Don't make me post the Larry Chesky Orchestra playing the mop heads. I'm warning you, I know where I can get it.
Update: What I am is indifferent. I don't live in my late adolescence. I got over high school, such people don't. Ever. They die senile children.
Saturday, February 8, 2020
"They don’t think Sanders can win — and they may in fact be wrong about that — but they know what SPW can do if she ends up with the power to do it."
It's good, once in a while, to see that there are Bernie Sanders supporters who aren't the kind of paranoia, rumor absorbing idiots, the kind who are buying those conspiracies, created for the target audience of the conspiracy minded play-lefty play lefty media. In my link-following yesterday, somewhere, I can't find it in my history, I came across a piece in which a bunch of Iowa Bernie supporters of what one hopes is a more normal kind were asked if they'ed support another of the candidates and only one of them said no. I was a little taken aback to have a few of them say their second choice is the bizarre and Putinesque conspiracy minded Tulsi Gabbard but it was nice to know that not all Bernie fans are Bernie or Busters. Only the stupidest ones and the ones who have a financial stake in ginning up their paranoid fantasies.
I think this cycle has made me see something I should have noticed in years past, just how much of the play-lefty media lives, maybe in some cases even thrives on pushing paranoid fantasies as much as the far-right media does. I have certainly seen even some of the less prone to that go whole hog on the paranoid conspriacy pushing in relation to the Iowa caucus, just like they did around the disasterous Nevada caucus last time. Caucuses were, I am fully convnced, designed by landed gentry as a way of trying to exert pressure on the common people as they started getting what was, at least, a form of voting. Making them do so in public where the local squire or other aristocrat could find out who voted how was one of the more effective means of preventing democracy, what the aristocratic founders did through the Senate and the abomination of the Electoral College, the reason that both Bush II and Trump took the presidency.
Perhaps I'll be able to look into the primary literature around the origins and continuation of that anti-democratic abomination. There's really no other word for it than that one.
Caucuses are guaranteed to be an anti-democratic mess, prone to manipulation - as Bernie Sanders bragged about doing in 1988 - and, it's now clear, even that old hand at caucus rigging will use his own tool to gin up conspiracy theories in the way so common in the history of American Marxism and anarchism and play-leftism, in general.
I have also come to see that a considerable part of the play-lefty media depends on keeping their audience coming back for more like reality-show or soap opera or supermarket tabloid producers and publishers do. Their audience are children who like excitement caring little to nothing if what they're pushing is real or useful or damaging fiction.
That's another reason to get rid of them. If they were gotten rid of the play-left like Majority Report and The Young Turks or the dimwitted dolly I came across yesterday who is trying to start another of the ever metastasizing Youtube-Patreon channells that are like a cancer on the left would have a lot lest to make hay for their never-will-be-president cult figure and hero and to damage the real left's chances.
----------------------------
Who is the only one of the top four candidates whose campaign came out of that banjaxed Iowa system without complaining about it, conjuring up conspiracy theories, or giving vainglorious victory speeches?
As I mentioned before a number of those lost me as a listener and reader when the Bernie Bots among them started attacking the best candidate in the race, Elizabeth Warren. A lot of that attack was not only for the stupidity of promoting Sanders - a man who will never be president - but it was obviously sexist. Though it's hard to know if the sexism was felt or if it was just another tool they'd be willing to go to for their pipe dream of having a quasi-Marxist as president - where he'd face a Congress and courts and a mass media who were not even semi-demi-quasi-Marxists so he would be guaranteed to be more useful for mounting a billionaire financed attack worse than the one they used to emasculate Obama and put the Congress back into fascist hands.
As the generally estimable Charles Pierce noted, the media is doing its best to turn Elizabeth Warren into a non-person by pretending she doesn't exist. I agree with just about everything he said on that a couple of days back. I'm going to repost most of it.
After talking about the infamous incident where Mitch Putin's Bitch McConnell silenced her from reading a letter of Corretta Scott King on the Senate Floor, Charles Pierce said:
On the third anniversary of that singular moment, I had to hear Donny Deutsch in Morning Joe dismiss Warren as “strident.” For the record, all the members of the MJ crew, male and female, seem to have a bug the size of a Land Rover up their collective arse about SPW — which leads me to believe that the elite political press learned sweet fck-all in 2016. Every regular at this shebeen knows by now that I hold SPW in great political and personal affection. However, that doesn’t enter into the fact that she has been virtually disappeared since Iowa ended, assuming of course that it has. She outperformed her poll numbers, beat a former vice-president like a drum, and finished a solid third in a race of which we were told relentlessly would produce “three” tickets out. Until, I guess, she won one of them.
A cable chyron said it all — “Sanders, Buttigieg tied. Biden Fourth.” What exactly was the value of that ticket? Moreover, it should bother everyone that the same pejoratives used on Hillary Rodham Clinton — schoolmarmish, strident, unlikeable — are being used now to minimize SPW as a candidate. They are radically different people, although I don’t know HRC as well as I know SPW. But I know them well enough to know that their strengths and flaws are not identical, unless you want them to be. And if Donny Deutsch is nervous about women who are smarter than he is, he at least ought to be more imaginative in how he shows it. (The same stuff also has been aimed at Amy Klobuchar, but in a less concentrated form, probably because she hasn’t cracked double digits in the polls yet. But you wait. If she gains traction, Amy The Boss From Hell will reappear.) But I believe that the disappearing of SPW has more to it than sexism. I think the money power, including those elements of it that own media conglomerates, see her as a genuine threat. Unlike Bernie Sanders, whom they feel they can pink-bait out of contention, Warren knows their tricks and traps better than they know them. How do you think Mike Bloomberg or the powers at Comcast feel about her detailed plan to crack monopolies in our current economy? They don’t think Sanders can win — and they may in fact be wrong about that — but they know what SPW can do if she ends up with the power to do it.
As for the Democratic Party, well, who is the only one of the top four candidates whose campaign came out of that banjaxed Iowa system without complaining about it, conjuring up conspiracy theories, or giving vainglorious victory speeches? Hint: it was the campaign that quietly offered it help to try and fix the mess without trying to take political advantage of it. And it persists.
I think this cycle has made me see something I should have noticed in years past, just how much of the play-lefty media lives, maybe in some cases even thrives on pushing paranoid fantasies as much as the far-right media does. I have certainly seen even some of the less prone to that go whole hog on the paranoid conspriacy pushing in relation to the Iowa caucus, just like they did around the disasterous Nevada caucus last time. Caucuses were, I am fully convnced, designed by landed gentry as a way of trying to exert pressure on the common people as they started getting what was, at least, a form of voting. Making them do so in public where the local squire or other aristocrat could find out who voted how was one of the more effective means of preventing democracy, what the aristocratic founders did through the Senate and the abomination of the Electoral College, the reason that both Bush II and Trump took the presidency.
Perhaps I'll be able to look into the primary literature around the origins and continuation of that anti-democratic abomination. There's really no other word for it than that one.
Caucuses are guaranteed to be an anti-democratic mess, prone to manipulation - as Bernie Sanders bragged about doing in 1988 - and, it's now clear, even that old hand at caucus rigging will use his own tool to gin up conspiracy theories in the way so common in the history of American Marxism and anarchism and play-leftism, in general.
I have also come to see that a considerable part of the play-lefty media depends on keeping their audience coming back for more like reality-show or soap opera or supermarket tabloid producers and publishers do. Their audience are children who like excitement caring little to nothing if what they're pushing is real or useful or damaging fiction.
That's another reason to get rid of them. If they were gotten rid of the play-left like Majority Report and The Young Turks or the dimwitted dolly I came across yesterday who is trying to start another of the ever metastasizing Youtube-Patreon channells that are like a cancer on the left would have a lot lest to make hay for their never-will-be-president cult figure and hero and to damage the real left's chances.
----------------------------
Who is the only one of the top four candidates whose campaign came out of that banjaxed Iowa system without complaining about it, conjuring up conspiracy theories, or giving vainglorious victory speeches?
As I mentioned before a number of those lost me as a listener and reader when the Bernie Bots among them started attacking the best candidate in the race, Elizabeth Warren. A lot of that attack was not only for the stupidity of promoting Sanders - a man who will never be president - but it was obviously sexist. Though it's hard to know if the sexism was felt or if it was just another tool they'd be willing to go to for their pipe dream of having a quasi-Marxist as president - where he'd face a Congress and courts and a mass media who were not even semi-demi-quasi-Marxists so he would be guaranteed to be more useful for mounting a billionaire financed attack worse than the one they used to emasculate Obama and put the Congress back into fascist hands.
As the generally estimable Charles Pierce noted, the media is doing its best to turn Elizabeth Warren into a non-person by pretending she doesn't exist. I agree with just about everything he said on that a couple of days back. I'm going to repost most of it.
After talking about the infamous incident where Mitch Putin's Bitch McConnell silenced her from reading a letter of Corretta Scott King on the Senate Floor, Charles Pierce said:
On the third anniversary of that singular moment, I had to hear Donny Deutsch in Morning Joe dismiss Warren as “strident.” For the record, all the members of the MJ crew, male and female, seem to have a bug the size of a Land Rover up their collective arse about SPW — which leads me to believe that the elite political press learned sweet fck-all in 2016. Every regular at this shebeen knows by now that I hold SPW in great political and personal affection. However, that doesn’t enter into the fact that she has been virtually disappeared since Iowa ended, assuming of course that it has. She outperformed her poll numbers, beat a former vice-president like a drum, and finished a solid third in a race of which we were told relentlessly would produce “three” tickets out. Until, I guess, she won one of them.
A cable chyron said it all — “Sanders, Buttigieg tied. Biden Fourth.” What exactly was the value of that ticket? Moreover, it should bother everyone that the same pejoratives used on Hillary Rodham Clinton — schoolmarmish, strident, unlikeable — are being used now to minimize SPW as a candidate. They are radically different people, although I don’t know HRC as well as I know SPW. But I know them well enough to know that their strengths and flaws are not identical, unless you want them to be. And if Donny Deutsch is nervous about women who are smarter than he is, he at least ought to be more imaginative in how he shows it. (The same stuff also has been aimed at Amy Klobuchar, but in a less concentrated form, probably because she hasn’t cracked double digits in the polls yet. But you wait. If she gains traction, Amy The Boss From Hell will reappear.) But I believe that the disappearing of SPW has more to it than sexism. I think the money power, including those elements of it that own media conglomerates, see her as a genuine threat. Unlike Bernie Sanders, whom they feel they can pink-bait out of contention, Warren knows their tricks and traps better than they know them. How do you think Mike Bloomberg or the powers at Comcast feel about her detailed plan to crack monopolies in our current economy? They don’t think Sanders can win — and they may in fact be wrong about that — but they know what SPW can do if she ends up with the power to do it.
