Scrutable

She can run in the 2068 election.

She'll be the same age then as Joe Biden is now.

OTOH if I'm going to live long enough to see her inaugorated inaugarated elected President she'll have to run in 2040 at the latest.

I don't understand why some of you like AOC so much. She's a member of the DSA, she endorsed Bernie Sanders, she says things like 'we don't have a Left party in the United states'. In my experience these positions haven't been very popular around here, and it's a bit weird to see some of their most strident critics appearing to endorse them now. A cynical person might suggest it reflects the rather superficial way Liberals tend to engage with politics.

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:49 am

I don't understand why some of you like AOC so much.

Really? You don't?

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 7:38 am

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:49 am

I don't understand why some of you like AOC so much.

Really? You don't?

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:49 am

I don't understand why some of you like AOC so much. She's a member of the DSA, she endorsed Bernie Sanders, she says things like 'we don't have a Left party in the United states'. In my experience these positions haven't been very popular around here, and it's a bit weird to see some of their most strident critics appearing to endorse them now. A cynical person might suggest it reflects the rather superficial way Liberals tend to engage with politics.

You seem muddled.

People round here like lefty positions.

But some don't like incompetent thick lefties who lose elections and put right wingers into power. And would rather settle for a less leftie winner.

If Jeremy Corbyn was good with the media, was a great leader, inspired people across the political spectrum and was a fine politician then I'd've supported him.

He wasn't. He's an ally of antisemites, a terrible leader, put tons of people off Labour and only did well in the 2017 election because Theresa May was also pathetic.

AOC is good with the media and seems like a fine politician. Early days, but if she does well as a leader then she'll have my support.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 8:47 am

If Jeremy Corbyn was good with the media, was a great leader, inspired people across the political spectrum and was a fine politician then I'd've supported him.

He wasn't. He's an ally of antisemites, a terrible leader, put tons of people off Labour and only did well in the 2017 election because Theresa May was also pathetic.

AOC is good with the media and seems like a fine politician. Early days, but if she does well as a leader then she'll have my support.

These are fair criticisms of Corbyn as a politician in many ways, though the party establishment didn't cover themselves with glory either, but I supported him when he was leader of the Labour party because I broadly agreed with his political objectives. The same goes for AOC. Her being a much better politician and generally being more presentable than Corbyn is a bonus, because it makes her more likely to win, but it's not why I want her to win. Conversely, although the problems with Corbyn's leadership were causes for significant concern, the concern for me was that he wouldn't win the GE. His problems in themselves didn't make me want him to lose.

I don't think anyone here wanted Corbyn to lose, we just didn't expect him to have any chance of winning, even against the worst prime ministers that Britain has had in recent times; similarly, I don't think anyone here wants Biden to lose just because he isn't Bernie Sanders. Even AOC.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:16 am

I don't think anyone here wanted Corbyn to lose, we just didn't expect him to have any chance of winning, even against the worst prime ministers that Britain has had in recent times; similarly, I don't think anyone here wants Biden to lose just because he isn't Bernie Sanders. Even AOC.

This is exactly what I'm talking about though. AOC backs Biden now he is leader. On the other hand, many people ostensibly on the left, including several on here, spent the run up to the last general slagging Corbyn off. Corbyn's chances of winning were not independent of large numbers of people who allegedly wanted him to win talking loudly about how sh.t they thought he was.

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:40 am

shpalman wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:16 am

I don't think anyone here wanted Corbyn to lose, we just didn't expect him to have any chance of winning, even against the worst prime ministers that Britain has had in recent times; similarly, I don't think anyone here wants Biden to lose just because he isn't Bernie Sanders. Even AOC.

This is exactly what I'm talking about though. AOC backs Biden now he is leader. On the other hand, many people ostensibly on the left, including several on here, spent the run up to the last general slagging Corbyn off. Corbyn's chances of winning were not independent of large numbers of people who allegedly wanted him to win talking loudly about how sh.t they thought he was.

I don't think us talking here affected the GE at all.
Out on the doorsteps we had a lot of people questioning Corbyn's leadership, but we defended the party and made it clear that a Conservative win would be a disaster.

ETA, at least, this one did.

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:52 am

secret squirrel wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:40 am

shpalman wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:16 am

I don't think anyone here wanted Corbyn to lose, we just didn't expect him to have any chance of winning, even against the worst prime ministers that Britain has had in recent times; similarly, I don't think anyone here wants Biden to lose just because he isn't Bernie Sanders. Even AOC.

This is exactly what I'm talking about though. AOC backs Biden now he is leader. On the other hand, many people ostensibly on the left, including several on here, spent the run up to the last general slagging Corbyn off. Corbyn's chances of winning were not independent of large numbers of people who allegedly wanted him to win talking loudly about how sh.t they thought he was.

