Random Politics & Religion #19

/looks at the cartoon again
/looks at Pleebo's post
/notices that Pleebo is playing in straw again

How is that a strawman?

If you sanitize Trump's rhetoric you get Clintons speech, which is the same generic call to action we've been hearing for decades.

So you simultaneously understand the relevance of my post and think it's a strawman. Two mutually exclusive things. Kudos.

I get this feeling a lot when I listen to people very closely, part of why I enjoy being nonsocial so much.

The beauty in it is they think you're not paying attention to anything they say.

That's your counter?

Poor Pleebs. Can't even argue great. Might as well stick with "No u!" for being as coherent as either argument is.

So, we have a 2nd personal attack from Mosin, and the mods are still silent about it.

And they wonder why people accuse them of playing favorites.

You can't enter a discussion of ideas, display no understanding of what's being discussed, act superior to everyone, and think no one is going to call you a dumbass...

- Do not insult other people
Belittling other people for their intellectual taste in their opinion is insulting them. Therefore calling someone stupid, an idiot, dumb, etc; is insulting no matter the structure of the sentence.

It's one thing to continually ad hom despite being told not to. It's another to continually do it while bitching about it being done to you.

First of all, despite the martyr act, no one has the power to “silence” Sen. Elizabeth Warren — and that’s a good thing. On the other hand, the impulse to silence Warren is completely rational, and it has nothing to do with her gender, ancestry, or ideology. It has everything to do with her sanctimonious lecturing, habitual dishonesty, and disregard of “norms.” She’s been a bully her entire career.

But when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pulled Rule 19, which prohibits all members from taking to the floor and “directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator,” I assumed it was a failure in the optics department. (Not to mention an arbitrary, speech-inhibiting rule that should not be used, but that’s another story.)

Shutting down a female senator while she’s reading a letter from civil rights icon Coretta Scott King is a bit on the nose, even for the GOP. “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted,” McConnell mansplained. The incident was transformed into Twitter hashtags #LetLizSpeak and the less catchy #ShePersisted. Both went viral, instilling millions of Democrats with a new sense of purpose. Hashtags > voting.

It seemed pretty obvious to me that the nomination of Jeff Sessions as attorney general was likely a done deal. So it was unlikely any persuadable voter would have even heard about Warren’s grandstanding if it weren’t for the kerfuffle. If it were up to me, however, I’d let Warren speak whenever she wanted to — ceding my time, if necessary — for as long as she wanted on any stage she demanded. The more she speaks, the better for conservatives.

As The Washington Post points out, however, McConnell probably gave Warren’s 2020 presidential aspirations a huge “in-kind contribution” by forcing her to follow rules of decorum. It’s possible, I suppose, that the GOP is playing the same 3D chess mastered by Donald Trump. Maybe shutting down Warren was a surreptitious means of making her the de facto voice of the Democratic Party and #TheResistance (formerly known as “unprecedented obstructionism”). Maybe it was just good luck.

Warren as the voice of the Left might be the best-case scenario for Republicans. For one thing, Warren is no Barack Obama on the charisma front. For another, Warren saves conservatives the trouble of going after socialist strawmen. They’ll have a real one.

Still, there’s one potential hitch in the plan. Republicans, like everyone else, tend to assume politicians they loathe will be equally loathed by most of the electorate. Be cautious of what you ask for. You’ll no doubt remember how many liberal pundits acted like the prospect of Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz as president was scarier than Trump when they thought the latter had no chance in a general.

The real question is would Warren’s left-populism play on the electoral map Trump has rejiggered? Is her protectionist trade rhetoric enough to win over white-working class voters in Pennsylvania coal country even though she rails against fossil fuels and cheap energy? Would a lawyer who built a political career growing bureaucracies and pushing regulatory burdens on Americans be popular with rural workers in Ohio? Is it possible that someone who believes Obamacare didn’t exert enough government control over the health-care system going to run strong in a general election campaign in suburban Indiana? Moreover, can a Northeasterner with extreme social views bring working-class Missourians home to Democrats? Liberals from Massachusetts, after all, are still 0-3 (here, here, here) over the past 50 years. And Warren is farther Left than any of them, by a mile.

I use a lot of question marks in the above paragraph because 2016 taught me that the American electorate is volatile and angry, and coastal elites should never make assumptions about its temperament. Still, it’s fair to say at this point — and a lot can change under Trump’s leadership — the answer to most of these questions seems to be “Unlikely.”

The fuss over “silencing” Warren also reminds us that Democrats will, like they did with Hillary Clinton, rely heavily on the identity politics that have failed them for six years, if not longer. CNN, for example says, “For Elizabeth Warren’s supporters, the vote leading to #LetLizSpeak was a textbook case of males silencing a woman.”

Women suffer indignity, violence, poverty, and death at the hands of theocrats around the world every day, but Harris believes that the Senate leader asking a woman to follow the rules of decorum is a rallying cry for justice. The fact that Democrats spent the day aiming most of their ire at Betsy DeVos, who now runs perhaps the least consequential department in the cabinet, speaks to their hypocrisy.

Then again, few things are more unintellectual, irrational, or un-American than demanding people comport their political worldviews to their skin color, sex, or ethnicity. And if a Warren candidacy — or anyone else’s — ensures that Democrats will spend another four years accusing half the country of being moral troglodytes while waiting for demographics to win them elections, Republicans should support their efforts.

How about that Kellyanne Conway getting into some ethical hot water this morning?

Context of what she said? It's not like googling Kellyanne Conway gaffe gives a narrow return of results.

Context of what she said? It's not like googling Kellyanne Conway gaffe gives a narrow return of results.

... The figure comes from a new poll by Morning Consult that found 35 percent of Americans do not know ObamaCare is another label — made popular by the GOP — used to describe the Affordable Care Act, enacted under former President Barack Obama in 2010.

About 17 percent of Americans polled thought they were two different laws, and 18 percent said the didn't know whether they were the same policy or two different things....

Sixty-one percent said they knew that some Americans would lose Medicaid and health insurance coverage if the law were repealed with no replacement. But 45 percent of those polled did not know the law may be repealed soon....

(Newser) – "Go buy Ivanka's stuff." That was Kellyanne Conway's message to viewers during an interview with Fox & Friends on Thursday after Nordstrom pulled Ivanka Trump's clothing line from its stores. The problem? She might have violated federal ethics rules with the plug. Government workers aren't supposed to endorse products, and Conway not only did so, she wasn't shy about it: "I'm going to give a free commercial here," she said. "Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online.” Per the Hill, this is the rule from the Office of Government Ethics she appears to have run afoul of: "An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service, or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives."

It's not clear whether the OGE will investigate, but someone who violates this rule can be suspended or even fired, though the person is likely to receive only a warning for a first offense, reports Politico. "This is jaw-dropping to me," a former acting director of the office tells the Washington Post. It "would seem to be a clear violation." President Trump, of course, has also addressed Nordstrom's move, tweeting, "Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom." White House spokesman Sean Spicer says Trump's tweet "was less about his family's business and an attack on his daughter," per CNNMoney. Nordstrom has said the decision was about declining sales, not politics.

"An employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service, or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives."

"A government employee who uses his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of lobbied products, services, and enterprises, and for the private gain of friends, relatives."

I don't care if you are for it or against it, its depressing that our fellow countrymen are so poorly informed

I don't care if you are for it or against it, its depressing that our fellow countrymen are so poorly informed infromed.