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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I think that's the guy challenging Pelosi, who IIRC is one of those Bernie Bros who thinks the US would be a utopia if minorities knew their place and we focused on fixing the economic problems of straight white men instead of all this "identity politics".
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |I've never been in a Dunkin that doesn't feel indelibly like a morning stop, no matter when you go, and you're never there more than 20 minutes. Meanwhile, Starbucks is where you go if you want to get a small coffee and then sit for the rest of the afternoon looking pensive at your Mac.
^Edit: Yeah, we're talking about coffee here, get with it.
More importantly, how are things looking in California at the moment? I'm sure it'll be a little while before anything conclusive comes out, but what's the general feel?
edited 5th Jun '18 10:08:02 PM by RedSavant
It's been fun.Some thoughts from looking around at various races, mostly House races:
Democrats are still holding their breath in California's 48th district. The second Republican is only 400 votes behind the top Democrat, which would lock them out.
NJ's elections mostly went as expected. The only upsets were on the Republican side, and they weren't huge surprises if you drill down into them a little bit. (One race I talked about before between a lawyer/former city councilman, an engineer, and a former assemblyman had the Rep establishment favoring the engineer, mostly because he was claiming he could self-fun and thus save the Republican party some money. Except... when said guy tried to run for a position in Jersey before, he "self-funded" by taking a million dollar loan from his dad, a loophole in state election finance law that wouldn't work under federal law, so I doubt anyone from the Right side of the aisle is too broken up about him losing.)
"Our Revolution" made bad bets everywhere tonight. Their candidates lost often, and usually badly. Their effectiveness as a political organization continues to rank slightly behind the US Green Party for fuck's sake. You'd get better luck picking winners by blindfolding yourself, spinning around until you're about to barf and not even sure you're facing the right direction, then throwing a dart at a target.
The judge who gave out the 6 month sentence to college athlete Brock Turner for raping an unconscious fellow student got recalled, which is a nice plus.
Although it's largely been overlooked, I think New Mexico might hold a fair amount of intrigue come November. NM is a blue island in a sea of red in the southwest, (unless Arizona embraces its true nature as a purple state this year, which I think it just might) and Democrats are looking at regaining control of the Governor's mansion and the state's House seats.
In New Mexico's 1st district, where former state Democratic Chair Deb Haarland won the nomination, giving her a solid chance at being the first Native American Congresswoman, but the 2nd district is where things get really interesting. A popular Republican incumbent left the seat to run for governor, and the winner in the Republican primary apparently has some thinking she might be a Roy Moore sort of candidate who is extreme enough that it gives Democrats a chance when they shouldn't have one. It's worth noting that the Democrat who won the primary got about as many votes as the top two Republicans, despite the fact that the district has only gone for a Democrat once since 1980, and the Republican won by about 50K votes in both of the last two congressional races.
It's hard to say if that's enough to give Democrats a fighting chance, but it may be worth keeping an eye on.
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |Kevin de Leon is the President Pro Tem (or whatever the term is in a state) of California's Senate. Not a nut job, and in fact he's been pushing a number of strong and popular bills there. I think that includes the California Net Neutrality bill, but I know for sure he's been trying to get some form of universal healthcare passed. (EDIT: He's also responsible for California's sanctuary state law.) Anyway, he's far more progressive than Feinstein. I respect Feinstein a great deal for things she's done in the past, both in the Senate and in California politics—and I was so excited when she undercut Grassley and released that transcript from the Justice Committee—but if de Leon wins I think that could help us become even more progressive. Naturally if Feinstein still wins in November I won't be too upset (the things she's done I dislike are nothing too big in the long run), but if it ends up being her vs. de Leon in the general, maybe it can help push her leftward.
edited 6th Jun '18 1:32:53 AM by Ingonyama
Don't be too sure. As some articles I've been reading have pointed out, there will be a much larger electorate voting in November, including way more Latinos and younger voters. He probably won't win, but if he does make it to number-two, he may give Feinstein more of a run for her money than expected.
edited 6th Jun '18 1:32:06 AM by Ingonyama
Ignorant foreigner questions: Going back a few pages, but what's the problem with medicaid and social security "reserves"? Governments are distinctly not budget-constrained, is this another one of those "we're going to put pointless and dangerous limits on our spending because Responsible" moments, or are the old people not dying soon enough to not run out their pension money?
Also, what is this Herbal Tea Party actually proposing? Are they going full moonbat, or are these just Bernie's social democratic lot?
There's no real Herbal Tea Party, thankfully. It's just a bunch of moonbats who think the Democratic Party needs one.
The closest thing to an official movement is "Our Revolution", and a The Wanderer mentioned, they're more or less fucked. This inability to actually put their money where their mouth is has been noticed by the media.
But an extensive review of the Sanders-inspired group depicts an organization in disarray — operating primarily as a promotional vehicle for its leader and sometimes even snubbing candidates aligned with Sanders. Our Revolution has shown no ability to tip a major Democratic election in its favor — despite possessing Sanders’ email list, the envy of the Democratic Party — and can claim no major wins in 2018 as its own.
The result has left many Sanders supporters disillusioned, feeling that the group that was supposed to harness the senator's grass-roots movement is failing in its mission. The problems have also fueled doubts about Sanders’ organizational ability heading into 2020, even after his out-of-nowhere near-march to the nomination two years ago. Critics of the Vermont independent had been worried he’d have a juggernaut-in-waiting to fuel a second presidential campaign, but that anxiety has faded after watching Our Revolution the past year and a half.
I am neither surprised nor disappointed by any of this, given that I've been something of a critic of Sanders and his more vocal supporters for a while.
Even Sanders is starting to distance himself from Our Revolution, which the article points out.
edited 6th Jun '18 2:04:44 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised
Traditional leftie campaigning difficulties, then? This is the problem of trying to pull together a huge coalition of a thousand different interests that all want different kinds of change, the Right can just say "no to new things" and rally pretty much their entire base. I can understand why people would get behind Bernie/Warren/whoever else, you can't say Obama was particularly visionary. I would have thought you could get a few social democrats elected in California, at least.
Speaking as someone who is more left-wing than Bernie Sanders, I fail to see the actual problem with free uni/universal healthcare/job guarantee as a set of policy proposals, although I do want a look at what the JG plan actually is. That particular thing has an absurdly long list of positives when done properly but is very easy to turn into a massive bureaucratic snafu doing nothing but handing out workfare, and if it isn't set up as that the Republicans will try very hard to turn it into that ASAP. Must be airtight.
By the by it looks like in California the Republicans have got the second spot in the gubernatorial primary and will thus have a chance in November. Likewise it seems like in Laguna Beach Democrats will get a candidate on the second spot to challenge Rohrabacher.
edited 6th Jun '18 2:55:32 AM by SeptimusHeap
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanMusk survived an attempted ouster of him as Chairman of Tesla with plans to remove him as CEO after. It wasn't even close.
However, the thing is that it was a movement started within the company by a guy who owned 12 shares named Jing Zhao.
https://gizmodo.com/tesla-shareholders-will-vote-on-booting-elon-musk-as-ch-1825598148
There's some speculation Jing actually was acting as an agent provocateur for Right Wing interests.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Is Kevin de Leon a green tea nutjob or am I thinking of another race where that's the case with a green tea-er running against a female Democratic incumbent?
edited 5th Jun '18 9:55:37 PM by AlleyOop