Monday Open Thread
by: Colorado Pols November 23, 2020 at 6:29 AM MST
"Chaos is a friend of mine."
November 23, 2020 at 6:44 AM MST
Today is Rudolph Maister Day.
Gorky Pulviczek says:
How to organize a protest: https://www.ihollaback.org/how-to-organize-a-protest-or-march/?gclid=CjwKCAiA2O39BRBjEiwApB2IkpbYPIZQbLpOHyI0BmB_h-1yZdUkZWaTqElZK21385LE8GE83YfOixoCNh0QAvD_BwE
Hopefully, the remainder of the election goes smoothly and no state legislature overturns the will of the voters. But best to be prepared, just in case.
Comrade,
In the future when you post a url please edit it to eliminate the attachment of the 'gclid'. That stands for Google Click ID and is used for tracking purposes. Anyone who clicks on the url you posted gets followed whether they want to be or not.
https://www.ihollaback.org/how-to-organize-a-protest-or-march
kwtree says:
Thanks, kick. Didn't know that. I assume the gclid code still does its thing even when it's hidden in url text-to-link format for WordPress. Someone ( Bowman?) posted that when one posts a link from a Google search page, everything past the ? is tracking info and can be left off.
I just use Mozilla on the private setting and hope for the best.
Ya. the wordpress link can hide all of thos privacy-compromising codes. Sometimes you might be better off doing your own search for some link text instead of clicking on something directly.
And use the DuckDuckGo search engine instead of evil Google's.
November 23, 2020 at 3:04 PM MST
notaskinnycook says:
Bowman's got it. Everything past the "?" is noise.
Oops, thanks!
November 23, 2020 at 10:08 AM MST
Actually, just eliminate the ? mark and everything to the right of it.
I'd been eliminating the ? on links I'd posted, but the gclid hadn't been on my radar before today. Anything else I should watch for privacy-wise?
I don't know. I just caught the gclid because the length of Gorky's link bugged me. I am sure that there are many more flags that don't need to be passed along. Are they harmful to privacy? Maybe. Look them up (using DuckDuckGo) and decide.
I just think that it's a good idea to keep links as short as necessary. Dave sez anything beyond the '?' is unnecessary. That's probably the best rule whether privacy is being impacted or not.
There is one more thing to try … switch to using the Brave browser if you aren't already. It is more privacy friendly that the more common Firefox, Chrome and Safari. This is mainly because it disables autocomplete in the search bar as you type in a url you want to visit. Safari watches each character and passes its autocomplete suggestions to both an apple server and a google server that they keep as part of your search history which helps them reconstruct their personal profile on you.
Also … clear cookies and browser history at least periodically.
See Section VII of
https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/pubs/browser_privacy.pdf
Don't ever use the Yandex broswer. It's Russian. 'nuff said!
"I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail
Poisoned in the bushes an' blown out on the trail" ~ Bob Dylan
I have been thinking about Joe Biden.
Some, over at the GOP, are trying desperately to label ol' MOTR Joe as a socialist who will allow the uber left to install a new Soviet style Communism in the US.
You people haven't been paying attention.
ParkHill says:
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.
FDR of course was a communist. According to the Mises Libertarian-Kleptocrats, FDR was worse than fascism.
Socialism Is as American as Apple Pie
One of the strengths of the Republican Party is its message discipline. When it finds an issue that works, it beats that issue to death, flogging it long after it stops working.
One myth that permeates the right-wing attack on socialism is that America was founded as a sort of libertarian paradise based on the free market ideas of Adam Smith. However, this perspective is very much at odds with the actual views of Smith and the Founding Fathers.
in 1763, Adam Smith observed that the cheapest, most miserly government with the lowest taxes and spending was not by any means the best; on the contrary, Smith argued that it was usually a sign of barbarism.
Expensive states, he believed, were civilized, more advanced than those with puny governments unable or unwilling to protect their citizens from the ravages of hunger, disease, and poverty.
In truth, Republicans aren't opposed to socialism per se but only socialism that benefits poor people and minorities. Socialism for farmers and industrialists is just fine as far as they are concerned.
Our (the US of A) status as a third world country is now well established. We are barely able to protect, house, and feed our people.
Our society celebrates and honors wealth above all else, and I daresay a significant number of Americans would accept a strongman dictator as long as he would force their religion on everybody else…oh, wait…they already have.😝
But not for socialism rural America would be a wasteland.
