Democrats 2020

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Well, tonight's the next debate, yes? There will be zero people advocating peace in foreign affairs on that stage.

Even though zero votes have been cast there are three front-runners: Biden, Warren, and Sanders. If trends continue as they are today, one of those three will probably be the nominee. If trends continue as they are today, the other people on that stage will not be the nominee.

The polls are being carefully selected to ensure that only the ones that don't show Gabbard getting the minimum level of support are the qualifying polls. There are people on that stage among "the other people" who have aggregated support less than Gabbard. The DNC is afraid she'll take down Warren the way she took down Harris. That would leave them without a backup to Biden in case he collapses before the convention.

 

[PyramidHead]

Well, tonight's the next debate, yes? There will be zero people advocating peace in foreign affairs on that stage.

Even though zero votes have been cast there are three front-runners: Biden, Warren, and Sanders. If trends continue as they are today, one of those three will probably be the nominee. If trends continue as they are today, the other people on that stage will not be the nominee.

The polls are being carefully selected to ensure that only the ones that don't show Gabbard getting the minimum level of support are the qualifying polls. There are people on that stage among "the other people" who have aggregated support less than Gabbard. The DNC is afraid she'll take down Warren the way she took down Harris. That would leave them without a backup to Biden in case he collapses before the convention.

Gabbard is a hawk compared to Sanders. She's fine with killing brown people as long as drones are used and Americans don't get in harm's way. Loved by the likes of Modi and Steve Bannon. Anti-imperialist she is not.

 

[Copernicus]

Gabbard seems to be he favorite pick of Republicans for the Democratic nomination. My brother, who is a rabid Trump supporter, says that he will vote in the Democratic primary for Gabbard. He has no intention of voting for her in the general election, however. He just thinks that she would cause the most chaos for Democrats. Since Trump has almost no competition, and may not even have to face primaries, some Republican partisans may be voting in Democratic primaries and caucuses, but not really enough to make any significant difference in the outcomes.

 

[ZiprHead]

Gabbard seems to be he favorite pick of Republicans for the Democratic nomination. My brother, who is a rabid Trump supporter, says that he will vote in the Democratic primary for Gabbard. He has no intention of voting for her in the general election, however. He just thinks that she would cause the most chaos for Democrats. Since Trump has almost no competition, and may not even have to face primaries, some Republican partisans may be voting in Democratic primaries and caucuses, but not really enough to make any significant difference in the outcomes.

Yeah, I never got that. Public voting for the top member of what is essentially a private organization.

Republicans did that in Michigan, crossed over and got ambulance chaser Jeffrey Fieger the Democratic choice for governor. Republican cheating has been going on for a very long time.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Gabbard is a hawk compared to Sanders.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5E7feJHw0[/youtube]

It is true that Gabbard has appeal across party lines. I guess that's a bad thing in today's dichotomized world.

 

[angelo]

Yea, I'd love to see her get her arse kicked again, but by an even bigger margin!

Have you considered seeing a therapist for this?

Remember, it is Trump Derangement Syndrome to call out his actions with North Korea, he senseless tariff, or his heartless immigration / asylum policy, but the obsession with Clinton is perfectly normal behavior.

Of course it is. The Trumpet is guilty as sin to not to throw open the borders to one and all and stuff the American dream. What's a few million more welfare recipients to an economy as large as the USA's? I'm betting that you guys were really devastated when the Soviet Union collapsed!

 

[Harry Bosch]

Well, tonight's the next debate, yes? There will be zero people advocating peace in foreign affairs on that stage.

Even though zero votes have been cast there are three front-runners: Biden, Warren, and Sanders. If trends continue as they are today, one of those three will probably be the nominee. If trends continue as they are today, the other people on that stage will not be the nominee.

