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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I don't think that Williamson has enough social clout to become Left Trump. For better or (definitely) worse, Trump has been a household name since the 80's, showing up all over the place in pop culture and becoming the quintessential successful American (even if we now know it's a load of bull).
While Williamson's hand in the AIDS epidemic cannot be questioned, has she been known to the public until recently?
> has she been known to the public until recently?
Nope,but all that's changed with the debates,let's hope she's not involved in any future debates,remember that Trump ran for President before and lost,she might be hoping to do something similar with her new found popularity
have a listen and have a link to my discord serverSo yeah.
The Winners
- Rep. Delaney. No one knew who he was, he got a lot of air time, and he didn't fuck it up.
- Marianne Williamson: Now, like how I said Yang was a winner in his first debate, this largely stems from starting at such a low place. But she did excellently. She gave some genuinely great answers, and gave other answers that will get her into the national discourse if only through memes, which is still a net win. And since no one targeted her, she came off smelling fresh as a daisy despite being a garbage candidate.
- Moderate Democrats as a whole: Now, this is more subjective, but here's the thing... they kept the "electability" thing in the discourse. And frankly, Bernie and Warren needed to completely shut that down, which they didn't do. Even after the "why are you up here..." thing, the very moderators still asked questions that leaned towards "are you actually electable?" The problem is that this is 100% a self-fulfilling prophecy. Low-energy voters that just want Trump out might gravitate towards a more electable candidate because they think other low-energy voters will gravitate towards a more electable candidate.
- Buttegieg: Mostly because I think he did what he wanted to do: straddle the line and not make any waves. He clearly wasn't trying to make a splash this debate and he succeeded, but he also didn't drown.
The Losers
- Beto: He just underperformed. I don't think I need to go into it.
- Warren: Yes, she had the line of the night. But in a night of "moderates vs. progressives" where the moderates came out on top, of the progressives, Bernie definitely did better. And she definitely
- Probably the other people I've genuinely forgotten: ... because I forgot about them.
- Good green energy news: For the first time Texas is producing more electricity from wind power than from coal
And that's despite Texas also being the largest coal consuming state in the US.
The bill, just signed by Republican Gov. Mike De Wine, is called HB 6. Though the story behind it is complex and sordid, the bill itself is pretty simple. It would do four things:
- Bail out two nuclear plants: From 2021 until 2027, Ohio ratepayers will pay a new monthly surcharge on their electricity bills, from 85 cents for residential customers up to $2,400 for big industrial customers. The surcharge will produce about $170 million a year; $150 million of that will be used by the utility First Energy Solutions to subsidize its two big nuclear power plants — Davis-Besse, outside of Toledo, and Perry, northeast of Cleveland — which it claims are losing money and will be closed in the next couple of years without bailouts. The remaining $20 million will be divided among six existing solar projects in rural areas of the state. (Note: As we’ll discuss below, nuclear power plants generate low-carbon energy and are worth saving. But not like this.)
- Bail out two coal plants: First Energy customers across Ohio will pay an additional monthly surcharge ($1.50 for residential customers; up to $1,500 for big industrials) to help bail out two old, hyper-polluting coal plants owned by the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (a collective owned by several large utilities), one in Ohio, one in Indiana.
- Gut renewable energy standards: Ohio has one of the oldest renewable portfolio standards in the country, requiring its utilities to get 12.5 percent of their power from renewables by 2027. The bill reduces the target to 8.5 percent by 2026, exempts large industrial customers, and kills the standard after 2026, effectively nullifying any incentive for new renewable energy development in the state.
- Gut energy efficiency standards: Ohio utilities are required to reduce customers’ energy use 22 percent from 2008 levels by 2027 through energy efficiency programs (which were set to save Ohio ratepayers $4 billion over the next 10 years). HB 6 allows utilities to abandon those programs entirely once they hit 17.5 percent, a level most have almost reached already.
To summarize: The bill would subsidize four uncompetitive power plants, remove all incentive to build more renewable energy projects, and cancel efforts to help customers use less energy. It is a bill only a utility (and the lawmakers who do its bidding) could love, an extravagant gift to utility investors that hoses Ohio ratepayers.
