Suicidal teen loves happy octogenarian.

Tyrannical media tycoon loses toboggan.

Shark eats tourists.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by Zooey.

It’s the first “weasel” move from the Rams in years. I was kind of thinking they were past all that with whassisface gone. OMG. I’ve forgotten his name!

That is not good.

I liked Schwab’s piece, but did he need to attack Fisher 3x in there? Sheesh.

Billy_T wrote:

The Dems have been the real “conservative party” for the last forty plus years. The GOP basically purged its actual conservatives and is now pretty much “hard right,” with a few exceptions.

It would be fantastic to see the DSA replace the Dems, as the Dems replace the GOP. More leftist voices too, the unaffiliated, etc. etc. They’d likely caucus with DSA.

For once in our lives, we’d very likely get to witness an actual “national conversation” with some depth and breadth to it, instead of the usual A to B range. Logically, action would follow the new pattern. Hopefully, at least.

I think we are seeing that national conversation. It’s started. The best thing that happened in the 2016 election was that Bernie Sanders made it possible to talk about socialism for the first time since WWII. He jerked the Overton Window pretty hard.

I just popped into this forum to post an article on this very topic (i.e. the national conversation).

wv wrote:

I dont care about any of this. I dont even care if the Rams go 0-16.

What i DO care about is seeing Aaron F’ing Donald and Neanterthal Suh PLAY next to each other. I WANT to SEE that. I want to see the dogs of war unleashed. I want to see Ruination. Carnage. Slaughter. Shock and Woe.

Thats all i care about. I dont care about cooks, gurley, or russians.

So wake me up when AD signs.

w
v

Yep, and you didn’t even mention the secondary.

The combination of a crushing pass rush and no open receivers is going to be something. I don’t know if they can live up to expectations, but on paper, this is a compelling team.

Now if they can only stop TEs, that would be great. I’m guessing teams will try to attack the LBs with dink and dunk.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-kuttner-democrats-midterms_us_5b54fdbee4b0de86f48e4926

Have you noticed the irritating spate of articles in the mainstream press expressing alarm that the Democratic Party may be moving too far to the left? This has become a trope among commentators.

The lead piece in Sunday’s New York Times, for instance, was headlined, “Democrats Brace As Storm Brews to Their Left.” Right from the top, the progressive energy that is bringing new people into politics and challenging Republican incumbents is condemned as some kind of threat to “Democrats.”

The reporter, Alexander Burns, goes on to quote party leaders warning of the possible ill effects: ”‘There are a lot of moderate and even conservative Democrats in Michigan,’ Mr. Brewer (the former state party chair) cautioned.” Note the use of the loaded verb, cautioned.

This is a classic sort of piece in which the writer has a point of view that he wants to get across, but as a reporter on a supposed news story he can’t come right out and say it. So he fishes for quotes to get sources to provide the script for him.

Burns also reports, eyebrow raised, that in Maryland, “Democrats passed over several respected local officials to select Ben Jealous, a former NAACP president and an ally of Mr. [Bernie] Sanders who backs single-payer health care, as their nominee for governor.”

Dear God, not single-payer! And respected by whom? Reading Burns’ overheated prose, you can almost see the barricades in the streets.

The trouble with this kind of story, sloppy and all too familiar, is that it conflates two kinds of left. After 40 years of declining economic prospects for ordinary Americans and two years of fake populism by Trump, the Democrats need nothing so much as candidates who are progressive on pocketbook issues. These are the kind of candidates who can win back seats in Trump country.

There may be lots of moderate Democrats in Michigan. But moderate on what? Surely not moderate on losing their jobs and their homes.

Deft Democratic candidates promise hard-pressed voters a better deal on economics, but reflect the views of their districts on hot button social issues. Conor Lamb managed this brilliantly when he won his special election to Congress in Pennsylvania’s 18th district last March, carrying a district so ostensibly red that Trump carried it by nearly 20 points and the Democrats did not even bother to field a candidate for the seat in 2016 and 2014.

In a seat like New York’s 14th, where rising progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez knocked off an entrenched incumbent, Joe Crowley, it’s fine to go left on both economic and social issues. In some of heartland America, economics is the main ticket.

Nobody is a better role model for how to make pocketbook populism work in Trump country than Ohio’s Sherrod Brown. He is currently up between 13 and 17 points in the polls in his Senate re-election campaign, in a state that Donald Trump carried by more than 350,000 votes. It’s not that Brown is a moderate on social issues, either. He was the Senate’s lead sponsor on a resolution designating June as a month to celebrate and advance LGBTQ rights, and his position on all the social issues from immigration to abortion is progressive. But he leads with populist economics, so socially conservative working-class voters know that Brown is on their side, and they cut him some slack on other issues they may not support.

In West Virginia, the leader of that state’s teacher strike, Richard Ojeda, is waging a strong campaign to take an open House seat long held by Republicans. Ojeda, a Democratic state senator who voted for Trump himself, is running as an out and out progressive populist.

Ojeda is so good that he manages to redefine social issues as class issues. Speaking at a pro-choice rally in Charleston, Ojeda told the crowd that he didn’t really like abortion, but that if it were outlawed, rich women would still get abortions.

West Virginians knew exactly what he meant. Indeed, many other supposed social issues, such as pay equity and parental leave, are really class issues if narrated well.

Only in a handful of swing, Republican-held suburban districts, where voters, especially Republican women, are disgusted with Trump, does it make any sense for a Democrat to run as more of a moderate on economics. And even in those districts, there are less affluent people who would turn out if a candidate gave them a good reason to vote.

