Let's let our senators know that we want them to get tough with the Republicans -- for a change!

Fight them they way they have fought and disrespected President Obama for 8 years.

his having been so gentle with them. I personally think he has been TOO gentle with them.
Sociopaths do not understand, nor do they respect, gentleness. But they, like everybody
else, do fear the stick.

The Republicans are so use to Democrats playing by rules that they won't abide that it will throw them off their game to have a strong, united opposition party to contend with.

behind and getting an objective accomplished. To a certain degree they may have a point.
Right now some Dems. are looking around for a new and effective leadership. But fighting
against the Repubs. getting too much power is something that all Dems. agree on. This
could become a rallying point for Dems. to become more united.

Republicans, like all bullies, only understand a punch in the nose.

ineffectual, always being kicked around by Republicans, is itself a product of misinformation and fake news.

It is true that damaging, immoral, corrupt, and even illegal behaviors that hurt democracy and the American people can be very effective and that Republicans use them to good effect. They can behave destructively, such as implementing conspiracies to harness the information revolution to pickle whole populations' brains with lies and to take over government by unlimited campaign spending, because they simply don't believe in liberty, equality, and justice for all and the use of government to secure them the way we do.

For what we have achieved, look around. Liberals'/Democrats' great achievements have been, first to create, and then over 225 years to protect and advance democracy and progressive goals from the continual, passionate determination of those who believe in neither to destroy both. That's beyond HUGE. Democracy itself is the product of liberals, and the people we sent to Congress are and have always been on the front lines of a battle to protect it that began with its creation and will never end.

and have always been on the front lines of a battle to protect it that began with its creation and
will never end." I agree with this portion of your quote up to and until about 4 decades ago, when
largely successful attempts to take up and mix in with some of the Conservative ideologies took
place and is continuing to the present time. Some consider this new mixture as Neo-Liberalism,
and think it's, to a significant degree, responsible for the problems we are in today.

There are liberals on the front lines battling for the return of Liberalism to the way it was. And
the battle is far from over.

conservative faction in the party since most Southern Democrats moved to, and took over, the GOP. Before then centrists in both parties cooperated as needed to keep the rabid southern conservatives and religionists checked. Now it's just us.

Sure, the vast money in politics has had some corrupting effect on our party also, but to a vastly smaller degree than the GOP. They've collapsed under corruption and corruption-generated extremism, while we're still at basic healthy and principled. We have not lost the way.

What you imagine is a massive shift to the right from abandonment of ideals is actually the effect of the reality that we have to appeal to a majority or we will become completely ineffectual. This last election was when our efforts to appeal to right-centrist voters might finally win us some moderate conservatives for whom their party had hit bottom. NOT corruption.

Just watching Obama, and then Hillary, try to hold the American center solid together against the attacks of what has become an extremist Republican Party should make that obvious.

gave the number of Independents of 2015 as 40%. I believe the latest info lists the number as
43%. Democrats still outnumber Republicans, and Independents outnumber either one of them.

Both Trump and Clinton are disliked and distrusted by some 60% of their own Party members,
yet they "won" their Parties' respective presidential nominations. It's easy to guess that these
two have been foisted upon the American people by their respective Party leadership, who were
following orders from their common boss - Corporate America. And most Americans are aware
of Corporate America today -- thanks to a significant extent to the efforts of Sens. Warren and
Sanders - among others.

I can't help but see that change is coming, whether one wants it or not. How, when, where, and
in which direction change will go is anybody's guess. It's a frightening thought.

<< Pew Research Center

U.S. POLITICS
MEDIA & NEWS
SOCIAL TRENDS
RELIGION.........
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PEW RESEARCH CENTER
Year Ind Rep Dem
1992 36% 28% 33%
1993 34 27 34
1994 34 30 32
1995 33 31 30
1996 33 29 33
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1998 31 28 34
1999 34 27 33
2000 29 28 33
2001 29 29 34
2002 30 30 31
2003 31 30 31
2004 30 29 33
2005 31 29 33
2006 30 28 33
2007 34 25 33
2008 31 25 35
2009 35 24 34
2010 36 25 33
2011 37 24 32
2012 37 25 32
2013 38 24 32
2014 39 23 32
2015 40.1 23.7 30.4
The number of political independents has continued to grow, as both parties have lost ground among the public. Independents now outnumber either Democrats or Republicans, with 40% of Americans choosing that label. Read more

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progressive government. When people are discontented or worried, they tend to become MORE CONSERVATIVE. This phenomenon is extremely well known to and used by conservative leaders, who have worked hard during the Obama years to keep people unhappy by both blocking Democratic efforts to improve their condition and allay their worries AND by feeding them lies about how bad everything is--but especially us.

