Open Thread For June 20, 2017
Has Mike Flynn Been Flipped? Signs point to a strong maybe.
How Rethugs Revealed Your Personal Info: Data Mining and Russian Bots. This is democracy?
Dems Find Challenger For Sen. Dean Heller: Rep. Jackie Rosen, recruited by Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer.
A Horrible Supreme Court Ruling. Government officials can’t be sued for abusive treatment. Passed w/o a majority of justices voting for it, 4-2. Didn’t know they could do that.
Rethugs Are Really Gonna Do It: They’re gonna throw over 20 mill off of health care insurance because they can. Democracy is dead.
What do you want to talk about?
Whenever I think that Republican malfeasance has risen to a level that will really hurt them in the mid-terms, I remember that they will be running against Democrats.
Fallon, who worked on the Hillary Clinton campaign, sees opportunities in districts like the one that Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price vacated, districts that swung from Mitt Romney to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and in which Donald Trump’s dismal approval ratings might put Democrats over the top. He identified 23 such districts in an interview with Vox in an interview in April.
But what are the actual politics of the patrons of Panera in the ultimate Panera district — the Georgia Sixth, where Democrat Jon Ossoff goes up against Republican Karen Handel on Tuesday? Perhaps at the risk of taking Fallon too literally, I went to a Panera off of Woodstock Road in Roswell on the way to an Ossoff campaign event on Monday — and found a chilly reception for the Democratic candidate.
“Progressivism? That’s just another name for Maoism and communism, another sect of it,” says Richard Decker, 69. His wife, Kay Decker, also 69, nodded in agreement as she tucked into a Fuji chicken apple salad. “I think she’s going to win: I think it’s going to be a surprise like Trump, because a lot of the people who like her are quieter,” Kay Decker said. “We’ve kept quiet about it.”
Of course, a handful of interviews at one Panera amounts to a statistically meaningless anecdote, and Tuesday may yet prove a stirring endorsement of Fallon’s point that the most vulnerable Republican House districts are in the suburban communities that swung for Hillary Clinton.
Lol, yeah
The Kabuki Theatre that is R senators reflecting concern over Trumpcare:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-moderates-tale-or-the-play-acting-before-the-cave
Josh Marshall has this nailed perfectly. As, for that matter, does Jason330.
The Dems will either respond forcefully in 2018 or face a revolt by the base, suspect they will attempt to worship their corporate masters yet fend off primaries and/or being dragged from their offices for some pitch fork action. Pity as I have two nice pitchforks out in the barn ready to go.
I agree. This Third Way bullshit has to be excised from the Party. If that’s what the Party continues to stand for, then it deserves political extinction.
Politico reporting former AG Eric Holder considering a run for Prez in 2020. That guy is not a candidate. Too bland and behind the scenes….non -starter.
Early results from Georgia show Ossoff underperforming in Fulton County. Maybe we’d do better if we ran people who actually stood for something.
Things I’m sick of: Former D pollster Cornell Belcher sez “Listen, Chris, this is a district we shouldn’t even be talking about. If the vote stays close, Republicans should be deeply concerned.”
No. If we keep nominating Third Way types like Ossoff, who won’t take a stand on anything, we’ll continue to lose. With Trump this deeply unpopular, this was our race to lose. Looks like we’re losing it.
Som, don’t forget about the DNC refusing to back candidates who DO actually stand for something. I’m beginning to think these feckless fucks are working with Bannon to destroy and plunder the country. And they are winning.
Yeah! There needs to be an alternative to the Democrats who are only in degrees better than the republicans and who have objectively royally screwed up our state
Their argument ‘vote for us because they at least we’re better than them” is bullshit too. Maybe if a Dem won on that line, it would carry more weight, but they are losers.
Eh, I honestly believe that all of this Russia crap will just fade to nothing. It is probably as substantial as the e-mail server hysterics.
Data mining in general is extremely worrisome. If I had it my way, I would ban third party data collection, and institute mandatory Opt-In policies. No more jump through flaming hoops to limit your information.
The Supreme court ruling, not great, but not horrible. It was 4-2 because 2 recused, and Gorsuch wasn’t on the bench yet. Basically, they didn’t exempt the government from being sued, just being sued decades later.
The health insurance thing doesn’t show that democracy is dead, but that it is alive. Now whether or not it’s a good direction………
Here is a good read from The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-democrats-immigration-mistake/528678/
“Eh, I honestly believe that all of this Russia crap will just fade to nothing.”
If you’re referring to collusion about the election, probably true. If you’re referring to money laundering by our chief executive, probably false. There’s enough already public to impanel a grand jury. The best Trump could hope for on that front is that his underlings portray him as a clueless doofus they used as a front for their dealings with Russian money.
If you’re talking about the money laundering, I honestly believe people — not Trump, but people connected to him — are going to prison.
It’s true AND fading to nothing. If the R’s pay a political price for protecting trump, the Dems will to do them what they did to Rumsfeld and W…… nothing.
Russia isn’t fading. Everyday more truth coming out. Jeh johnson hearing today more fuel on fire.
They won’t pay a price for it. They will pay a price for tanking the health insurance market.
I’m not so sure Alby, the insurance market was already a chair with 3 legs. Now its just getting one more kicked out. They will only pay a price if Dems can get their act together. Which at this point seems very unlikely.