As for the Democratic Party, well, who is the only one of the top four candidates whose campaign came out of that banjaxed Iowa system without complaining about it, conjuring up conspiracy theories, or giving vainglorious victory speeches? Hint: it was the campaign that quietly offered it help to try and fix the mess without trying to take political advantage of it. And it persists.
Friday, February 7, 2020
Seven Down Seven More Caucuses To Kill - And We've Got To Kill Off "First In The Nation" In Favor Of A Nationwide Nominations Process
Listening to the DNC Chair Tom Perez on Rachel - via Youtube pirate - I was glad to hear him say something I hadn't known, that in 2017, after the disasters of the caucuses the year before, they gave incentives to states to junk the anti-democratic monstrosity in favor of primaries and seven of the 14 states that held 2016 caucuses did just that, which means seven states didn't. Iowa was one, Nevada, which had the most obviously stupid process last time didn't, my state didn't. Maine, I suspect, didn't because the state party is in the hands of the kind of petty idiots who value their tiny bit of turf held onto more than they do fulfilling the reason for the party to exist, ELECTING DEMOCRATS AND TAKING POWER.
Why the DNC, after the disasters and the damage that the caucuses caused last time, didn't demand that all 14 give them up needs to be fixed because seven is too many, especially if one of those was the flag ship of the nominations season, Iowa. If there are still Democratic caucuses held in 2024, anywhere, the DNC will have earned the same extinction that the caucuses do.
As a decades long hater of caucuses I'm about fed up. I talked to one person who, as I mentioned, was accused by the Bernie Bots of fixing it for Hillary Clinton, and he said he was going to tell the State Party that he would not do another one after this year. I'm urging everyone who attends a caucus to make a motion at the start of it that they just count the ballots, in effect, that we are now asked to fill out with our preferences marked, and forego the idiocy of the caucus process. And to send a message to the Maine Democratic Party, enough with the anti-democratic caucus bull shit and that we want Democrats only nominations by mail-in ballot.
We need to kill the caucuses off, institute a reliable high-turnout elections format and to get rid of the lily white "First In The Nation" distinction.
I think having a ballot sent to all registered Democrats in, maybe May, to be sent back before a deadline so they can be tabulated by an independent accounting firm with no ties to the Clintons or to Mayor Pete or other parties that will get the paranoid fanatasists of the play-left going would be entirely preferable to the way it's done now. It would get the Green Party and Republican (I repeat myself) ratfuckers out of it, it would shield the Democratic nomination from Russian internet ratfucking and Mercer style ratfucking, too. If it is done with observers from all of the campaigns looking on at every point, it would certainly remove some, though certainly, not all of the conspiracy and rumor mongering.
Why the DNC, after the disasters and the damage that the caucuses caused last time, didn't demand that all 14 give them up needs to be fixed because seven is too many, especially if one of those was the flag ship of the nominations season, Iowa. If there are still Democratic caucuses held in 2024, anywhere, the DNC will have earned the same extinction that the caucuses do.
As a decades long hater of caucuses I'm about fed up. I talked to one person who, as I mentioned, was accused by the Bernie Bots of fixing it for Hillary Clinton, and he said he was going to tell the State Party that he would not do another one after this year. I'm urging everyone who attends a caucus to make a motion at the start of it that they just count the ballots, in effect, that we are now asked to fill out with our preferences marked, and forego the idiocy of the caucus process. And to send a message to the Maine Democratic Party, enough with the anti-democratic caucus bull shit and that we want Democrats only nominations by mail-in ballot.
We need to kill the caucuses off, institute a reliable high-turnout elections format and to get rid of the lily white "First In The Nation" distinction.
I think having a ballot sent to all registered Democrats in, maybe May, to be sent back before a deadline so they can be tabulated by an independent accounting firm with no ties to the Clintons or to Mayor Pete or other parties that will get the paranoid fanatasists of the play-left going would be entirely preferable to the way it's done now. It would get the Green Party and Republican (I repeat myself) ratfuckers out of it, it would shield the Democratic nomination from Russian internet ratfucking and Mercer style ratfucking, too. If it is done with observers from all of the campaigns looking on at every point, it would certainly remove some, though certainly, not all of the conspiracy and rumor mongering.
Thursday, February 6, 2020
American Democracy Is Under Active Attack From Republican-fascists
So, I go shovel snow for a while, take a rest and when I get back to the computer I read that they're already finding out that it was Trump trolls who played a major role in the havoc in Iowa by clogging the lines for caucus results to be called in. The number for the line was put on a Republican-fascist website and Trump fascist trolls clogged the lines.
And this is certainly something they're planning for the rest of the campaign. If the Democratic state and national committees aren't preparing emergency measures for dealing with this, and I mean months ago, we are screwed.
The campaigns of the major candidates, all of them, need to meet on an emergency basis to coordinate plans to fight this with or without the help of the DNC and state parties, all of them should be meeting on a secure basis to work around this.
If it were me, I'd make sure there was a measure taken to physically and securely transmit that data, on paper to a central location in every state, announcing beforehand that there would be no partial results released before those papers were tabulated, with full transparency before representatives of all of the campaigns. Clearly if even the phones are being ratfucked something that can't be has to be used.
I've been inclined to look charitably on the DNC but if they don's step in, immediately, to take bold and effective action to counter this, it will have earned the distrust of all involved.
American democracy is under active attack by Republicans, that is clear. The old ways of doing things are vulnerable to their attacks.
And this is certainly something they're planning for the rest of the campaign. If the Democratic state and national committees aren't preparing emergency measures for dealing with this, and I mean months ago, we are screwed.
The campaigns of the major candidates, all of them, need to meet on an emergency basis to coordinate plans to fight this with or without the help of the DNC and state parties, all of them should be meeting on a secure basis to work around this.
If it were me, I'd make sure there was a measure taken to physically and securely transmit that data, on paper to a central location in every state, announcing beforehand that there would be no partial results released before those papers were tabulated, with full transparency before representatives of all of the campaigns. Clearly if even the phones are being ratfucked something that can't be has to be used.
I've been inclined to look charitably on the DNC but if they don's step in, immediately, to take bold and effective action to counter this, it will have earned the distrust of all involved.
American democracy is under active attack by Republicans, that is clear. The old ways of doing things are vulnerable to their attacks.
The Nice Genocidalists - Hate Mail
I was merely stating a fact, academic "ethicists" such as the famous Peter Singer have a to-kill list that overlaps that of Hitler who began his genocides with the murder of the mentally and physically disabled, the Nazis were especially enthusiastic about murdering babies who didn't come up to the standards that Singer and Hitler shared. Lots of people who have had to-kill lists have included the same one that Singer has, starting at least with the Spartan infant killers, as both Darwin and Haeckel approved, claiming, on absolutely nothing but unsupported and ancient claims made by the murderers, that they were all to the good of the survivors.
I'm not lying about that merely because Singer's list didn't entirely overlap with Hitlers. "Ethicist" is a word that, in its most common usage today would seem to mean someone who draws up lists of those it's OK to murder. And that's clearly AOK with the universities and other institutions who employ them AS TEACHERS FOR FUCK SAKE and the publishers and journal editors who publish them and the book sellers who peddle their books and the chat show hosts who have them on without challenging their status as people who draw up lists of who it's OK to murder.
Anyone who thinks we have made progress since the time before the crimes of the Nazis were exposed to the world is living in unreality. Our intellectuals are just as coldly vicious as they were then.
I'm not lying about that merely because Singer's list didn't entirely overlap with Hitlers. "Ethicist" is a word that, in its most common usage today would seem to mean someone who draws up lists of those it's OK to murder. And that's clearly AOK with the universities and other institutions who employ them AS TEACHERS FOR FUCK SAKE and the publishers and journal editors who publish them and the book sellers who peddle their books and the chat show hosts who have them on without challenging their status as people who draw up lists of who it's OK to murder.
Anyone who thinks we have made progress since the time before the crimes of the Nazis were exposed to the world is living in unreality. Our intellectuals are just as coldly vicious as they were then.
You Know What's Ironic, For Me The Last Straw With Bernie is When Sam Seder 's Channel Showed Me He's Been Ratfucking Democratic Caucuses For Three Decades
Don't get huffy about me dissing Sam Seder and Michael Brooks and their Bernie Bot marketing. This is based on what Brooks posted on Seder's show almost a year ago, to the day.
The crew at Majority Report posted a clip that some twitter account has posted of him on a call in talk show in 1989 that they don't see what the problem is, concentrating on Bernie Sanders saying something nice about The Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition as they continue to miss what is obviously problematic about what he said about what the Burlington Bernie Sanders cult were up to by way of phony, temporary status as Democrats for purposes of ratfucking Democratic caucuses for ends other than those of actual Democrats, exactly what Bernie Sanders and his cult did in 2016, to such likely catastrophic results and which the old asshole and his ship of fools, including the Majority Reporters, are talking of doing again in 2020. I have decided that this is going to be a decisive parting of the ways because I've seen the asshole, play-left do this kind of thing in 1968, 1972 (George McCovern's self criticism on his role in changing the rules for that year is well worth reading) in 1980 in 2000, in 2004, and in 2016. And now, after seeing Trump in full effect, they're talking about another Bernie hijacking attempt in 2020. Assholes and idiots all of them- what are they all trustifarians or something?
I have transcribed what Sanders said, you can just imagine the internal debates in the Bernie cult in some small room in Burlington strategizing how to take over the Democratic Party for one night, using the anti-democratic process of the caucuses. I will bet you that some of the same people said some of the same thing while they plotted his attempted hijacking in 2016 as Sanders depended on non-Democrats doing what his crew did in 1988
In Burlington we had a real debate about our attitude toward Jessie Jackson's campaign. I think many of us were impressed by the positions that Jackson was bringing forth. We Were were deeply impressed by the concept of of the Rainbow Coalition which I believe is exactly what has to be done in this country. And we were impressed by Jackson's charisma and his going into the ghettos and into the poor areas and speaking for the family farmers who were being thrown off of their land. And that moved us very much. The problem that we had is that, of course, Jackson was functioning within the Democratic Party and we're not Democrats. So we had a discussion within our own organization and we ended up saying, yeah, we're not Democrats but we think that what Jackson was doing was so important that we are going to support him. And for one night in Vermont we did go into the Democratic Party and in fact Jackson ended up winning the Democratic caucuses. So I was sympathetic to Jackson I agree with the concept of the Rainbow Coalition, I do disagree with Jesse in terms of whether the Democratic Party can be the real vehicle for social change. I believe it should be a third party.
