Political Discussion

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of NC Partisan gerrymandering Maps and will not overturn them. The Supreme Court voted down party lines.

Their reason for not overturning it? The Chief justice said it should not be up to the courts to decide and doing so would be "an unprecedented expansion of judicial power." However, Justice Elena Kogan who said gerrymandering is "anti-democratic in the most profound sense" fully believes the believes the court absolutely has the power to weigh in on the issue and should. The courts abandonment to weigh in on the issue is clearly political.

What does the Supreme Court ruling mean?
It's a big deal.
The justices, in a 5-4 ruling, said essentially that when squabbles erupt over whether politicians have gone too far in drawing district lines for partisan gain, the federal courts must stay out of the dispute.
It essentially gives a green light to politicians of both parties to be as aggressive as they want to be in drawing up districts that benefit their side and hurt their political opponents -- and without fear of the federal courts getting involved. So it would be up to the states -- and the voters -- to rein in such behavior.
It's a sweeping ruling that could alter the balance of power in state legislatures and Congress for years to come.
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ayayrawn said:
Most everybody did, Biden sucked.

Harris showed tf up tho.
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Yeah. Harris and Warren had the best showings of the week.

Bernie was great too but could have been better in places. Even as a moderate on the issue, his response to the guns portion was frustrating. He got annoyed by a poorly worded gotcha question instead of quickly deflecting and then focusing on solutions (Harris answer was great there).

That said, he had an incredible answer when asked how, as a socialist, he could beat Trump, had the best answer on healthcare (while getting grilled) and then had a very, very powerful closing statement about money in politics that caused an audible gasp from someone on the stage (perhaps Harris).

Gillibrand also had a solid showing and appeared to be Bernie's attack dog. Others were more impressed than I by Pete (tons of platitudes and Think Tank talking points sprinkled into some nice moments) and Castro (He's polished and great at talking identity politics because he comes out of the Clinton machine. Problem is he deflected every economic related question into a conversation about identity politics because he comes out of the Clinton machine).

Tulsi also had a phenomenal moment in a back and forth over the Iraq war that might have ended Tim Ryan's campaign on the spot. I guess some people liked Booker's performance too. I didn't really notice him.

Biden (thankfully) had a terrible showing, and everyone else should just drop out (including Beto who was also awful).

My 2 cents anyways.
 
I'm glad Harris took Biden to task, but shes still a cop.

Castro and Warren were the two best from the debates for me.
 
Jan said:
so i read Kamala Harris kicked Joe Bidens ass last nicht?
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ayayrawn said:
Most everybody did, Biden sucked.

Harris showed tf up tho.
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I read lots of comments on Twitter that Biden is proving that age is just a number, etc., etc. But man, he has lost a good chunk of the vitality that I remember from the Obama years. And seeing him on a split screen with Harris, or Buttigieg, really just throws into contrast how much frailer he seems now. He's never been the most eloquent, but even his speech patterns seem exacerbated by age.
DownIsTheNewUp said:
Bernie was great too
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Bernie has gone from novelty to upstart to revolutionary to spoiler to intolerable.
DownIsTheNewUp said:
Others were more impressed than I by Pete
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Say what you will about everything else, but his response about the threats represented by China was really substantive and thoughtful.
DownIsTheNewUp said:
Tulsi also had a phenomenal moment
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Man, I don't know what to tell you, but anybody who inspires brigading in the polls of a site like The Drudge Report, and who gets praise from the likes of Coulter and Cernovich, ought to be ringing serious alarm bells. The sooner this race is rid of her, the better.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
I read lots of comments on Twitter that Biden is proving that age is just a number, etc., etc. But man, he has lost a good chunk of the vitality that I remember from the Obama years. And seeing him on a split screen with Harris, or Buttigieg, really just throws into contrast how much frailer he seems now. He's never been the most eloquent, but even his speech patterns seem exacerbated by age.

Bernie has gone from novelty to upstart to revolutionary to spoiler to intolerable.

Say what you will about everything else, but his response about the threats represented by China was really substantive and thoughtful.

Man, I don't know what to tell you, but anybody who inspires brigading in the polls of a site like The Drudge Report, and who gets praise from the likes of Coulter and Cernovich, ought to be ringing serious alarm bells. The sooner this race is rid of her, the better.
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Agree with pretty much everything here. No fucking clue how people are watching this pan out and still going for Biden. The man is 76, and if he won the presidency, would be 78 when he took office. Everything about him is old.

I admire Bernie for inspiring me to give a shit about politics several years, but I think his moment has also passed.

Tulsi shouldn't even have bothered, she needs to get TF gone.

Harris, Warren, and Castro are my only real considerations after these two nights.
 
I'm pretty much all in on Warren at this point. I like Petey Pie but some of his comments about prison reform / sentencing have turned me off.
I need to look harder at Castro. I would vote for Harris if it came down to it but her record as minister of cops makes her a no.
I would vote for Bernie if I had to but I wish he would just put his money and voice into Warren's camp.
I hope everybody else just goes away. Biden sucks.
 
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when can we expect some of the candidates to start dropping out?

