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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[josh]

Thanks for that Hayes-Tilden article,  Josh.   Fascinating.  And that kind of deal with the devil only fucks up the nation for a century or so,  right?

The deal with the devil was that it took that long before somebody took that much advantage of the system. What we are seeing today is just another of the thoroughly predictable aspects of the Constitution.

The Articles of Confederacy had their own issues, but were not vulnerable to this kind of power grabbing demagoguery. Thomas Jefferson demonstrated quite ably just how easy it was for a Chief Executive under the Constitution to ignore its limits so long as Congress would go along with him and the Courts were not called upon. Andrew Jackson demonstrated that even when the Court's authority was summoned, if the Chief Executive chose not to heed it and the Senate would do nothing, the Justices were impotent even if they chose not to be blind.

Of course, they chose to be blind sufficiently frequently along the way that relying on them has seemed pretty futile too much of the time, anyway. ( Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell, Korematsu v. United States, Chae Chan Ping v. United States, McCleskey v. Kemp, Kelo v. City of New London, Bennis v. Michigan... and that's without getting into Citizens United or Berghuis v. Thompkins or Gore v. Bush.) (At least Dred Scott and Plessy have been reversed. Korematsu has been declared bad law, yet its practices seem to be allowed to continue. I suspect that under this Court that Buck would pass again, depending upon the population being involuntarily sterilized. Ditto Chae Chan Ping.)

But... the practices that brought us President Hayes are almost demanded of a "true patriot," who believes that only one individual can save the nation.

The great Compromise that gave Hayes the White House was a disaster for black Americans. The democrats’ condition was the end of Reconstruction and complete democrat rule of the southern states. (Which Hayes consented to) It proved to be disastrous for Southern blacks. Their vote was suppressed, racism flourished, so did the KKK, And Jim Crow eventually came into power. 
.That’s a chapter of the story you neglected.

But which THE ARTICLE JOSH POSTED DISCUSSED IN SOME DETAIL.   TRY READING.

I did 
Not sure what your response is supposed to mean other than my post proved to be true

Your snide comment to Josh was false.

You told Josh:  "That’s a chapter of the story you neglected."

My later post pointed out that the dismal effects of Hayes-Tilden - which no one here disputes at all - were discussed in the article Josh posted.   Therefore,  he did not neglect that story,  and in fact was the one who posted it.   Your rhetorical stab at him,  that he was neglecting the results of that infamous horsetrading,  was false.   

Either you lied,  or you didn't bother to read past the first couple paragraphs of the NYer piece.

Arbitrary standards. Always.

[facilitatorn]

[
Your snide comment to Josh was false.

You told Josh:  "That’s a chapter of the story you neglected."

My later post pointed out that the dismal effects of Hayes-Tilden - which no one here disputes at all - were discussed in the article Josh posted.   Therefore,  he did not neglect that story,  and in fact was the one who posted it.   Your rhetorical stab at him,  that he was neglecting the results of that infamous horsetrading,  was false.   

Either you lied,  or you didn't bother to read past the first couple paragraphs of the NYer piece.

The cited Article only  touched on the real tragedy of the Hayes/Tilden Compromise without detailing what ensued. 85 years of Southern democrats disenfranchising black voters.
No one who read the article was presented those facts in any sort of detail.

The legacy of those 85 years is alive and well in the racist lawless republican party and the great big con of American “conservatism”, a deadly cult devoid of all value.

[LarryBnDC]

Achtung, bitches...


https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/21/texas-dps-police-brutality-protesters/

[josh]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-is-to-speak-on-all-4-nights-of-the-rnc-and-his-family-will-take-up-half-of-the-keynote-speaker-spots/ar-BB18hkn2

Isn't that special.

[bodiddley]

I was reading Ted Rall's claims that Biden and Trump are essentially the same, so progressives should vote 3rd party or sit out.

I can understand not being excited about moderate corporate Democrats, but his arguments are really terrible and poorly thought out.
With regard to Bader-Ginsburg, Rall blithely says it won't change the balance of the court if she replaced by a DEM prez, so who cares.  Essentially giving up on the possibility of a left-leaning SCOTUS for a generation.  Things would get ugly fast if you have 5 hardcore rightwingers plus Roberts deciding whatever they want.

He also makes a dumb argument that one vote doesn't matter or change anything, so feel free to go 3rd party or not vote.  Except that all those 3rd party votes add up to tens of thousands, and we've had 2 presidential elections in the last 20 years in which a 3rd party liberal arguably cost the DEMs the presidency.  Plus, he's broadcasting his opinion to potentially large numbers of people, so he's not just talking about his one vote, but trying to get thousands of other lefties not to vote for the DEM candidate.  The whole idea of a 3rd party candidate is to get a significant number of votes.  So this one vote smokescreen is crapola.

Progressives and centrists are enemies. When neoliberal centrists achieve power, progressives find themselves in the political wilderness. Obama didn’t have a single progressive in his cabinet. Biden doesn’t have any progressive top advisors.

Progressives and mainstream Dems have definite agenda overlap.  Biden has been getting advice from Liz Warren and adopted a number of Bernie policies.

His whole article is full of junk arguments.
Somehow he doesn't even mention the coronavirus which is upending (and ending) lives.  Biden will obviously do a better job of handling the virus and restoring normalcy than Trump (and obviously Hillary would have done a world better than Trump).