And instead of starting a third party or taking over one - generally not hard to do considering almost all of them are Potemkin false fronts for fools to play with - he did what he did in 2016.
Of course there was all the difference between what Jackson did and what Sanders did is that Jackson was and remained a Democrat who had a legitimate right to run for the Democratic nomination. Sanders is a phony who joins and drops out and will join again but is too much of a conceited egoist to remain in the party.
I used to have enormous respect for Bernie Sanders, we supposedly agree in almost all of the big issues, only I don't believe he really believes what he says since 2016. I think it's all about him and his vanity. If he runs in 2020 he will confirm that.
As for Majority Report, I draw the line at Republican-fascist and Trump enablement. I think they're in it for what they figure will get them the most clicks. They won't be getting them from me.
The crew at Majority Report posted a clip that some twitter account has posted of him on a call in talk show in 1989 that they don't see what the problem is, concentrating on Bernie Sanders saying something nice about The Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition as they continue to miss what is obviously problematic about what he said about what the Burlington Bernie Sanders cult were up to by way of phony, temporary status as Democrats for purposes of ratfucking Democratic caucuses for ends other than those of actual Democrats, exactly what Bernie Sanders and his cult did in 2016, to such likely catastrophic results and which the old asshole and his ship of fools, including the Majority Reporters, are talking of doing again in 2020. I have decided that this is going to be a decisive parting of the ways because I've seen the asshole, play-left do this kind of thing in 1968, 1972 (George McCovern's self criticism on his role in changing the rules for that year is well worth reading) in 1980 in 2000, in 2004, and in 2016. And now, after seeing Trump in full effect, they're talking about another Bernie hijacking attempt in 2020. Assholes and idiots all of them- what are they all trustifarians or something?
I have transcribed what Sanders said, you can just imagine the internal debates in the Bernie cult in some small room in Burlington strategizing how to take over the Democratic Party for one night, using the anti-democratic process of the caucuses. I will bet you that some of the same people said some of the same thing while they plotted his attempted hijacking in 2016 as Sanders depended on non-Democrats doing what his crew did in 1988
In Burlington we had a real debate about our attitude toward Jessie Jackson's campaign. I think many of us were impressed by the positions that Jackson was bringing forth. We Were were deeply impressed by the concept of of the Rainbow Coalition which I believe is exactly what has to be done in this country. And we were impressed by Jackson's charisma and his going into the ghettos and into the poor areas and speaking for the family farmers who were being thrown off of their land. And that moved us very much. The problem that we had is that, of course, Jackson was functioning within the Democratic Party and we're not Democrats. So we had a discussion within our own organization and we ended up saying, yeah, we're not Democrats but we think that what Jackson was doing was so important that we are going to support him. And for one night in Vermont we did go into the Democratic Party and in fact Jackson ended up winning the Democratic caucuses. So I was sympathetic to Jackson I agree with the concept of the Rainbow Coalition, I do disagree with Jesse in terms of whether the Democratic Party can be the real vehicle for social change. I believe it should be a third party.
And instead of starting a third party or taking over one - generally not hard to do considering almost all of them are Potemkin false fronts for fools to play with - he did what he did in 2016.
Of course there was all the difference between what Jackson did and what Sanders did is that Jackson was and remained a Democrat who had a legitimate right to run for the Democratic nomination. Sanders is a phony who joins and drops out and will join again but is too much of a conceited egoist to remain in the party.
I used to have enormous respect for Bernie Sanders, we supposedly agree in almost all of the big issues, only I don't believe he really believes what he says since 2016. I think it's all about him and his vanity. If he runs in 2020 he will confirm that.
As for Majority Report, I draw the line at Republican-fascist and Trump enablement. I think they're in it for what they figure will get them the most clicks. They won't be getting them from me.
Republicans Are The Party Of Winning Through Crimes Against The Constitution And Democracy
I do not like Mitt Romney, I do not trust him but I will give him credit for being the only Republican who didn't vote to let Donald Trump's crime spree continue. If, as I hope and pray, the Republican Party implodes under the weight of Trump, Romney will be the only one who has that distinction. Every single other Republican member of Congress has betrayed their oath of office and deserves to go down for it.
So I note that he did the honorable thing and, so we're told, gained himself the historical place of being the only Senator of the impeached president's party to vote for his conviction and removal. I'm prepared to see if he changes, otherwise, but he'll have to convince me by action, not by words.
Which, in itself, proves that the "founders" means of stopping even the most corrupt and criminal of presidents will never work to do that. If it doesn't remove Trump, if it didn't remove any of a number of criminal presidents, it is dangerous to keep pretending that it will save us from them. It won't.
And why would Republicans want to stop Trump from colluding with Putin and billionaires foreign as well as domestic to ratfuck American elections, the thing that Nixon was engaged in which ended up with him resigning - the only time impeachment came at all close to working.
Trump's crimes benefit Republicans, it benefits them in their elections, they are the beneficiaries of Putin's and other billionaire criminals rigging our elections. The rules as rigged by Republican Supreme Court appointments and the "civil liberties" establishment are a guarantee of that kind of corruption by the most corruption prone. Why would Republicans want to change that by following their oath of office and the law? Among those Republicans who benfitted the most are the Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump, by Bush II who got in by irregular methods and the previous Court Republican majority putting him there. They don't have to run for election, they've got their asses on that bench till they rot in body as well as soul as they sit there, now.
So I note that he did the honorable thing and, so we're told, gained himself the historical place of being the only Senator of the impeached president's party to vote for his conviction and removal. I'm prepared to see if he changes, otherwise, but he'll have to convince me by action, not by words.
Which, in itself, proves that the "founders" means of stopping even the most corrupt and criminal of presidents will never work to do that. If it doesn't remove Trump, if it didn't remove any of a number of criminal presidents, it is dangerous to keep pretending that it will save us from them. It won't.
And why would Republicans want to stop Trump from colluding with Putin and billionaires foreign as well as domestic to ratfuck American elections, the thing that Nixon was engaged in which ended up with him resigning - the only time impeachment came at all close to working.
Trump's crimes benefit Republicans, it benefits them in their elections, they are the beneficiaries of Putin's and other billionaire criminals rigging our elections. The rules as rigged by Republican Supreme Court appointments and the "civil liberties" establishment are a guarantee of that kind of corruption by the most corruption prone. Why would Republicans want to change that by following their oath of office and the law? Among those Republicans who benfitted the most are the Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump, by Bush II who got in by irregular methods and the previous Court Republican majority putting him there. They don't have to run for election, they've got their asses on that bench till they rot in body as well as soul as they sit there, now.
Oh, This Isn't Going To Go Away Till We Get Rid Of Them
Note: This was going to be a footnote but I decided to put it first. Yesterday I asked the guy who is going to have the unenviable job of convening our town caucus and who has a meeting where they're going to tell them what the latest lousy innovations are for this cycle, who in the Maine Democratic Party are stupid enough to think that caucuses should be kept. He said there were people who claimed that they're necessary for organizing the party. I pointed out to him something he certainly knew, they are totally ineffective for building the party on a local level. They are more likely to divide the party and to lead to disillusionment, resentment and accusations of corruption by idiots who are prone to make their lives more exciting by inventing dark conspiracies. Those are mostly the Bernie Bots this time as last, but it will be some other temporary cult some other time.
Abolishing the caucuses nation-wide is a necessary step to election reform. States who have primaries and a far less screw-ball and counter-productive and entirely more democratic system have as much of a stake in getting rid of them as people who live in states, such as mine, where idiots who want to keep them can force us to. We should all pressure the DNC to adopt rules against delegates assigned through caucuses and the state conventions of states with caucuses from having a vote at the national convention. Adding a state-convention is an added corruption in the system that is little discussed but it makes the caucus system even worse than I've talked about here. For a start, delegates chosen through caucuses have such a way of not turning up at the state convention they committed themselves to going to and what they do there is subject to even more arbitrary and whimsical change made all on their own. It is all entirely stupid and anti-democratic.
.
I will be very surprised if the Nevada Caucus, in about two and a half weeks is any less a chaotic disaster than Iowa was. And that's just the beginning of caucus chaos. I'm hoping they don't use an app that can be traced by rumor mongering, conspiracy divining play-lefty podcasters like Cenk and Ana and Sam and Michael to Pete Buttigieg or the Clintons.
Let's stipulate that it was STUPID for the Iowa Democratic Party to have commissioned an app to put their hopes in, was stupid to start with. To have waited till November to order it - too late for one to get the bugs out and to be fully tested on a statewide level was even stupider. But to order one which could be associated with the Clinton campaign and Maypr Pete, the newest paranoid fixations of the Bernie Sanders cult was unbelievably stupid and, in itself, should disqualify those who made the decision from having such responsibilities forever more.
Considering the fact that we know that the Putin crime gang and its associates in American and British billionaire financed ratfucking are using the internet to do their ratfucking of Democrats on behalf of their allies in the Republican-fascist party, Democrats depending on the internet for anything to do with elections is even more disqualifyingly stupid than any of it. They've only had four years to understand that problem, yet they're still doing the same stupid stuff John Podesta more innocently did back then. Speaking of Podesta, with his associations to dodgy stuff through his brother, why is he still a power in the Democratic Party?
But it was hardly all about the app, it's hardly just Iowa but Iowa wanted the benefits of being first so let's use them as an example of how caucuses are always, everywhere and entirely a screwed up system open to corruption and inviting paranoia to run wild. This description of how just some of the worst of the Iowa disaster happened lays out how caucuses are and always have been a recipe for a fiasco. But first you have to understand that the rules almost always change from cycle to cycle because there are always huge screw ups with caucuses and instead of getting rid of them, they try to patch them.
Why Iowa Democrats changed their rules
In past Iowa Democratic caucuses, the state party never actually recorded or reported the number of attendees who supported each presidential candidate.
Instead, Democrats reported their results in terms of “state delegate equivalents.” Basically, each precinct caucus culminates in the allotment of county convention delegates to each candidate. The precinct chair would report those county delegate results to the state party. They’d look something like: 2 delegates for Candidate A, 1 for Candidate B.
