How to fix the Democratic Party

[Larry]

Advocate: Watch Pete Buttigieg Prove Why He's a TV Mainstay

 

Quote

 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is excited about building stuff. That's the message he sent during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

 

"It's important not to be too subtle about the message," Buttigieg said, responding to a joke about the size of a ceremonial check he recently presented to a community in New Hampshire.

 

The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded a $19.5 million grant to a Berlin, N.H., project to pipe excess heat from the Burgess Biopower plant under streets and sidewalks to eliminate snow removal in downtown Berlin.

 

The former South Bend, Ind., mayor explained that as the former chief executive of a city, he understands the excitement that comes with innovative infrastructure projects.

 

"Any mayor from north of a certain latitude knows the battle of mayors versus snow is second only to the battle of mayors versus potholes," Buttigieg said, evoking a chuckle from the audience. 

 

"Now I get to be someone who's helping mayors across the country — like I used to be — deal with something like that."

 

Buttigieg said it was "striking" that many Republican lawmakers went to the floor of the House or Senate and voted down infrastructure funding but then turned around and claimed responsibility for the improvements when returning to their home regions.

 

"There's nothing better than seeing a skeptic become a convert," Buttigieg continued. "I call it the sincerest form of flattery if somebody was against your policy, and then when it's actually benefiting people who live in their communities, they can't hug it close enough."

 

 

 

[@DCGoldPants]

Orange Grimmace wants the SCOTUS to block the released of his tax returns. 

 

Here is an idea, Dems. States you control. To run for office in your State.... Governor, Senator, President, local or nationalm whatever. Taxes must be released and confirmed to appear on the ballot. 

 

 

[TheGreatBuzz]

1 hour ago, @DCGoldPants said:

Here is an idea, Dems. States you control. To run for office in your State.... Governor, Senator, President, local or nationalm whatever. Taxes must be released and confirmed to appear on the ballot. 

 

 

SCOTUS would rule that requirement is unconstitutional. 

[China]

3 minutes ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

 

SCOTUS would rule that requirement is unconstitutional. 

 

On what basis?

[Larry]

2 minutes ago, China said:

 

On what basis?

Oh, so now you want him to predict which lie they would use to do whatever they feel like?  
 

 

[TheGreatBuzz]

13 minutes ago, China said:

 

On what basis?

 

Whatever ****ing basis they want.  

[Renegade7]

20 minutes ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

 

Whatever ****ing basis they want.  

 

I wouldn't like that requirement either.

 

If in place, a compromise is it needs to go to actual authorities to vet, NOT the court of public opinion.

 

Basically you want to run for office, automatic 10 year audit triggered for the IRS, they already have process for dealing with criminal activity.

 

Congress needs to do better job clarifying what unethical acts are actually illegal versus letting the public pick and choose which ones they want to act like don't matter. 

[@DCGoldPants]

2 hours ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

 

SCOTUS would rule that requirement is unconstitutional. 

 

Probably. But I'd rather see someone challenge that and take it to SCOTUS. Then again, you'd think someone would have taken ranked choice by now too.

[Cooked Crack]

20 hours ago, @DCGoldPants said:

Orange Grimmace wants the SCOTUS to block the released of his tax returns. 

 

Here is an idea, Dems. States you control. To run for office in your State.... Governor, Senator, President, local or nationalm whatever. Taxes must be released and confirmed to appear on the ballot. 

 

 

Didn't work in California. At least for President. Maybe state races it would fly.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/21/politics/california-tax-returns-trump/index.html

[@DCGoldPants]

1 hour ago, Cooked Crack said:

Didn't work in California. At least for President. Maybe state races it would fly.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/21/politics/california-tax-returns-trump/index.html

 

That sucks. You have to be a certain age to run for president. How is that not an issue? 

[88Comrade2000]

11 minutes ago, @DCGoldPants said:

 

That sucks. You have to be a certain age to run for president. How is that not an issue? 

The age requirement for president is in the constitution 

[@DCGoldPants]

23 minutes ago, 88Comrade2000 said:

The age requirement for president is in the constitution 

how many terms wasn't originally. Just saying ammendments have happened.

[China]

Four Things Democrats Will Be Fighting About Until 2024

 

Democrats were locked and freakin’ loaded this week to argue with other Democrats about what they all assumed was going to be a major blowout in the House and quite possibly a loss of the Senate. One left-leaning organization, the Revolving Door Project, sent a memo to Slate on Tuesday afternoon—before polls closed—already blaming corporate influence and overcautious rhetoric for the party’s presumed losses.

 

That document was “embargoed,” i.e., sent on the condition that it not be quoted from until election results came in. But another organization, the centrist group Third Way, let Axios print excerpts from its memo on Monday; it complained that Democrats have become too “extreme” (i.e., liberal), particularly on issues like crime.

 

And then, definitely to the surprise of these groups, the party did quite well, or at least has done quite well in the results tallied so far. Remarkably, it did so in a way that gives neither of its major factions much to blame the other for. Centrists like Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger and Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin won their races. But so did Chris Deluzio, a former Bernie Sanders delegate who won a House district in Pennsylvania previously held by conservative-leaning Dem. Conor Lamb, and Summer Lee, an outright leftist, who won nearby. As did candidates like John Fetterman and Gretchen Whitmer, who are relatively mainstream overall but don’t mind being perceived as aggressively liberal on issues like criminal justice reform (in Fetterman’s case) or abortion (in Whitmer’s). Finally, the youth vote seems to have helped Democrats everywhere, which at the least suggests that Joe Biden’s calculatedly leftist decision to forgive some student loan debt was not a disaster.