I'm worried that we'll have too many come primary time and Biden will slouch into it by default just because of name recognition. It's the same thing that happened in 2016 when there were a ton of GOP candidates; no one else besides Trump stood out so he ran away with it before an alliance from everyone else could counter.

jaycee said:
I would vote for Bernie if I had to but I wish he would just put his money and voice into Warren's camp.
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yeah this. I love Bernie, but he's old and I know Warren isn't that much younger but Bernie unfortunately has some baggage and we need a woman president desperately.
 
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Harris seems like she’s in it to win it. I like Elizabeth Warren, but sitting politicians from Massachusetts haven’t been terribly successful in winning for Democrats in the last couple of decades. Buttigieg needs to become something less prosaic, but he’s the goods too.

Biden & Bernie need to take their bags of oranges and go home.

Side note- I admire Bernie Sanders greatly. His run against Clinton has pretty much changed the Democrat party platform to his vision. I just can’t imagine that lightning in a bottle the second time around.
 
My takeaways from the debates are pretty similar to everyone here. Big winner is Harris obviously with her brutal takedown of Biden, who was the biggest loser of the two nights. Mayor Pete did a great job being clear, concise, and confident in his responses. I liked how he owned up to his mistakes with the South Bend police force, and his other answers made a lot of sense too. Warren showed up in a big way too. Castro was a bit of a surprise as I haven't really paid much attention to him. Booker was pretty stale, but not as stale as Bernie's answers. Yes Bernie, we know all of your responses before you even give them.

If I were to rank my choices right now:

1. Mayor Pete
1a. Warren
2. Harris
Everyone else
 
Djxfactor511 said:
My takeaways from the debates are pretty similar to everyone here. Big winner is Harris obviously with her brutal takedown of Biden, who was the biggest loser of the two nights. Mayor Pete did a great job being clear, concise, and confident in his responses. I liked how he owned up to his mistakes with the South Bend police force, and his other answers made a lot of sense too. Warren showed up in a big way too. Castro was a bit of a surprise as I haven't really paid much attention to him. Booker was pretty stale, but not as stale as Bernie's answers. Yes Bernie, we know all of your responses before you even give them.

If I were to rank my choices right now:

1. Mayor Pete
1a. Warren
2. Harris
Everyone else
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Hard to say if Biden or Beto were the biggest losers, both were pathetic, but I do agree Harris had probably the best showing.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
I read lots of comments on Twitter that Biden is proving that age is just a number, etc., etc. But man, he has lost a good chunk of the vitality that I remember from the Obama years. And seeing him on a split screen with Harris, or Buttigieg, really just throws into contrast how much frailer he seems now. He's never been the most eloquent, but even his speech patterns seem exacerbated by age.

Bernie has gone from novelty to upstart to revolutionary to spoiler to intolerable.

Say what you will about everything else, but his response about the threats represented by China was really substantive and thoughtful.

Man, I don't know what to tell you, but anybody who inspires brigading in the polls of a site like The Drudge Report, and who gets praise from the likes of Coulter and Cernovich, ought to be ringing serious alarm bells. The sooner this race is rid of her, the better.
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I truly do not understand the hate for Bernie on here. Like how exactly has he become intolerable?

Did he suddenly become wrong that money in politics is rotting politics from its core? Is he suddenly wrong about economic inequality (when a study was just released showing that the 1% has gained 21 trillion in wealth while the bottom half lost .7 trillion in the past 30 years). Did he flip on stances that he has held and been steady on for 30 years? What in particular did he say that rubbed you the wrong way?

I love Warren and would vote for her in a general and even campaign for her, but there are several key differences:

1) Her foreign policy history sucks. She has vote after vote to her name that indicates she has no problem with the MIC and never ending war- the latest of which being the fact that she voted for Trump's bloated military budget.

2) She hasn't once indicated that she understands the importance of mass mobilization and getting the grassroots nourished and activated in every square inch of the country.

3) Her silence on standing rock (which was choke full of human rights violations and is a jarring example of our government's preference for profits over people and unwillingness to take climate change seriously) was deafening and deeply disappointing. Meanwhile Bernie was very vocal about it.

4) There is also the fact that she has indicated that she will take super pac money in a general election which is a huge, huge red flag as it pertains to her truly being willing to take actually on monied interests on a systemic level.

Again, I still like her a lot. And I take the time to defend her anytime I hear somebody bashing her... but this Bernie hate is baffling and deeply frustrating presuming it's coming from people who actually supported him last go round.

As to Tusli, her record speaks for itself. She has governed in an extremely progressive manner. I don't really know what to say about the fact that certain people on the right really like her other than her foreign policy deeply appeals to a lot of libertarians I know (and is the reason I'm glad she is on the stage). Most libertarians also hate Trump so if you A) hate Trump B) you have this current crop of Dems, it somewhat makes sense that you'd get behind Tulsi. It's a moot point anyways because she has no chance in hell.

As to Pete, I'll elaborate below, but I do not deny he had good moments. The China stuff was great. So was his moment on religion and the GOP.

My personal preference is Bernie > Warren > Tulsi >>>> Harris > everyone else > Biden / Ryan / any of the rancid mayo from CO.
 
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