The polls are being carefully selected to ensure that only the ones that don't show Gabbard getting the minimum level of support are the qualifying polls. There are people on that stage among "the other people" who have aggregated support less than Gabbard. The DNC is afraid she'll take down Warren the way she took down Harris. That would leave them without a backup to Biden in case he collapses before the convention.

Gabbard is a hawk compared to Sanders. She's fine with killing brown people as long as drones are used and Americans don't get in harm's way. Loved by the likes of Modi and Steve Bannon. Anti-imperialist she is not.

Do you have a link that supports this assertion?

 

[southernhybrid]

I only watched the first hour of the debates, which was all I could stand. I don't think these debates change anyone's mind. People who are supporting a candidate aren't going to change their minds based on these debates. I was amused reading some comments on the NYTimes. It was very obvious that posters who liked a particular candidate felt that their candidate did an outstanding job during the debates.

 

[Politesse]

Gabbard seems to be he favorite pick of Republicans for the Democratic nomination. My brother, who is a rabid Trump supporter, says that he will vote in the Democratic primary for Gabbard. He has no intention of voting for her in the general election, however. He just thinks that she would cause the most chaos for Democrats. Since Trump has almost no competition, and may not even have to face primaries, some Republican partisans may be voting in Democratic primaries and caucuses, but not really enough to make any significant difference in the outcomes.

Yeah, I never got that. Public voting for the top member of what is essentially a private organization.

Republicans did that in Michigan, crossed over and got ambulance chaser Jeffrey Fieger the Democratic choice for governor. Republican cheating has been going on for a very long time.

I voted for Romney in the primaries back in 2012. Sometimes the situation in "the other party" is just more concerning to you than whether your own (incumbent, inevitable) candidate gets a nearly guaranteed vote. I can see where a conservative would see themselves as having a legitimate interest in keeping the more overt socialist lites off the ticket. If the parties want to be seen as "private organizations", they are welcome to cede their governance powers. Until then, their business is everyone's business.

 

[TV and credit cards]

I only watched the first hour of the debates, which was all I could stand. I don't think these debates change anyone's mind. People who are supporting a candidate aren't going to change their minds based on these debates. I was amused reading some comments on the NYTimes. It was very obvious that posters who liked a particular candidate felt that their candidate did an outstanding job during the debates.

My preference is and has been Mayor Pete but if he can’t start standing out from the crowd, I’m going to cut him off and start supporting another. He’s just not getting any traction.
Meanwhile, Warren has moved up a notch on my list.

Something I do do during these debates is eliminate people. Kamala Harris was my strong second but the more I watch her painfully try to connect with the people during these debates, the more I’m inclined to advise her to to take a couple classes at Hillary Clinton’s charm school.
Kamala, you can’t deliver a joke. When it falls flat, don’t laugh. Damn sure don’t cackle.
The more I hear Biden speak the more I think he needs a full time nurse. His speech patterns are getting more fragmented. He’s reminding me of John McLaughlin in his final days.
Bernie’s another one. I’ve never been a Bernie Bro. I’ve always seen him as a one hit wonder stuck on income inequality. I swear, you could ask that guy for his lasagna recipe and he’d end with a screed about the one percent. Last night’s performance just reinforced my opinion of him.

 

[Politesse]

I only watched the first hour of the debates, which was all I could stand. I don't think these debates change anyone's mind. People who are supporting a candidate aren't going to change their minds based on these debates. I was amused reading some comments on the NYTimes. It was very obvious that posters who liked a particular candidate felt that their candidate did an outstanding job during the debates.

My preference is and has been Mayor Pete but if he can’t start standing out from the crowd, I’m going to cut him off and start supporting another. He’s just not getting any traction.
Meanwhile, Warren has moved up a notch on my list.