I don't think us talking here affected the GE at all.
Out on the doorsteps we had a lot of people questioning Corbyn's leadership, but we defended the party and made it clear that a Conservative win would be a disaster.

ETA, at least, this one did.

Exactly.

And pointing out during the leadership election that Corbyn was as bad as predicted is reason to discontinue his failed experiment.

Regardless of his policies, his tactics were rubbish as was his leadership.

https://twitter.com/Gabriel_Pogrund/sta ... 5584666626

Gabriel Pogrund
@Gabriel_Pogrund
Police cars revolving light EXCLUSIVE: The Sunday Times has obtained Labour's secret list of target seats for the election

It reveals Murphy and Milne fought "deranged" offensive campaign focused on Tory Leave seats

Hidden from staff, this version was updated 15th Nov and leaked by a trade union (1/5)
9:44 PM · Dec 21, 2019·Twitter for Android

It reveals that despite polls Labour targeted 60 seats and defended just 26

The list includes Tory seats with majorities of more than 5,000 like Stourbridge, Dover and Gloucester

Echoes Murphy's claim that Labour would reject polling. "We ripped up those rules,' she said. (2/5)
Gabriel Pogrund
@Gabriel_Pogrund
·
Dec 21, 2019
Some seats appear to be political - for example Labour continued to target
@lucianaberger
in Finchley and Golders Green but it did not prioritise
@RuthSmeeth
in Stoke on Trent North

Ditto with several Corbynsceptics as resources were marshalled elsewhere 3/5
Gabriel Pogrund
@Gabriel_Pogrund
·
Dec 21, 2019
Source says campaign was based on three motives:

- disprove defensive approach of 2017
- show that Lab support concentrated in non-Remain areas
- internal politics, change complexion of PLP

"Unite are behind this," they say (4/5)

Anyhoo.

Quick MCQ.

When faced by a line of unarmed, peaceful middle-aged moms, did Trump’s paramilitary, masked uniformed goons:-

A) exchange brisket recipes for their own dear old moms.
B) dial back the aggression and closely monitor the peaceful protestors for any emergence of violent behaviour.
C) fire flash grenades and tear gas into the mass of menopausal harridans before launching a baton charge.

At some point you have to say yes Trump is a horrible proto-fascist* c.nt but he can only do the things he does because the people beneath him follow through with his demands. Yes he demanded his own secret police to snatch US citizens off the street and disappear them in unmarked vans, without a whisper of their Miranda Rights (f.ck you can tell how sh.tty 2020 is that I can even write that sentence with only a hint of hyperbola) but that only happened because everyone in the chain of command from POTUS down to the lowliest jackbooted thug agreed to go along with it.

Now just for fun imagine that had been Obama who had ordered this (exactly as Faux News warned he would), can you imagine the outcry from the Right? They’d be openly inciting armed insurrection by now, and TBF with good reason.

Instead we have ... cricket noises.



* originally autocorrupted to “photo-fascist” which seemed apt.

Little waster wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:29 am

...

* originally autocorrupted to “photo-fascist” which seemed apt.

More a description of me, really.

Never mind, carry on.

jimbob wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:24 am

Gabriel Pogrund

It reveals Murphy and Milne fought "deranged" offensive campaign focused on Tory Leave seats

I’m not disputing bad tactics but “focussed on Tory Leave seats” is a bit of a stretch, their graphic highlights 6 Tory Leave seats with majorities greater than 5000 but they were targets #54 through to #60 which TBH is exactly the sort of seat I’d expect to see so far down the list, in just the sort of place the likes of Blyth would appear on the Tory target list.

They were also the sort of seats Labour needed to win, somehow, in order to get a majority, further up the list is the Green seat and the Lib Dem ones.

Little waster wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:29 am

At some point you have to say yes Trump is a horrible proto-fascist* c.nt but he can only do the things he does because the people beneath him follow through with his demands. Yes he demanded his own secret police to snatch US citizens off the street and disappear them in unmarked vans, without a whisper of their Miranda Rights (f.ck you can tell how sh.tty 2020 is that I can even write that sentence with only a hint of hyperbola) but that only happened because everyone in the chain of command from POTUS down to the lowliest jackbooted thug agreed to go along with it.

I think a lot of people have been saying this since 4 years ago - Trump is just a symptom of deeper US dysfunction and unpleasantness. The imminent decapitation of the hydra isn't going to kill the beast.

The treatment of, say, the Ferguson protestors under Obama wasn't much better. They teargassed kids and senators, and rubber-bulletted kids and journalists bank then too, and a bunch went missing or died oddly. I don't actually remember a huge swell of pro-BLM support from the right at that time, nor calls for armed insurrection.

