Kind of laughing at Kirsten Gillibrand’s presidential ambitions.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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This story looks like a ratfucking from its sourcing by people still angry about Al Franken. She raises a lot from small donors. But I’m biased since I plan on backing her.
Yeah. I’m heartily opposed to Gillibrand for other reasons, but this is silly: ” … Gillibrand should have allowed the eventual Senate Ethics Committee.”
As if she stopped it. Franken is the one who stopped it. Nobody forced him to leave. He should’ve done what Ellison did; the allegations against him were less serious and less credible. He got screwed by the narrative, and I suspect that the motivations of some politicians was removing a rival, but in the end he made the call himself.
What other reasons? I mean I haven’t totally gotten behind her because I want to see the full field and what they’re offering, and by the time the primary gets to me she could very well be out of the running.
Er, well, that’s based entirely on my wife’s visceral reaction against her. (And as a former Edwards supporter, I’m learning to support my wife’s reactions over my own …) She likes Harris, then Booker, is lukewarm on Warren (my favorite), but every time she hears Gillibrand speak she panics that the Dems will choose her.
So, uh, not really an answerable criticism.
I once liked her, and still do, but my enthusiasm has definitely waned after the Franken affair. Will try to keep an open mind on her.
The people doing this can count on certain atavistic reflexes kicking in.
Cui bono?
And, yeah, so she asked? So what? Obama actually got a fair amount of support from the NY financial community in 2008. They turned on him in 2012, but it certainly helped in 2008.
Because possibly Wall Street is not looking out for your best interests?
First: “Wall Street” is not a Borgian monolith. There’s a lot of variety in people in NY finance. Most have decent opinions on some subject and some are good on a lot.
Second: Sometimes you have to make a deal with Uncle Joe Stalin.
Gillibrand has shown she is a politician and shifts her positions based on her political needs. She was a Blue Dog representing upstate NY and then a solid liberal representing all NY State. In some ways this is not good, but it means she’s not going to be bought. Like Jesse Unruh, she can take their money and vote against them.
Every candidate so far has already done what she did, it just wasn’t as widely noted/reported. Gillibrand’s fundraising looks similar to Kamala Harris in terms of where money comes from, about 32% from small donors, and she brought in 18 million in 2016 (average Senator was 3.5 million). By contrast, Schumer is 2% from small donors, Booker is 12%, Klobuchar is 23%. Only Warren and Sanders are higher, at 59% and 76%, respectively.
And Obama certainly returned the favor by appointing Tim Geitner and a DOJ that failed to prosecute any of the bastards who tanked our economy. Don’t think we need another one of those, thanks.
Yeah, and if Obama decided to to go that route, the stimulus never passes and we’re in a depression (he would have lost Collins, Snowe and Specter), health care doesn’t get done, Don’t Ask Don’t tell Doesn’t get repealed, and well, no need to go on. Essentially nothing would have gotten done.
That is nonsense. He didn’t NEED to appoint Geitner and endorse policy that favored the rich. He could’ve bailed out those who got foreclosed on rather than bankers who destroyed the economy. If he couldn’t get Collins on board, I think the threat of a depression would’ve warranted a rules change removing the legislative filibuster, don’t you? And the vast majority of America would’ve supported Obama over Republicans in those early chaotic days after an election in which Republicans were pummeled.
The lengths some people in the “base” will go to defend the indefensible leaves me scratching my head. This cowardice, this unwillingness to back big, winning ideas because what Collins may do or some other Republican might say is why we lose and why the working class does not trust Democrats.
As Orrin Hatch recently observed upon Trump calling on Republicans to eliminate the filibuster, it has been the biggest impediment to adopting liberal policy for decades. The Republicans use it to stop progress and the Corporate Dems (not saying they all are, but there’s always enough to prevent 60) hide behind it to do the bidding of their owners while avoiding the wrath of their constituents (“not my fault, we needed 60 votes to pass it”). The filibuster is designed to obfuscate and confuse and prevents the public from learning the true consequences of their voting choices. It is profoundly anti-democratic and subverts our Constitution.