Something I do do during these debates is eliminate people. Kamala Harris was my strong second but the more I watch her painfully try to connect with the people during these debates, the more I’m inclined to advise her to to take a couple classes at Hillary Clinton’s charm school.
Kamala, you can’t deliver a joke. When it falls flat, don’t laugh. Damn sure don’t cackle.
The more I hear Biden speak the more I think he needs a full time nurse. His speech patterns are getting more fragmented. He’s reminding me of John McLaughlin in his final days.
Bernie’s another one. I’ve never been a Bernie Bro. I’ve always seen him as a one hit wonder stuck on income inequality. I swear, you could ask that guy for his lasagna recipe and he’d end with a screed about the one percent. Last night’s performance just reinforced my opinion of him.

I think Mayor Pete is nearly guaranteed a place on the Cabinet. The DNC doesn't need him in the mayor's office of South Bend nearly as much as they need the PR of having him attached to the next White House somehow.

 

[PyramidHead]

Well, tonight's the next debate, yes? There will be zero people advocating peace in foreign affairs on that stage.

Even though zero votes have been cast there are three front-runners: Biden, Warren, and Sanders. If trends continue as they are today, one of those three will probably be the nominee. If trends continue as they are today, the other people on that stage will not be the nominee.

The polls are being carefully selected to ensure that only the ones that don't show Gabbard getting the minimum level of support are the qualifying polls. There are people on that stage among "the other people" who have aggregated support less than Gabbard. The DNC is afraid she'll take down Warren the way she took down Harris. That would leave them without a backup to Biden in case he collapses before the convention.

Gabbard is a hawk compared to Sanders. She's fine with killing brown people as long as drones are used and Americans don't get in harm's way. Loved by the likes of Modi and Steve Bannon. Anti-imperialist she is not.

Do you have a link that supports this assertion?

Tulsi Gabbard is not your friend

But Gabbard’s almost singular focus on the damage these wars inflict domestically, and her comparative lack of focus on the carnage they wreak in the countries under attack, is troubling. It is nationalism in antiwar garb, reinforcing instead of undercutting the toxic rhetoric that treats foreigners as less deserving of dignity than Americans. (Gabbard’s brand of anti-interventionism has even received praise from former KKK grand wizard David Duke, who called for her to be named secretary of state.)

And it still produces its fair share of bloodshed. Like campaign-era Trump, Gabbard may be against miring the United States in blunderous, short-sighted conflicts that backfire, but she’s more than willing to use America’s military might to go after suspected terrorists around the world (and inevitably kill and maim civilians in the process). In the same Truthout interview, responding to a question about drones, Gabbard said that “there is a place for the use of this technology, as well as smaller, quick-strike special force teams versus tens, if not hundreds of thousands of soldiers occupying space within a country.”

It’s a point she’s repeated again and again. Responding to questions from Honolulu Civil Beat in 2012, Gabbard said that “the best way to defeat the terrorists is through strategically placed, small quick-strike special forces and drones — the strategy that took out Osama Bin Laden.” She told Fox in 2014 that she would direct “the great military that we have” to conduct “unconventional strategic precise operations to take out these terrorists wherever they are.” The same year, she told Civil Beat that military strategy must “put the safety of Americans above all else” and “utilize our highly skilled special operations forces, work with and support trusted foreign partners to seek and destroy this threat.”

“In short, when it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” she told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald last year. “When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.”

She's basically an isolationist neocon.

Gabbard was subsequently one of three Democrats — the others being New Jersey senator Cory Booker and Maryland congressman John Delaney — who secured an invitation to AEI’s annual closed-to-the-press retreat, where she hobnobbed with the likes of Dick Cheney, Bill Kristol, Mike Pence, Rupert Murdoch, the DeVoses, and a host of other major conservative figures. At the AEI’s urging, she had earlier spoken at the Halifax International Security Forum, an annual gathering of national security wonks sponsored by Lockheed Martin, Canada’s Department of National Defence, and others.

Another reason Gabbard started receiving applause from the Right was her very public skepticism of the Iran deal.The Obama administration may have continued much of the Bush approach to the “war on terror,” but it at least recognized the value of diplomacy. Not Gabbard, however, who told Fox News she was “cynical” toward the pact, and agreed with host Greta van Susteren that it was akin to Neville Chamberlain’s infamous Munich agreement with Hitler in 1938.