Despite a tsunami of dark money supporting the bill, HB 6 was overwhelmingly opposed by ratepayer groups, business groups, free market conservative groups, environmental groups, and Ohioans generally. Its only support came from its only beneficiaries: the utilities that own the bailed-out plants, the employees of the bailed-out plants, the communities where the bailed-out plants are located, and possibly President Trump, who doesn’t want to see coal plants closing during his reelection campaign.
...
First Energy has clung to large nuclear and coal plants (among a string of other bad business decisions), but those plants have been getting undercut in electricity markets by cheaper natural gas and renewables. That’s why coal and nuclear plants are closing across the country.
In 2017, First Energy spun off a subsidiary, First Energy Solutions (FES), and saddled it with the two plants; the following year, FES declared bankruptcy. (As of this year, First Energy says it has cut ties completely with the subsidiary.) It made some headlines by appealing to the Trump administration to use federal emergency powers to save its power plants, i.e, to prevent its investors from eating a loss. That didn’t happen, but Energy Secretary Rick Perry encouraged states to pursue bailouts of their own.
He didn’t need to tell Ohio anything. First Energy has been pursuing bailouts in the state since at least 2014, and investors have continued pouring in billions on the bet that it will succeed. They certainly have reason to believe it. The Environmental Defense Fund’s Dick Munson summarizes the history of ratepayers getting stuck with the bill:
This would be the fifth time Ohioans will have paid for these plants. They first paid when the plants were built. They paid again in 1999 when the electricity market was restructured. They paid again when companies were allowed to add plants back into their supply plans in 2008. And finally, they’ve paid via the bailout ruling approved by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio in 2016.
(As for that last bailout, the Ohio Supreme Court recently rejected it, saying that the state could not simply write a blank check to a utility. Shows what they know!)
Despite all this, the FES has told regulators that its two nuclear plants are unprofitable and will be closed in the next few years without bailouts, leaving up to 4,300 people out of work and the communities around the plants devastated.
Are the nuclear plants really unprofitable?
Astoundingly, FES refuses to divulge the plants’ actual financial numbers to lawmakers, citing bankruptcy confidentiality agreements. Experts hired by First Energy say the plants are losing money. Other experts, hired by groups that oppose the bailout, claim the plants are profitable.
There’s no definitive answer. Lawmakers were simply asked to accept FES’s word that it needed hundreds of millions in subsidies.
The article is very long and goes into a lot of detail about the history between the energy companies, Ohio lawmakers, and the Trump administration. (A major lobbyist for the effort raised about a million dollars for Trump's reelection campaign before personally appealing to Trump energy secretary Rick Perry to help the bailout along, for example.)
TLDR version: one factor in Republican losses in Congress in 2018 was a large number of Republicans deciding to retire and not to run again. 3 Republicans hav announced plans to retire or decision not to run in 2020 in just the past week, and the GOP fears that a lot of Reps are spooked by close elections from 2018 and may decide not to try their luck again in 2020.
Three House Republicans said last week they would not seek another term next year, catching party strategists off guard. Those announcements came earlier than in a typical election cycle, when members who are ready to hang up their voting cards usually wait until after the August recess or after the Christmas break.
Republicans in Congress strategizing to win back the House say the rush to the exits reflects the depressing reality of life in the minority and a pessimistic view of the GOP’s chances of regaining the majority.
“We are in the minority. That is never much fun in the House,” said one senior Republican member of Congress, who asked for anonymity to provide a candid assessment. “The odds are against us retaking the majority.”
Transitioning from the all-powerful majority to the back-bench minority can refocus one’s outlook on public service, said Tom Davis, a former Virginia congressman who ran the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
“Moving from the majority to the minority changes your mindset about why am I here, am I getting things done,” Davis said. “It’s a very frustrating life for some of these members right now. There’s been no pay raise for 11 years. You’ve got to maintain two households.”
The job of serving in Congress itself has changed in recent years. Members of Congress now routinely skip town hall meetings to avoid being confronted by angry constituents, they are frequently asked to defend President Trump’s Twitter habits and the House Republican Conference is increasingly influenced by a small group of hard-right conservatives.