Orrin Hatch is absolutely correct, and the fillibuster should be abolished. However, just like how contrarians/cynics against impeachment ask “find me 20 Republican votes,” I will ask you “where are the votes for this in 2009, prior to Mitch McConnell burning down the Senate?” And the answer is nowhere. That doesn’t mean it’s not a laudable goal and should be fought for (just as impeachment should be fought for, though questions of strategy matter), we don’t yet have the votes for it, let alone the votes for it in 2009. However, just as impeachment is a process and the votes can be had at the end of that process if done properly, Republican intransigence has brought more people into the fold that the filibuster needs to go. But we aren’t there yet. You blaming Obama for this is neither productive nor factual.
But the above commenters position that Obama “had no choice or we get nothing else done” is bullshit. Obama and Geithner are proud of what they did with regard to the banks. That’s their ideology. It helps no one to pretend otherwise.
Wanna build a wall or something? Mitch you screwed up.
We hated him for it, though, rest assured,
No, we didn’t hate him for this and we’d happily vote for him again. But we know a bad policy when we see it.
What banks do is best described as “swapping promissory notes.” We promise to make payments monthly and they promise to pay off the car dealer or home seller. If that concept is going to work, somebody has to evaluate those promises, and in our financial system that job (underwriting) falls to the banks. The financial crisis was a result of the banks completely failing to do that job. They failed to do that job because they made their money upfront on fees and didn’t plan on being the ones holding the bag when the mortgages went bad (they sold the mortgages to Fannie Mae and other investors). This is fraud any way you look at it and they paid no price for it because Obama let them get away with it.
Obama was a good man and President. But he had some problems. He was not an economist. He didn’t have Stephanie Kelton to advise him. And so I heard him say, among other policies, we had to tighten our belts and reduce the deficit. Oh boy.
I for one am going to be very, very, VERY careful what I let myself believe, along the lines of “tool of Wall Street” or “vengeful she-bitch” or any of the other retail smears that are getting blown around right now. What I read on Twitter (and okay, it was Twitter) was that the meme about Gillibrand as Wall Street supplicant came from exactly two investment bankers, still disgruntled about Franken, who spread their version to a willing press, who amplified it from there. I have no doubt she took Wall Street money; I used to work on Wall Street and sent her 45 bucks myself! Does anybody here know what part of her Wall Street donations were from small-timers like me?
At this point, when a knock comes about a particular Dem candidate, I automatically disbelieve it. If I see it multiple times, and it’s been forensically scoured and found true, okay. But unsourced rumor? From people who may well have axes to grind? Nuh-uh.
That’s pretty much my approach these days. My thinking is wait for the various candidates to declare, see how they handle debates, get a feel for what their basic campaigns are about, and otherwise just keep as open a mind as possible, although I do have my own set of biases (I am really against anyone over 70 running, although that has more to do with me just being sick of baby boomer culture war politics than anything else, and I’ve been sick of all that for a good couple decades now).
Grandstanding has consequences I guess.
Gillibrand is precisely the kind of candidate our party needs to steer clear of. One who is inauthentic. One who postures to make herself look good after checking to see which way the wind is blowing.
We need to say no to her, to Booker, to Cuomo if he runs. Warren would be great. I think O’Rourke would be fine, possibly great. Biden would have been strong in 2016 but is past his sell-by date, particularly now that feminist issues are ascendant. He has major vulnerabilities that arise from his handling of the Thomas hearings, though if he made it through the primaries the risk would not be from the right so much as perhaps a lack of solid support from the left. Given the importance of this election, the party would probably rally around him despite any misgivings. I suppose that’s true of everyone. Workable but hardly a ringing endorsement.
All politicians put their finger into the wind to see what way the wind is blowing; they’re pols, and pols do what pols do. What Gillibrand is good at, and what makes a good pol over a mediocre one, is being ahead of the pack and predicting where the wind will go before it gets there.
In hockey you have many stars and good players who can take advantage of their athleticism, speed, and body size to be great. What differentiates Gretzky from other good/great players and makes him the GOAT, however:
Cuomo is a snake and not to be trusted.
Booker and Gillibrand will represent their supporters, which is to say the Democratic party. They’ll govern from the Democratic consensus, which is good enough. I agree Warren would be better on policy but we also need somebody who can win fairly decisively to pull along a bunch of Senate seats. That’s what the primary is for and we will have a much better idea of who is best to nominate once the campaign gets going.