The thing that most worries me most about the election is that Trump has been such a shiny distraction, perfectly chosen for this low-attention age, that people actually seem to think he's a big problem per se, like he's an orang-utan who clambered through a window and started throwing sh.t around, and nobody can quite work out how to make him go away.

In fact he's just continuing the decades-old Republican tactic of a distractingly-stupid figurehead (cf Reagan, Bush Jr) allowing them to dial up the abuses performed by the US state, in those cases for two terms.

The pendulum will then swing to somebody apparently reasonable and charismatic from the Democrats, who will dial them down again, but probably not all the way back down, and certainly not enough to harm the donor class's interests.

Morning consult have released a huge number of state level polls today, mostly for swing states. Biden is ahead in all of them except Ohio (+2 trump) and North Carolina (prowl off, jump and prance) (evens). Ahead in Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

A few Senate polls released today show Dems ahead in all but Georgia.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:07 am

The treatment of, say, the Ferguson protestors under Obama wasn't much better. They teargassed kids and senators, and rubber-bulletted kids and journalists bank then too, and a bunch went missing or died oddly. I don't actually remember a huge swell of pro-BLM support from the right at that time, nor calls for armed insurrection.

I take it you don't subscribe to Natural News

The Donald:

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/sta ... 58273?s=21

This may not be a serious suggestion. Instead it could be an example of his old ploy of writing something outrageous so that everyone talks about it rather than about a real issue (such as overwhelmed hospitals in Texas). The old dead cat strategy.

The very cynical part of me wonders if it's a strategy to sow mistrust and confusion in voting; first to put off as many people as possible from mail-in voting (which would hurt Biden more, democrats being seen to be more likely to vote by mail), second to try and raise voting in person (which would help Trump (opposite of the first point)) and third, preparing for the outcome of a close election (with a Biden win), to have as many people as possible primed to think that this win came from mail-in voting is therefore fraudulent and then use that to try and force an outcome in his favour.

ETA - I don't disagree that it's probably Trump just throwing out his usual crap in order to distract - there's also a 9.5% drop in GDP that I suspect he wants to hide.

FlammableFlower wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:30 pm

The very cynical part of me wonders if it's a strategy to sow mistrust and confusion in voting; first to put off as many people as possible from mail-in voting (which would hurt Biden more, democrats being seen to be more likely to vote by mail), second to try and raise voting in person (which would help Trump (opposite of the first point)) and third, preparing for the outcome of a close election (with a Biden win), to have as many people as possible primed to think that this win came from mail-in voting is therefore fraudulent and then use that to try and force an outcome in his favour.

That's exactly what it is.

The huge issue Biden's going to have is that if there's a big switch to mail-in ballots, the results won't be accurately called on the night of the 3rd, and it may look like Trump's winning. The resistance against the media calling the election for Trump with an incomplete ballot needs to be started now.

headshot wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:33 pm

FlammableFlower wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:30 pm

The very cynical part of me wonders if it's a strategy to sow mistrust and confusion in voting; first to put off as many people as possible from mail-in voting (which would hurt Biden more, democrats being seen to be more likely to vote by mail), second to try and raise voting in person (which would help Trump (opposite of the first point)) and third, preparing for the outcome of a close election (with a Biden win), to have as many people as possible primed to think that this win came from mail-in voting is therefore fraudulent and then use that to try and force an outcome in his favour.

That's exactly what it is.

The huge issue Biden's going to have is that if there's a big switch to mail-in ballots, the results won't be accurately called on the night of the 3rd, and it may look like Trump's winning. The resistance against the media calling the election for Trump with an incomplete ballot needs to be started now.

Something similar to this happened in Bolivia last year, and the US supported a coup that removed the guy who actually won from office. He was a leftist, though.

Biden's no Evo Morales, but his opponents do already seem to be laying the groundwork for a similar ousting. Fun times.

But, but, but didn't The Donald just admit to voting fraud by himself, several members of his immediate family and several of his senior officials? 'Cos they've all had postal votes...

murmur wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 30, 2020 6:07 pm

But, but, but didn't The Donald just admit to voting fraud by himself, several members of his immediate family and several of his senior officials? 'Cos they've all had postal votes...

Ah no, that's absentee voting, for people who have a home here and another golf club there.

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 30, 2020 6:17 pm

murmur wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 30, 2020 6:07 pm

But, but, but didn't The Donald just admit to voting fraud by himself, several members of his immediate family and several of his senior officials? 'Cos they've all had postal votes...

Ah no, that's absentee voting, for people who have a home here and another golf club there.

Although in Donald's case, his registered address for voting is his club. Even though he has signed documents saying that he will never live there.