Wasserman Schultz Resigns

This must be the lamest excuse in the history of excuses. Even Rove takes offense at being dismissed so lightly.

Except the MSM is running with these emails for weeks now. It takes special skill not to notice.

 

No, he was the Deputy Chief of Staff for the POTUS, though. And he deleted millions of e-mails he was legally obligated not to delete by both the Hatch Act and the Presidential Records Act from a private e-mail server. I never said he was running for POTUS. But while you seem very concerned about a former SoS's emails you seem to have absolutely no concern for the guy who deleted millions of presidential emails.

Never prosecuted. Nor do we know what we might find in those emails. Tell me, Bruce, how do we know that those emails didn't implicate the President in some way? Perhaps they contained admissions that the evidence against Iraq was false. Perhaps there was proof that the entire Iraq war was a farce. Would that be insignificant to you? We will never know. Maybe it was nothing more than viagra ads. We don't know. Same for Hillary. To pretend like Hillary's e-mail deletion was worse than deleting 22 MILLION emails from a Presidential email server is, at best, a bit delusional.

I'd like to point out once again that I'm not defending Hillary. You are on here every day talking about how "blind" everyone is who follows Hillary despite the mountain of evidence of her misdeeds. Meanwhile, whenever anyone points out that the GOP has a closet full of its own skeletons you brush those off. No biggie. Right? Hillary deletes 30,000 emails. Karl Rove deletes 22 Million. No biggie. He wasn't Secretary of State. And since he isn't a candidate it doesn't matter. Wasserman Schultz's staff thought about trying to trick Bernie into saying he's an atheist in public to hurt his chances with religious voters. Oh the horror! But GOP candidates accusing each other, and our current president, of not being "real" Christians is OK?

You're not thinking objectively. If you were you'd see that both sides have plenty of mud on them. You know, it is possible to support a candidate even if they have a few blemishes, right? So why try to pretend like the GOP is lilly white in anything aside from their racial makeup?

 

Try doing some research, my friend. There were 2 email servers for the White House during the Bush 43 era, one for official business, the other for RNC business. Rove did occasionally send emails concerning official business on the RNC server, something he said was an oversight on his part, done for convenience. I've done the same thing; sent a work email from my personal email to save time and for convenience, along with millions of others.

The big difference is, Hillary Clinton used ONLY her private server for official business, showing clear intent to skirt public records laws, and also violate the law as well as State Department regulations.

HUGE difference.

Political mud is one thing, criminal acts are an entirely different matter. Political mud doesn't endanger national security (private email server), political mud doesn't leave Americans to die (Benghazi). That's not even getting into the Russian reset, Whitewater, Rose Law firm, Vince Foster, using the FBI to target political opponents, the list goes on and on and on and on.

BTW, the tired old line of the Republican party being "lily white" men is not true. You seem to forget that the Republican field of candidates included a female, an African-American (2 if you count fringe kook Jimmy McMillan), and 2 Hispanics.

The Democrats? A white guy and a white gal.

 

It is true that the Republican party has low support from minorities. Pointing out a couple of presidential candidates doesn't change that fact. If the polls turn out to be correct, Trump's support from Latinos and black people is going to be lower than usual. I believe the taco bowl comment was in reference to Trump thinking that eating a taco bowl proved that he loves Hispanics.

 

Ironically, it's the failed Democrat social polices (starting with Lyndon Johnson) of the last 50 years or so that are the major reasons why minorities in this country still struggle in poverty. They've made entire generations (of all races) dependent on the government to provide for them, through Section 8, public housing, food stamps, welfare cash payments (rewarding single mothers for having more kids they can't provide for), WIC, and a host of other freebies.

When General Gaffe (Joe Biden) said to a black organization, "They're going to put ya'll back in chains", he apparently didn't know that many minorities are already in chains, courtesy of a nanny state government that does nothing to reward work and achievement. The chains now come in the form of government money, rather than iron links, but they're just as enslaving, in a different way.

Of course, this creates a loyal voter base for the Democrats, because few people can resist the lure of free stuff. The problem is, nothing is free, because someone has to pay for it. The big problem is, that if things don't change, the ability of those who pull the cart will be eventually be overpowered by the weight of those riding in the cart.