Remember, assuming we get the trifecta in 2020, the limiting factor will be the Senate. If the Senate is 50-50 the limit on what we can do is Manchin’s vote. If it’s 51-49 It’ll be Sinema’s. They are far less liberal than any of the major candidates. It will make little difference in 2021 whether we elect a fire-breathing socialist, a standard Democrat, or even a soft Blue Dog as President.
Their plans for executive decisions, who would staff their government, and ideas about foreign policy matter and separate them. Bernie’s FP is the best I’ve seen thus far.
Yes!
You’re misreading the audience here.
Not unless, and until, placing ownership and direction of the commanding heights of the democracy in the hands of he workers is ‘the Democratic consensus’ is this true.
So funny, everyone who disagrees with your corporatist view is a Communist! Hahaha! LOL! We get it, jester. You don’t have anything intelligent to say so you call everyone communists. It’s been old for awhile. Really adding a lot to the community here, thanks! Assuming you aren’t a Republican troll, why are you even here?
Is socialism not the answer?
Are we not of the Left? Surely we can agree here of all
places that progress is impossible until capitalism is replaced?
Scroll up in these comments and look at the ones about Obama’s response to the fiscal crisis? Should a Geithner have been calling the shots? Would it not have been better if the banks had been nationalzed?
You are, mostly, a troll who contributes nothing more original than hippie-punching 99% of the time in the (often successful) attempt to spark a reaction. Which is a pity cause when you attempt to contribute more than tired snark you’re v. sharp.
Hippies…is that even a thing any more? Asking for a friend.
“Cuomo is a snake and not to be trusted”! I’ll high five you on that and pour you a shot of whiskey. Well said!
I’m honestly baffled by the love for O’Rourke. I mean, I sent money to his Senate race, he seems like a nice young fellow, but being 1000 times better than Cruz is easy. What’s he done that makes him better than Booker or Gillibrand? (Not ‘what have they done that’s bad,’ but ‘what has he done that’s better?’)
What do you think of Harris?
As a scientist I analyzed Bernie’s one major policy goal – free college education. Caveat was it was ONLY for publicly funded colleges. What I concluded was that even with Bernie sponsoring the Senate version of the House bill, there would not be enough money for his free college education idea. That was the end of my rational basis for supporting his ideas. I was inclined towards Hillary and this analysis steered me away from Bernie.
In hindsight I realized that Bernie was an aspirational candidate. And bs aspirational candidate Donkey J Trump won by promising aspirations to his deplorable base – Wall, coal, draining the swamp, big brains, the list goes on till infinity!!!!!
I give this preamble to say why I like Beto. He would be an aspirational candidate. People would listen to his soaring rhetoric. Once he wins, then qualified technocrats could shape the details of his policies.
I don’t find Booker or Gillibrand, or for that matter my own state senator Harris, inspirational or aspirational.
People are excited about Beto because he has charisma. He set a record for small-money donations for a Senate race, did a great job retail campaigning, has a knack for social media, and has “cool” factors like playing in a band. He bettered the performance of the other major statewide candidates by about 3% even though the national Republican put an enormous amount of money into opposing him. Some of the general statewide vote he bettered may have been due to his campaign, too.
People who do the math look at the possibility of a candidate who can beat the fundamentals by 3-5% in the face of heavy Republican smears and opposition and get very excited, because that’s essentially a guaranteed win against Trump in 2020.
The flip side is that he is probably the least liberal of the major names currently being bandied about. Is a near certain win worth less exciting Supreme Court nominees and less aggressive executive action on climate change? Choice unclear, YMMV.
Right now – charisma is everything.
Maybe we will all get smarter and (better) wiser in the next 2 years, but for right now, I’d be going with charisma. However saying that, it generally doesn’t work on me & I have to rely on the reports of others.
In a democracy nothing is more suspicious than politicians adapting to the popular will.
Heh. Exactly.
Why some here seem to consider her representing many constituents and constituencies (and their interests and needs widening with the scale of her representation as she became a senator) just some sort of “blowing with the wind” baffles me. Especially given a mostly liberal if not fully “progressive” voting and issue advocacy record for such a large and diverse state as NewYork.
I think she would make a terrific addition to THE PRIMARY as would/will more than a few others testing the waters.
Let’s see a bunch of them navigate the gauntlet, and THEN we choose — how about that?!
