February 24, 2019

Here's the latest Montreal proposal to share the Rays with Tampa Bay

https://www.tampabay.com/sports/2019/02/22/heres-the-latest-montreal-proposal-to-share-the-rays-with-tampa-bay/


OK, this is what the Tampa Bay Rays owner is doing because we did not spend tax money tobuild him a shiny new baseball stadium. Now...here is what is sleazy...we would have to share the team with not just another city, but another country, and not just another country, but the one part of canada where the dominant language is French? How the hell is that supposed to build loyalty to the team?

Stadium hungry owners have little idea how much they are disenchanting people from their product. As far as Montreal goes, we all know what happened to les expos. the folks in Quebec are not fans of that most anglo-american sport, baseball.

February 24, 2019

Even if the whole Franken mess could be erased from time

The fact is, she is a hard centrist candidate in an election where even many moderate voters want to at least tilt the balance more to the left, thanks to trump's outright breaking of the balance. It is one thing to promise that once you are in power, that you will start to lean leftward, well, in part thanks to Hillary Losing, in part because Trump has already done decades of damage, people will not buy that tune as easily as they would have in 2016. We will not something stronger to get the taste of trump out of our mouth, especially since we now know that W. was not a fluke:there really ARE a bunch of Americans who are in no way interested in common good, fairness or even their own damned GOP principles. There really re Americans who are working to make sure the 21st century has the slave markets, the witch hunts, the illiteracy, the deadly working conditions and all the old horrors that never should have survived the 18th century.

In other words, when your health goes from being a bad cold to Pneumonia, you need the stronger doses.

PS: If people consider Gillibrand a crusader for women, they better hope they donot run into the fellow that put in and defended VAWA. Joe Biden may have hang ups, but when it comes to women, or goading Obama into finally supporting Gay marriage, or supporting Obama Care, he has done things that are, to use his words, a "BIG f***ing Deal."

February 12, 2019

yes another thread about the Virginia governor

first off: I understand many of the reasons why people have posted defensive comments about the governor.
One: this is an obvious "rat" operation, just as Al Franken was also a successful operation.
Two: despite doing something that was very very stupid, the governor has apparently enjoyed the success of black voters.
Three: if the GOP gets back Virginia, it will send a message to the folks in Dixie that even when Democrats gain, they lose.
Four: what he did was really not all that bad, and was very common back then.
Five: if we do not maintain our composure whenever we go for social justice, we will do nothing but eat our own, and scare off those coveted "white working-class voters."

And this is where I will take apart all of these points.
One: yes it is a rat operation, and I am sure that the Republicans, as well as Putin himself, are ready to go ahead and find any sort of dirt, real or otherwise, because after all it's not like the truth really matters to people. However, if we're going to drop our standards just because we are afraid of what the other people will do, then we are in effect allowing ourselves to be controlled by the enemy. Voters, especially those that we claim to be coveting will see that as submission. The fence striding "moderate" will tell themselves "see I told you all the social justice was nonsense!"

Two: yes, the governor of Virginia has done some things that were good for the black voters who after all, put him in office. Now, considering the fact that the Democrats depend heavily on African American voters, should anyone, regardless of whether they have something unsavory in the past, or whether they are saints straight from seventh heaven somehow not trying to improve the lot of African-American voters? Let me be blunt: if I go to a Burger King and the person does not make a taco instead of a whopper I wanted, is that something to praise? Let me be real blunt: it was not for African-American voters who are dealing with threats as well as red tape, Nancy Pelosi would not be speaker of the house. And it is not for the fact that African-American voters will indeed have to deal with all those old threats and whatever new ones that Trump and his buddy Vladimir can come up with, we will not win, any more than we would not win without women. Talk realpolitik all you want, you know this is a fact, and the statistics will prove it.

Three: I myself am a Democrat in Florida. I know very well that damn hard to be a Democrat deep red Dixie where there is not even the pretense anymore of fairness, or outright cheating is celebrated on talk radio and in the newspapers. It is no accident that the same state that we're focusing on now is the same state that brought us to Charlottesville riots. As much as we would like to think we have made progress, there are still some people who they got their way would go straight back to antebellum days. Yes I do mean antebellum days, because you hear stuff like "we treated our slaves well." What I'm saying here is this: if you try to coddle, beg, plead the white sheet faction, and those who were good friends with people of the white sheet faction, will not hear you. All you are doing is confirming weakness. Yes, we do need the 50 state strategy back in gear, and yes we do need to leave the door open wide enough for the people who are finally mad at Trump, if no other reason than they finally got screwed. But if we show fear, that will do absolutely nothing but sure that this gets repeated again, and again., And again

Four: okay, the idea that some people come on here and say "we had this when we were growing up and it wasn't that bad, and it wasn't that uncommon." Are the good old days when Blacks can be hung from trees supposedly some acceptable standard? Many of the Germans in World War II were indeed the European equivalent of good old boys, good, simple folk who simply allowed themselves to follow the current for bunch of reasons that I'm sure they thought were good, even though their conscience was screaming at the top of her lungs "you know this is wrong!" I am not saying that people who say what he did was not all that bad are bigots, but I am saying that many are willing to give the bigots some slack, which is dangerous because, as Charlottesville showed, if you give those bigots some slack, they will take a mile of rope. If you are looking at things and thinking they weren't so bad back then, first off, most older African-Americans can wipe that allusion from your eye, second we are the ones were supposed to know better.

