Caroline Kennedy --- 2020

[vertical_doug]

I'd bet everyone would agree with that. But could you see any value redistricting two majority demographic districts into one majority district and one minority district to get the minority district better representation?

No value. Besides, SCOTUS has already ruled redistricting based on race is a no go. Besides, minority? which minority. its a slippery slope.

[bcm119]

I think trump wins in 2020. Kamala has wide appeal, but the bernie bros will tear her apart using rhetoric fed to them by the right wing.

[ericpmoss]

I think trump wins in 2020. Kamala has wide appeal, but the bernie bros will tear her apart using rhetoric fed to them by the right wing.

That's a load of hooie. Harris is being pushed by CNN (e.g. their free Iowa town hall promotional) because their parent company is her #1 source of funding. Her record as prosecutor is one of defending convictions based on tampered and withheld evidence. She opposed clemency for non-violent low-level drug offenders because she said California needed the cheap labor they provided. She opposed releasing a purported sex offender despite illegally withheld exculpatory evidence and the technicality that he didn't appeal in time. He's in for 70+ years for something he didn't do. Then there is how it was recommended that she prosecute Steve Mnuchin and OneWest for over 1000 cases of fraudulent foreclosures. Mnuchin and his wife donated to her campaign, and she didn't prosecute. Then there is how Wall Street bankers have declared that only she, Joe Biden and a few other pro-Wall Street people "can be allowed to run" in 2020. Wall Street is united against Bernie and Warren, which tells me they are the best two candidates. That's not right wing, and no, it's not what Putin told me to say.

[bcm119]

That's a load of hooie. Harris is being pushed by CNN (e.g. their free Iowa town hall promotional) because their parent company is her #1 source of funding. Her record as prosecutor is one of defending convictions based on tampered and withheld evidence. She opposed clemency for non-violent low-level drug offenders because she said California needed the cheap labor they provided. She opposed releasing a purported sex offender despite illegally withheld exculpatory evidence and the technicality that he didn't appeal in time. He's in for 70+ years for something he didn't do. Then there is how it was recommended that she prosecute Steve Mnuchin and OneWest for over 1000 cases of fraudulent foreclosures. Mnuchin and his wife donated to her campaign, and she didn't prosecute. Then there is how Wall Street bankers have declared that only she, Joe Biden and a few other pro-Wall Street people "can be allowed to run" in 2020. Wall Street is united against Bernie and Warren, which tells me they are the best two candidates. That's not right wing, and no, it's not what Putin told me to say.

I'm glad you don't live in a swing state, but I stand by my prediction.

[Doug Fattic]

Gerrymandering is why we have a republican Fred Upton as our representative in the southwest corner of Michigan where I live this term. It is also why during his career he has gone from being a moderate republican to a much more conservative one to avoid getting defeated in the primaries. I don't think our district has elected a democrat in the last 100 years. Fred’s grandfather started the Whirlpool Company and his niece is Kate Upton the SI model. He used to be really popular and would win by 70% or more. I’ve voted for him in the past but not now because his policies have shifted right and he like almost all other republicans are unwilling to discipline Trump. Our republican Michigan legislator carefully drew our district line to avoid the more liberal parts around Holland, Michigan. That area got absorbed into an even more conservative district where its effect is diluted. In this last election Fred almost got beat by a guy that worked in public health.

If our district line was drawn based on area not related to voting patterns it would have 2 effects. 1st Upton would not be shifting his philosophy right in order to win primary elections and 2nd he probably would not have won at all this last time. This is a local example of how gerrymandering makes politics more partisan.

Now I will explain why I have no use for Joe Biden. Joe was given $200,000 (1/5th of a million dollars) to give one speech at a conservative economic club here in southwest Michigan. This was right before the last November election. In that speech he lavished praised on Fred Upton. Of course republicans gleefully spread Joe’s praise around while democrats were really upset and begged Joe to show strong support for Upton’s rival. Joe was unwilling to do that. He shrugged and said nothing. Uggh!

So Joe’s willingness to put his own financial interests above the democratic candidate really irks me. As a reminder democratic control of the house was not assured and finally a solid red distract could have been switched to blue. I was not for him before because of his age and his baggage from the Clarence Thomas hearings among other things. But there was a good chance Upton could have been beat and that opportunity was lost partly because conservatives paid Biden’s a ton of money to give a speech they wanted to hear.