The purity ponies are getting in shape for the primary racetrack.
So true! The American public is just juiced to vote for a candidate that is a coward and stands for nothing… you realize your position is why we have Trump, right? No, of course you don’t because it’s all a game to you. You’re in the upper, upper class, maybe a trust fund kid.. The tax cuts help you. You’re wealthy enough that destruction of a 401k or revocation of a pension you’ve paid for years doesn’t matter to you. When the oppressed uprise you will be the first to go, unless you think.
Gillibrand is a coward and stands for nothing? News to me. She’s paying a huge political price by telling sexual assailants to go fuck themselves, and continues to pay the price by being held responsible for others’ actions. And it wasn’t grandstanding; she’s been at the forefront of confronting rampant military sexual assaults.
That wasn’t directed at Gillibrand, in particular. It was directed at the purity ponies comment. In any event, Gillibrand seems fake as hell to me. She slandered Franken, who has done real good for the community, and is highly indebted to Wall Street. Plus, she just exudes insincerity just like Clinton did.
“She’s highly indebted to Wall Street” you said without any evidence. I just pointed out that her small donor base is larger than almost all Dem senators, excepting Warren and Sanders (and Kamala Harris, who has almost the same small donor percentages). Slandered Franken? Where is the evidence for this? What has Franken done that she hasn’t?
Look, Franken was a great Senator, but he got caught with his pants down. It’s likely Doug Jones doesn’t win if he stays. And every other woman Senator was there saying the same thing. Only Gillibrand is taking shit for it for some reason.
I upgraded your comment, because it’s broadly accurate. However, it’s worth mentioning that Gillibrand clearly led the female Senators the morning they held a joint press conference and asked Franken to resign. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, she had already led in the Senate on sexual assault/harrassment issues, so it made a good deal of sense for Gillibrand to lead the work that day as well. This story provides contemporaneous reporting of the timeline of the Senators’ action.
Gillibrand made a statement at the presser which stands up pretty well: “I think when we start having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harassment and unwanted groping, you are having the wrong conversation. You need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is OK. None of it is acceptable.”
I remember thinking at the time that Gillibrand was admirably ruthless in pushing Franken to the exits quickly. Al was one of my favorite Senators, but I’m not the average voter, and he wasn’t worth the baggage. Let the Republicans be the Party for sexist hypocrites.
Well yes, I suppose that is why she’s targeted, but she didn’t do it without consensus is all I’m saying. She didn’t force them to side with her, they could have said “sorry you’re on your own, we are waiting for the process to play out first.”
If anything, this event crystallizes why I support her. Isn’t this what we should be looking for in leaders? Instead people want to turn it into an anchor on her neck and discourage women from saying “enough is enough, boys.”
I’m not going to be behind any candidate for a good while, but otherwise I’m in agreement with your sentiments here. She was the right leader leading on the right issue.
It sure is interesting that some Democrats with power are very angry with her specifically about the Franken episode. It’s like a particularly effective sexist asshole detector.
Yep, calling everyone who liked Franken a sexist (much like calling anyone who doesn’t want men in girls’ bathrooms a bigot) is a real winning argument. Throwing lots of meat to Fox and alienating those who would otherwise be allies, while accomplishing nothing.
Purity is ok for social issues, just not economic issues,
ammirite?
Oh so you’re anti-trans, too? And you want to be the one who defines who and what is progressive? Me thinks you doth protest too much. Glass houses, stones, etc.
I’m anti perverts who are not trans using bathroom laws to pray on women. I reiterate my point… You preach purity-only on social issues but anyone with left of center economic views MUST be chastised because they are provoking disunity. It’s hypocritical.
No one does what you’re saying except in the minds of addled old people whose brains are marinating in fascist Fox News programming. You want the fulcrum to be economics only, whereby you’re willing to ally with racists and transphobes — including weaponizing their propaganda against your own party members — if it means killing the rich. Sorry, I don’t play that game. I don’t preach purity on anything, actually, which is why I’m willing to tolerate Joe Manchin’s bullshit. I have my own politics, which is probably best represented by Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez or Kshama Sawant (and Bernie Sanders 2017+ foreign policy). I also recognize what coalition politics are, and that not everyone is going to agree with me. Your method of domination politics will fail and continue to fail.
