Otto Lidenbrock
Otto Lidenbrock's Journal"The very online left is very annoyed with Mayor Pete"
Interesting article in my opinion. The author and the website are vehemently anti-Trump so there is no agenda to the source. It's looking at it from a different perspective.
Of course, if you aren’t a frequenter of progressive Twitter—or if you are an Iowa caucusgoer who has vaulted Pete to the top of the polls—you might not even realize this is all happening. So I’d like to take you on a penny tour through some of the more maniacal Buttigieg “problems” that have “surfaced” as we enter this holiday season of fellowship.
On Wednesday, David Klion, a contributor to the Nation, retweeted a thread which accused Pete of keeping a “token black woman” by his side recently and featured several pictures of her. “This is the 9th sighting since I noticed…Mayor Pete is an exploitative twerp.”
The woman in question, Nina Smith, is a veteran of multiple Democratic campaigns and Pete’s traveling press secretary. She joined the campaign in May. It’s unclear exactly why Klion and the Twitter user “@net-enforcer” feel entitled to demean Smith as a token. You might say they are erasing her agency in an attempt to enforce their own views of identity. Who could say?
Meanwhile, Teen Vogue, which has unironically become a Democratic Socialist magazine that appeals to Red Rose Twitter, published an article about “Petey Bourgeoius” premised on the fact that he “almost too perfectly represents a danger Karl Marx raises” because his aw shucks appeal is masking his fealty to the ruling class.
Mediaite, meanwhile, published a dispatch from the Pete campaign bus that is so psychotic you need to read it yourself, but it can best be described as a stream of consciousness ranting from an unwell street corner preacher who is screaming ludicrous questions while the candidate responds to them calmly. Mediaite framed the article as “Pete Buttigieg Does Not Want You To Read This Interview.”People did read it, and they laughed.
The Root published an article that was widely praised on the left titled “Pete Buttigieg is a Lying MF” which was premised on an 8-year-old “surfaced” clip in which Pete makes a common argument about how sometimes people in lower income, minority neighborhoods don’t have role models they know personally who testify to the value of education. Offering a different perspective as someone who grew up in one of those communities to shed some light on blind spots that Mayor Pete had would be one thing and something Pete clearly welcomes as evidenced by his return call to the author. Using it as the launching point for calling him a “lying motherfucker” in a disdain soaked essay is just a wee bit out there.
There has been an absolutely bizarre series of articles about how Buttigieg isn’t “gay enough,” most notably this one from the New Republic that referred to him repeatedly as “Mary Pete” and projected onto him a desire to hook up with an older man in a bus station. It was so bad that TNR retracted it and deleted it from their site. Politico published a confounding article premised on a few lesbian Democratic activists who weren’t supporting Pete. It is unclear why there should be an expectation that Pete would earn the vote of every living lesbian—or gay man, for that matter. The very fact that Buttigieg isn’t running an identity-based campaign for gays is part of his appeal.
Prominent online Democrats have said that Pete’s success, coming in spite of low polling with black voters, is a sign of white supremacy. This is a real thing.
A Vice headline accused him of supporting a literal India style caste system. Adam Jentleson, a noted Twitter antagonist to Mayor Pete and former advisor to Harry Reid—who was, just so we’re clear, not exactly the wokest horse in the barn—shared an accusation that Buttigieg has “high hopes of reinforcing systemic racism.”
Back in my days of doing rapid response for Republicans, that would have been a pretty serious charge. And that’s especially the case when a Democratic strategist is accusing fellow Democrats of supporting “systemic racism”—a claim like that is liable to end up in a Trump campaign Facebook ad aimed at depressing the black vote should Buttigieg wind up on the eventual Democratic ticket.
Some teens on TikTok—the hot new social site owned and controlled by the Chinese government which absolutely does not have any incentive to meddle in U.S. elections—have taken to calling him “Mayo Pete” and the progressive press has lapped it up, spilling substantial digital ink on this brilliant pun and brutally mocking the earnest Pete volunteers who sparked the meme by daring to show some off keyboard enthusiasm for politics through a cheesy dance number.
https://thebulwark.com/the-problematic-pete-wars/
It seems Pete's rise has irked a lot of people
Twitter is not real life. Therefore it's very funny to see the people who spend so much time online and who have had a four year headstart get peeved that Pete's on the ground campaigning has made him go from a political nobody to Iowa frontrunner.
https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1202032456477466624
https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/1201956370481844224
https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1201955048726634496
This is why I didn't have a problem with PACs
We've got two candidates self-funding their campaigns with what to them is pocket money. Trump has an arsenal of dark money with the bully pulpit to his advantage this time. Yet we expected all our candidates to run with one hand tied behind their backs for bullshit purity reasons. You can't change campaign finance rules if you aren't in power.
That's what ultimately did for Kamala and Beto --- two of our rising stars. If you're not having the media come to you which they didn't, you have to go to them. And for that you need money.