Breitbart gleefully quoted her in headlines expressing “many” and “great” concerns over the deal as it was being negotiated. On the day the agreement was finalized, she issued a statement saying, “We cannot afford to make the same mistake with Iran that was made with North Korea,” citing North Korea’s abrogation of the Agreed Framework agreement it had signed in 1994. When Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his unprecedented speech to Congress in March 2015 in an attempt to torpedo the deal, Gabbard didn’t join the significant number of Democrats who boycotted the speech. She attended it.

In light of this, the fact that Gabbard received a “Champion of Freedom” award at the Jewish Values Gala — an awards ceremony held by the World Values Network, which was founded by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, an enthusiastic Trump supporter — in between campaigning for Sanders is less puzzling.

She sides with imperialism against the Middle East whenever the issue comes up, but doesn't like how much money we spend doing it, or how many Americans die doing it, so she comes off as a peacenik compared to the last generation of Republicans who hadn't yet learned that trick.

 

[lpetrich]

Enough With “Novelty Candidates” | Dame Magazine

Andrew Yang has a message, which is that everyone should get $1,000 a month. (Don’t disagree!) Jay Inslee has a message, which is that we need to prioritize climate change. (True!) Marianne Williamson has a message, which is … something about love, I think? Loving yourself. Loving others. Calling the president of New Zealand to taunt her with your superior love capacity. I don’t know, but I know that Williamson, with her unplaceable accent and crystals-and-moonbeams vibe, makes for good meme fodder, and that makes her a great Novelty Candidate. Great enough that, all of a sudden, a whole bunch of people who should know better are treating her as if she is something other than a novelty: You could write it off as a joke when Chapo Trap House booked Williamson as a guest, but Bernie Sanders’s National Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray did not appear to be employing any level of irony when she deemed Williamson a “progressive female candidate,” and Ezra Klein was straight-faced when he claimed that Williamson was “legit outshining most of the candidates on that stage.”

I think that any of these candidates would be a tons better president than tRump.

Why Marianne Williamson Brought Up Jacinda Ardern - New Zealand's Prime Minister.

During Thursday night’s Democratic primary debate, Oprah’s spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson — the only presidential candidate who wants to "harness love for political purposes" — proclaimed that her first move as president would be to challenge New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to a Mom-off. "My first call is to the prime minister of New Zealand, who said that her goal is to make New Zealand the place where it’s the best place in the world for a child to grow up," she said. "I would tell her, 'Girlfriend, you are so wrong,' because the United States of America is going to be the best place in the world for a child to grow up." It was a weird moment, to say the least. While it is clear the presidential hopeful is signaling that child advocacy is a large part of her platform, what’s less obvious is why she zeroed in on Ardern, and exactly how she plans to back up her trash-talk.

Democratic debate: the best and most substantive answers of the night - Vox

• Bernie Sanders turns a question on Venezuela into a defense of democratic socialism
• Pete Buttigieg tells his coming out story — a presidential candidate first
• Julian Castro pokes at the Obama administration’s record on immigration
• Andrew Yang weaves his family’s immigration story into the American immigration story
• Amy Klobuchar makes the case against Medicare-for-all
• Elizabeth Warren makes the case for Medicare-for-all
• Beto O’Rourke makes the case for taking guns away
• Kamala Harris gets to the heart of the matter on trade — it’s about selling stuff

Democratic debate winners and losers: September 2019 - Vox
Winners:

• Beto O'Rourke
• Barack Obama
• Julián Castro
• 10 randomly selected families who give Andrew Yang their emails
• Foreign policy

Losers:

• Mid-tier candidates
• Free trade
• The courts

 

[Elixir]

Beto throws a grenade into the formal party... Nice. But I wouldn't classify him as a winner.
More like a Kamikaze pilot.
Question: Did the government force buybacks of fully automatic weapons/machine guns?