Actually, I have a young daughter, and balancing the rights of Trans folk against the danger of non-trans perverts taking advantage of the open bathroom policy to abuse women and girls, i came to the conclusion that the risks outweigh the benefits. It doesn’t make me anti-trans. In fact, the extremism you are exhibiting by calling me a bigot, is exactly the type of hyper-liberal indentitt politics crap that turns many middle of the road people off to Democrats. So, yes, your social policy purity trolling hurts the party.
You know what’s extreme? Claiming that there are “…non-trans perverts taking advantage of the open bathroom policy to abuse women and girls…”. Abuse hasn’t been documented to have happened in unisex bathrooms or bathrooms which allow all who self-identify as female to use the women’s room. There is absolutely nothing about those bathrooms that increases the risk of criminal behavior. It’s disturbing that you are conjuring that up.
I love the fairly explicit threat at the end: unless we agree with your unsupported claim and reverse policy changes which are well under way in our society, Democrats up and down the ballot will lose. So here’s the claim: “Sure, Trump and the Republicans in Congress and in State governments are comprehensively corrupt and are forcing through unpopular policy changes through a variety of anti-democratic methods. If only Democrats would get off the bathroom issue I could support them.”
That just sounds off to me. I don’t think voters who are honest about their motivations go about determining their vote that way. If you’re going to vote for Republican Party candidates and issues today, you’ve got regressive views about more things than bathrooms.
Unisex bathrooms are generally one person bathrooms with a lock, so your comparison is inapposite. Moreover, if I wasn’t so firm in my support for the Democratic Party despite its blemishes, you (and many like you) insinuating I’m a bigot because of a logical and reasonable policy preference would indeed drive me away from the party. That happens every day to middle of the road people.. they get chastised for not using the correct pronoun or some nonsense, and it rightly pisses them off.
Adding that the key would be to educate, not chastise. In any event, my reaction to being called a bigot because I don’t want a grown non-trans man in the bathroom with my little girl would be F off jaggazz and then continue to vote D.
OTOH, an unaffiliated, independent voter’s reaction would be, “you know what, maybe Fox is right about these Democrats”
There are plenty of unlocked unisex bathrooms. Been in them in many Cities.
I don’t find your view “…a logical and reasonable policy preference,” but it’s OK that this is your view now. It is tremendously important for us to reason together from a common set of facts, which is why I’m asking you to accept the fact that there has not been a rash of assaults by men on women and girls in these bathrooms. Your fears and assumptions have not been borne out by the policy in practice.
I’m also asking you to consider the certainty that no one decides to support Republicans because of bathrooms alone. There’s more going on with those voters, much, much more.
For example, I can’t find myself in agreement with this: “That happens every day to middle of the road people.. they get chastised for not using the correct pronoun or some nonsense, and it rightly pisses them off.”
In addressing people I’ve unknowingly used pronouns which did not reflect their identities, and they’ve demonstrated their displeasure and corrected me. I felt treated with unearned hostility in one instance. So what? Truly, these exchanges simply don’t happen often in America, and they’re easily bearable. It’s the people who don’t want to be made considerate of a simple request who are the biggest problem in almost all instances, and their obstinance makes me very confident that their problem with the modern progressive/Democratic Party coalition is much more than bathroom policy.
. . . reasonable” part!
See preceding reply detailing why the rightwing discriminatory policy you’re promoting is not remotely “logical and reasonable”.
Tha’d be the “danger” and “risk” for which you’ve provided precisely zero evidence* that it exists here in Reality — as people keep noting and you keep ignoring.
Even if you could establish with evidence (but you can’t) that some such risk exists as an extreme rarity, you’re proposing blatant, discriminatory abuse of an entire class of innocent people to prevent even one such rare, very low probability, and already illegal event. With still no evidence such prohibition would actually have any effectiveness, i.e., change the probability of it occurring. Both social and legal sanction against anyone entering a bathroom (or anywhere else for that matter!) and abusing women and children is already very high. It is everything but “reasonable” to expect a prohibition on trans-gendered people using the restroom of their gender identity to somehow make the fantasized “risk” any higher or thereby reduce (already extremely low) probability of occurrence.