[ericpmoss]

I'm glad you don't live in a swing state, but I stand by my prediction.

You didn't address a single point. Harris is pro death penalty. She didn't prosecute Mnuchin after getting $ from him and his wife. She wanted a steady supply of cheap prison labor. She stood behind prosecutorial misconduct. She is preferred by Wall Street. You can look all these things up in about 5 minutes.

Call me a bernie bro (which is bullshit ad hominem invented by David Brock), but valid criticism is still valid.

[theflashunc]

Anybody who's come up through the Willie Brown Political Machine is going to have baggage, and Kamala is no exception. Let's not discount that California's primary is being bumped up to be one of, if not the, first in the nation for the 2020 cycle. California as a primary state is going to matter a lot.

She's got a home field advantage if that's the case.

[ides1056]

I went to google, and this was what came up on KOS: ( I don't have a dog in this fight btw)

First and foremost, let’s point out that of all the attorney generals and elected representatives in the country during the financial crisis, there was ONE who chose to investigate and who went after the banks for a settlement. That was Kamala Harris. She didn’t get any prosecutions or convictions, but she did strong-arm the banks into turning a $2 billion settlement proposal into $25 billion of immediate payments.

This can’t be overlooked. Sen. Harris was entirely responsible for pulling out of negotiations in 2011 in order to force the banks to pay more. And it worked. So before you get all high and mighty about how you would have for sure jailed some bankers, weigh what good it did California families to get $25 billion compared to what they would have gotten from watching a complex civil proceeding play out over five years.

She got money to people losing their homes, and that was more important.

On the OneWest issue, it’s a misnomer (ie, lie) that Harris “didn’t prosecute Mnuchin.” He was never under investigation, and Harris didn’t receive a referral to criminally prosecute anyone. What she got was a recommendation to file a civil enforcement action against OneWest. In such a filing, no one person is accused of anything. Instead, an entire company is looked at, and perhaps fined for wrongdoing.

So why didn’t she file the action? Well, Senator Harris isn’t exactly free to openly discuss that, because we don’t openly discuss investigations. It’s not appropriate to discuss partial evidence, suspicions, or rumors. This harms the party under investigation, who has a right to a presumption of innocence.

But the reasons this didn’t go anywhere are likely far simpler. The civil enforcement action requested by the consumer law division would have potentially fined OneWest in order to encourage them to fix their internal issues. Those fines would have been entirely passed on to shareholders. Sen. Harris likely saw no reason to invest time and energy in pursuing fines to be levied on people already losing their shirts, just so that OneWest would be encouraged to shape up, when the recession was ensuring banks were going to be forced to do that anyway.

Senator Harris won real results with real benefits for her constituents in a time when few public servants scored these sort of victories. She passed on a minor civil action and focused on winning Californians $25 billion in compensation.

[bcm119]

You didn't address a single point. Harris is pro death penalty. She didn't prosecute Mnuchin after getting $ from him and his wife. She wanted a steady supply of cheap prison labor. She stood behind prosecutorial misconduct. She is preferred by Wall Street. You can look all these things up in about 5 minutes.

Call me a bernie bro (which is bullshit ad hominem invented by David Brock), but valid criticism is still valid.

I'm not going to address each of your points, because I'll take your word for it. I'm sure your facts are true, but I would make sure you understand the entire context. Anyone running for president has a huge ego, and people with huge egos sometimes do shitty things. Conversely, sometimes things that appear shitty on the surface are missing proper context. Everyone is going to have baggage by the time they are serious contenders for president. This is what's lost on the Bernie or bust folks. Vote your heart in the primary, but if Kamala gets the nomination, none of her baggage matters on election day, because it's her or Trump. If you continue to rattle off your list of Kamala's atrocities, it will become a social media sensation and she will meet the same fate as Hillary. And that is my prediction.

[Cookietruck]

After years of hearing the chorus of ‘there is no real voter fraud’ in our country, we find out that 95,000 non-US citizens are registered to vote in Texas and 58,000 of them have actually voted in elections.

developing story...