“Serving in the era of Trump has few rewards. He has made an already hostile political environment worse. Every day there is some indefensible tweet or comment to defend or explain. It is exhausting and often embarrassing,” the member of Congress said. Even if Republicans were to win back the majority, “our edge would be narrow which means we would live under the tyranny of the Freedom Caucus. Frankly I wonder if this conference is capable of governing.”
Republican strategists say they are bracing for a new wave of exits after members check in with their families over the August recess. Two dozen Republicans won their reelection bids in 2018 by fewer than 5 percentage points; another 25 won by fewer than 10 points.
“There are going to be a lot more [retirements] to come,” said one consultant who works for House Republicans. “Between people finding themselves having to actually work hard for the first time in their long, lazy careers and members who came in in the majority and now hate life in the minority, it's just getting started.”
Two of the members who announced their retirements last week — Reps. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.) and Martha Roby (R-Ala.) — represent deep-red districts where their successor will almost certainly be chosen in the Republican primary.
But a third, Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas), holds a seat that is likely to be competitive. Olson won election to his final term by just 5 percentage points in 2018, and Democrats have signaled that districts like his, in the rapidly growing Houston suburbs, are their prime targets.
Six Republicans have now said they will not seek reelection next year. Two more, Reps. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) and Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.), are running for a different office.
...
Democrats will try to make life uncomfortable for those Republicans who won the narrowest races in 2018. Already, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has highlighted 19 Republicans they say are on their retirement watch list — including two, Olson and Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.), who have said they won’t run again.
The next tipping point could come in September, when voters in North Carolina head to the polls in a special election meant to fill a vacant seat.
Republican Mark Harris won the seat in a 2018 election marred by absentee ballot fraud, an election the state Board of Elections overturned. Private polling shows a close race between state Sen. Dan Bishop (R) and Iraq War veteran Dan Mc Cready (D).
“Expect more [retirements] if Republicans lose NC-09,” said another Republican strategist involved in House races.
That's a nice little reminder that the North Carolina vote is still upcoming. On the off chance that anybody reading this either lives in that district or knows people who do, either remember to vote and/or remind others to do so.
Edited by TheWanderer on Jul 31st 2019 at 10:15:07 AM
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |Why would Bernie shut that down? Perceived electability is one of the few things he has going for him.
Keeping the conversation centered on electability over policy is how Bernie and Biden can (and probably will, unfortunately) beat Warren in the primary.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 31st 2019 at 8:15:47 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Largely because the moderators themselves singled out Bernie's electability based on his "extreme" views. So he had a tightrope there. As I said, it was a boon to the moderate democrats, hurting both Bernie and Warren.
Edited by Larkmarn on Jul 31st 2019 at 10:19:43 AM
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.I think that prioritizing electability over policy is actually a good idea, seeing as you still want to get rid of Trump and the White House is not the only player in Policy.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanThe problem with prioritizing electability is that people tend to think that a boring centrist white guy is what's electable, and this doesn't hold for presidential elections. We've consistently seen that the winner ends up being whoever is most exciting and charismatic. Every time there's a need to challenge an incumbent the opposition pulls out someone bland and nonthreatening and they always lose
The "electability over policy" issue is, to me, little more than a demonstration of how desperate we are just to get Trump out of office. People are so focused just on unseating him that they seem to care little about what happens after he's gone. As long as "electability" is kept in the discourse, we may very well elect a mediocre Democratic president whose only real quality is not being Trump.
I didn't mention this during the debate, but CNN's aggressive pushing of the "MODERATES VS. PROGRESSIVES" angle certainly is not helping matters, and at the risk of sounding like the Hashtag Yang Gang, I think they were blatantly favoring the moderates here.
Edited by PhysicalStamina on Jul 31st 2019 at 11:02:35 AM
i'm tired, my friendThere's always going to be a Trump.
Or a Bush.
Or a McConnell.
Or a Roy Moore.
The world is full of assholes. The only way positive progress is achieved is by not letting those assholes intimidate us out of fighting for real solutions.