Ah, yup!
I think that's supposed to be "shithol*" country
2Jung2Die says:
For the "originalists," Hamilton himself envisioned a strong central government and saw taxation as necessary – not a necessary evil. This paragraph from Federalist 30 does not resemble Grover Norquist in the tiniest:
Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions. A complete power, therefore, to procure a regular and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution. From a deficiency in this particular, one of two evils must ensue; either the people must be subjected to continual plunder, as a substitute for a more eligible mode of supplying the public wants, or the government must sink into a fatal atrophy, and, in a short course of time, perish.
I'd like Biden to call in Senators and Representatives from farm states for a strategy session.
"The gravy train of farm socialism is over. I'm planning to remove all farm subsidies and ethanol requirements. I'm about to increase gasoline taxes by $1/gal to pay for electrification infrastructure and mass-transit. I'm about to expand health care facilities in Urban areas."
Today, I'm here to ask you:
"Are you with us or agin' us?"
"Do you want a seat at the table, or not."
You must be joking.
Sorry for being so sharp.
What's in this for farmers? Haven't they been screwed over enough? F*ck dump's socialist handouts to them (along w/all the others they get). End the tariffs. Help them get their markets back.
But be less helpful to corporate and foreign-owned farms.
Funniest thing I've read yet this morning.
Ah, but it isn't against the farmers… Biden needs Senators to abandon McConnell in order to get anything done. If he doesn't get 50 votes in the Senate, his only option is to use executive decisions to bring pressure.
I don't expect Biden to go total-transactional like Trump, but it's time to play hardball.
The Republican Party needs to be split, and that means figuring out how to split it several ways:
Business & Funders
Voters.
Trump's super-power was that he kept the Republican base absolutely solid. Trumpism can be defeated only if you can break that up.
Business leaders will be easiest because some of them are practical enough to put their financial interests ahead of ideology. (Not all, of them, obviously).
The Republican Base may be hardest to crack as it is overrun by Fox News, Qonspiracies, and Trumpism. That has become tribal if not cult-like.
Politicians want to be elected. Most Republicans have primary problem that are bigger than their difficulties in the General election. Potentially state-wide politicians like Senators who aren't Trumpist (a few of them) may figure a way to thread the needle.
Biden has to try or else face 4 years of McConnell obstructionism
You might like Biden to do that … but he won't.
Biden had a disciplined campaign and will likely have a disciplined approach to governing. The American Farm Bureau Federation asked candidates questions: Biden campaign's response was
A Biden-Harris Administration will ensure the U.S. Department of Agriculture ends historical discrimination against Black farmers in federal farm programs and that all socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers have access to programs that support their family farms. And we will strengthen antitrust enforcement, including in the farm and food production industry. Americans are hurt by increasing market concentration in the food industry. The Biden-Harris Administration will protect small and medium-sized farmers and producers by strengthening enforcement of the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts and the Packers and Stockyards Act."
^^^this^^^
itlduso says:
Business Insider headline, "Trump skipped a coronavirus meeting with G20 leaders to play golf." Imagine if Obama had done that.
Where the hell are the Dem leaders condemning this in even half the manner that Repug leaders would have done? Yet another example that Dems don't know how to play this game.
I am sure that schumer had a sharply-worded statement to read on the senate floor where all you could see was the top of his head while he reads because he can't speak to anything honestly and spontaneously.
Yes, you'll criticize because I'm not a Dem. But I'll say it anyway…..Dems need people besides Pelosi and Schumer leading them in Congress.
Looking ahead to the 2022 midterms, Dems will be hard-pressed to hold the House. The Senate could be a possibility; Rs are already worrying about their Senate majority. But Dems need leaders who aren't past their "use by date."
get someone there who speaks with their heads up and not from a a printed page, is well-versed enough that they can give important monologues on the fly
I agree. Time to let the Xers take over.
Looking ahead to the 2022 midterms, Dems will be hard-pressed to hold the House.
I'm interested in hearing your theories regarding Dem's 2022 difficulties.
Not that you are wrong, but here are two reasons I see potential for the Dems:
(1) Persuasion: The Suburbs are turning liberal based on college education and demographic change – i.e. replacement of Boomers (white) with Gen X (yes) which is much more liberal and racially diverse.