Some names in list of 98, potential non-citizen voters included 'in error,' county officials say, citing state | Elections | Dallas News

[ericpmoss]

I'm not going to address each of your points, because I'll take your word for it. I'm sure your facts are true, but I would make sure you understand the entire context. Anyone running for president has a huge ego, and people with huge egos sometimes do shitty things. Conversely, sometimes things that appear shitty on the surface are missing proper context. Everyone is going to have baggage by the time they are serious contenders for president. This is what's lost on the Bernie or bust folks. Vote your heart in the primary, but if Kamala gets the nomination, none of her baggage matters on election day, because it's her or Trump. If you continue to rattle off your list of Kamala's atrocities, it will become a social media sensation and she will meet the same fate as Hillary. And that is my prediction.

Fine. My prediction is that the establishment and their media wing will smear Bernie and other progressives with any bullshit they can -- they are already at it with their meme-bots spreading #NeverBernie attacks. They'll give Trump and Harris (or Biden or whatever establishment favorite) all sorts of coverage, and look the other way when Bernie gets cheated by voter suppression like what happened in Rhode Island and NYC in 2016. They'll put up any number of me-too half-progressives so that the primary delegate vote is split, and with the dishonest rules change by the DNC, the superdelegates will swoop in on the second round of voting and pick their favorite corporate tool. This assumes that DNC chair Tom Perez doesn't use his new prerogative to declare Bernie "not a Democrat in good standing" and deny him the right to run. Then they'll spend another record amount, run to the right again to attract Republicans who won't in a million years vote 'D', make it about Trump's potty mouth, and they'll lose again. Maybe just maybe they'll eke it out, but most people voting 'D' will be holding their nose just to get Trump out.

[ides1056]

I have a friend who is deeply into politics, and Bernie is not without his warts. I think this point has been made several times: no one is squeaky clean who is running for elective office.

[bcm119]

Fine. My prediction is that the establishment and their media wing will smear Bernie and other progressives with any bullshit they can -- they are already at it with their meme-bots spreading #NeverBernie attacks. They'll give Trump and Harris (or Biden or whatever establishment favorite) all sorts of coverage, and look the other way when Bernie gets cheated by voter suppression like what happened in Rhode Island and NYC in 2016. They'll put up any number of me-too half-progressives so that the primary delegate vote is split, and with the dishonest rules change by the DNC, the superdelegates will swoop in on the second round of voting and pick their favorite corporate tool. This assumes that DNC chair Tom Perez doesn't use his new prerogative to declare Bernie "not a Democrat in good standing" and deny him the right to run. Then they'll spend another record amount, run to the right again to attract Republicans who won't in a million years vote 'D', make it about Trump's potty mouth, and they'll lose again. Maybe just maybe they'll eke it out, but most people voting 'D' will be holding their nose just to get Trump out.

Whoever is fanning the flames of progressive infighting is doing a great job. You sound so angry about "the establishment" and the "corporate tools" that you're ready to write in Bernie right now and lose another election.

All I'm asking is that if Warren or Bernie doesn't get the nomination, you do what the Republicans have been doing for decades-- hold your nose and vote for the party. There is no place for emotion on election day in a 2 party system.

I'll be voting for Bernie or Warren in the primary, and for the democrat on election day. They will all be effectively similar presidents, given their policy ideas and the constraints on the presidency.

[ericpmoss]

The establishment wing of the Dems got their preferred candidate. They ran a state of the art campaign, spent a fortune, and lost to a buffoon whose unpopularity was matched only by their pick. And then they blamed everyone and everything else. They will gladly do it again because they would rather lose to a Republican than win with a progressive. As the asshole on Wall Street told Politico, "it can't be Sanders or Warren". Who do they like, according to Politico? Biden, Harris, and Booker. Since Harris is better than Trump, of course I'd vote for her if forced, but for fuck's sake recognize that this is another case of manufactured consent.

BTW, when I say corporate tool, I mean it literally. The DCCC requires Congressmen to pay for committee assignments, and big-ticket committees like Ways and Means cost a minimum of $250k in donations. Those donations come from the industries to be regulated. It's absolutely corrupt. The Republicans are all bought and paid for, but we need to clean our own house of fake friends. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose tenure at the DNC saw the loss of 1100 seats across the country, takes $ from private prisons and payday lenders. Watch how she votes and tell me the leadership isn't a bunch of corporate tools.

