The Random Politics Thread

[TheGreatBuzz]

4 minutes ago, Simmsy said:

She's doing more to actively stop Biden's agenda than the actual GOP at this point. Even if you want to say that she's only screwing up the vote by doing nothing, its still helping the GOP WAY more than its helping her own party. This is what the DNC gets for running these lame ass moderates instead of real candidates who actually want to get something done.

 

You may wanna check some facts.  She is not nearly as bad as you seem to think.

 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-congress-votes/kyrsten-sinema/

[Dan T.]

 

[tshile]

2 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

 

You really don't think there is a difference between her and the average Republican politician?  I get not liking her but keep it in perspective.

If you think infrastructure is really important, and if you think voting rights is vital to protecting the democracy right now, then it doesn’t matter what her party tag is if she won’t vote for it. 
 

yeah over the course of 10 years it would matter if that seat switched to a Republican. 
 

but I personally believe the voting rights stuff is way, way more important than some down the road vision of this specific seat.

 

maybe I’m being a drama queen. 🤷‍♂️ 

[Renegade7]

 

[TheGreatBuzz]

39 minutes ago, tshile said:

If you think infrastructure is really important, and if you think voting rights is vital to protecting the democracy right now, then it doesn’t matter what her party tag is if she won’t vote for it. 
 

yeah over the course of 10 years it would matter if that seat switched to a Republican. 
 

but I personally believe the voting rights stuff is way, way more important than some down the road vision of this specific seat.

 

maybe I’m being a drama queen. 🤷‍♂️ 

 

I've said before that voting rights is far more important in my mind than infrastructure.  I'm honestly pretty mad about the way this is all being framed.  Who is actually going to feel better when there aren't any potholes on the roads leading to the gulags?  I think priorities are way off.  But anyone implying that she is the same as a Republican is just ignoring the facts (which I linked to above).  You can not like her and/or her positions on certain topics, but that is a far reach when comparing to the voting records of the GOP.

[tshile]

@TheGreatBuzzyeah that’s fair. And I didn’t mean you specifically as in the importance with  voting rights. Just the general “you” 

[JCB]

Agreed with you both re. voting rights, as it's the only thing that helps keep open the possibility of doing other stuff. Not much time left to reverse course, I'm afraid.

[gbear]

I fear this is a lost cause. I wish voting rights were the issue of the day, but not enough people agree.

I had a conversation with a friend who is a construction worker. He said he and his workmates didn't understand why they should care so much if the government defaults. I told him right now our recessions are minor because we can always print more money without lowering its value. I told him this is a rare benefit we enjoy because countries all over the world use dollars to save value without fear they will be worth less tomorrow. Because all the countries own dollars, they want them to maintain their value. The dollar does because we honor our debts. The moment we start saying our debts and money won't hold value with us, everyone else will start to look more to other currencies.

 

That will make it harder to borrow more money which means we will have to print more....the cycle could and probably would be fast. The normal answer then is raise interest rates which leads to lower housing prices and less building of houses. So if he wants to take a 6 month outlook, he absolutely should care if the government fails to pay its debt. His livelihood could be greatly impacted.

 

He said they never talk about things having chain impacts, and why doesn't the news cover it that way. I said because they have 30 seconds to explain the whole story before the channel is changed. Then I agreed when he said we're doomed to ignorance.

[Larry]

3 hours ago, Simmsy said:

She's doing more to actively stop Biden's agenda than the actual GOP at this point.

 

Yeah.  Right.  

 

Name one "more" that she's doing.  

 

[LadySkinsFan]

Personally I need to have the government funded because I can't function without Social Security, which would be suspended. I got my payment last Wednesday and after paying my bills and spending $100 at the grocery store I have $7 left til the end of October. Without SS, I can't pay my rent or even more importantly pay my now obsolete Plan F which pays for the medical services that Medicare doesn't.

 

So for people like me, keeping the government funded is very important.

[China]

 

[China]

From Radical Activist to Senate Obstructionist: The Metamorphosis of Kyrsten Sinema

 

Kyrsten Sinema wasn’t the only Democrat to vote against including a $15 federal minimum wage in the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill in early March, but she was the only one whose vote became a meme. The clip itself is short and sparse: Sinema, the 44-year-old first-term Democratic senator from Arizona, walks briskly around the well of the chamber, gives Mitch McConnell a friendly pat on the back, and pauses in front of the clerk. Then she thrusts her right thumb dramatically down, dipping her body for emphasis.