The VA for instance. Like anything man is involved in these days it has problems, but the VA has always performed better than all other healthcare delivery systems--and 97% (!) of its budget goes to patient care. The VA is a national treasure that needs nothing more than some tuning up to run even better. Therefore, those intent on privatizing/profiteering it (so that our vets' health problems can be exploited to produce vast fortunes) have to sell lies that the VA is inefficient and corrupt and serves vets badly. This is, of course, is said to be the Democrats' fault because WE are corrupt and incompetent and because inevitably all "big government" programs are doomed to fail--according to those who trying to kill support for them.

Just one of thousands of examples of why people are leaving political parties "in droves." Those the conspiracists can't fool entirely, they confuse. When people are confused and frustrated about who's doing what, they reject both. They don't America has one good, decent, functioning party still committed to the principles of government of, by and for the people.

Enjoy your fancies.

Party, after having been split by the Neo-Liberals, Third Way Democrats (or whichever other names
they are known by) the past 4 decades. Liz and Bernie have enough supporters who will see to it that
their movement to return again to the former Democratic liberal values that had been abandoned will
be taken up again. We have learned from the Neo-Liberals' vast and costly mistakes.`

Btw, I would have voted for Warren, but neither she nor I thought Bernie was the right stuff. A strong, inspiring, authoritarian speaking style is not enough. Such a shame since since destroying the billionaire class before it destroys us is at the top of my own list of priorities.

Although I've always been a strong liberal, you might be interested in knowing that Warren was a Republican for decades, right through and past the Reagan era, until the Republican Party finally, finally got too crazy for her in the 1990s. So, an independent thinker and not given to political bigotry, she moved to the Democratic Party to vote her beliefs and oppose extremism on the right. As a Democrat she has, hardly surprisingly, consistently been among the most conservative voters in our congressional caucuses.

How some people can admire Warren and at the same time insist there is no such thing as centrist, much less conservative, progressivism I can't imagine.

Warren and Bernie -- two very different ideologies. Two very, very different personalities. Two very different degrees of competence.

one of them "authoritarian." Elizabeth did not endorse Hillary until the very end,
and Bernie did campaign for Hillary after she "won" the Primaries. Bernie has
been fighting the billionaire class from robbing the middle class ever since he
entered politics -- and even during his days as a student. His voting record has
been something like 99% pro liberal.

Elizabeth possibly grew up in a Republican-voting family. She married young,
raised 3 children, and was a working mother much of the time. She probably
had little time for politics until her children were grown. My guess is that whatever
ideas she had of politics were along the lines of those of her family -- until she had
time to become seriously involved in it. It took her some years before she broke
away from them. The majority of people do not break away from their family beliefs
without a great deal of internal struggle. Elizabeth is from Oklahoma, where most
of the people vote Republican. Being the person of integrity she is, she couldn't
help but break away from them. She is the type of person who follows her conscience.
She has become a Democrat - and a Liberal one - and who fights for the rights of all
Americans. She is also totally against the sociopathic billionaires, whose ways of
bribery and corruption for more money and power are bringing our country down the
drain, and to the level of a Third World Nation.

Am glad to know that you are a strong Liberal. I am one, too. But there will always
be some differences as long as there are two human beings on earth. I don't think of
Elizabeth as a Centrist. You do - and it's okay with me. I'd like to let you know that I
voted for Sanders in the Primaries, and for Clinton in the General.

I, too, think Elizabeth is the more competent of the two, but Bernie is more than
competent enough. Both are equally intellectually honest. He wouldn't have run, if
Elizabeth had been in the race.

Edit: If Bernie had won the presidency, and with Elizabeth in the senate -- what a team
they would have made! Within two terms much of Corporate Power would have been
cut down to size. Their 40-year reign of robbing the world's masses could have been
reduced to a reasonable size.

"Probably" just letting her conservative husband who took over care of her from her conservative daddy help her understand the world?

Conservative and liberal are basic personality types, hard wired into our genes from the very beginning. As, by the way, are various degrees of talent for insightful reasoning.

Warren was never so stupid she didn't know what she believed, but if you want to keep your picture of someone who had a basic personality transformation from centrist conservative to far-left radical in her 50s, don't check out her voting record in Congress. To my mind not too bad, but guaranteed you wouldn't like a whole lot. No transformation to find. She is what she is.





