So Biden is against defunding the police. Great way of wasting an opportunity to consolidate a lead. Do Democrats want to lose? I mean, at least lie about it like every other politician just to get the goddamn votes. — Benkei

I am not sure supporting defunding the police is going to win relevant votes. Bidens team presumably regards PoC as a captive voting block. He doesn't think he needs to do work to get those votes, and he may very well be right about that.

"Defund the police" just isn't a good slogan to get behind if you want to get the votes of middle aged white people.

How about, I think it's an interesting idea. Defund the police is, in my view, a way of saying that we need to more effectively address social problems.

That means not everything that happens is a police problem. We should have healthcare workers, social workers and other civil servants work more closely with the police and look much closer at prevention of crime and how to do that. If you send the police out for every problem, it's like taking a hammer out for every job... Even when you sometimes need a screwdriver or wrench.

I believe doing this will automatically mean police time and effort will be used much more effectively and efficiently, lead to lower crime in our communities and better living circumstances for everyone.

Acceptable enough for the sensibilities of those poor white middle aged couples?

Biden needs independents. So, it doesn't matter how nuanced his position is, the GOP attack line will be "Crazy leftie Biden wants to defund the police!" And his campaign knows that, so not going to happen.

Right. So because you're afraid of your opponent you're just not going to stand for anything? Wonderful. No wonder the US needs riots to get some shit done.

Politics... :vomit:

Biden can just run on, "You ain't black if you vote for Trump", and, "I promise you, the president has a big stick. I promise you."

I'm looking forward to the debates between the two of them.

Do Democrats want to lose? — Benkei

The DNC made it quite clear, after consolidating around Biden, that they'd rather lose the election than lose their party to Sanders. I'm hoping for the sake of the country that Biden still prevails, but it should become clearer and clearer what a stupid decision that was.

I'm hoping for the sake of the country that Biden still prevails, but it should become clearer and clearer what a stupid decision that was. — Xtrix

I think Val Deming can provide necessary guidance to Sleepy Joe. :cool:

Rep. Val Demings, D-FL
Gov. Gretchen Witmer, D-MI
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-TX
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN
FLOTUS Michelle Obama, D-IL — 180 Proof

Update:

Rep. Karen Bass, D-CA

So Biden is against defunding the police. Great way of wasting an opportunity to consolidate a lead. Do Democrats want to lose? I mean, at least lie about it like every other politician just to get the goddamn votes. — Benkei

Remember that Joe Sixpack isn't like Daan, the Heineken drinker, from your country.

Biden's objective now is to get those never-Trumper Republicans, who after voting for Donald (in their disgust of Hillary) now feel they are actually never-Trumpers or born again never-Trumpers. But they are still Republicans, so I guess Joe won't go "full Bernie/AOC".

Is Karen Bass considered a serious contender now (I haven't really been following the VP speculation very closely)? She's the best one I've heard floated yet, by a pretty wide margin. Get out of here with this Amy Klobuchar bullshit... but Karen Bass? Hell yes. She's the real deal, at least so far as I can tell.

May be wishful thinking on my part, and you're right she is the real deal.

3) Nail down universal health care. — tim wood

Unfortunately this isn’t something Biden could personally make happen, unlike most of the rest of your list. That’s something that will take both houses of congress to accomplish.

6) Reverse every rule, law, directive issued by the Trump's administration. I cannot think of one that is not rotten, obscene, disgusting, and corrupt. — tim wood

Surely this is for lack of trying? Does a broken clock not happen to coincide with a serviceable clock on occasion?

Assuming Biden is elected, here are a few things he could immediately do that would make me feel better. In no special order.

1) Close Guantanemo

2) Commute the sentences of prisoners, mostly black women, sentenced under harsh mandatory sentencing guidelines for minor drug offenses.

3) Nail down universal health care.

4) Immediately fully reinstate effective as of their date of being fired or reduced every federal employee fired by or forced to resign or reassigned by Trump not for legitimate cause. Think Sally Yates, for example, and Marie Yovanovich and Alexander Vindman and Andrew McCabe, et al.

5) Announce a full, complete, comprehensive criminal investigation of all things and persons Trump. Not as a witch hunt, but as a combined effort to identify crimes and criminals and punish them, fully document the history, exonerate any who can be, and within the history to identify the lies and the liars, and the cost of the lies. That is, to heal wounds, they have to be cleaned out.

5, i) For example, Trump presumably files and pays taxes. Either he has broken laws or he hasn't. There is much anecdotal evidence that he's almost never met a law he didn't break. Did he break any tax laws, and if he did, he needs proportional punishment. And if he did not, if a complete investigation of his taxes across years reveals he broke no laws, well then, good for him! But I doubt that's the case.

6) Reverse every rule, law, directive issued by the Trump's administration. I cannot think of one that is not rotten, obscene, disgusting, and corrupt.

7) Commit to reuniting every child separated from their families by Trump, and provide - or at least offer - citizenship to each such child and his or her family.