Plus there's something important about having a party in power who actually believes in government and competence and expertise, as opposed to another 4 years of scams and chaos and disorganization.  My motto has been good government saves lives; bad gov't kills.  I guess Rall just shrugs and hopes it's those evil centrists doing the dying.  Unbelievable stupidity.

Might as well just have 4 more years of racism and corruption, because some progressives are unhappy Bernie didn't win.  I consider Biden sort of a hack.  but he's a classic finger in the wind politician, and with the wind blowing in heavily from the Left, Biden will likely shift and be more center-left than Obama.

[josh]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-is-to-speak-on-all-4-nights-of-the-rnc-and-his-family-will-take-up-half-of-the-keynote-speaker-spots/ar-BB18hkn2

Isn't that special.

I suspect that they ran out of unindicted GOP folks who would also speak positively about their candidate.

[josh]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/23/americas/peru-nighclub-covid-stampede-intl-scli/index.html

13 dead.

[bodiddley]

From Bosnia to Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria, Joe Biden has enthusiastically voted for and convinced his fellow legislators to support brutal foreign interventions. Though disgusting, Trump’s record is nevertheless far better than Biden’s.

A bunch of horseshit.
Lumping all these together as though they were equivalent.
Bosnia was hardly a brutal foreign intervention.  The bombing of Serbia stopped a brutal civil war.  Did you know there's a Bill Clinton statue in Pristina, Kosovo, and George W. Bush Avenue leading from the airport?   Bosnia is still divided, but at least there's been peace there for 25 years  after the Dayton Accords, which is just a  little better than bombing and sniper fire and Sarajevo totally under siege.

Afghanistan War shouldn't have gone on for 2 decades, but the US was attacked, and the consensus among nearly all Americans was to attack and remove bin Laden/Al Q.

Iraq was an awful mistake, but it's nonsense to say that Biden convinced his fellow senators to vote for war there.

Libya needed a follow-up plan, and apparently Obama thought that was going to be handled by the Euros.  But after Qaddafi stopped doing terrorism in Europe, he turned to destabilizing African countries and fomented nearly a half dozen civil wars and coups, with one of his proteges Charles Taylor getting convicted of war crimes.  Removing Qaddafi was the right move.  Better one dysfunctional Libya than a half dozen brutal civil wars elsewhere.  but they should have prepared so Libya wouldn't have split into competing factions.

Syria?  Yeah, well should have just let ISIS run their nice little caliphate in the Syrian and Iraqi desert.  Jeez.  Sometimes you have to intervene militarily to stop brutality and impose order.

Hugely ignorant and irresponsible opinions from Rall.

[barton]

Bo,

Ted Rall,  the guy who fiercely poked fun at people who voted for Bush again in 2004?

The guy who wrote a manifesto on how Trumpism must be toppled?   That guy.

Yeah,  I'm not sure he's thinking this through.   His Scotus argument is devoid of common sense.   "The balance of the court is not good,  so let's let DT get reelected and make it worse when RBG steps down. "  Riight.   

And yes,  his other arguments are junk arguments.  He seems to have zero grasp of how the electoral college works,  and smooths DT's path.

[josh]

I was reading Ted Rall's claims that Biden and Trump are essentially the same, so progressives should vote 3rd party or sit out.

Given Rall's history ("Obama should resign" in 2009) and his current employer ("Rall also writes and draws cartoons for Sputnik International, a news website platform established by the Russian government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya." per Wikipedia), I don't see why you would bother reading it.

[LarryBnDC]

Meanwhile, back on the friendly shores.



The sheer banality of the justice system...


But during their fateful six-minute wait for Muhaymin to exit, officers conducted a background search and discovered a warrant on his record for failure to appear in court over a charge stemming from misdemeanor possession of a marijuana pipe. (That confiscation was the result of a 2016 stop by a police officer for jaywalking in nearby Mesa, Arizona.)

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/us/phoenix-muhammad-muhaymin-invs/index.html

[barton]

The sheer banality of the justice system...


But during their fateful six-minute wait for Muhaymin to exit....

Another travesty.    Another case where mental health workers should be responding not police.   Another case where officers are not held accountable for brutal,  lethal mistreatment.  And,  as with your Texas link earlier,  the banality and pettiness.  We can't allocate resources to solve the rapes and murders of women of color and NA women,  but by god we're going to make jaywalkers and water tossers PAY!    

[oilcan]

Donald Trump walks into Chase Bank and says to the teller, “Good morning, can you cash this check for me”?

“It would be my pleasure sir. Can you please show me your ID?” She replies.

Trump says, “Sorry, I didn’t think I needed to bring it with me after all I am the president!”

The teller tells him, “Yes sir, I know who you are but with all the government regulations, I need that ID. But look, this is what we can do: One day Tiger Woods came to the bank without ID. To prove he was Tiger Woods, he pulled out his putting iron and made a beautiful shot across the bank lobby into a cup. With that shot we knew he was Tiger Woods and we cashed his check. What can you do to prove that it is you?”

Trump stood there thinking, and thinking and finally said, “Honestly, nothing comes to mind. I can’t think of a single thing I can do.”

The teller turns to him and says, “Great! Will that be large or small bills, Mr. President?”

[bambu.]

Achtung, bitches...


https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/21/texas-dps-police-brutality-protesters/

If only they'd stayed home.

[josh]

Achtung, bitches...


https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/21/texas-dps-police-brutality-protesters/

If only they'd stayed home.

Yeah!

Just think how wonderful everything would be if nobody ever left their houses.