The state party would then calculated an estimate of how many state delegates to which those results corresponded. The weighting depends on how much each county voted for the last Democratic presidential and gubernatorial candidate. So that result could look something like: .06 of a state delegate equivalent for Candidate A, .03 for Candidate B.
Compare and contrast basing that decision on a state-wide ballot as should happen in a primary election where you don't have or shouldn't have inequalities cooked into it. Inequality is inexcusable in any election, weighting rural districts differently than urban districts, one area as opposed to another is not only complex and stupid, IT IS CORRUPT.
So when Barack Obama “won” the Iowa caucuses with 37.6 percent in 2008, that meant he won 37.6 percent of state delegate equivalents (940 of them, in total). And when Hillary Clinton “beat” Sanders 49.84 percent to 49.59 percent in the 2016 caucuses, those percentages were also of state delegate equivalents, not votes. Nobody knew how many actual votes each candidate got.
This practice proved to be controversial after Sanders’s narrow defeat in 2016. Sanders suspected he would have won in a “popular” vote of Iowa, if there was one (due to bigger turnout in college towns and other areas that wouldn’t be reflected in the delegate calculations).
“Did we win the popular vote? I don’t know, but as much information as possible should be made available,” Sanders said at the time.
I will break in again to point out that Sanders' demand to know what the popular vote was is clearly justifiable but, considering his own dependence on the caucuses as opposed to the primaries for his "victories" it is hypocritical. I will point you, again to Washington state which had a binding caucus which Bernie Sanders won - WITH A FRACTION OF THE PARTICIPATION of the non-binding Washington state prmary which Bernie Sanders lost BASED ON A FAR LARGER POPULAR VOTE!
Also that year, several claims of miscounted results spread on social media and in the press — many from Sanders supporters, who were complaining that Bernie did better in their precincts than the county delegate results reflected. And the problem was, no paper trail existed that could prove or disprove their accounts.
Oh, well, if you think that would have mattered to them. Maine instituted a paper trail for the first time in its caucus in 2016, I remember asking the convener of the caucus "what's this about" as we were given papers to mark our preference on at the start of the caucus - IN EFFECT MARKING A BALLOT AS WE WOULD HAVE IN A PRIMARY. I also remember asking why we were going through the idiotic caucus process if all that needed to be done was to count the ballots we'd just marked.
That caucus saw one of our biggest turn outs, ever, and it was at least with a large number of same-day party declarers, many of whom had never been "Democrats" until the day of the caucus, many of whom had never participated in a caucus and some of whom knew "how it's supposed to be done" though they were such neophytes they didn't know that the rules change every single time and always did. I remember being furious with some of the Bernie Bots who muttered darkly against the volunteers running the caucus, accusing them of rigging it for Hillary Clinton WHEN THE PROCESS WAS TAKING PLACE RIGHT BEFORE THEIR IDIOTIC EYES. The Bernie Sanders cult is about as conspiracy prone as that of the late and entirely unlamented Lyndon Larouche's was. Nothing but a coronation of their cult leader will prevent conspiracies being theorized and rumors being mongered. And, I know the type, if he were president, they'd turn on him as soon as those among them decided to have a snit and accuse Bernie of betrayal.
Abolishing the caucuses nation-wide is a necessary step to election reform. States who have primaries and a far less screw-ball and counter-productive and entirely more democratic system have as much of a stake in getting rid of them as people who live in states, such as mine, where idiots who want to keep them can force us to. We should all pressure the DNC to adopt rules against delegates assigned through caucuses and the state conventions of states with caucuses from having a vote at the national convention. Adding a state-convention is an added corruption in the system that is little discussed but it makes the caucus system even worse than I've talked about here. For a start, delegates chosen through caucuses have such a way of not turning up at the state convention they committed themselves to going to and what they do there is subject to even more arbitrary and whimsical change made all on their own. It is all entirely stupid and anti-democratic.
.
I will be very surprised if the Nevada Caucus, in about two and a half weeks is any less a chaotic disaster than Iowa was. And that's just the beginning of caucus chaos. I'm hoping they don't use an app that can be traced by rumor mongering, conspiracy divining play-lefty podcasters like Cenk and Ana and Sam and Michael to Pete Buttigieg or the Clintons.
Let's stipulate that it was STUPID for the Iowa Democratic Party to have commissioned an app to put their hopes in, was stupid to start with. To have waited till November to order it - too late for one to get the bugs out and to be fully tested on a statewide level was even stupider. But to order one which could be associated with the Clinton campaign and Maypr Pete, the newest paranoid fixations of the Bernie Sanders cult was unbelievably stupid and, in itself, should disqualify those who made the decision from having such responsibilities forever more.
Considering the fact that we know that the Putin crime gang and its associates in American and British billionaire financed ratfucking are using the internet to do their ratfucking of Democrats on behalf of their allies in the Republican-fascist party, Democrats depending on the internet for anything to do with elections is even more disqualifyingly stupid than any of it. They've only had four years to understand that problem, yet they're still doing the same stupid stuff John Podesta more innocently did back then. Speaking of Podesta, with his associations to dodgy stuff through his brother, why is he still a power in the Democratic Party?
But it was hardly all about the app, it's hardly just Iowa but Iowa wanted the benefits of being first so let's use them as an example of how caucuses are always, everywhere and entirely a screwed up system open to corruption and inviting paranoia to run wild. This description of how just some of the worst of the Iowa disaster happened lays out how caucuses are and always have been a recipe for a fiasco. But first you have to understand that the rules almost always change from cycle to cycle because there are always huge screw ups with caucuses and instead of getting rid of them, they try to patch them.
Why Iowa Democrats changed their rules
In past Iowa Democratic caucuses, the state party never actually recorded or reported the number of attendees who supported each presidential candidate.
Instead, Democrats reported their results in terms of “state delegate equivalents.” Basically, each precinct caucus culminates in the allotment of county convention delegates to each candidate. The precinct chair would report those county delegate results to the state party. They’d look something like: 2 delegates for Candidate A, 1 for Candidate B.
The state party would then calculated an estimate of how many state delegates to which those results corresponded. The weighting depends on how much each county voted for the last Democratic presidential and gubernatorial candidate. So that result could look something like: .06 of a state delegate equivalent for Candidate A, .03 for Candidate B.
Compare and contrast basing that decision on a state-wide ballot as should happen in a primary election where you don't have or shouldn't have inequalities cooked into it. Inequality is inexcusable in any election, weighting rural districts differently than urban districts, one area as opposed to another is not only complex and stupid, IT IS CORRUPT.
So when Barack Obama “won” the Iowa caucuses with 37.6 percent in 2008, that meant he won 37.6 percent of state delegate equivalents (940 of them, in total). And when Hillary Clinton “beat” Sanders 49.84 percent to 49.59 percent in the 2016 caucuses, those percentages were also of state delegate equivalents, not votes. Nobody knew how many actual votes each candidate got.
This practice proved to be controversial after Sanders’s narrow defeat in 2016. Sanders suspected he would have won in a “popular” vote of Iowa, if there was one (due to bigger turnout in college towns and other areas that wouldn’t be reflected in the delegate calculations).
“Did we win the popular vote? I don’t know, but as much information as possible should be made available,” Sanders said at the time.
I will break in again to point out that Sanders' demand to know what the popular vote was is clearly justifiable but, considering his own dependence on the caucuses as opposed to the primaries for his "victories" it is hypocritical. I will point you, again to Washington state which had a binding caucus which Bernie Sanders won - WITH A FRACTION OF THE PARTICIPATION of the non-binding Washington state prmary which Bernie Sanders lost BASED ON A FAR LARGER POPULAR VOTE!
Also that year, several claims of miscounted results spread on social media and in the press — many from Sanders supporters, who were complaining that Bernie did better in their precincts than the county delegate results reflected. And the problem was, no paper trail existed that could prove or disprove their accounts.
Oh, well, if you think that would have mattered to them. Maine instituted a paper trail for the first time in its caucus in 2016, I remember asking the convener of the caucus "what's this about" as we were given papers to mark our preference on at the start of the caucus - IN EFFECT MARKING A BALLOT AS WE WOULD HAVE IN A PRIMARY. I also remember asking why we were going through the idiotic caucus process if all that needed to be done was to count the ballots we'd just marked.
That caucus saw one of our biggest turn outs, ever, and it was at least with a large number of same-day party declarers, many of whom had never been "Democrats" until the day of the caucus, many of whom had never participated in a caucus and some of whom knew "how it's supposed to be done" though they were such neophytes they didn't know that the rules change every single time and always did. I remember being furious with some of the Bernie Bots who muttered darkly against the volunteers running the caucus, accusing them of rigging it for Hillary Clinton WHEN THE PROCESS WAS TAKING PLACE RIGHT BEFORE THEIR IDIOTIC EYES. The Bernie Sanders cult is about as conspiracy prone as that of the late and entirely unlamented Lyndon Larouche's was. Nothing but a coronation of their cult leader will prevent conspiracies being theorized and rumors being mongered. And, I know the type, if he were president, they'd turn on him as soon as those among them decided to have a snit and accuse Bernie of betrayal.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Hate Mail - "the province of persons of vicious temperament"
While recently going through my old hard drive, in preparation for formatting it, I came across this passage from David Bentley Hart. Unfortunately, I didn't copy the URL of the article and I'm very pressed for time. I can say that his argument is like the one I made to atheist fan-boys of Sam Harris when I proposed instead of entertaining the idea of nuking "tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day" to forestall the use of what was so charmingly discussed as "the Islamic bomb" that, instead, we should give them an ultimatum of killing all of their nuclear physicists, the ones who had the capability to build nuclear weapons for them, no doubt a cost savings in lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions to one instead of that science fan-boy's final solution which would outdo "in a single day" Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc. in genocidal achievement.
As I've mentioned before, the same guys who were calmly contemplating nuclear genocide were horrified and shocked at the idea of KILLING SCIENTISTS! Clearly, they think the life of one, even "Islamic" bomb-making nuclear physicist is worth tens of millions of what even Harris noted were "innocent" lives. I don't remember if, considering the then frequently made brag that scientists were almost all atheists, I proposed that we call the nuclear arsenals of the West and the old Soviet Union, China, etc. "the atheist bomb" and contemplate taking out that population along with or instead of the one that Sam Harris put on his maybe(?)kill them list. If I didn't say it then I should have.
I think I liked finding a similar point made by Hart about that current most degenerate and disgusting of academic specialties, the "ethicists" whose main preoccupation would seem to be drawing up death lists, the overlap with those of Hitler being obvious and notable. I will remind you that such people currently hold faculty positions at many eminent universities and other institutions of repute and are always, Dershowitz-like, getting themselves on chat shows and giving popular lectures on who to kill.