So asking whether Democrats are running too far to the left in general is precisely the wrong question. The right question is how they blend economic issues ― where they need to run to the left almost everywhere ― with social issues like immigration rights, gun rights and abortion rights that can be divisive in the more socially conservative parts of the country.

The most ineffective combination of all, as Hillary Clinton painfully demonstrated in 2016, is left on identity issues and pro-Wall Street on economics. Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker, take note.

In 2018, we can trust most Democrats to get this balance of the economic and the social right, if they pay attention to their districts and they lead with progressive economics. The press should start getting it right, too.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School. His new book is Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?

This looks good to me. Seems a little bit high now, but a deal by the end of it. Quite a bit of guaranteed money. That may have brought down the annual salary. I like it. If he stays healthy, the Rams are winners on this.

I’m late to all this. Been out of town for a couple of weeks, and just sort of catching up.

I have a couple thoughts to add. First of all, there is talk of “peace” in this thread – a thing we all value and prefer – but I don’t think our picture of peace matches Trump and Putin’s picture of peace. I believe it is pretty clear that their picture of peace is actually something more like “absolute control.” No dissent. Trump’s world is made up of Winners and Losers. The Winners call the shots, and the Losers shut the hell up. Losers don’t matter. I seriously think that is what those two men mean when they speak of Peace. Rigid control without any messy dissent. And I think THAT is the kind of “peace” they talk about when they have conversations about policy.

Secondly, I think we have overlooked something here. The perspective expressed here has looked at the private meeting at the summit from Trump’s point of view, and there has been a bit of conversation about what Trump “wanted.” Well, he probably did want something, and it was undoubtedly something about himself, and the Mueller investigation is probably a very likely topic for him. But Putin is ex-KGB, and is vastly more intelligent and forward-thinking than Trump is, and I’m going to guess that Putin did the driving in that conversation.

And Putin isn’t very worried about Mueller. He wants to continue to disrupt American civilization, and weaken our world standing, and he’s going to keep doing that. A big shitstorm, constitutional crisis works just fine for him. He’s a winner either way. Trump keeps fucking shit up as he has been doing, or he cripples the government’s ability to keep their eye on the ball at all because it is undergoing a governmental crisis.

I will guess that Putin put forward some proposal with some of the following ingredients:

1. Give up the Ukraine to Putin
2. Give up Syria to Assad (Putin)
3. Drop the Russia sanctions, especially Magnitsky

in exchange for some of the following ingredients:

1. Russia won’t defend Iran
2. Tacit acceptance of Kushner’s Israel-Palestine deal with Palestinians given the option of a land swap or more misery, and the acceptance of Mohammed bin Salman as sole power in Saudi Arabia after his father’s abdication.

Everyone consolidates regional power and – voila! – “peace.”

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Zooey.

zn wrote:

waterfield wrote:

The more to the far left, progressive, whatever you call it, we go the more we insure we can’t get them back

I think the opposite is true.

That is what I was going to say. Those marginal Trump voters were attracted to Trump because of the economic populism aspect of his campaign rather than the racist, nationalistic, and anti-establishment aspects of his campaign. They aren’t very comfortable with the latter aspects of Trump, and that is what makes them “marginal supporters.”

The progressive wing of the Democrat party has more to offer those marginal supporters than the mainstream Democrats do. Economically, mainstream Democrats are conservative. They are not aggressive supporters of unions, increased wages, and universal healthcare. They are not offering identifiable solutions to the problems ordinary Americans are dealing with. Some of those marginal supporters of Trump may be skeptical of government solutions to social problems, but the pressure of those problems has been building for some time, and I think a lot of people are starting to take a look around. I believe a number of people are taking a second look at universal health care, among other issues, and it is the progressives who are talking about these solutions. I seriously do not believe mainstream Democrats have anything to offer those marginal Trumps supporters except “We aren’t Trump. Russia, Russia, Russia.” What message do they have for those supporters that is going to make them change their vote?

Also, I think there is a bigger key to this election than picking off Trump voters. It’s just increasing voter turnout all the way around. The more women and minorities that can be motivated to vote, the more power we can strip away from the Monster.

Meanwhile, I can’t conceal my anxiety about the next few months. If Trump and the GOP get away with appointing a radical judge, and retain control of Congress, it is Game, Set, and Match.

We would truly then be dependent 100% on Mueller, and that is not an avenue I’ve ever counted on. And I think that if they get a judge appointed, it may not matter what Mueller has anyway.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Zooey.

In this final round, I’m looking forward to Argentina/Nigeria. Argentina’s debacle has been of interest. I am also going to watch England/Belgium even though both teams are going to advance regardless of the outcome. I learned to like soccer while I went to university in England, and I’m a bit of an Anglophile anyway, so I like them. They look good this year.

I’m also pulling for Mexico. Loved Mexico’s defeat of Germany. That was awesome.

I have a Brazilian friend who watches literally every match, and he likes England’s chances. He thinks they match up well against Belgium in some way. He tried to explain it to me in a way that exceeds my knowledge of soccer. He watches all the qualifying matches as well, so he isn’t surprised by Argentina’s fade. He says they have been playing poorly all along, and barely qualified.

Miller is a terrible human being. He gets a score of a full 10 on the Awfulness scale.

I saw some Republican congressman has called for him to be sacked for his role in this.

Not a chance, but interesting he’d stick his neck out like that.