 

“Ms. Sinema. Ms. Sinema: No,” says the clerk, recording her vote. But Sinema, by this point, is already gone.

 

That morning, she had brought a chocolate cake for the floor staff who worked long hours before the final stimulus vote. Now “Marie Antoinette” was trending on Twitter. Within a few hours, the image was everywhere—on cable news, late-night shows, even the side of an old flour mill in downtown Tempe, near the intersection where, in 2003, Sinema led an anti-war vigil on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. “Keep the cake,” read the message projected onto the building. “Support the $15 minimum wage now.”

 

To Sinema’s progressive critics, her vote was a funhouse mirror image of John McCain’s thumbs-down vote to save the Affordable Care Act four years earlier—only now an Arizona Democrat was rejecting one of her party’s biggest legislative priorities. More alarming was her opposition to reforming the filibuster, the Senate rule that allows a minority of senators to block a piece of legislation from coming to a vote. Weeks earlier, Sinema, who rarely speaks to reporters from news outlets that are not based in her home state, had drawn a sharp line during an interview with Politico: “I want to restore the 60-vote threshold for all elements of the Senate’s work,” she said. In the face of united Republican opposition, many Democrats feared such a standard would doom almost every piece of their agenda—from immigration reform to voting rights to LGBTQ equality.

 

Democrats expected such intransigence from West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, a conservative from a state Donald Trump carried by 39 points, who once shot climate legislation with a gun and whose wife cuts his hair with a Flowbee. But to those who have supported Sinema from the beginning of her career, her heel-turn is more painful. Long before she became one of the Democratic caucus’s most centrist members, Sinema was so liberal she refused to even join the party. From her family’s struggle with poverty during her childhood to her Green Party roots, her rise is the story of striving and adaptation, and of the transformation not just of an idealist, but of a state—from a Republican stronghold she once dubbed the “meth lab of democracy” to a bona fide battleground.

 

But in the process, Sinema has left some back home wondering whether she’s misread the lessons of her own ascent. As a progressive in one of the nation’s most conservative state legislatures, Sinema abandoned her early radicalism for a new theory of change. She learned to play nice, seeking incremental progress through careful messaging and across-the-aisle relationships, and reinventing herself as a post-partisan deal-maker. But her success was also powered by an army of activists—outsiders like she had once been—operating on a far different theory of change. Now, for the first time in her career, she holds real power. The future of the party and the Senate just might hinge on what Kyrsten Sinema wants to do with it.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Sinema's unforced errors have cost her big-time with Arizona Democrats

 

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona has committed two political sins this year that have decimated her standing with Arizona's Democratic voters. One—a vote against including a $15 minimum-wage hike in Democrats' pandemic relief package—left the indelible image of Sinema flashing her thumbs down on the Senate floor, punctuated by a sickly ironic curtsy as she denied several million Americans the chance to lift themselves out of poverty. Sinema was one of eight senators who caucus with Democrats to vote against inclusion of the minimum wage increase the pandemic bill.

 

In the Civiqs tracking poll, Sinema started out the minimum wage battle earlier this year with a 60-plus favorability among Arizona Democrats until around mid-February, when she began making known her intention to vote against its inclusion in the American Rescue Plan. By the time the Arizona senator came out the other side of that vote, her favorables among the state’s Democratic voters had been cut nearly in half to about 33%.

 

But the less infamous point of ignominy that tanked Sinema's approvals among her state's Democratic voters was a function of her absence rather than her presence. After calling a vote for a bipartisan commission to investigate Jan. 6 "critical," Sinema decided to just skip it anyway. The May 28 vote on the bipartisan commission, which had already cleared the House, failed in the Senate 54 - 35. The Senate vote required 60 “yeas” to beat a GOP filibuster and would have failed even if Sinema had decided to show up. 

 

But to add insult to injury, a Sinema spokesperson offered that the Senator "would've voted yes" if she had been there.

 

Not surprisingly, that response failed to quell the controversy. The following week, Sinema gave it another unconvincing try while standing side-by-side with Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas after touring migrant facilities in Tucson. 

 

"I had a personal family matter," Sinema offered curtly, without elaborating further.