Whenever you subsidize something, you get more of it.

 

Yeah, you know what else you paid for, Bruce? You paid for a $1.7 TRILLION war based on false pretenses. You paid for 4,491 caskets draped in American flags. And I'll bet you were sitting at home yelling "ra-ra, Bush!" while every single one of those men and women's remains were being flown back stateside.

Total cost of welfare in the US? $462 Billion.

So, I got it, you don't want to pay for poor families to eat and have housing. I suppose all of the low income families in New York will just all go out en masse, earn MBAs and become hedge fund managers so they can afford to live in Manhattan.

Or they can enlist the next time the GOP decides to start a war. I hear Iran is on the chopping block these days. Should we vote to liberate them next? Just tell me how many more people we need to throw into the wood chipper to make you feel good about your presidential pick.

Whether you like it or not our current president and our most recent former president BOTH have strong cases for war crimes at the Hague. Well, such would be a consideration if we weren't the US of A and didn't feel like we were above the law. Obama uses drone strikes to kill U.S. citizens without due process (extra-judicial killings) and Bush started a war of aggression and invented some weak legal loophole to put people in an off-shore concentration camp for indefinite periods of time.

Hate Hillary all you like. But let's stop pretending like the alternative is all apple pie and sunshine. And, wars aside, this (or this) could just as easily have been you. But Obama is the one whose "anti-cop," right?

 

I have to agree with you on the war thing. That/this war has screwed up a lot of young and not so young men and women. I used to see the after affects of the war in vets coming back from Iraq in one of my government jobs. They were missing limbs, or came back with brain injuries. The mental scars left over from what they have seen was very apparent in their faces, and they are never going to live a "normal" life, despite all the mental drugs and therapy and all the other supposed miracle stuff that is supposed to work but doesn't. But don't get me started. We then set up all these great sounding programs that amount to little more than glorified "referral" services and suicide hotlines.

We then wonder we have so many vets among the homeless now? How much is this war going to cost? How long are we going to pay? Short sighted thinking by small minded nats. That's what happens. So you see, it does make a difference who is in power, it can make a VERY big difference. Trump is another small minded, tough talking nat. Another example of small minded short term thinking? Closing down the State owned mental health facilities some thirty years ago under the guise of smaller government. What was the long term result of that small minded decision? Large amounts of mentally ill homeless folks on the streets today.

I think I will continue to vote Democrat thanks. Plus, I do not see the Republican party as welcoming to minorities. What reason would I have to vote Republican? I have absolutely no problem making my choice in this election.

Edit- Don't even get me started on the "trickle down" economics story they told me over thirty years ago. I am still waiting to see where all the great results are they told me were supposed to happen.

 

That's bull. That's a fabulous talking point if you're at the annual Ronald Reagan tummy rub. Otherwise it has no basis in reality. While I will contend that you are, indeed, correct that there is a difference between those two things the "bull" is the notion that you can have one and completely obliterate the other without dire societal consequences.

OK, you have an unemployed engineer. You give them six months to a year to get back on their feet and they do. Great. The thing is that individual is likely getting by on Unemployment Insurance which s/he paid into along with their employers.

You have a poor person with little education, no skills, kids and the need to find a place to live and eat. Now, buy up all of the land around them and rent it out as luxury condos for $5k a month. You can either provide them government, or government subsidized, housing to offset the pittance of slave wage they receive for working retail jobs in affluent neighborhoods or their employers can pay them enough to actually stand on their own feet. We, the individual consumer and taxpayer, for for it either way.

Are there families living on benefits and not doing much else? Sure there are. But they pale in comparison to the number working poor who make $10/hr to work in a Midtown Apple Store servicing the iPhone of the people who caused every economic meltdown in this nation's history without consequence.

And even if those people get an education or learn a trade and then try to pull themselves out of poverty the system is stacked against them. They'll make just slightly too much money to receive that government assistance and then have to move many miles away, pay for healthcare, childcare and food without any assistance and be in a spot worse off than they were before.