If your only goal is to maintain a steady 5 and other people are trying to pull you down to 0, then how can you honestly expect to ever arrive at 10?
Dr. King did not stand up on that stage and say, "Y'know, I see a lot of violent white folks who don't want this rally to happen. Maybe we just shut it down and come back in a few years, see if those guys are gone?"
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 31st 2019 at 9:07:44 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.>Moderates winning, Warren losing
Uh...no? Pretty much every clash (all but one off the top of my head) the moderate candidates ended up tossed around like chew toys, all the most memorable lines of the night came from Warren, Sanders, and (sigh) Williamson, and as for "electability"...probably the most memorable line of the night was Warren shutting down Delaney on that front. The rest of it was Sanders and Warren giving explanations on why their ideas would work while a couple of moderates kept asking about "issues" that Warren and Sanders already addressed.
The moderate crew just preformed badly. Hickenlooper, Bullock, Ryan, and Delaney have done nothing to distinguish themselves other than not being Bernie Sanders, except for Bullocks...ill advised sentiments on how nuclear weapons should be used.
The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -FighteerSure, but the nature of democracy is that you only get to change your nominee for public office in the next competition.
So, say the Right fields a braying jackass and we put up a safe moderate who won't actually advance our policies. What's the plan from there? "Oh, we'll support a more progressive candidate later." Will you? Because the Right's going to field a braying jackass later.
And after that election, the Right's going to field a braying jackass.
And in the election after that? There will be a braying jackass.
And another.
And another.
There will never be a "safe" moment in time where there are no braying Republican jackasses and we can just pick whoever we want to be President. The Right's braying jackass will be a factor in every election forever. So if we let the Right's braying jackass be an excuse not to back a progressive candidate, then there will never be a progressive President. Ever.
Because there will always be a Trump.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 31st 2019 at 9:18:11 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
The fact is that you're still at least going to get a little more accomplished with a safe moderate who actually wins the election as opposed to a progressive one who does not win.
Hence why I'm saying MLK Jr.'s example is not the best one for making your point. He didn't have to work within the process of democracy to accomplish his goals.
Edited by M84 on Jul 31st 2019 at 11:21:31 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedSo Seth Meyers covered the Democratic debate:
And Warren is on-par with Sanders when it comes to debating without talking at the 11:45 - Delaney was extolling how Reagan raised the capital gains tax to match the income tax, and her expressions said it all.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"Hence why I'm saying MLK Jr.'s example is not the best one for making your point. He didn't have to work within the process of democracy to accomplish his goals.
Those aren't the only choices, though.
There are also "safe moderate who doesn't win the election" and "progressive candidate who does".
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.And that was then, when Third Way politics (a position akin to Centrism) was the new exciting thing. It certainly isn't any more.
"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."The concern is though that the probability of a progressive candidate being the one who wins an election vs. a moderate candidate being the one who wins an election is smaller. That's a point argued, for example, by Nate Silver on the basis of Congressional elections.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman![]()
![]()
That is the case though if you're running in a district or a state that leans conservative or is a swing seat.
![]()
The point is that "centrist white guy" is the only case in the past several decades in which an incumbent lost the WH.
Also, this.
Edited by M84 on Jul 31st 2019 at 11:30:56 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised
And I'd argue that the political landscape was VERY favourable to centrist white guys back then, (see also: Blair) and that simply isn't the case anymore, so it's a little disingenuous to bring Clinton up as a positive example of centrist white guys having form when it comes to dethroning Presidents.
Edited by GoldenKaos on Jul 31st 2019 at 4:34:12 PM
"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
The point, again, is that this is what beat an incumbent in the past. To a lot of voters who want to beat an incumbent again, that's going to matter.
To say nothing of the other reasons a more progressive candidate's chances are perceived as slimmer.
Edited by M84 on Jul 31st 2019 at 11:35:51 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised

Somebody in here called her the Trump of the left once. Seeing one dominant reaction to her online - basically turning her into a meme while being completely ignorant of her abhorrent views - is eerily similar.
A few weeks ago I talked to somebody who was memeing about Williamson and when I linked them some articles about her actual positions, they were horrified.
We learn from history that we do not learn from history