Trump's people. All of them say Russia will interfere with the fall elections. All of them. Here is some bad news that might have kind of gotten buried this week, amid all the insanity! Trump's spy chiefs testified for the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday (in the same hearing where FBI Director Chris Wray
Don't you think that's a little sad, though? The most qualified candidate in history is unelectable primarily because she's a strong woman? I'm not saying she should run again. I'm saying this sucks, that there is so much antipathy towards the woman candidate, no matter how very qualified she might be. Is there a woman out there you would vote for, 9.8m/ss?
Yeah, it's almost as if acquiring and maintaining political/economic power is actually more important to them than any quaint notions of patriotism or the small-d democracy they pay lip service to in their campaign speeches. Or something.
Gayle McLaughlin.Rebecca Kaplan.Maybe Pramila Jayapal.They didn't vote to bomb the people of Iraq and Afghanistan into the stone age in a dispute over terms of access to other people's petroleum.They didn't take socialized health insurance "off the table" and push a law written by and for the health insurance industry.They didn't force other countries to allow hydraulic fracturing for fossil fuels.They didn't vote for Orrin Hatch's bill to keep low cost prescription drugs unavailable in the US.They didn't get paid a quarter million dollars to make a secret speech to Goldman Sachs executives.
I've registered at least 500 voters. I served on the logic and accuracy panel convened by my county's registrar of voters. The representative from the Libertarians and I found some really stupid security problems that would have gotten anybody in IT in private industry fired, if not sued. The Dems and the GOP didn't want them fixed, and they weren't. I was an advisor to Open Voting Consortium when they developed the first freely available end to end auditable voting system (ADA compliant, with tamper-evident machine and human readable paper ballots-of-record), and when they obtained a Diebold vapor ballot machine and developed proof of concept security exploits for it. (A team from Purdue cracked the same machine, around the same time, and their video was better.) Which the Democrat secretary of state of California was not interested in fixing, after promising us it would be her first priority. What have you ever done to secure your elections?
They're effective, honest, progressive politicians. They don't take bribes from Goldman Sachs or Pfizer. They won't get any air time on PBS or MSNBC. No wonder you've never heard of them.
Do you get all your exercise jumping to conclusions? Of course the national Libertarian Party is part of the Koch machine. Of course their politics are repugnant. They also work ballot access and election integrity issues. Which the Dems and the GOP are on the wrong side of every time. Here in California, the elections are rigged, and the voting system is prone to security intrusions, because the Dem machine that owns the political system here likes it that way. Peace and Freedom (our socialist party) gazes at its navel and argues Marxist jargon. The LP guy wanted to know whether the Registrar ever tests his computer backups (it's not a backup if you don't know it worked and how to use it), and why the software vendor is allowed to fiddle with the vote counting machine remotely on election day. The Dem representative shut that conversation down. No racists, Nazis, or Koch family agents were present, but the DEM was there to keep the system rigged.
I haven't missed an election in forty years. I've spent more time and money and creative energy in progressive politics than you ever have. "you either stayed home or threw away your vote." You could not be more wrong.
Nothing will be "accomplished in this country as it is today" while Democrats are in denial about why they are out of power. Notice the reaction when I came here to talk about how the Democrats can win again. Denial. Vigorous defense of the tribal identity.
And you asked about my plan. Nothing will change while the Electoral College has its effect. The Electoral College can be bypassed without a Constitutional amendment. Here's the plan for making that happen.
Speak for yourself. I research the candidates and vote in every race, every time. I don't vote for the candidates from the banking, armaments, and insurance industries, though. I don't vote for candidates who voted for the PATRIOT Act or NAFTA and GATT and TPP. I don't vote for candidates who derailed the Microsoft antitrust suit or gave away the Headwaters Forest to be destroyed to pay off junk bonds. How about you? Do you even know about the voting records of the candidates of your identity group?
They failed to protect any of those people from those policies when they were the majority party. The US only has one political party in power, the Businessmen's Party. It uses two brand names. They market cat food that way too. Lots of brand names, all made by the same supplier. Makes you think you have a choice.
I read a newsletter called Ballot Access News, and I've met its editor a few times. If you really want to know how the machine works and what it's doing next, it's required reading. Nobody else covers that stuff, except an occasional piece in The Nation or, recently, The Intercept. Its editor, last time we spoke, was still a registered Libertarian. But you would never know it from the work he does. Check it out.
"Unlikely" describes a finding in probability and statistics. Whether Sanders might have done better had the primary not been rigged against him is not a question in probability and statistics. "Implausible" would be a more appropriate term.
The DNC has strong influence over who gets face time on PBS, MSNBC, and other nominally "liberal" PR outlets. It's a scandal that Judy Woodruff's (and Rachel Maddow's) salary isn't reported to the FEC as an inkind contribution.
So, no plan then? Good example of deflection, and non sequitur to the question I asked, with some minor ad hominem tossed in for good measure.
I asked you what was your plan. I did not ask you for a link to a campaign style website. There is no plan there that I could see to make any of that happen. Just an idea that it should happen.
You did not come here to talk about Dems could win again. Go reread your comment. It was how the Dems did not provide you with a candidate that you, personally, were not enthused enough to vote for and you hoped it would be different next time. You touched on how "progressives" are locked out somehow, and and how being centrist, in a country where compromise with the other side is the only way to get things done, is bad. In a later post you went down the 'what if?' rabbit hole to proclaim "Bernie woulda won". IOW, standard purity pony nonsense.
If I read your comment wrong, along with everyone else who replied to you, then the problem is not us, it's how you wrote the comment.