She's a politician speaking publicly or she would more directly have said she had registered Republican because she agreed with traditional conservative approaches to economics and markets.

Btw, before the GOP turned extreme right-wing and purged traditional conservatives, back in the 70s & early 80s, like Warren I also crossed the ballot depending on the issue. I understand her as a fellow progressive who happens to be more conservative than me but still pretty allied in thought. I have no illusions that she had some kind of personality transplant into a radical, much less the sort of mental breakdown it was once thought feeble female minds were prone to when overloaded.

If a person can't respect someone for who and what she really is, there is no respect, only delusion.

remember, she was still a teenager. And, by the way, she was married twice. Which
husband were you referring to - perhaps both?

We are both admirers of Elizabeth, quite likely from several angles, and some of them
may be different - depending on the way how we interpret what we see and think we
know about her. I could very well have some wrong views about her. I feel okay about
that, and will have no problem changing some of them, when appropriate.

Congress convening tomorrow and the Postmortum infighting set loose on the forums, but your reasonableness in the face of it is disarming. And I need disarming before I hurt myself.

including our Mother Earth herself. In the meantime, ups are always followed by downs, and then
back again. This is the way life is. So it's worth our while to be of good cheer, and try not to let
our moods be too much dependent upon external circumstances.

A Happy New Year and all the best to you and yours.

Kill the ethics committee in closed-door session the night before they start, as Ryan put it, "rockin' and rollin."

Supposedly Ryan himself opposed doing it now, thought it'd look bad, but he doesn't control his caucus.

for the present, at any rate. So it's a temporary victory for the Dems.

I wouldn't mind if they should try it again in the near future. This would give Warren and Sanders
the opportunity to explain to the American masses what an ethics committee is and what it does.
Also how the Repubs. would take advantage of the situation, if there were no ethics committee to
prevent them from cheating and stealing from the American people. Elizabeth and Bernie could
shout it out loud and clear from the rooftops every time something like this happens.

Obama never did say much on this score during his 8 years, did he? These are excellent
opportunities of showing the American people what kind of dishonest people the Repubs. really are
Obama missed most of them. He preferred to keep quiet and maintain a calm exterior.
The result, of course, is that many Americans (Republicans especially) never did learn what liars
and cheats the Republican leaders really were.

their initial action. We won't be letting anyone forget it.

The problem is that most cons now only accept information from sources like Daily Caller, Breitbart, Drudge, Infowars. Anything that contradicts what they say is rejected. Which is why we need to start chitchatting about solid verifiable news, pleasantly, courteously, matter of fact, but spreading it around.

Just heard Chuck Schumer say, regarding repealing the ACA, that the Pubs are like the dog who caught the bus. They can't replace this already-conservative healthcare fix. They have nothing. All they can do is resign people to losing its special benefits. We need to help people realize that.

"Oh not her again!"

We have Casey, Toomey and Tim Murphy. Casey is the only democrat; the other two are pretty much a lost cause.

to vote on the merits of the nominees for the various cabinet and other posts. That means that they should reject pretty much all of them for lack of qualifications and/or conflict of interest.

It's high time for Dems to stand united and give repunks a taste of their own medicine. If they want to fight dirty with their bully-boy tactics, two can play that game. No more of those goddamn IOKIYAR double standards!!

Total blockage of their agenda by Dems. Scorched earth. Say no to everything. They are a pack of rethug Nazis.

When the shit starts coming down, and the VA is closed and schools are privatized and disabled kids have no Medicaid, and mom can't get medical care because the Medicare "subsidy" doesn't buy her any, we need to be seen as the ones who voted against that.

This could turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to Democrats if we are smart about being EVERYWHERE fighting EVERYTHING that they are doing, and telling the idiot Trump voters what the Republicans are doing to them at EVERY TURN!!!

when Trump does something that's harmful for the rest of the people outside of the top 1/10th
of 1%. This should be part of their strategy. The main stream media will say either nothing
or lie to their teeth about what's happening. And the Democrats don't have the means to
inform the American people otherwise.

We need to bombard those news agencies with one message: why aren't you saying that the Republicans are taking away medicare/aid and what that means? Why aren't you saying that the Republicans are dismantling social security.

Schumer just cleaned out the Democratic PR department and put in new people. I want to get their contact information, and see if we can get them to do some of these things. I'd put money into that.