Not merely coincidence that this standard rightwingnut talking-point that you’re parroting is so closely analogous to their rationalization for anti-democratic voter-suppression, which boils down to: better that a million eligible voters be disenfranchised than that a single illegal vote be cast . . . especially since those million disenfranchised voters lean Democratic, but the extremely rare documented case of actual voting fraud somehow always seems to turn out to be a Banana Republican.
*lurid, paranoid fantasies do not count as evidence
You’re a joke. I don’t want grown men in a women’s bathroom with my child. If you don’t understand this common sense notion, go f yourself.
. . . of the scoundrel, then false appeal to “common sense” is the last refuge of the [fill-in-the-blank] who finds science, facts, logic, and reason all aligned against him/her.
Noting again that “rightwingnut” and “Banana Republican” both fit in that blank very comfortably, as such false appeals are standard rightwing/Banana Republican rhetoric, . . . yet here you are spouting one. Hm.
men in girls bathrooms? Pedophiles in schools? But, still, ya’ll say fuck the poor. Maybe they were born like that, too, no?
. . . reveals itself in this switch — after first being confronted for
— from that formulation to
. . . and now back to
Despite what a garbled, incoherent, unsupported-by-facts, self-contradictory mess that is, it still makes quite clear that you support discriminating against innocent, actual trans-gendered persons who identify as female to prevent an already-illegal-and-prohibited, fantasized “risk” that you can provide zero evidence actually exists here in Reality.
You want to inflict this discrimination against innocent people to address a “problem” that you can’t show even exists, and which there’s no reason to think your “solution” would “solve” or even reduce, even if your fantasized “problem” did exist.
.0000000005% of people who are transgender and are truly concerned about pissing in a men’s bathroom vs. 50% of parents with girls who don’t want a man in a bathroom with their little girl. What the fuck is wrong with you?
. . . “arguments” that are in fact all strawmen(!) and red herrings to rationalize bigotry.
What the fuck is wrong with YOU?!?! (Rhetorical, answer’s pretty well established by this point.)
Holy crap! Jeffrey Epstein is blogging right here at Booman Tribune! What did we do to be so blessed? Can you tell us anything about the Don? You’ve been very vocal about how he cannot he impeached, so don’t worry, we’ll keep it a big secret.
Okay, I do believe the right-wing rat-fucking troll is outing himself in this thread.
and your comment makes my point stronger than I could by myself.
. . . the more he looks like an ag sockpuppet. Hm.
I don’t think the parties are interchangeable and after the primaries are over, I always contribute to, campaign for, and vote for the Democratic candidate in the Presidential race, so no.
. . . discriminatory policy.
Weird.
The financial sector, along with the lawyers and lobbyists supporting finance are her 4th and 1st highest sources of campaign contributions, respectively.
https://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-finance/65147/kirsten-gillibrand#.XDIIa6ROmEc
So? She represents New York. That’s not the way to judge contributions. You look at small contributors and what percentage they make of the candidate’s fundraising. She is one of the best fundraisers from small donors. Period.
This doesn’t refute the point that, as the data clearly demonstrates, she is highly indebted to Wall Street.
No the data does NOT, emphatically NOT demonstrate that she is `indebted to Wall Street’, if by that phrase you mean a “pawn” of Wall Street? Or maybe I should ask you to say what you mean by “indebted to Wall Street?” You’re awfully careless with your innuendoes. Say what you mean. She’s going to be a presidential (which is to say, national) candidate, rather than a regional (which is to say, New York) candidate. She’s going to have to decide at some point whether and to what extent to take money from contributors we may consider distasteful, and we can arrive at our own conclusions at THAT time. If you mean to say, “I think she’ll do exactly what Wall Street wants, when president” then SAY that. But “New York Senatorial candidate takes money from Wall Street, Eek!! Eek!!” Spare me. So, “Indebted to Wall Street”: what exactly do you mean by that?
Seems to me that Wall Street is pissed off at her, if anything, for what she did to Al Franken. People powerful enough to get the same story repeated in multiple outlets over the span of a year. Yet commenter Jersey over here is swallowing the propaganda of Wall Street investors who hate Gillibrand.
They have to list their employer. That means if you are an executive assistant at a Wall Street firm your donation is counted as having from the financial sector. Of course any politician from New York is going to have a lot of donations individual from the financial services industry that add up. Just like a politician from Iowa is going to have a lot of donations from Agriculture and a politician from California is going to have a lot of donations from tech.
