocket of Wall Street.
“The House D’s have the power to pass meaningful legislation”, which will be crafted in a manner to get through the Senate and ultimately be signed by the President to become law”
There, fixed it for you.
I think you miss the point. Passing popular legislation so the Senate can kill it puts the onus of bad government where it belongs, on the Republicans. Your method is the “adult” method, and it gets us Republican Lite policies. No sale.
Do you think we don’t understand this? You’ll notice El Som didn’t say meaningful laws, which is what you’re describing, but rather meaningful legislation, like Medicare for All.
No more half baked schemes and oligarch appeasers. Keep passing Medicare for All and make 2020 a fucking de facto referendum on it.
You guys fucking suck at this.
“but rather meaningful legislation”
I suppose I might be misunderstanding the word “meaningful,” but I’m guessing that it doesn’t include useful, as in the sense of changing people’s lives. Sort of like saying no loaf is better than a half a loaf.
If that’s case we’ll never agree. I’m always going to shoot for a whole loaf but when reality intrudes, I’m going to work to get the best deal I can.
If only.
Defining the best deal is key. Our modern, centrist DEMs have worked against the people’s interests time and again.
Hope comes via the states? –
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/415593-dear-democrats-dont-be-worthless-corporate-stooges-too
“In deep red Utah, Idaho and Nebraska, Medicaid expansion easily passed at the polls. So when pundits and consultants start warning you against moving too far to the so-called “left,” remind them that policies that serve the wants and needs of the majority of Americans are actually “centrist.”
Of course, there’s not much a Democratic House can achieve on its own while Trump loyalist still control the White House and the Senate. But this is where all those governor’s mansions and state legislatures come into play.
If your state hasn’t raised the minimum wage, do it. Same with raising the overtime threshold — overtime pay is like a minimum wage for the middle class. And do everything you can to reinvest in housing, transit, education, childcare, health care and all of the other prerequisites of an affordable middle-class lifestyle.
These next two years are crucial. If Democrats put the American people back at the center of the American economy, voters will reward us at the polls. But if we merely prove to be kinder, gentler corporate stooges — if we allow the nascent Trump loyalist autocracy to take hold — we may not get a second chance.”
You cannot be this naive.
Also, what Al said.
Remember when Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich solved climate change through a “bipartisan marketplace of ideas” in 2008?
https://mobile.twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1062034629291638786
Great video here. Walk down memory lane with two esteemed adults
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/11/public-option-medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/403248-poll-seventy-percent-of-americans-support-medicare-for-all
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/poll-a-majority-of-republicans-support-medicare-for-all.html
These metaphors and thought experiments are cool. They start with a whole loaf and we may the get bread – or some of us might – depends. Maybe we don’t get the bread, but tax credits for bread. Well some people would get the tax credits. And because we have no real moral position on it we could go either way. And of course it’ll get poked full of holes by the courts, anyway.
You have a neat philosophy. You even threw in the word reality!
I’m going to be a hard no here again. Since we’re not negotiating the price of a used Plymouth. We’re doing something completely different.
Here’s something that is both meaningful and could change people’s lives. Pass legislation enabling Medicare to use the Federal government’s purchasing power to significantly reduce the cost of prescriptions. And/or pass legislation permitting the reimportation of drugs. Pass clean bills and send ’em to the Senate. If Rethugs balk, some of them will be out on their butts in 2020. If it gets to the President’s desk, a veto is probably the same as conceding the election.
I don’t see any of this as being so difficult as long as the D’s don’t ‘reach across the aisle’ to water down such a bill.
If I’m wrong, tell me why.
Well it’s a long way from Medicare For All, but it fits my definition of useful and meaningful – sort of a half a loaf!
But you don’t get half the loaf by asking for half the loaf. That’s the point you seem to be missing.
Actually, this is exactly where we should start. I’m fine with saying that this is part of a plan to move to Medicare for all. But it would be a huge win and would show that either Dems have lead us to a policy that helps us or that the only thing standing in the way is the intransigence of Republicans in the Senate.
And make the start date January 1, 2020. Phasing-in the ACA accentuated the risks and muted the benefits.
Does anyone really think that mature good-faith negotiation will loosen up intransigent Republicans? That’s adorable. You guys are the absolute cream of the political strategist crop.
Not sure the time is ripe to pass Medicare for All when Repubs control the Senate and White House. Passing Medicare for All might feel good for a moment, but we don’t need Repubs running for Congress on ads saying their Dem opponent voted to raise taxes eleven kajillion dollars. For that reason it probably wouldn’t pass the House anyway. Dem leadership has more productive things to spend their limited political capital on this term.
There are plenty of other bills the Dem House could pass to give Repubs electoral indigestion. I like the strategy of making Repubs vote over and over again against more ordinary health care bills, like strengthening Obamacare. That will strengthen our hand in 2020.
The Democrats do a lot of similar strategic thinking. How has it worked out?
This is how I know you didn’t read the links.