[thomas]

Those districts shown above - which ones are those and are they red or blue?

[ericpmoss]

I went to google, and this was what came up on KOS: ( I don't have a dog in this fight btw)
[...]

That Harris got settlements is definitely good. But she declined to pursue enforcement of a case her staff strongly recommended, and she did it after getting a donation from the head of the guilty party. That's a red flag that needs serious justification from her.

She supports the death penalty. She was for free public college tuition, but is already nuancing that into the background. Her commercial media donors are promoting her (the CNN thing I mentioned). If she's actually going to do things I want done, I can hold my nose a bit, but it smells to me like an ad campaign by corporate America to head off any actual, solid progressive.

[BBB]

A view from afar...the Democrats need to pick the person who has the best chance to beat Trump. It shouldn't matter if they are progressive or the preferred corporate candidate. They just need to get enough votes to tip him out of office. I'm not sure blokes older than Trump are the best pick (Biden or Sanders), but someone who has broad appeal and can easily rebut the ridiculous garbage Trump comes up with. Getting rid of him should be the main priority, for the good of your country, and for the rest of us (yes we really need more global warming when the flipside of a polar vortex is temperature records being smashed on the other side of the world - idiot).

[vertical_doug]

Those districts shown above - which ones are those and are they red or blue?

Whether the districts are red or blue should not matter. Both sides do this, but since the GOP has employed a better strategy at the state level, and state legislatures usually control redistricting, I believe the shift is predominately red.

Cracked, stacked and packed: Initial redistricting maps met with skepticism and dismay - INDY Week

Cracking means dispersing a group of voters into several districts to prevent them from reaching a majority. Packing means combining as many like-minded voters into one district as possible to prevent them from affecting elections in other districts. Stacking occurs when low-income, less educated minorities are grouped together to create a perceived voting majority but are placed in the same district as high-income, more-educated white voters who turn out in greater numbers.

How Does Gerrymandering Work?

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...tricting-maps/

Select various options on the second pulldown menu. You can swing it red or blue by a lot.

[Saab2000]

A view from afar...the Democrats need to pick the person who has the best chance to beat Trump. It shouldn't matter if they are progressive or the preferred corporate candidate. They just need to get enough votes to tip him out of office. I'm not sure blokes older than Trump are the best pick (Biden or Sanders), but someone who has broad appeal and can easily rebut the ridiculous garbage Trump comes up with. Getting rid of him should be the main priority, for the good of your country, and for the rest of us (yes we really need more global warming when the flipside of a polar vortex is temperature records being smashed on the other side of the world - idiot).

The problem is that the ridiculous garbage he comes up with is easily refuted all the time but his followers don't care. He is a cult of personality and his voters like that he is a loudmouth bully. They love the simpleton phrases he comes up with and repeats at his pep rallies. I'm 99% sure he doesn't believe any of it himself.

What I can't figure out is why he even wants to be president. He's never been a strong idealogical person and has straddled the lines between parties his whole life. It's clear that he's under scrutiny now and I can't imagine he prefers this over living in his luxury apartment in New York. I'd really love to know his true motivation.

[vertical_doug]

The problem is that the ridiculous garbage he comes up with is easily refuted all the time but his followers don't care. He is a cult of personality and his voters like that he is a loudmouth bully. They love the simpleton phrases he comes up with and repeats at his pep rallies. I'm 99% sure he doesn't believe any of it himself.

What I can't figure out is why he even wants to be president. He's never been a strong idealogical person and has straddled the lines between parties his whole life. It's clear that he's under scrutiny now and I can't imagine he prefers this over living in his luxury apartment in New York. I'd really love to know his true motivation.

Watch what he does not what he says. He has always wanted to part of the NY establishment. He was never taken seriously by the NY establishment. He loves attention. As President, he can basically demand World attention all the time, and is as happy as a pig in sh!t. He loves to wield power and bully people. What part of being President, don't you get? You are the most powerful person in the world. Full Stop.

You are making an error if you think he needs an ideology. The ideology is all about ME! And if I feel like I am not getting enough attention, I will demand you pay attention. ME ME ME