Tell me, Steve. If I offered you a job that paid $10k more per year would you take it? Would you take it if it meant having a longer commute? Paying more for health insurance? Paying more for food? Because that is what happens when families try to pull themselves out of poverty. The idea that we need to pull the safety net, rather than devote resources to easing that transition, is either one of the most idiotic answers that I've ever seen to the question of poverty.

And yeah, there is a difference between saying "Governments should do X" and "I don't want X." But this is what a civilized society looks like. We pay, in taxes, premiums, retirement account contributions etc just as much as Northern Europeans pay in taxes for a fraction of the services that their governments provide. And, contrary to the Rand Paul lovefest sites online, they aren't "all going broke" their "experiment" isn't failing. It's been thriving for many, many decades and, in some cases, centuries.

We are the experiment. And we are the ones failing. And taking away that social framework won't make us cleaner and more efficient like Denmark or Norway. It will make us like the third world countries that also don't, won't or can't provide those essential services to its citizens. The alternative to public housing, with a few abusers, is people starving in the streets. That's not at all how we make America "great again."

 

So, what is your explanation for Asians mostly supporting the Democratic Party? If you go back before Johnson, you will see that the Democratic presidential candidates received the majority of the non-white vote. Support among minorities got worse for the Republican Party once they started nominating people like Goldwater and Nixon. Nixon employed a southern strategy to get the votes of disenchanted, southern, white Democrats. Reagan employed a similar strategy. Kennedy was smarter than Nixon in how he dealt with the civil rights issues of the time. Conservatives always point to welfare when it comes to minority support of Democrats, but have you ever thought that the growing popularity of Democrats among minorities had a lot to do with Johnson and the Civil Rights Act and segregationist, southern Democrats switching to the Republican Party?

Election Polls -- Presidential Vote by Groups | Gallup Historical Trends

 

Is it really a worthwhile thought experiment to consider whether a person would vote for a candidate 50, 75 or 100 years ago? Haven't the parties undergone such significant shifts in that time period that it sort of makes such a consideration pointless?

What if I show you a complete whacko of a Libertarian candidate? Might one wonder if you'd vote for such a person even if their political and personal views greatly conflicted with your own? Of course not. Why would your support of the Libertarian party today in any way indicate how you might have voted for a specific Libertarian candidate in the 70s?

Besides Herbert Hoover hardly had an impeccable civil rights record by the 1932 election. FDR had no federal track record. And he didn't start going hog wild until his third term. So I imagine that there might well have been many Japanese-Americans who voted for him between 1-3 times before he managed to inexcusably violate their constitutional rights.

 

One explanation I've heard is that Asians don't like the Republican Party's stance on immigration. Also, some groups just might be more economically and/or socially liberal. Being economically liberal doesn't automatically mean you, personally, are looking for a handout.

 

1. I think it is a stretch to say that "most" Democrats think FDR was "fantastic."

Political parties are not churches. There is no canon of saints. The younger Democrats I have spoken to generally don't have opinions about FDR one way or the other. As people who actually voted for FDR, and who were personally impacted by his programs and policies, die that base is replaced with new voters who take on their own issues.

I have never heard a Democrat say "Boy, FDR was amazing despite Japanese internment" or "FDR was amazing because of Japanese internment." In fact, I've never actually heard anyone younger than the boomers say "FDR was amazing" period. If you were a kid who grew up during the Great Depression, even if you just caught the tail end, I imagine you would have some pretty positive things to say about The New Deal. If your dad went from unemployed to bringing home some money in a WPA program it would be hard not to think "Wow, someone in Washington was doing something right." Don't you think?

That doesn't mean that Japanese Internment was "right," it wasn't, but people are fully capable of picking and choosing when a person does something good and separating it from the bad things a person does. If you're honest and upfront about that separation I don't really have a problem with it. But I don't like it when people try to whitewash or downplay those negatives. And that's something I dislike no matter which party is doing it. This applies to both parties. FDR helped pull the nation out of the Great Depression. That's good. He also interned Japanese-Americans. That's bad. Richard Nixon played a prominent role in normalizing relations with China. That's good. Watergate? That's bad.