--------------------------------
. . . Far more intellectually honest are those — like the late, almost comically vile Joseph Fletcher of Harvard — who openly acknowledge that any earnest attempt to improve the human stock must necessarily involve some measures of legal coercion. Fletcher, of course, was infamously unabashed in castigating modern medicine for “polluting” our gene pool with inferior specimens and in rhapsodizing upon the benefits the race would reap from instituting a regime of genetic invigilation that would allow society to eliminate “idiots” and “cripples” and other genetic defectives before they could burden us with their worthless lives. It was he who famously declared that reproduction is a privilege, not a right, and suggested that perhaps mothers should be forced by the state to abort “diseased” babies if they refused to do so of their own free will. Needless to say, state-imposed sterilization struck him as a reasonable policy; and he agreed with Linus Pauling that it might be wise to consider segregating genetic inferiors into a recognizable caste, marked out by indelible brands impressed upon their brows. And, striking a few minor transhumanist chords of his own, he even advocated — in a deranged and hideous passage from his book The Ethics of Genetic Control — the creation of “chimeras or parahumans...to do dangerous or demeaning jobs” of the sort that are now “shoved off on moronic or retarded individuals” — which, apparently, was how he viewed janitors, construction workers, firefighters, miners, and persons of that ilk.*
Of course, there was always a certain oafish audacity in Fletcher’s degenerate driveling about “morons” and “defectives,” given that there is good cause to suspect, from a purely utilitarian vantage, that academic ethicists — especially those like Fletcher, who are notoriously mediocre thinkers, possessed of small culture, no discernible speculative gifts, no records of substantive philosophical achievement, and execrable prose styles — constitute perhaps the single most useless element in society. If reproduction is not a right but a social function, should any woman be allowed to bring such men into the world? And should those men be permitted, in their turn, to sire offspring? I ask this question entirely in earnest, because I think it helps to identify the one indubitable truth about all social movements towards eugenics: namely, that the values that will determine which lives are worth living, and which not, will always be the province of persons of vicious temperament. If I were asked to decide what qualities to suppress or encourage in the human species, I might first attempt to discover if there is such a thing as a genetic predisposition to moral idiocy and then, if there is, to eliminate it; then there would be no more Joseph Fletchers (or Peter Singers, or Linus Paulings, or James Rachels), and I might think all is well. But, of course, the very idea is a contradiction in terms. Decisions regarding who should or should not live can, by definition, be made only by those who believe such decisions should be made; and therein lies the horror that nothing can ever exorcise from the ideology behind human bioengineering.
I will point out that if we killed all of the nuclear physicists who are capable of producing nuclear weapons, we could rid the world of the danger of nuclear annihilation. I think that would be a boon to the world whereas I can see no similar good in ridding the world of people with Down's syndrome.
* I have read some of Fletcher, I think Hart's accusation of his elitism isn't much of an exaggeration. I will note that he started out as an Episcopalian priest but became an atheist.
I will further note, in line with my recent posts, that that moral degenerate was one of those the ever fame-fucking Humanists gave their Humanist of the Year award to. They love eugenicists and those who propose genocide, such is their "humanism".
Note: We are due to have two days of storms and it is likely that we will lose electricity on my road. If I'm down, you'll know the reason.
Update: Looking for edits to be made, it occurs to me that Fletcher, Pauling and Singer all were given the Humanist Of The Year award, I'm not sure about Rachels, he may have not been famous enough for them. They love 'em famous, too.
As I've mentioned before, the same guys who were calmly contemplating nuclear genocide were horrified and shocked at the idea of KILLING SCIENTISTS! Clearly, they think the life of one, even "Islamic" bomb-making nuclear physicist is worth tens of millions of what even Harris noted were "innocent" lives. I don't remember if, considering the then frequently made brag that scientists were almost all atheists, I proposed that we call the nuclear arsenals of the West and the old Soviet Union, China, etc. "the atheist bomb" and contemplate taking out that population along with or instead of the one that Sam Harris put on his maybe(?)kill them list. If I didn't say it then I should have.
I think I liked finding a similar point made by Hart about that current most degenerate and disgusting of academic specialties, the "ethicists" whose main preoccupation would seem to be drawing up death lists, the overlap with those of Hitler being obvious and notable. I will remind you that such people currently hold faculty positions at many eminent universities and other institutions of repute and are always, Dershowitz-like, getting themselves on chat shows and giving popular lectures on who to kill.
--------------------------------
. . . Far more intellectually honest are those — like the late, almost comically vile Joseph Fletcher of Harvard — who openly acknowledge that any earnest attempt to improve the human stock must necessarily involve some measures of legal coercion. Fletcher, of course, was infamously unabashed in castigating modern medicine for “polluting” our gene pool with inferior specimens and in rhapsodizing upon the benefits the race would reap from instituting a regime of genetic invigilation that would allow society to eliminate “idiots” and “cripples” and other genetic defectives before they could burden us with their worthless lives. It was he who famously declared that reproduction is a privilege, not a right, and suggested that perhaps mothers should be forced by the state to abort “diseased” babies if they refused to do so of their own free will. Needless to say, state-imposed sterilization struck him as a reasonable policy; and he agreed with Linus Pauling that it might be wise to consider segregating genetic inferiors into a recognizable caste, marked out by indelible brands impressed upon their brows. And, striking a few minor transhumanist chords of his own, he even advocated — in a deranged and hideous passage from his book The Ethics of Genetic Control — the creation of “chimeras or parahumans...to do dangerous or demeaning jobs” of the sort that are now “shoved off on moronic or retarded individuals” — which, apparently, was how he viewed janitors, construction workers, firefighters, miners, and persons of that ilk.*
Of course, there was always a certain oafish audacity in Fletcher’s degenerate driveling about “morons” and “defectives,” given that there is good cause to suspect, from a purely utilitarian vantage, that academic ethicists — especially those like Fletcher, who are notoriously mediocre thinkers, possessed of small culture, no discernible speculative gifts, no records of substantive philosophical achievement, and execrable prose styles — constitute perhaps the single most useless element in society. If reproduction is not a right but a social function, should any woman be allowed to bring such men into the world? And should those men be permitted, in their turn, to sire offspring? I ask this question entirely in earnest, because I think it helps to identify the one indubitable truth about all social movements towards eugenics: namely, that the values that will determine which lives are worth living, and which not, will always be the province of persons of vicious temperament. If I were asked to decide what qualities to suppress or encourage in the human species, I might first attempt to discover if there is such a thing as a genetic predisposition to moral idiocy and then, if there is, to eliminate it; then there would be no more Joseph Fletchers (or Peter Singers, or Linus Paulings, or James Rachels), and I might think all is well. But, of course, the very idea is a contradiction in terms. Decisions regarding who should or should not live can, by definition, be made only by those who believe such decisions should be made; and therein lies the horror that nothing can ever exorcise from the ideology behind human bioengineering.
I will point out that if we killed all of the nuclear physicists who are capable of producing nuclear weapons, we could rid the world of the danger of nuclear annihilation. I think that would be a boon to the world whereas I can see no similar good in ridding the world of people with Down's syndrome.
* I have read some of Fletcher, I think Hart's accusation of his elitism isn't much of an exaggeration. I will note that he started out as an Episcopalian priest but became an atheist.
I will further note, in line with my recent posts, that that moral degenerate was one of those the ever fame-fucking Humanists gave their Humanist of the Year award to. They love eugenicists and those who propose genocide, such is their "humanism".
Note: We are due to have two days of storms and it is likely that we will lose electricity on my road. If I'm down, you'll know the reason.
Update: Looking for edits to be made, it occurs to me that Fletcher, Pauling and Singer all were given the Humanist Of The Year award, I'm not sure about Rachels, he may have not been famous enough for them. They love 'em famous, too.
I will vote for whoever is nominated by the Democratic Party for President, I will vote a straight Democratic ticket in November, the country and my state will be ruled by either Democrats or Republican-fascists, to vote for anyone other than a Democrat or to not vote is to vote for Republican-fascism.
If anyone who wants to run for a Democratic nomination doesn't make that promise and insist that the members of his campaign make that promise, they are a lying fraud and a spoiler for Republican-fascists.
If anyone who wants to run for a Democratic nomination doesn't make that promise and insist that the members of his campaign make that promise, they are a lying fraud and a spoiler for Republican-fascists.
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh
So the reason that the Iowa Caucus was such a total screw up was that they didn't want to be threatened with a lawsuit treat from Bernie Sanders like they were in 2016? And yet it's the Bernie Sanders guys who are inventing the rumors and raising the conspiracy theories surrounding the release of partial results - apparently something Sander's people demanded - and other such screw ups.
I know you're probably thinking that I'm beating a dead horse but if this is how big a screw up Iowa was, it's only the first of the caucuses, last time Iowa had problems, Nevada was a complete and total disaster. You're going to be hearing all kinds of news stories about how Democrats have fucked up out of the caucuses till the last one. The Bernie Bots are still whining about the ones in 2016.
And the Iowa caucus debacle was predicted, especially by those with experience with it and those running it. This Atlantic article published two days ago has some of the details of how they knew they were going into a disaster, one of their own and Bernie Sander's making.*
A crush of new Democratic voters, mobilized by a wave of anti-Trump energy, will arrive at their caucus precinct, and there will not be enough voter-registration forms.
I'll start here because anyone anticipating "a crush of voters" in the most well attended caucus is harboring a deluion, even the most well attended caucuses have a fraction of the turnout you can expect from a primary where people cast a vote on a ballot in the way of honest elections. I don't remember who it was who said it but they noted if a Third World country or a recent democracy had elections by caucus people would be calling for the UN to step in to document the corruption. There's a reason that Lewis Carroll mocked caucuses in Alice in Wonderland**.
The lines will be long, and some Iowans, many of them elderly, will shiver in the cold for hours before getting inside. The caucus itself will be pandemonium: There won’t be enough preference cards for caucus-goers to write down their favorite presidential contenders. Voters will be incensed when they learn about the new realignment rules. There will be miscounts and recounts. And at the end of the night, once all the numbers have been crunched and recrunched, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders will each claim victory.