 

[Harry Bosch]

Do you have a link that supports this assertion?

Tulsi Gabbard is not your friend

But Gabbard’s almost singular focus on the damage these wars inflict domestically, and her comparative lack of focus on the carnage they wreak in the countries under attack, is troubling. It is nationalism in antiwar garb, reinforcing instead of undercutting the toxic rhetoric that treats foreigners as less deserving of dignity than Americans. (Gabbard’s brand of anti-interventionism has even received praise from former KKK grand wizard David Duke, who called for her to be named secretary of state.)

And it still produces its fair share of bloodshed. Like campaign-era Trump, Gabbard may be against miring the United States in blunderous, short-sighted conflicts that backfire, but she’s more than willing to use America’s military might to go after suspected terrorists around the world (and inevitably kill and maim civilians in the process). In the same Truthout interview, responding to a question about drones, Gabbard said that “there is a place for the use of this technology, as well as smaller, quick-strike special force teams versus tens, if not hundreds of thousands of soldiers occupying space within a country.”

It’s a point she’s repeated again and again. Responding to questions from Honolulu Civil Beat in 2012, Gabbard said that “the best way to defeat the terrorists is through strategically placed, small quick-strike special forces and drones — the strategy that took out Osama Bin Laden.” She told Fox in 2014 that she would direct “the great military that we have” to conduct “unconventional strategic precise operations to take out these terrorists wherever they are.” The same year, she told Civil Beat that military strategy must “put the safety of Americans above all else” and “utilize our highly skilled special operations forces, work with and support trusted foreign partners to seek and destroy this threat.”

“In short, when it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” she told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald last year. “When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.”

She's basically an isolationist neocon.

Gabbard was subsequently one of three Democrats — the others being New Jersey senator Cory Booker and Maryland congressman John Delaney — who secured an invitation to AEI’s annual closed-to-the-press retreat, where she hobnobbed with the likes of Dick Cheney, Bill Kristol, Mike Pence, Rupert Murdoch, the DeVoses, and a host of other major conservative figures. At the AEI’s urging, she had earlier spoken at the Halifax International Security Forum, an annual gathering of national security wonks sponsored by Lockheed Martin, Canada’s Department of National Defence, and others.

Another reason Gabbard started receiving applause from the Right was her very public skepticism of the Iran deal.The Obama administration may have continued much of the Bush approach to the “war on terror,” but it at least recognized the value of diplomacy. Not Gabbard, however, who told Fox News she was “cynical” toward the pact, and agreed with host Greta van Susteren that it was akin to Neville Chamberlain’s infamous Munich agreement with Hitler in 1938.

Breitbart gleefully quoted her in headlines expressing “many” and “great” concerns over the deal as it was being negotiated. On the day the agreement was finalized, she issued a statement saying, “We cannot afford to make the same mistake with Iran that was made with North Korea,” citing North Korea’s abrogation of the Agreed Framework agreement it had signed in 1994. When Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his unprecedented speech to Congress in March 2015 in an attempt to torpedo the deal, Gabbard didn’t join the significant number of Democrats who boycotted the speech. She attended it.

In light of this, the fact that Gabbard received a “Champion of Freedom” award at the Jewish Values Gala — an awards ceremony held by the World Values Network, which was founded by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, an enthusiastic Trump supporter — in between campaigning for Sanders is less puzzling.

She sides with imperialism against the Middle East whenever the issue comes up, but doesn't like how much money we spend doing it, or how many Americans die doing it, so she comes off as a peacenik compared to the last generation of Republicans who hadn't yet learned that trick.

??? You stated that "She's fine with killing brown people as long as drones are used and Americans don't get in harm's way. Loved by the likes of Modi and Steve Bannon. Anti-imperialist she is not." I asked you to please support your assertion. Then you link an opinion piece to support your opinion. As an aside, why do some white people assume that all terrorists are brown people? If you want some real stats that demonstrate that this is false, let me know.