2. The majority of people who, as of today, are willing to publicly admit that they feel Japanese internment was actually a "good" thing or that it was completely appropriate given the context seem to be GOP and happen to support Trump. It shouldn't be surprising. A lot of GOP voters chose Trump. And from what Trump has said thus far a leap to Muslim-American internment isn't really that extreme of a reach.

So is it really that curious why someone like George Takei would vote against the people who currently support Japanese internment even if it means supporting a party that, around 3/4 of a century ago, actually caused Japanese-American internment to take place?

I'm not a big fan of holding children accountable for the sins of their fathers especially when the children themselves have plenty of sins they can be held accountable for.

 

Perhaps this will shed some light

How Asian Americans Became Democrats

 

George Takei is a good example. When minorities look at present day actions in the Republican party, they vote accordingly. What do I mean by this? Minorities look and see how the racist views expressed by the Trump's (not just him) are gleefully embraced by many on the right. Those on the right that denounce Trump as a racist (not all) will turn around and still vote/embrace the guy. Guess what? Minorities see all this stuff, spread the word, and get others to vote against a party they see as a racist RNC. Not rocket science. There, I broke it down. Trump can't win with votes from his base only.

Trump is merely putting the nail in the coffin of what is now know as the RNC. I have said this before, and I will say it again. McConnell and his ilk all meet shortly after losing the White House to Obama. They had a famous meeting about how the GOP HAD to become more inclusive of minorities, but the numb nuts just couldn't follow their own advice. The RNC is getting ready to blow, and it should be no mystery why it's demise is taking place. They just don't/can't seem to be able to change/adapt with the times. They continue to be seen as the party of the angry white dudes. Perception is everything some times. Once again, this is not rocket science.

 

I don't disagree with any of that but I'd say that they lost the good will of a lot of moderate Republicans when they let the Tea Party stonewall the Congressional process by not allowing any bills to come to the floor for debate or voting. To me it just seemed like a bunch of 3 year olds who decided to have a tantrum until they got what they wanted. There were (and still is) lots of bills that the public wanted considered and the Tea Party just said no, even if the majority of their constituents wanted to see it move forward. I think that this is what paved the way for an outsider like Trump. Be careful what you ask for . . .

 

I'm not sure if Trump puts the nail in the coffin of the RNC or if Trump is putting a nail in the coffin of the Tea Party.

The Tea Party was a force to be reckoned with during its surge. They were unseating establishment Republicans armed with minuscule campaign budgets. Now, we're starting to see Tea Party representatives losing primaries.

I don't think people tend to change their minds very often. I don't think a district just "decides" to flip between parties. I think that people get pissed off and then actually bother to go vote. Whoever has more pissed off people is likely going to win.

And I think we are seeing non-TP Republicans getting tired of the Tea Party and making greater efforts to move toward a more centrist attitude.

The establishment types on both sides of the aisle have a similar mantra...

"We need to reach across the aisle. There needs to be compromise to get things done..."

The Tea Party mantra is more like "No!No!No! I want it my way right now!" followed by breath holding, foot stomping, throwing things and doing that limp body thing that toddlers do when they don't want you to be able to carry them out of the store.

And I think the TP approach turned some heads for a while. I think it gave the appearance that something was "getting done" for a brief time. But the more the game plays out the more we see that it actually causes Congress to do even less. And I think people are getting pissed about it.

Again, two party system. If the house of representatives wasn't geographically based. If we just voted in a national "at-large" election and seats were apportioned based upon the percentage of the vote a party received then I could see more options unfolding. I think that both the DNC and the RNC would absolutely split into subsets and the political spectrum would be much broader than it appears to be under our current system.

I think that this is the final burnoff of the Tea Party before it gets relegated back to the fringes. Losing 2016 or worse, winning 2016 and embarrassing the GOP even further, will be that final nail. Look closely though because I think the DNC's version of the Tea Party is brewing and we may see a time when Chuck Schumer gets bounced in favor of the Democratic version of Ted Cruz (Bill Nye?).