And for anyone who is innocent of what caucuses are like because their state wisely gave them up long ago, THIS IS GUARANTEED TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU'RE STUPID ENOUGH TO RETAIN CAUCUSES. And I will remind you, THEY RELY ON MOST ELIGIBLE VOTERS NOT SHOWING UP. The only times I have seen actual pandemonium at our caucus was when a lot of people who had never been to one of the stupid things showed up, ususally it's people who know how stupid it's going to be and who get on with it so it will be over.
This is Sandy Dockendorff’s nightmare scenario for tonight’s caucus. The 62-year-old former nurse, who is running a caucus in the small town of Danville, laid it all out for me over coffee last week. Her worst fears are unlikely to be realized. “The party has done everything it can to make sure that’s not the case,” she said. But the caucus is extremely complex, and rule changes threaten to make it even more bewildering for voters to navigate and complicated for the press to cover. The biggest fear: Democrats may not have a clear winner—a scenario that could further threaten Iowa’s imperiled first-in-the-nation position.
"The caucus is extremely complex and rule changes threaten to make it even more bewildering for voters to navigate," Well, as noted, it was made more complicated even than before largely at the behest of the Sanders inner circle.
There is no way to make Caucuses "transparent" as was the demand because despite people standing and making their support for a candidate in public - as used to be done to prevent democracy in 19th century Britain and is done in dictatorships elsewhere now - the process will always be a shit-show, locally, on a state level and, through the corruption that comes with that brain-dead 19th century form, will infect the whole process. And if it doesn't, the national news media will give everyone the impression that it does BECAUSE THE PROCESS IS INHERENTLY CORRUPT.
I defended the Democratic National Committee in comments on one of The Young Turks' videos yesterday because it wasn't their fault the Iowa Democrats caved to their boy Bernie to make the process so much more absurd than it was guaranteed to be. Cenk is a friggin' liar as well as an asshole Bernie bot.
But I do blame the Democratic National Committee for going along with those states, such as my own, where, for whatever stupid reason, they retain the caucuses.
The Democratic National Committee could put an end to the quadrennial shit show by stepping in and saying that delegates chosen by caucus will not have a role in selecting the Democratic candidate for president, that only those delegates chosen by primary elections will go to the convention. That would do it. If states refused, through legislative Republican rat fucking, the Democratic Party should step in and run the kind of registered Democrats only, by-mail primary. I can guarantee you that that would get a far higher participation than the caucuses. Even in Iowa where they make such a big thing of it, in a year when Democrats should have come out in droves, they couldn't exceed their dismal participation rate in 2016.
I do blame the Democratic National Committee for allowing this to continue. I blame the Maine Democratic Party, the Iowa Democratic Party etc. for keeping this awful, anti-democratic self-inflicted damage and allowing it to continue.
* The new rules were mandated by the DNC as part of a package of changes sought by Bernie Sanders following his loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primaries. The changes were designed to make the caucus system more transparent and to make sure that even the lowest-performing candidates get credit for all the votes they receive.
And it’s not just Iowa that is affected by the changes. The Nevada Democratic caucuses on Feb. 22 will also report three sets of results.
** ‘What I was going to say,’ said the Dodo in an offended tone, ‘was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.’
‘What is a Caucus-race?’ said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
‘Why,’ said the Dodo, ‘the best way to explain it is to do it.’ (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (‘the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no ‘One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out ‘The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, ‘But who has won?’
This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, ‘Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’
‘But who is to give the prizes?’ quite a chorus of voices asked.
‘Why, she, of course,’ said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, ‘Prizes! Prizes!’
Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece all round.
‘But she must have a prize herself, you know,’ said the Mouse.
‘Of course,’ the Dodo replied very gravely. ‘What else have you got in your pocket?’ he went on, turning to Alice.
‘Only a thimble,’ said Alice sadly.
‘Hand it over here,’ said the Dodo.
Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying ‘We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble’; and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered.
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.
I know you're probably thinking that I'm beating a dead horse but if this is how big a screw up Iowa was, it's only the first of the caucuses, last time Iowa had problems, Nevada was a complete and total disaster. You're going to be hearing all kinds of news stories about how Democrats have fucked up out of the caucuses till the last one. The Bernie Bots are still whining about the ones in 2016.
And the Iowa caucus debacle was predicted, especially by those with experience with it and those running it. This Atlantic article published two days ago has some of the details of how they knew they were going into a disaster, one of their own and Bernie Sander's making.*
A crush of new Democratic voters, mobilized by a wave of anti-Trump energy, will arrive at their caucus precinct, and there will not be enough voter-registration forms.
I'll start here because anyone anticipating "a crush of voters" in the most well attended caucus is harboring a deluion, even the most well attended caucuses have a fraction of the turnout you can expect from a primary where people cast a vote on a ballot in the way of honest elections. I don't remember who it was who said it but they noted if a Third World country or a recent democracy had elections by caucus people would be calling for the UN to step in to document the corruption. There's a reason that Lewis Carroll mocked caucuses in Alice in Wonderland**.
The lines will be long, and some Iowans, many of them elderly, will shiver in the cold for hours before getting inside. The caucus itself will be pandemonium: There won’t be enough preference cards for caucus-goers to write down their favorite presidential contenders. Voters will be incensed when they learn about the new realignment rules. There will be miscounts and recounts. And at the end of the night, once all the numbers have been crunched and recrunched, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders will each claim victory.
And for anyone who is innocent of what caucuses are like because their state wisely gave them up long ago, THIS IS GUARANTEED TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU'RE STUPID ENOUGH TO RETAIN CAUCUSES. And I will remind you, THEY RELY ON MOST ELIGIBLE VOTERS NOT SHOWING UP. The only times I have seen actual pandemonium at our caucus was when a lot of people who had never been to one of the stupid things showed up, ususally it's people who know how stupid it's going to be and who get on with it so it will be over.
This is Sandy Dockendorff’s nightmare scenario for tonight’s caucus. The 62-year-old former nurse, who is running a caucus in the small town of Danville, laid it all out for me over coffee last week. Her worst fears are unlikely to be realized. “The party has done everything it can to make sure that’s not the case,” she said. But the caucus is extremely complex, and rule changes threaten to make it even more bewildering for voters to navigate and complicated for the press to cover. The biggest fear: Democrats may not have a clear winner—a scenario that could further threaten Iowa’s imperiled first-in-the-nation position.
"The caucus is extremely complex and rule changes threaten to make it even more bewildering for voters to navigate," Well, as noted, it was made more complicated even than before largely at the behest of the Sanders inner circle.
There is no way to make Caucuses "transparent" as was the demand because despite people standing and making their support for a candidate in public - as used to be done to prevent democracy in 19th century Britain and is done in dictatorships elsewhere now - the process will always be a shit-show, locally, on a state level and, through the corruption that comes with that brain-dead 19th century form, will infect the whole process. And if it doesn't, the national news media will give everyone the impression that it does BECAUSE THE PROCESS IS INHERENTLY CORRUPT.
I defended the Democratic National Committee in comments on one of The Young Turks' videos yesterday because it wasn't their fault the Iowa Democrats caved to their boy Bernie to make the process so much more absurd than it was guaranteed to be. Cenk is a friggin' liar as well as an asshole Bernie bot.
But I do blame the Democratic National Committee for going along with those states, such as my own, where, for whatever stupid reason, they retain the caucuses.
The Democratic National Committee could put an end to the quadrennial shit show by stepping in and saying that delegates chosen by caucus will not have a role in selecting the Democratic candidate for president, that only those delegates chosen by primary elections will go to the convention. That would do it. If states refused, through legislative Republican rat fucking, the Democratic Party should step in and run the kind of registered Democrats only, by-mail primary. I can guarantee you that that would get a far higher participation than the caucuses. Even in Iowa where they make such a big thing of it, in a year when Democrats should have come out in droves, they couldn't exceed their dismal participation rate in 2016.
I do blame the Democratic National Committee for allowing this to continue. I blame the Maine Democratic Party, the Iowa Democratic Party etc. for keeping this awful, anti-democratic self-inflicted damage and allowing it to continue.
* The new rules were mandated by the DNC as part of a package of changes sought by Bernie Sanders following his loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primaries. The changes were designed to make the caucus system more transparent and to make sure that even the lowest-performing candidates get credit for all the votes they receive.
And it’s not just Iowa that is affected by the changes. The Nevada Democratic caucuses on Feb. 22 will also report three sets of results.
** ‘What I was going to say,’ said the Dodo in an offended tone, ‘was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.’
‘What is a Caucus-race?’ said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
‘Why,’ said the Dodo, ‘the best way to explain it is to do it.’ (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (‘the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no ‘One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out ‘The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, ‘But who has won?’
This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, ‘Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’
‘But who is to give the prizes?’ quite a chorus of voices asked.
‘Why, she, of course,’ said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, ‘Prizes! Prizes!’
Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece all round.
‘But she must have a prize herself, you know,’ said the Mouse.
‘Of course,’ the Dodo replied very gravely. ‘What else have you got in your pocket?’ he went on, turning to Alice.
‘Only a thimble,’ said Alice sadly.
‘Hand it over here,’ said the Dodo.
Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying ‘We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble’; and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered.
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Give Me A Friggin' Break
I just read a Bernie Bot make one of the dumbest comments I've ever seen, he claimed that it was a certainty that Bobby Kennedy would have voted for Bernie. I would guess this ass is somewhat younger than fifty years old and would possibly have parents who weren't around when Bobby Kennedy got shot.
Bobby Kennedy was a cold warrior UNTIL he decided to jump on the bandwagon that Eugene McCarthy had driven up to then, as those idiot fatheads Allard Lowenstein and Curtis Gans encouraged him to as about their eighth choice, in the "Dump Johnson" movement. Their first choice had been Bobby Kennedy but he declined as did a number of others, Kennedy jumped in after he saw that it might be possible to continue the Kennedy Dynasty by forcing Johnson out. Him getting into that race was ironic in that he was part of his brother's administration which did so much to get us further entangled in the Vietnam war.
ANYONE WHO WANTS TO WAX NOSTALGIC ABOUT THAT SHOULD BE SLAPPED IN THE FACE WITH THE FACT THAT THAT IS WHAT GOT US NIXON IN 1968.
Kennedy, of course, got assassinated, Eugene McCarthy lost and began his career of campaigning against Democrats and enabling Republicans for the rest of his pretty disgusting life, Allard Lowenstein was someone I always thought was pretty dodgy, he was great pals with the fascist William F. Buckley (who eulogized him at Lowenstein's funeral), he was a good buddy of Donald Rumsfeld while they were in congress and he frequently had some pretty awful people support his political campaigns, sometimes,like Rumsfeld pulling the rug out from under him in the end.