 

But Democrats have long been the more fretful of the two major parties, and whether they hold the Senate depends on a Dec. 6 runoff in Georgia and mail-in votes in Nevada and Arizona that may take several days to count. The House could come down to an even longer mail-in tally process in California. The still-extant possibility of coming this close to holding both chambers, only to lose them, naturally leads one to think about what might have been done on the margin.

 

So here are four questions that the party’s supporters and officials can have bitter arguments about in the meantime—ranked in roughly descending order of the possibility that anyone could have ever realistically done anything about the problems described therein.

 

• Did they give up on Wisconsin and North Carolina too early (and make the wrong gamble in Florida)?
• Whose fault is New York state?
• Why didn’t the party do more about gerrymandering?
• OK, but should Joe Biden really, really run again?
   

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

That's a yikes from me

[Captain Wiggles]

Swalwell might wanna look into the doings that transpired while Qatar was building all that infrastructure for the World Cup. 😬

[China]

House Democrats elect Ted Lieu as party vice chair

 

House Democrats on Wednesday elected Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) to serve as vice chair of the caucus next year, solidifying his place as the highest ranking Asian American in Congress.

Lieu bested three other lawmakers — Reps. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) — in a closed-ballot vote to secure his spot as the No. 5 House Democrat in the next Congress.

 

After the vote, Lieu vowed to use his new position “to advance Democratic values and to stop stupid stuff from MAGA Republicans.” He also noted the historic nature of his ascension. 

“It’s not lost on me the importance of this vote for the Asian American community,” he said. “And I want to thank both the Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus for endorsing me for the position.”

 

The vice chair position is currently held by Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), who will vacate the seat next year to replace Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in the chairman spot. Jeffries, in turn, is ascending to the top position in the party, replacing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who is stepping out of leadership next year after 20 years at the helm of House Democrats.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Senate Democrats reject proposal to share more power

 

Senate Democrats voted by secret ballot Thursday to reject a proposal sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to bar senior members from the Democratic leadership from also chairing A-list committees — a reform aimed squarely at top members of Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) leadership team.  

 

The proposal would have required three Democratic chairs — Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (Ill.), Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) — to pick between their gavels or their senior leadership positions.  

 

Durbin also serves as the Senate Democratic whip, while Stabenow chairs the Senate Democratic Policy and Communications Committee and Klobuchar heads the Senate Democratic Steering Committee.  

 

Under current caucus rules, they can hold senior leadership positions and committee chairmanships simultaneously.  

 

But some Democrats want power to be shared more broadly, though they have kept their complaints about not having more input into major political and policy decisions behind closed doors.  

 

Whitehouse declined to comment in detail about his proposed reform, telling The Hill this week: “Caucus stuff stays in caucus.” 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[@DCGoldPants]

9 minutes ago, China said:

Senate Democrats reject proposal to share more power

 

Senate Democrats voted by secret ballot Thursday to reject a proposal sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to bar senior members from the Democratic leadership from also chairing A-list committees — a reform aimed squarely at top members of Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) leadership team.  

 

The proposal would have required three Democratic chairs — Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (Ill.), Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) — to pick between their gavels or their senior leadership positions.  

 

Durbin also serves as the Senate Democratic whip, while Stabenow chairs the Senate Democratic Policy and Communications Committee and Klobuchar heads the Senate Democratic Steering Committee.  

 

Under current caucus rules, they can hold senior leadership positions and committee chairmanships simultaneously.  

 

But some Democrats want power to be shared more broadly, though they have kept their complaints about not having more input into major political and policy decisions behind closed doors.  

 

Whitehouse declined to comment in detail about his proposed reform, telling The Hill this week: “Caucus stuff stays in caucus.” 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Boo. That is pretty extreme to not want Senior Leadership chairing "A-List Committees". But something in the middle about limits to how many, or if they have already.

 

But, Whatever. Senate Dems still haven't gotten the message from the House where the Oldies are handing **** over to the next Gen. 

[@DCGoldPants]

 

Prepping for her future on cable news or a lobbyist.

 

[Cooked Crack]

That's one way not to get primaried. Hopefully she retires by 24.

[88Comrade2000]

You knew Kirsten would do something like that. Mitch will be lobbying Joe to switch parties.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

Sinema saw her power evaporate with Dems holding 51 seats.

[Cooked Crack]

 

Pretty much. She's just doing this to not get primaried. Will still vote with the Democrats and keep committees. Unless Arizona goes rank choice by the next election this will just split the vote. I really disklike this lady.

[88Comrade2000]

11 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

 

Pretty much. She's just doing this to not get primaried. Will still vote with the Democrats and keep committees. Unless Arizona goes rank choice by the next election this will just split the vote. I really disklike this lady.

She is done as a Senator. She knew she would lose a Dem primary in 24.  In a 3 way race in 24, she will still lose. Don’t think she has that much support.

[LD0506]

ToS ain't gonna let me comment on this one