Five: this point was previously covered, but it bears repeating: the frustrated white working-class, that was raised to take comfort from the fact that no matter how low they were, they could always say the N-word is not going to listen to your pleas. It is one thing to sacrifice a person, a person that frankly had time and resources to clean up their mess before summer rat found it. But if we sacrifice our ideals, our morals, we have something much more to fear than any "purity police", what we are doing is telling the enemy that we will bend to their well, and that they will set the agenda, and before you know it, this Faustian deal that was made of will come due, and we will wonder where the hell our integrity went as we're dragged off to hell!

February 11, 2019

t0 whoever gave me hearts

Thank you. It is good to know someone appreciates me

February 9, 2019

fairfax, Gary hart, A. Weiner, E. Spitzer, and yes Bill C.

OK, I know that whenever we criticize people, we have to do so carefully, after all, the crumbs we make will be made into a loaf by the GOP, who does not even pretend to give a damn.

However, I really need to ask this..because we know the GOP loves the "honey trap", why, why do so many Democratic leaders fall for it? Yes we know that even if there was a full video of a GOP slime doing things too nasty for even the internet to show, all he has to go is go to a church, and get "redeemed." WE however have fallen and lost some great warriors.

Why, is all I ask.

February 7, 2019

a cartoon that says everything better than I could

http://leftycartoons.com/2018/03/11/liberal-pundit-speaks-out-against-identity-politics/

February 7, 2019

about the "we are eating our own" comments

There is a concern voiced here and elsewhere that we democrats are helping the gop when we denounce one of our own for doing something that they should have known was racist or sexist. I can understand the fact that we have a disadvantage: we demand our politicians actually hold to a set of ideals, whereas the GOP will elect Lucifer if he promises that gives the churches more power and cut taxes. There are talks "Al franken got screwed!" or "purity police!" There are even people who say "I do not care what this person did, we gotta win!" Then there comes the people who say we democrats lost due to "identity politics", which very often means that if brown and black people don;t want to be oppressed, they have to sit in the back while the good white liberals keep driving the bus.

Well, I will be the first to say that the rush to judgment has turned the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" into roadkill, especially as the Media flexes more and more muscle to prevent use of the brain You can see the media doing its best to make things a "horse race", so that Trump can slither in by the squeakiest of margins, and the media can enjoy a Renaissance of popularity as the newspapers and Tv stations make easy profit from misery. Yes Al Franken was screwed in the sense that Gillibrand demanded his head rather than actually force the investigations machinery to actually be used, even though he was willing to submit to it.

However, when all is said and done, the truth is, if we cannot maintain enough of a moral compass to actually defend what we claim to be, we will be run over flat. Yes Northam may be , as one person who yelled at me said "protecting blacks from the GOP", as if doing what those black voters elected him to do was some sort of medal. Yezs I do say blacks, browns, and women because those are the very people that put Pelosi back as speaker of the House. We can try and tray to appeal to those "whote working class" people that the media sings off, and guess what, while some can get disenchanted with the GOP, many many more will gladly vote themselves into the poorhouses because their identity is to negate our identity. If you want totalk realpolitik, the one thing we cannot do is treat minorities like it is their job to stay in the back of the bus so that we can somehow sneak past the gop. We need to protect our bases, our values, because THAT is what will actually resist the GOP.

Am I saying to just toss out people when they get ratfucked, hell no! If anything, we need to go ahead and rebuild the love of that good old fashioned, boring process where we actually investigate what happened. By the same token, when politicians who have had YEARS to address the skeletons in their closet hold a press conference, and offer sloppy, mealy mouthed half explanations of why they did not address an issue BEFORE it could have become ratfucking ammo, then we need to say "sorry, you goofed, and we are not going to let you be a loose tooth." If there is one thing politicians have, it is that they have the tools and resources to properly cean their houses, be it consultants, media exposure, or the simple ability to say "I screwed up, and I own it, and I will make it up to you" instead of the cover ups that only make the matter worse.

February 3, 2019

Controversial YouTube Show Lands Portland Coffee Company in Hot Water

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/01/11/37893995/controversial-youtube-show-lands-portland-coffee-company-in-hot-water


Has cofffe roastign become some sort of refuge for rich arseholes?