Curtis Gans' political wisdom can be seen from one of the last articles he wrote in which he expressed his great hope for fighting the phony astro-turf Tea Party by the nice Republicans.
You should read it to see what a bunch of friggin' chumps these guys were, never, ever learning a friggin' thing.
In 1967, I conceived of and, with the late Allard Lowenstein, organized a grassroots effort that came to be called “The Dump Johnson Movement,” which intended to provide an alternative to extremism, reverse the upward trajectory of American involvement in Vietnam and remove the principle buttress of that escalation from power. When Sen. Eugene McCarthy provided national leadership for that effort by mounting a challenge in the Democratic primaries, I enlisted in his campaign. When McCarthy began his candidacy, he was unknown to 57 percent of the American citizenry. When I took the train to New Hampshire to help coordinate McCarthy’s campaign there one month before the primary, polls showed only two percent in the state supported his candidacy. The conventional wisdom was that a sitting president could not be beaten within his own party. But we succeeded in making it impossible for Johnson to seek reelection, transforming the Democratic Party’s advocacy from pro-war to anti-war, and creating a permanent majority national popular opposition to the continuation of the war.
Only a similar major grassroots effort in GOP primaries by mainstream Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now can reverse the destruction the right-wing is wreaking to party and country.
The first step on this road is to cease dignifying the far right with the word “conservative.”
The essential underpinnings of conservatism from Burke to Buckley have been a respect for the institutions of both governance and society, moderation in manner, skepticism about major and abrupt change and a concomitant rejection of extremes. True conservatives’ belief in traditional values is leavened by a tolerance for diverse views. Their support for free markets is tempered by understanding the need for constructive regulation of their excesses. They are committed to human equality and support equality of opportunity without a mandate for equality of result. Their vision of governance is by representative rather than direct democracy and, where possible, a civil approach to political dialogue and a rational approach to public policy.
Apparently, as late is 2013 he thought he could shame the Republican-fascists into being nice and accepting democracy.
Remember, those shitheads helped, in a big way, to get us Nixon as you consider that I found that comment on a Michael Brooks Bernie Bot video. Idiots, all of them.
I'd have gone into Bobby Kennedy's career of starting out working for Joe McCarthy as well as being in charge of his brother's efforts to get rid of Castro, not to mention any number of less than PC activities he was engaged in as Attorney General.
As I noted here the other day, I'm over the Kennedy mystique. Because I remember the 60s quite well.
Bobby Kennedy was a cold warrior UNTIL he decided to jump on the bandwagon that Eugene McCarthy had driven up to then, as those idiot fatheads Allard Lowenstein and Curtis Gans encouraged him to as about their eighth choice, in the "Dump Johnson" movement. Their first choice had been Bobby Kennedy but he declined as did a number of others, Kennedy jumped in after he saw that it might be possible to continue the Kennedy Dynasty by forcing Johnson out. Him getting into that race was ironic in that he was part of his brother's administration which did so much to get us further entangled in the Vietnam war.
ANYONE WHO WANTS TO WAX NOSTALGIC ABOUT THAT SHOULD BE SLAPPED IN THE FACE WITH THE FACT THAT THAT IS WHAT GOT US NIXON IN 1968.
Kennedy, of course, got assassinated, Eugene McCarthy lost and began his career of campaigning against Democrats and enabling Republicans for the rest of his pretty disgusting life, Allard Lowenstein was someone I always thought was pretty dodgy, he was great pals with the fascist William F. Buckley (who eulogized him at Lowenstein's funeral), he was a good buddy of Donald Rumsfeld while they were in congress and he frequently had some pretty awful people support his political campaigns, sometimes,like Rumsfeld pulling the rug out from under him in the end.
Curtis Gans' political wisdom can be seen from one of the last articles he wrote in which he expressed his great hope for fighting the phony astro-turf Tea Party by the nice Republicans.
You should read it to see what a bunch of friggin' chumps these guys were, never, ever learning a friggin' thing.
In 1967, I conceived of and, with the late Allard Lowenstein, organized a grassroots effort that came to be called “The Dump Johnson Movement,” which intended to provide an alternative to extremism, reverse the upward trajectory of American involvement in Vietnam and remove the principle buttress of that escalation from power. When Sen. Eugene McCarthy provided national leadership for that effort by mounting a challenge in the Democratic primaries, I enlisted in his campaign. When McCarthy began his candidacy, he was unknown to 57 percent of the American citizenry. When I took the train to New Hampshire to help coordinate McCarthy’s campaign there one month before the primary, polls showed only two percent in the state supported his candidacy. The conventional wisdom was that a sitting president could not be beaten within his own party. But we succeeded in making it impossible for Johnson to seek reelection, transforming the Democratic Party’s advocacy from pro-war to anti-war, and creating a permanent majority national popular opposition to the continuation of the war.
Only a similar major grassroots effort in GOP primaries by mainstream Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now can reverse the destruction the right-wing is wreaking to party and country.
The first step on this road is to cease dignifying the far right with the word “conservative.”
The essential underpinnings of conservatism from Burke to Buckley have been a respect for the institutions of both governance and society, moderation in manner, skepticism about major and abrupt change and a concomitant rejection of extremes. True conservatives’ belief in traditional values is leavened by a tolerance for diverse views. Their support for free markets is tempered by understanding the need for constructive regulation of their excesses. They are committed to human equality and support equality of opportunity without a mandate for equality of result. Their vision of governance is by representative rather than direct democracy and, where possible, a civil approach to political dialogue and a rational approach to public policy.
Apparently, as late is 2013 he thought he could shame the Republican-fascists into being nice and accepting democracy.
Remember, those shitheads helped, in a big way, to get us Nixon as you consider that I found that comment on a Michael Brooks Bernie Bot video. Idiots, all of them.
I'd have gone into Bobby Kennedy's career of starting out working for Joe McCarthy as well as being in charge of his brother's efforts to get rid of Castro, not to mention any number of less than PC activities he was engaged in as Attorney General.
As I noted here the other day, I'm over the Kennedy mystique. Because I remember the 60s quite well.
Makoto Ozone - Times Like These
Gary Burton, vibes
Andy Scherrer, sax
Cedar Walton, piano
Peter Schmidlin, drums
The comments gave the name of the drummer, I can't find out who the bass player is.
Caucuses Are An Exercise In Privilege By Hobbyists
I went back and transcribed what is one of the best explanations of why caucuses should be banned by the Democratic Party as a means of choosing the party nominee. From Alanna Harkin's on the ground in Iowa segement from Samantha Bee's show last week.
Anybody who would struggle to get to a specific place at an inflexible time, I want them to have options. I understand why people like it, it's folksy and the idea of it is charming, to come together as a community, and we discuss who we want our next president to be. But what it ends up being is an exercise in privilege by hobbyists.
Emmanuel Smith: Disabilities advocate
I think if he had said "I understand why people imagine they like the idea of it" I could agree with the whole statement because I think anyone who has actually participated in caucuses knows that view of caucuses is fantasy, not reality.
Having participated in caucuses for many decades, the folksiness and charm wore off pretty much immediately about fifty years ago. The first thing I noted was that, honestly, every time except twice, easily fewer than 3% of the registered Democratic voters in my town caucused, a number that would honestly be a far lower percent because we stupidly have same-day party declaration in Maine and same-day registration for what should be strictly party specific events, so the entire population eligible to vote would be the more honest number.
The actual practice of persuasion and discussion is avoided because most of the time is spent on a futile attempt at explaining the ridiculous, occult and ever changing rules that the idiots of the rules committees have thought up for every cycle. That can drag on for an hour or more. Even the newbies have to have it explained and a lot of them have no idea what it's about. The people who get on rules committees are dominated by idiots who like having their own way, those are the idiots who love caucuses. Such as the Dick I'll get to in a minute.
That theoretical bull shit that is the substance of the "folksiness and charm" has never been manifested in any caucus I've ever witnessed. I have never seen more than one or two people change their minds to stand with another group than the one they started with. Usually any discussion is when some carpetbagging Greens or others start fussing over things being "fixed" even though the process is the same for everyone. The last time the Bernie Bots were the source of most of that. I still am not speaking with one guy in town who made an ass of himself in that way.
But that aside, it was the best short description of why caucuses are an abomination.
In the show Ms. Harkin went back to the idiot brains behind the Iowa caucus, Dick Bender who said with total arrogance and thinly veiled elitism to the point she cribbed from Mr. Emmanuel:
Well, I think they're an exercise by people who really care about who is going to be president of the United States.
As if people who couldn't get to a caucus, people who couldn't get into a caucus location, people who can't take hours on a week night (at least ours are on the weekend, now) who have young children and can't afford a baby-sitter, etc. don't care about who is president while old, white, affluent, mobile people for who that isn't a problem are the ones, you see who "really care". What an asshole. You really should watch it for just what a bunch of jerks the caucus enthusiasts are.
We The People have got to prevent idiots like this from having such a damaging effect on American democracy. CONSIDERING THE DISASTER THEY HAVE BEEN FOR DEMOCRATS GOING BACK FIVE DECADES, DEMOCRATS HAVE AN ESPECIALLY GOOD REASON FOR JUNKING THEM. I don't think, given the debacle that the Iowa Caucus was, last night, those who insist on retaining them are really that much different from the Republican ratfuckers who did damage to democracy in 2016, the end effect is the same. Trump is making hay out of what Richard Bender was so self-satisfied and smug about on camera last week.
Update: Yes to Dumping The Caucus No To Enhancing New Hampshires Role:
Reading the ongoing debacle in Iowa, here from Politico (not my favorite source for linking to)
If one thing was certain from Monday's debacle, Iowa had just signed its death warrant as the first-in-the-nation caucus state, the legendary Des Moines Register political reporter David Yepsen said.
“This fiasco means the end of the caucuses as a significant American political event. The rest of the country was already losing patience with Iowa anyway and this cooks Iowa's goose. Frankly, it should,” Yepsen said. “The real winner tonight was Donald Trump, who got to watch his opponents wallow in a mess. A lot of good Democratic candidates and people who fought their hearts out here for ... nothing.
“I expect Iowans will move themselves to kill it off by holding a primary, and let the state move to someplace behind New Hampshire along with other states.”
Living on the Maine-NH border for most of my life, being a life-long reader of news from that state NO. New Hampshire has a better system, a primary, but no state should have the power that New Hampshire has given itself as "first in the nation". No small group of states should have that power, certainly not concentrated in one region and with such a small population which has the distinction of being almost as lily white as Maine is and much whiter than even Iowa. Here is a list of the 10 whitest states in order of increasing diversity.