(2) Turnout: In this era of negative partisanship, turnout of your base is critical. Stacey Abrams and all the other turnout organizations in Georgia succeeded in 2020. Other successes like Wisconsin focussed on turnout, while failures like Florida dropped the ball.
My theory, such as it is, looks at what happened in 2020, when the Dems were supposed to pick up seats. Instead, they lost seats in south Florida, New Mexico, southern California, Iowa. Those California seats were suburban.
The party holding the presidency typically loses House seats in the mid-terms. Right now, I think the Dems have 223, just ahead of the 218 needed for the majority.
The party needs to learn from the 2020 issues if your potential is to be realized.
You report some OBSERVABLES, but they don't explain much without identifying the CAUSES.
As that excellent DailyKos article from yesterday describes, the Florida Democratic Party should be sued for malpractice. They told candidates across the state to avoid mentioning and or to run against the $15 minimum wage which succeed with 60% of the vote. They shut down door-to-door canvassing of lower-propensity supporters.
Bloomberg funded advertisements in FL, but Stacey Abrams in GA funded a turnout machine.
So yes, you are correct that the Party needs to learn from 2020 that you can't win without field, i.e. turning out your own base.
The way I learned the D party and organizing and so on- we have another name for Florida dems: Republicans.
Even if Dems can turnout with an effective message in 2022, they will be behind the 8 ball after redistricting is done. Republicans are in a good position to divide the Dem vote between newly gerrymandered districts nationwide after redistricting in 2021, and they've got a Supreme Court that will likely back the madness.
Right. Make that DOUBLE malpractice.
The top-down strategy from the Three D's (DNC, DCCC, DSCC) focusses on persuasion to the sacrifice of turnout. It's almost like they are afraid of the base.
It seems that way only because they are.
Right now there's the Bernie base and the Biden base. What's to be afraid of? You know well ahead of time that no matter what you say or do it's going to be wrong. Take's all of the guesswork and uncertainty out of it.
gertie97 says:
PH: define base.
Good question… for another time.
At this moment, base just means the Dem electorate, some of whom are low-propensity voters.
November 23, 2020 at 12:47 PM MST
The Senate floor … which is empty, as the Senate is not doing work until after Thanksgiving.
No, Princess. This isn't a #WhiteProsperityJesus miracle, it's what happens when we give the necessary resources to science. Just imagine how quickly we might solve the climate crisis if we employed the same approach?
It's laughable you'd think Democrats would jeopardize this rollout. Have you been in a coma since January?
I'm afraid that we are not going to be able to solve the climate crisis with this model. It's disruptive biotech vs planetary physics.
Even if we ceased ALL GHG emissions TODAY, ocean levels would continue to rise for the next 400 years.
My response was lacking in the substance I had intended to convey. It was more of the notion that scientific data, coupled with policy and a concerted coordination of all agencies of government (including the purse springs of Congress) could solve this generational challenge sooner than later.
HAHAHAHAHA!
GM Drops Support of Trump Lawsuit
General Motors says it will no longer support the Trump administration in legal efforts to end California's right to set its own clean-air standards.
CEO Mary Barra said in an letter Monday to environmental groups that GM will pull out of the lawsuit, and it urges other automakers to do so.
Elections, even falsely contested ones, have consequences.
@Michael: Ivanka can crow all she wants. The best news is that her daddy won't be president.
A great read by Tim Miller in today's Triad.
This year the Republican party elected officials, with one Willardian exception, were united behind a birther who tried to ban people from travel based on their religion, told American black women to "go back" where they came from, and put a white nationalist collaborator in charge of our immigration regime.
So today it's me who is heading for the exits. They have been clearly marked.
Yes, that is very good.
Harry Truman on Socialism:
Greetings from the Truman Library,
In President Harry's Truman's remarks in Syracuse, New York on October 10, 1952, he said this:
Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all.
What he really means is "Down with Progress–down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That's all he means.
The above is from a thread on historyhub.com
You can listen to President Truman deliver this speech (and download it, if you want) on the Truman Library's website here: https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/soundrecording-records/sr59-160-president-truman-rear-platform-remarks-syracuse-new-york. The portion you're looking for is about 6:45 into the speech.
Socialism is what they called public power.
Bingo. Just mention to any beet-red Nebraskan they should give up their public power and let the invisible fist of Adam Smith determine the market price. Thems fightin' words.