Tom Steyer buys website domain for Trump's "Keep America Great" slogan
https://www.keepamericagreat.comWhy do democrats rarely talk about Lyndon Johnson?
I was going to ask this in the primaries forum as we've got Bernie Sanders invoking FDR as a pillar behind his campaign, Harry Truman's "The Buck Stops Here" motto has been brought up by Cory Booker in a way of contrasting earnestness with what we currently have, JFK's light always shines bright, at least three candidates have met Jimmy Carter and he was name-checked in the last debate by Amy Klobuchar. But this isn't just a 2020 thing. I've wondered this in the past.
That timeline of democratic presidents takes us from 1933-1981. Six of those years however were occupied by a very complicated man, but arguably the most consequential, Lyndon Johnson. And he's the one I have yet to hear embraced as someone to look up to.
He will always have Vietnam associated with him. But that war started years before and didn't end until years after. FDR put Japanese Americans into camps and Truman dropped the bomb. They did dark things.
And yeah Johnson was a SOB. Hard nosed and uncouth. But you know he got things done despite his personal failings. He was power hungry but once he got to the top he realised there's no point being there if you're not going to do anything good.
Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, The Great Society/War on Poverty (Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamp Act - the precursor to SNAP). He achieved legislative goals to expand investment into education, environment (with help from Lady Bird), protect seniors and public services. He signed into law an immigration act which repealed a past era law that was discriminatory.
When people talk about structural change, surely he is the guy to namecheck. So why don't we?
The Democratic Governor of Illinois is a billionaire
J.B. Pritzker holds more private wealth than any other governor in U.S. history and is the second-wealthiest U.S. politician to have ever held office, after Michael Bloomberg.
He also has accomplished several progressive ideas in his first year in office.
- Becoming the first midwest state to adopt $15/hr minimum wage.
- Legalized marijuana.
- Locked in Women's reproductive health rights by repealing a 1970s law that punished doctors for performing "unnecessary" abortions and signing a new Reproductive Health bill into law when at the same time other states were stepping up draconian bills for Roe vs Wade to be overturned.
- Legalised sports betting allowing the business to be regulated and no longer underground plus pumps money into the local economy.
- Proposal to make an amendmemt to state constitution and implement a progressive income tax rate passed the state legislature and will be put to voters next year.
- Signed an executive order expanding access to welcome centers in Illinois for immigrants and refugees. Welcome centers help guide immigrants on a path to citizenship and refugees with access to health care, education, jobs, and legal services.
- Signed bill to make Illinois the first state in the country to ban private immigration detention centers.
- Signed bill that forbids state and local police to cooperate with U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) to deport illegal immigrants.
- Signed Illinois to the U.S. Climate Alliance which is an initiave by governors who want to fight climate change even if the White House doesn't.
- Signed bill allowing the state to take its own action in fighting climate change, repealing past law.
- Passed a law that LGBTQ figures of history must have their achievements and positive contribution included in school textbooks and syllabus.
This is a billionaire who is doing a good job. They're not all status quo henchmen.
Cenk Uygur's baggage is all on camera and it's disqualifying
https://twitter.com/m_mendozaferrer/status/1196497335691427840https://twitter.com/m_mendozaferrer/status/1196937756020264961
https://twitter.com/m_mendozaferrer/status/1195899079018057728
https://twitter.com/DavidNir/status/1197550859040804865
Lindsey Graham 2015 vs 2019
2015
2019
https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1197629617999425543
'We Should Pick the Low-Hanging Fruit First.' Bill Clinton Wades Into the Health Care Debate
“The problem is the system is still entirely too complex,” Clinton told told David Agus, CEO of the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC, at the TIME 100 Health Summit in New York City on Thursday. “The premiums are going up way more than wages are going up, and the co-pays and deductibles and the drug prices are going up even more than the premiums. So, we’re kind of at a crossroads now.”
“We should pick the low-hanging fruit first,” Clinton continued. “I think we need to pass a public option and go back to encouraging all-payer systems in states so that you can have some control over the costs and keep it as simple as possible.”
https://time.com/5703769/bill-clinton-time-100-health-summit-healthcare/
Julian Castro's campaign is very bitter
Bernie supporter posted this:
https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1195947838942982146
https://twitter.com/adamwren/status/1196222314972618753
This comes off the back of Castro's very smug tweet in the immediate aftermath of Pete's quote twisted about the Obama Administration. The following day when it was evident the reporter got it wrong and apologised. Castro wrote a follow up tweet:
https://twitter.com/JulianCastro/status/1193881502381170688
"I regret the original was spread widely"
Well gee, Julian. How many other presidential candidates helped spread it widely? I'll give you a clue. ZERO.
Profile Information
Member since: Wed Jun 20, 2018, 07:20 PMNumber of posts: 581