Least diverse states:
West Virginia
Maine
Vermont
New Hampshire
Montana
Kentucky
Utah
Iowa
Ohio
Wyoming
Notice anything about how they tend to vote in the general election?
The whole thing needs to be fixed, have either an election with states from various parts of the country and of diversity go first or have a national primary in which only Democrats vote, preferably by a mail-in ballot. That ballot should have a fixed form that doesn't change, though I would randomly have the names of the candidates arranged on papers, each one of them appearing first, second, third, on an equal number of ballots. If you're going to use a computer for something, use it to make the system less biased.
Anybody who would struggle to get to a specific place at an inflexible time, I want them to have options. I understand why people like it, it's folksy and the idea of it is charming, to come together as a community, and we discuss who we want our next president to be. But what it ends up being is an exercise in privilege by hobbyists.
Emmanuel Smith: Disabilities advocate
I think if he had said "I understand why people imagine they like the idea of it" I could agree with the whole statement because I think anyone who has actually participated in caucuses knows that view of caucuses is fantasy, not reality.
Having participated in caucuses for many decades, the folksiness and charm wore off pretty much immediately about fifty years ago. The first thing I noted was that, honestly, every time except twice, easily fewer than 3% of the registered Democratic voters in my town caucused, a number that would honestly be a far lower percent because we stupidly have same-day party declaration in Maine and same-day registration for what should be strictly party specific events, so the entire population eligible to vote would be the more honest number.
The actual practice of persuasion and discussion is avoided because most of the time is spent on a futile attempt at explaining the ridiculous, occult and ever changing rules that the idiots of the rules committees have thought up for every cycle. That can drag on for an hour or more. Even the newbies have to have it explained and a lot of them have no idea what it's about. The people who get on rules committees are dominated by idiots who like having their own way, those are the idiots who love caucuses. Such as the Dick I'll get to in a minute.
That theoretical bull shit that is the substance of the "folksiness and charm" has never been manifested in any caucus I've ever witnessed. I have never seen more than one or two people change their minds to stand with another group than the one they started with. Usually any discussion is when some carpetbagging Greens or others start fussing over things being "fixed" even though the process is the same for everyone. The last time the Bernie Bots were the source of most of that. I still am not speaking with one guy in town who made an ass of himself in that way.
But that aside, it was the best short description of why caucuses are an abomination.
In the show Ms. Harkin went back to the idiot brains behind the Iowa caucus, Dick Bender who said with total arrogance and thinly veiled elitism to the point she cribbed from Mr. Emmanuel:
Well, I think they're an exercise by people who really care about who is going to be president of the United States.
As if people who couldn't get to a caucus, people who couldn't get into a caucus location, people who can't take hours on a week night (at least ours are on the weekend, now) who have young children and can't afford a baby-sitter, etc. don't care about who is president while old, white, affluent, mobile people for who that isn't a problem are the ones, you see who "really care". What an asshole. You really should watch it for just what a bunch of jerks the caucus enthusiasts are.
We The People have got to prevent idiots like this from having such a damaging effect on American democracy. CONSIDERING THE DISASTER THEY HAVE BEEN FOR DEMOCRATS GOING BACK FIVE DECADES, DEMOCRATS HAVE AN ESPECIALLY GOOD REASON FOR JUNKING THEM. I don't think, given the debacle that the Iowa Caucus was, last night, those who insist on retaining them are really that much different from the Republican ratfuckers who did damage to democracy in 2016, the end effect is the same. Trump is making hay out of what Richard Bender was so self-satisfied and smug about on camera last week.
Update: Yes to Dumping The Caucus No To Enhancing New Hampshires Role:
Reading the ongoing debacle in Iowa, here from Politico (not my favorite source for linking to)
If one thing was certain from Monday's debacle, Iowa had just signed its death warrant as the first-in-the-nation caucus state, the legendary Des Moines Register political reporter David Yepsen said.
“This fiasco means the end of the caucuses as a significant American political event. The rest of the country was already losing patience with Iowa anyway and this cooks Iowa's goose. Frankly, it should,” Yepsen said. “The real winner tonight was Donald Trump, who got to watch his opponents wallow in a mess. A lot of good Democratic candidates and people who fought their hearts out here for ... nothing.
“I expect Iowans will move themselves to kill it off by holding a primary, and let the state move to someplace behind New Hampshire along with other states.”
Living on the Maine-NH border for most of my life, being a life-long reader of news from that state NO. New Hampshire has a better system, a primary, but no state should have the power that New Hampshire has given itself as "first in the nation". No small group of states should have that power, certainly not concentrated in one region and with such a small population which has the distinction of being almost as lily white as Maine is and much whiter than even Iowa. Here is a list of the 10 whitest states in order of increasing diversity.
Least diverse states:
West Virginia
Maine
Vermont
New Hampshire
Montana
Kentucky
Utah
Iowa
Ohio
Wyoming
Notice anything about how they tend to vote in the general election?
The whole thing needs to be fixed, have either an election with states from various parts of the country and of diversity go first or have a national primary in which only Democrats vote, preferably by a mail-in ballot. That ballot should have a fixed form that doesn't change, though I would randomly have the names of the candidates arranged on papers, each one of them appearing first, second, third, on an equal number of ballots. If you're going to use a computer for something, use it to make the system less biased.
The Left Won't Be Real Till We Get Shut Of The Play-Left That Will Be True Even If Bernie Sanders Is Through Some Miracle Elected
I will be tempted to look today at the Bernosphere, The Young Turks, Majority Report, etc. to see what dark conspiracies they invent to explain whatever about Iowa - I remember the ever metasticizing conspiracy invention among the Bernie Bots in 2016, they are pretty much children without any real regard for finding out what they're talking about before they replace their fantasies for reporting.
Will I? I suppose I should to see if they've learned a single thing, my guess is that they will prove they haven't.
The real left will be a left that can get elected, win control of congresses and legislatures, the federal Senate and state senates and the presidency and governorships. No other left now or in the history of "lefts" has been real. Those "lefts" which failed to do that have never been more than pipe dreams promising pie-in-the-sky while slamming other people for promising pie-in-the-sky. The difference being that a lot of those the secular-atheist-play-left slammed for what they did would, unlike that "left" give you at least a bowl of soup, some bread and maybe a place to sleep. I would love to know how often the Wobblies gave anyone pie. The play left is a total and complete fraud, the play-thing of affluent, white-collar, mostly white people, any practical work to do something for someone given up as soon as they leave college and start making money and paying off a mortgage or college loans.
Some of the worst of those go into "journalism" and some of the worst of those had to invent their own venues in podcasting or the like.
We have got to get a real left going, one which is disenchanted with Marxism, for a start, one which has the maturity to know that in the coming months, if Bernie Sanders, the carpetbagger of Vermont, gets the Democratic nomination, he has a whole life history of choices, memberships, associations, scribbling and recorded babbling for the Republican-fascists and the fascist media to put Trump back into office. You won't find that can be based on the "youth vote" it will have to come from people of maturity and it is my guess that you will find those mostly among religious liberals of some experience. I'd love to ask The Nuns on the Bus what they might think about what I just said. I'd love to hear what a group of those who run real religion based charities that serve the least among us would have to say on these issues. What Cenk and Sam, Ana and Michael have to say on it will, I can almost guarantee you, be stupid and useless for actually doing anything.
Vermont was colonized by play-lefties, I'd guess inspired by those two venerable, insufferably sanctimonious fatheads, Helen and Scott Nearing. That's how Bernie got there and that was the base of his political career. I know the type, the Nearings moved to Maine after they lived in Vermont, we have lots of them here, too. Most of them would, I doubt, be reliable volunteers for a weekly soup kitchen. I haven't ever seen many of those around here. Maybe they were but they learn something if they do instead of babble.
The prospects of Bernie Sanders winning the election is far lower than Bernie Sanders doing the typical play lefty thing, the only real presence the play-left has had in American politics, being a spoiler to put a Republican-fascist in office. The prospect of him not getting to November with another heart attack is a lot higher than him winning the election. That we are having to consider this, now, proves my point.
Will I? I suppose I should to see if they've learned a single thing, my guess is that they will prove they haven't.
The real left will be a left that can get elected, win control of congresses and legislatures, the federal Senate and state senates and the presidency and governorships. No other left now or in the history of "lefts" has been real. Those "lefts" which failed to do that have never been more than pipe dreams promising pie-in-the-sky while slamming other people for promising pie-in-the-sky. The difference being that a lot of those the secular-atheist-play-left slammed for what they did would, unlike that "left" give you at least a bowl of soup, some bread and maybe a place to sleep. I would love to know how often the Wobblies gave anyone pie. The play left is a total and complete fraud, the play-thing of affluent, white-collar, mostly white people, any practical work to do something for someone given up as soon as they leave college and start making money and paying off a mortgage or college loans.
Some of the worst of those go into "journalism" and some of the worst of those had to invent their own venues in podcasting or the like.
We have got to get a real left going, one which is disenchanted with Marxism, for a start, one which has the maturity to know that in the coming months, if Bernie Sanders, the carpetbagger of Vermont, gets the Democratic nomination, he has a whole life history of choices, memberships, associations, scribbling and recorded babbling for the Republican-fascists and the fascist media to put Trump back into office. You won't find that can be based on the "youth vote" it will have to come from people of maturity and it is my guess that you will find those mostly among religious liberals of some experience. I'd love to ask The Nuns on the Bus what they might think about what I just said. I'd love to hear what a group of those who run real religion based charities that serve the least among us would have to say on these issues. What Cenk and Sam, Ana and Michael have to say on it will, I can almost guarantee you, be stupid and useless for actually doing anything.
Vermont was colonized by play-lefties, I'd guess inspired by those two venerable, insufferably sanctimonious fatheads, Helen and Scott Nearing. That's how Bernie got there and that was the base of his political career. I know the type, the Nearings moved to Maine after they lived in Vermont, we have lots of them here, too. Most of them would, I doubt, be reliable volunteers for a weekly soup kitchen. I haven't ever seen many of those around here. Maybe they were but they learn something if they do instead of babble.
The prospects of Bernie Sanders winning the election is far lower than Bernie Sanders doing the typical play lefty thing, the only real presence the play-left has had in American politics, being a spoiler to put a Republican-fascist in office. The prospect of him not getting to November with another heart attack is a lot higher than him winning the election. That we are having to consider this, now, proves my point.