 

In the same press conference, Sinema re-upped her defense of the Senate filibuster rule, saying it "protects the democracy of our nation," despite the fact that the 60-vote threshold had just doomed a commission she declared "critical" and would have otherwise cleared the upper chamber with a simple majority.

 

In Civiqs tracking, Sinema emerged from the Jan. 6 commission flap with a disastrous 18% favorability rating among Democrats. Her favorables with Republicans, however, ticked up nearly 10 points while also gaining a handful of points with independents, virtually offsetting her drop among Democratic voters.

 

The long and the short of it is, Democratic voters appear to have concluded that Sinema doesn't share their values, presently leaving her with a catastrophic 17% favorable to 65% unfavorable rating among them, according to Civiqs tracking.

 

Sinema may ultimately earn some good will among Arizona Democrats if both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Democrats-only jobs bill manage to reach President Joe Biden's desk. But depending on how those bills land with the public, Sinema's clear objections to several of the bill's most popular provisions might also chafe Democratic voters. Not only has Sinema opposed the popular prescription drug pricing provision, she is also reportedly lobbying against certain corporate and individual tax rate increases Democrats hope to use to fund their $3.5 trillion budget bill.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Simmsy]

I find it odd that so many of you are suddenly running to defend Sinema all of a sudden. Is it because there is talk of censure and primary? Do you all really think she's that important? You guys can post all the articles you want about how she isn't that bad or "but she voted for this", I'm not buying it, folks. She ran as a progressive and as soon as she got into office she threw all of that talk out of the window. Sinema is willing to **** all over the entire country, for what? Her enjoyment? Financial gain? She is supposed to be helping the Dems and she's (almost) single handedly tanking everything, but she's not that bad? Even if she's willing to vote for the smaller stuff, she won't vote for the inherently important legislation, which carries more concerning weight for me.

 

Enough of these DINOs, get actual legislators in office. Sinema may have fooled her constituents, but we all know Manchin is a hack. They're both that bad and they both need to get the **** out.

[gbear]

They are the only reason Mitch isn't running the Senate at the moment.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Who had Russell Brand becoming a tighty righty?  

[Renegade7]

2 hours ago, gbear said:

They are the only reason Mitch isn't running the Senate at the moment.

 

He's not?  The way those two are acting he seems jus as damaging to the country with the weight of his fellow senate Republicans behind him.  Outside of jus flat out not voting on stuff, whats changed?  Major stuff still isn't happening, we still come up to the wall of the government shutting down.  This slim majority is proving damn near useless.

[Simmsy]

1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

Who had Russell Brand becoming a tighty righty?  

 

Is that why my right wing friend is sending me Russell Brand Facebook Live videos? I didn't actually watch.

[Spaceman Spiff]

16 minutes ago, Simmsy said:

 

Is that why my right wing friend is sending me Russell Brand Facebook Live videos? I didn't actually watch.

 

Probably.  Liberals are losing their minds over it, too.  Big backlash.  

[The Evil Genius]

1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

Who had Russell Brand becoming a tighty righty?  

 

10 minutes ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

Probably.  Liberals are losing their minds over it, too.  Big backlash.  

 

Technically I think he's bought into conspiracy bull**** more than becoming right wing. And I doubt the 2nd one much as I suspect most of us don't give a flying **** about Russell Brand and/or his career.  

[Spaceman Spiff]

24 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

 

Technically I think he's bought into conspiracy bull**** more than becoming right wing. And I doubt the 2nd one much as I suspect most of us don't give a flying **** about Russell Brand and/or his career.  

 

Yeah, but they're right wing conspiracy theories.  I haven't watched it, but one of his latest pieces discussed Trump/Russia and how there was no correlation.  

 

In regards to caring about his career, I don't really care.  That said I do like that he was able to kick his addiction problem and help others do the same.

[TradeTheBeal!]

Folks see the huge, easy money that former comedian Rogan is making and they want a piece.  Former actor Brand makes a bid for podcast mega-wealth.

 

 

[TradeTheBeal!]

LULLLLZZZZ.  Stay on that grind, junkie.

 

 

[Renegade7]

The internet is making stupidity profitable. Severe backfire.

[TheGreatBuzz]

9 hours ago, Simmsy said:

I find it odd that so many of you are suddenly running to defend Sinema all of a sudden.

I can't speak for others but for me, it was because you were being disingenuous regarding her record.  You were ignoring facts that I even presented for you.  Hate her for the right reasons, no need to make wild claims.