If you would actually read her positions from a neutral source you'd understand that she is against the US invading other countries to prevent terrorism. Neocons are those who want to invade countries to fight terrorists, occupy the countries, then encourage them to adopt western values and eventually fight terrorism on their own. This is what Tuli is against! She wants no occupation. She's the opposite of a neocon! Sure she wants to fight terrorists. She wants to either bring terrorists to justice if possible or kill them. Sounds good to me.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

As an aside, why do some white people assume that all terrorists are brown people?

That is basically how he thinks.

If you would actually read her positions from a neutral source you'd understand that she is against the US invading other countries to prevent terrorism. Neocons are those who want to invade countries to fight terrorists, occupy the countries, then encourage them to adopt western values and eventually fight terrorism on their own. This is what Tuli is against! She wants no occupation. She's the opposite of a neocon! Sure she wants to fight terrorists. She wants to either bring terrorists to justice if possible or kill them. Sounds good to me.

Silly Harry, those are facts. He doesn't care about those.

 

[Derec]

Saw a member of the Yang Gang in the wild, at the local QT this afternoon. Somewhat surprisingly, it was an older (60s?) black woman, wearing a "Yang 2020" t-shirt.

 

[Derec]

Question: Did the government force buybacks of fully automatic weapons/machine guns?

No idea. But as an aside, β's plan is not so much like the (sub)machine gun ban at all - it would be more like identifying some popular models (Tommy gun for example) and just banning those. He wants to ban just AK-47s and AR-15s, but other rifles using same ammunition are just as powerful and other semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines can fire the same number of bullets in the same short time. If he wants to be consistent, he'd go after a lot more than just AK-47s and AR-15s.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Question: Did the government force buybacks of fully automatic weapons/machine guns?

No idea. But as an aside, β's plan is not so much like the (sub)machine gun ban at all - it would be more like identifying some popular models (Tommy gun for example) and just banning those. He wants to ban just AK-47s and AR-15s, but other rifles using same ammunition are just as powerful and other semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines can fire the same number of bullets in the same short time. If he wants to be consistent, he'd go after a lot more than just AK-47s and AR-15s.

He is consistent. Look at the legislation he supports.

 

[lpetrich]

I decided to consider how the participants are dressed, since I noticed Amy Klobuchar dressed in a pantsuit when she had earlier been dressed in a skirtsuit.

Sources of pictures:

• First debate: What We Learned From the 2020 Democratic Debates - The New York Times
• Second debate: Two Debates Down. Ten to Go. - The New York Times
• Third debate: Democratic debate: the best and most substantive answers of the night - Vox
• CNN climate Town Hall

All the men dressed in business suits with black or dark blue pants and jackets, and white or light blue shirts. However, they did have a lot of variety of ties, and only Andrew Yang had no tie in all of them. Beto O'Rourke was tieless in the climate one but not in the other ones.

Elizabeth Warren wore pantsuits in all four, with black pants and shirts, and red, purple, and bluish-green jackets

Kamala Harris wore all-black pantsuits in all four.

The two frontrunning women are thus like Hillary Clinton, notable for her pantsuits back in 2016.

Amy Klobuchar wore a skirtsuit in the first one and pantsuits in the others. The skirtsuit had a black skirt and jacket and a red shirt, and the pantsuits had black pants and shirts, and red and blue-green jackets.

Kirsten Gillibrand wore a blue dress in the first one and a red dress in the second one.

Tulsi Gabbard wore pantsuits in the first and second ones. In the first one, black pants and shirt and a red jacket, and in the second one, all white.

Marianne Williamson wore pantsuits in the first and second one. In the first one, light gray-cyan pants and jacket and some print shirt, and in the second one, black pants and jacket and white shirt.