8) Invite the Mexican government to officially participate in a wall-destruction program. A joint artillery exercise where possible would be nice! But repudiation by total destruction.

edit, forgot one.
9) Review all appointments under Trump to the federal judiciary, disqualifying - and prosecuting - for cause any found to have lied about their qualifications, or for any other appropriate reason.

And anything anyone thinks should be added. Of course Biden's administration will have a lot to do that has little or nothing to do with Trump. But this listing should be limited to just those things he should do to repair and rehabilitate after the disease that is Trump. — tim wood

@tim wood I'm really optimistic about the US recovery under Biden, especially when the Trump wreck really hurts the Republican party. The real problem is that we're still going to face a largely unproductive segment of the US population that won't go away even after Trump's demise.

He may not have Trump's charisma, but he seems pretty put together.

Who’s the VP for Joe?

Here with an expert opinion is Professor Frink and his latest invention, the Election-Tron 3000.

“According to my calculations using the ET3000, the VP pick for Joe Biden will be.... (drumroll please)... Bernice Sanders?!?! Why you worthless hunk of junk! Back to the drawing board”. :nerd:

Rep. Val Demings, D-FL
Gov. Gretchen Witmer, D-MI
Rep. Karen Bass, D-CA
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-TX
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MI
FLOTUS Michelle Obama, D-IL — 180 Proof

Sen. Kamala Harris D-CA ???
• not progressive or liberal
• not an experienced executive or legistlator
• not a midwesterner or southerner

WTF :vomit:
< swallows hard >
Biden-Harris 2020 :mask:

I don't know much about her, I confess. But I understand she's a lawyer, and of course we need more lawyers in high government positions.

Irony, you know. I think we make lousy politicians, being trained to represent usually one client at a time, rather than groups with diverse interests.

Yeah. The last thing this imploding republic needs is 'more politrickster sizzle & less governing steak' in the WH. Perhaps the senator would have made a great AG after Sessions' & Barr's banana republicanization of the DoJ, etc; well, maybe HRC will have the honor ironically of prosecuting (or aiding & abetting state prosecutions of) Individual-1 & his crime family in and out of government. Anyway, I guess VP Harris will make an ernest and overachieving study of the presidency as Biden et al groom her for 2024. The abolitionist wing of the Republican Party, I suspect, felt similarly deflated by their nominees in 1860.

Cynically interpreted, does this mean that her being black is all the progessiveness the old Democrats can manage?

Is "being black" even a sign of "progressiveness"? Obama. Clyburn. Scott (R-SC). Not at all. Biden's a "centrist" who picked a "centrist" (who styles herself as a "liberal") in order to keep the factions of the fractious Democratic Party united (in a way they haven't been since 2008 and before that 1964). Rep. Karen Bass would have been a "progressive" choice. Or Rep. Val Demings & Gov. Witmer would have been "liberal" choices. The US is about to elect a caretaker government which won't pull this country up and out of CovIDIOT-1's pandemic-depression-social injustice hole; Biden-Harris will just stop digging so that those who can climb out will have/find/make opportunities to monetize various McLifelines & McLadders. "Cynically interpreted", of course. :brow:

Maybe you're overestimating the ability of white people to adjust to a society in which black people are actively included in decision making processes. If I just look at my own country, about 30% of people have a non-western ethnicity in our major cities. This is what the group of people leading Amsterdam look like:



The black-haired lady was born in Morocco. But there are more black people in Amsterdam than Morrocans. So that's pretty weird.

I think the idea of voting for a black person, regardless of policy, is experienced by many white people as progressive in itself.

Oh, you're talking about folks subjectively feeling "progressive" and I'm talking about support for and political agents of progressive public policies. We're talking past each other, Benkei. But again: I think it's irrelevant how American "white liberals" feel; what matters is what they, and the majority of voters, do in both the streets and at the polls.

"Feeling good" about voting for a black politician is like "feeling good" about buying coffee in "green, or compostable, cups" from Starbucks - in itself it's an irrelevant, onanistic, bourgeois gesture. Effective gender, ethnic and worker power-sharing across the leadership of governments at all levels and 'Fortune 1000' corporate boards and executive managements rather than dopamine-kicks from token voting would be relevant (and a first step in a substantially progressive direction).

Honestly this man revulses me more than Trump. At least Trump is clear that he is a degenerate ratfuck and revels in it. This guy is a degenerate ratfuck and pretends not to be.

Irony, you know. I think we make lousy politicians, being trained to represent usually one client at a time, rather than groups with diverse interests. — Ciceronianus the White

That's such a good point.

A degenerate ratfuck is one who doesn't care if 1,000 children get bombed.

I think with your vocabulary you forego nuance. The war-hammer for the scalpel. By "forego" I mean miss entirely. By "miss entirely" I mean veer off into invective heavy nonsense. By the latter I mean a waste of time and an entertainment threadbare of novelty, a tedium.

Question: why abuse yourself thus?

Thank you. We can be otherwise useful, though, in drafting legislation and assessing its legality. But even as administrators we're notoriously inept; can't even run our own damn firms and so must hire office administrators.