tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post834681637239952406..comments2024-01-02T22:01:12.976+00:00Comments on Avedon's Sideshow: You know the sheriff's got his problems tooAvedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-6252415293606352922017-01-29T19:41:35.597+00:002017-01-29T19:41:35.597+00:00More laughing at the chumps? Shouldn't we, the...More laughing at the chumps? Shouldn't we, the "Vote Dem" sophisticates, be taking some time out to congratulate ourselves on how we're the ones who have it all figured out? <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/01/why-republicans-are-impressive" rel="nofollow">[LINK]</a>:<br /><br /><b>[QUOTE]</b> <i>...[F]or Republicans, going after Medicaid is picking a big fight, one they could easily dodge. But that won’t stop them. They know that destroying this kind of program is key to their vision for America, both ideologically and in terms of budget math. They’ve known it for years, and they’ve been releasing plans and focus-grouping and developing consensus for years in the wilderness, and now they’re tanned, rested and ready....<br /><br />Medicaid is one example among many. On issue after issue—Medicare, financial deregulation, upper-class tax cuts, environmental deregulation, the destruction of public education—the GOP is committed to pursuing a profoundly radical and often deeply unpopular agenda. Remember all those “symbolic” votes repealing Obamacare and so forth? They weren’t symbolic, they were dress rehearsals, opportunities to build party consensus around reforms and enforce discipline around them. This is why analogies between the Republicans today and the Democratic Party in 2008 are so misguided: the Democrats were divided among themselves and committed to building bipartisan consensus, and the laws they passed in 2009—Obamacare, the stimulus bill—were compromised (some would say crippled) accordingly.<br /><br />The GOP is prepared to ram through its agenda with iron party discipline and understands very clearly that bipartisanship is neither possible nor necessary.<br /><br />This asymmetry is what’s so impressive about the modern Republican Party. It’s not just that they’ve won, but that winning has put them in a position to enact an extraordinarily ambitious and radical agenda, one which will in the course of a few months destroy pillars of American government that have stood for fifty years or more. If Democrats are ever to be in a position to pass their own agenda (or merely to undo the damage that’s about to be done), they need to play close attention not only to how the Republicans won in 2016—a question over which much ink has been spilled—but to how the Republicans transformed themselves over a much longer timeline into a party that could transform the country when it won....</i> <b>[END QUOTE]</b><br /> CMikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13481861530761114492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-66990824933708857772017-01-28T21:34:44.027+00:002017-01-28T21:34:44.027+00:00Don't count on the democrats to bail us out. O...Don't count on the democrats to bail us out. Only 17 Senate Democrats opposed granting Mad Dog Mattis an exemption from a law that makes it illegal for a recent non-civilian to serve as Defense Secretary. And the only vote against confirming him was from a self-serving corporate shill who wants to run for president by recalling an uninformed Democratic base with her "progressivism" and courage. Only 11 Senate Democrats voted against confirming General John Kelly as Secretary of Homeland Security. Only 8 Senate Democrats were serious in their opposition to torture enthuseiast Mike Pompeo as head of the CIA. And only 4 Senate Dems voted against confirming Nikki Haley as the Ambassador to the UN. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-34348665596396880702017-01-28T13:22:43.689+00:002017-01-28T13:22:43.689+00:00Welcome to the Year of the Rooster! downright hi...Welcome to the Year of the Rooster! downright hilarious, that association.<br />Kinda fun watching the wingnuts saddled with chump promises, such as health care for everyone! giggle.Ruthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17553541514560319083noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-32472666858125157542017-01-26T07:38:43.120+00:002017-01-26T07:38:43.120+00:00Okay, that was supposed to be a preview, but well,...Okay, that was supposed to be a preview, but well, there it is. If you want to see the whole thing, it's here:<br /><br />http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2016/12/45-excuses-for-failures-of-democrats.htmlLotushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16774266443353774752noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-58948069978983513002017-01-26T07:34:49.207+00:002017-01-26T07:34:49.207+00:00Re Old Cue Ball, in a post on the excuses the Dem ...Re Old Cue Ball, in a post on the excuses the Dem leadership was making for its failure, I had this bit:<br /><br />So here's the kicker, the bottom line of what the Clinton campaign and the whole damn self-serving liberal political establishment got wrong: All that talk about the fears and frustrations, all that talk about economic stress, about the loss of things you had counted on, about the loss of hope that your children will have a better life, all that talk <i>doesn't just apply to white people!</i><br /><br />[snip]<br /><br />Which means, to put a perhaps finer point on it, it's not that they ignored the economic concerns of non-white people, it's that they ignored that non-white people have economic concerns.<br /><br />Why? Because they thought they could take us - all of us, all of us on the left who know that the changes we need lie in more than half, hell, quarter, measures and all of us they thought they could buy off with pretty words and paltry promises about a justice that is coming in spite of them, not because of them - because they thought they could take us for granted. <br />Lotushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16774266443353774752noreply@blogger.com