Don't you think that's a little sad, though? The most qualified candidate in history is unelectable primarily because she's a strong woman? I'm not saying she should run again. I'm saying this sucks, that there is so much antipathy towards the woman candidate, no matter how very qualified she might be. Is there a woman out there you would vote for, 9.8m/ss?
Yeah, it's almost as if acquiring and maintaining political/economic power is actually more important to them than any quaint notions of patriotism or the small-d democracy they pay lip service to in their campaign speeches. Or something.
Gayle McLaughlin.Rebecca Kaplan.Maybe Pramila Jayapal.They didn't vote to bomb the people of Iraq and Afghanistan into the stone age in a dispute over terms of access to other people's petroleum.They didn't take socialized health insurance "off the table" and push a law written by and for the health insurance industry.They didn't force other countries to allow hydraulic fracturing for fossil fuels.They didn't vote for Orrin Hatch's bill to keep low cost prescription drugs unavailable in the US.They didn't get paid a quarter million dollars to make a secret speech to Goldman Sachs executives.
I've registered at least 500 voters. I served on the logic and accuracy panel convened by my county's registrar of voters. The representative from the Libertarians and I found some really stupid security problems that would have gotten anybody in IT in private industry fired, if not sued. The Dems and the GOP didn't want them fixed, and they weren't. I was an advisor to Open Voting Consortium when they developed the first freely available end to end auditable voting system (ADA compliant, with tamper-evident machine and human readable paper ballots-of-record), and when they obtained a Diebold vapor ballot machine and developed proof of concept security exploits for it. (A team from Purdue cracked the same machine, around the same time, and their video was better.) Which the Democrat secretary of state of California was not interested in fixing, after promising us it would be her first priority. What have you ever done to secure your elections?
Try Democracy Now! and The Intercept. Pacifica Radio's Free Speech Radio News is usually pretty good.
> Gayle McLaughlin.Who?
> Rebecca Kaplan.Who?
> Pramila Jayapal.Who?
They're effective, honest, progressive politicians. They don't take bribes from Goldman Sachs or Pfizer. They won't get any air time on PBS or MSNBC. No wonder you've never heard of them.
Do you get all your exercise jumping to conclusions? Of course the national Libertarian Party is part of the Koch machine. Of course their politics are repugnant. They also work ballot access and election integrity issues. Which the Dems and the GOP are on the wrong side of every time. Here in California, the elections are rigged, and the voting system is prone to security intrusions, because the Dem machine that owns the political system here likes it that way. Peace and Freedom (our socialist party) gazes at its navel and argues Marxist jargon. The LP guy wanted to know whether the Registrar ever tests his computer backups (it's not a backup if you don't know it worked and how to use it), and why the software vendor is allowed to fiddle with the vote counting machine remotely on election day. The Dem representative shut that conversation down. No racists, Nazis, or Koch family agents were present, but the DEM was there to keep the system rigged.
I haven't missed an election in forty years. I've spent more time and money and creative energy in progressive politics than you ever have. "you either stayed home or threw away your vote." You could not be more wrong.
Nothing will be "accomplished in this country as it is today" while Democrats are in denial about why they are out of power. Notice the reaction when I came here to talk about how the Democrats can win again. Denial. Vigorous defense of the tribal identity.
And you asked about my plan. Nothing will change while the Electoral College has its effect. The Electoral College can be bypassed without a Constitutional amendment. Here's the plan for making that happen.
Speak for yourself. I research the candidates and vote in every race, every time. I don't vote for the candidates from the banking, armaments, and insurance industries, though. I don't vote for candidates who voted for the PATRIOT Act or NAFTA and GATT and TPP. I don't vote for candidates who derailed the Microsoft antitrust suit or gave away the Headwaters Forest to be destroyed to pay off junk bonds. How about you? Do you even know about the voting records of the candidates of your identity group?
They failed to protect any of those people from those policies when they were the majority party. The US only has one political party in power, the Businessmen's Party. It uses two brand names. They market cat food that way too. Lots of brand names, all made by the same supplier. Makes you think you have a choice.
I read a newsletter called Ballot Access News, and I've met its editor a few times. If you really want to know how the machine works and what it's doing next, it's required reading. Nobody else covers that stuff, except an occasional piece in The Nation or, recently, The Intercept. Its editor, last time we spoke, was still a registered Libertarian. But you would never know it from the work he does. Check it out.
McDonalds, billions and billions sold.Your local organic bistro, not so many.It's all about national advertising and brand recognition.
"Unlikely" describes a finding in probability and statistics. Whether Sanders might have done better had the primary not been rigged against him is not a question in probability and statistics. "Implausible" would be a more appropriate term.
The DNC has strong influence over who gets face time on PBS, MSNBC, and other nominally "liberal" PR outlets. It's a scandal that Judy Woodruff's (and Rachel Maddow's) salary isn't reported to the FEC as an inkind contribution.
So, no plan then? Good example of deflection, and non sequitur to the question I asked, with some minor ad hominem tossed in for good measure.
I asked you what was your plan. I did not ask you for a link to a campaign style website. There is no plan there that I could see to make any of that happen. Just an idea that it should happen.
You did not come here to talk about Dems could win again. Go reread your comment. It was how the Dems did not provide you with a candidate that you, personally, were not enthused enough to vote for and you hoped it would be different next time. You touched on how "progressives" are locked out somehow, and and how being centrist, in a country where compromise with the other side is the only way to get things done, is bad. In a later post you went down the 'what if?' rabbit hole to proclaim "Bernie woulda won". IOW, standard purity pony nonsense.
If I read your comment wrong, along with everyone else who replied to you, then the problem is not us, it's how you wrote the comment.