I assume you are not advocating restricting campaign donations from individuals from specific industries (which would be unconstitutional as heck) so I ask what is your issue with individuals in the financial services industry donating to Senator Gillibrand?
The real measure if the percentage of small donations (which is a stand in for donations from individuals)a politician takes versus the percentage of donations they take from PACs.
* spews coffee *
Good grief, you are so far off the mark you can’t even see the strawmen you’re shooting at.
You, on the other hand, are such a caricature of a far-leftie bombthrower trying mightily to split Democratic cohesion, one could almost wonder….
Speak to DavisX about strawmen. He fabricates them endlessly.
. . . understand both the concept of “strawmen” and the nature of satire to get that.
Puritopians of the world, unite!
Thanks to Shoq for that term, especially since emoprogs is so last decade.
Snore. What do you believe in, anyway? You folks would’ve chided Roosevelt for the New Deal and called him a bomb throwing lefty. You would’ve been a Republican back then. What are you really now?
You do know that Roosevelt ran on balancing the budget, right?
Right-wing ratfucker trolls don’t give a crap about facts; they don’t know and don’t care, so long as they can use whatever tool comes to hand for demoralizing and dividing the Democrats.
I will stand corrected that this this individual from NJ is no puritopian, but something else altogether. Just another bathroom obsessed transphobe. Meh.
You guys make the NPR shirt wearing guy on Sacha Baron Cohen’s new show look like a downright reasonable dude. You are the personification of Fox’s mocking of liberals.
You champion a policy that would make it illegal to kick a man out of a girl’s bathroom because of some amorphous benefit to a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population. All in favor of Trans having their own bathroom if they want. I’m not in favor of tying the hands of private business owners and LEOs from ejecting perverted (non-trans) men from a woman’s bathroom.
Pushing your extreme maximalist social policy nonsense while dumping on people who advocate economically liberal policies is a clear demonstration of what is fundamentally wrong with a not insignificant portion of the Dem base.
Why aren’t you satisfied with gender neutral bathrooms? Why push people who are not as radical as you to despise your politics? Why give Fox something (apparently true) to gin up their crazies about?
Look…without a factual basis for panic, there is no point in panicking. The news article I linked to does link to the original journal article with data from the study mentioned. I hate that those things are paywalled, but there are ways to get around that if necessary. Anyhoo, I seriously doubt that the first thing that any of us, except for a few on some radical fringe, are obsessing over whether or not a transgender person is using the same damned restroom. If anything, there appears to be plenty of evidence that someone who is transgender is likely to be threatened with physical violence, etc. for simply trying to use any public rest facilities. Moral panics, like the sort Faux News trade in, usually manage to leave a good deal of damage in their wake.
Absent a reason for panic, I refuse to, and I refuse to indulge those who insist on doing so. Popper had the right idea of being intolerant of intolerance. Works for me. We’re done here.
I’m basically at the point where I will vote for any Democratic candidate, full stop. It’s not 2008 for me anymore. The Republicans need to be completely defeated, top to bottom.
Could we please have someone from west of the Mississippi River? Or at least west of the Appalachian Mts?
The last Democratic President from the NE was JFK. We can stand getting one every 60 years or so.
But the last Democratic candidate was from NY. What’s your point?
Yeah. Someone free from the corrupting taint of big cities and and cosmopolitan finance, please.
Candidates from the NE have not done well in several recent elections. I would also add that it is rare for Senators to win the presidency (President Obama is very much the exception) so I would like a closer look at our governors.
Beyond that my gut is if we have a Senator on a ticket it is going to be Senator Klobuchar in the VP slot with someone like Inslee/Bullock/O’Rourke in the top spot.
. . . Yeah, he (like Tester) is about as liberal a conservadem as can probably be elected statewide in this purple-leaning-red state. (When you live here, you come to accept that. But never to like it.)
But it’s pretty dispiriting to think that we’d end up having to settle for no better than that in 2020.
Plus I just have a hard time imagining him catching on nationally.
. . . as your intro to the electorate as a potential candidate. Content of the article substantially negates impression created by somewhat sensationalistic headline — if, that is, one bothers to read it, and aye, there’s the rub. “You only get one chance to make a first impression.”