Update: Laphonza Butler sworn-in as Dianne Feinstein's replacement in the Senate

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

Most Democrats are just as anti-poor and pro-capitalist as Republicans, they just have rainbow flags.

Helping people is incidental to the actual goals of most politicians. Not all, but definitely most.

[SaysWho?]

19 hours ago, Jason said:

 

It's like the Democratic leadership is perfectly okay with the current situation because it lets them off the hook for nothing getting done.

 

7 hours ago, BloodyHell said:

The DNC is a completely unambitious political party at this point. Instead of making things better, they are completely focused on pointing out how republicans are making it worse. That's not a strategy. 

 

7 hours ago, Zaku3 said:

 

Ya both parties are out of ideas beyond culture war. 

 

I feel I've lived through a different two years than some of you have.

 

First, a gentle reminder that if you're LGBTQ, black, woman, Asian, any combination, etc., the culture wars aren't some distraction; they're your life. I'm glad some of you don't have to worry about supposedly silly culture war stuff.

 

As far as no ambition or ideas, I've seen the party at large push for:

• A massive infrastructure overhaul
• Removing lead pipes from the country
• Forgiving student loan debt, including those who were scammed by colleges such as M.I.T
• Decriminalizing marijuana
• National paid leave
• Universal pre-K
• Free community college
• Ambitious climate change legislation
• Raising the minimum wage
• Expanding the electric charging grid and making it easier to purchase EVs and energy efficient tech
• Expanding the child tax credit
• Strengthening the Affordable Care Act
• Capping insulin prices
• Increasing American manufacturing, including semiconductor chips, solar plants, and electric vehicle plants
• Gun control
• Electrifying the USPS and fixing a decade and a half of financial bleeding
• The first black woman on the Supreme Court
• Overhauling the judiciary and adding more justices who are public defenders and civil rights lawyers
• Making it easier to unionize
• Banning noncompetes
• Increasing care for veterans, especially those hurt by burn pits
• Protecting same-sex marriage
• Strengthening NATO

 

With a few exceptions that couldn't secure all Democrats, most of this got done in two years despite those who know everything trying to muddy the waters the entire way. It's easy and lazy to 'both sides' the parties, but doing so only plays into the hands of the extremists who are trying to take your rights today and make them crimes tomorrow. Looking at the number of people in the Build Back Better thread who thought nothing in infrastructure or climate was going to get done at all with a 50-50 Senate majority, maybe it'd be better to reflect on how wrong cynics have been.

 

Then again, liberals seem to like to talk about ideas that aren't getting done rather than celebrate things that have gotten done. All of the stuff I mentioned were big deals... until they got done, and then they somehow became unimportant. Why are people on the left such hopeless romantics that the chase matters more than fixing the issues they're chasing?

[Zaku3]

I'm passionate about helping people solve their problems. Nothing on that list actually solves all of our problems 100%. I know what winning looks like and feels like. I wouldn't do any of those things. It's still essentially doing the same thing over and over again. Only slightly different each time and hoping for a different result. We call ourselves the American experiment but only an insane person would do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. I used to be that person so I see cope and kicking the can down the road for what they are. Not what people tell you they are and not what you hope they are. If America is an experiment then it has failed and we need to think of a new hypothesis to test. 

 

I need evidence things are getting better. I'm only seeing people don't truly understand our problems nor how to actually fix them. Do you know how often I hear as an excuse we don't have the money for that. Ok so we don't have enough of a piece of paper that is a means of exchange or at worst a bunch of binary code in a computer. Not actual things you need like equipment, goods, manpower, etc. I know it sounds idealistic but we are facing multiple ongoing interconnected global issues and baby steps don't solve that. The time for baby steps is long past. A sitting President incited a coup and it failed because he answers "What if Julius Caesar was an idiot?" He should go to jail, needs to go to jail, but I don't know what the blowback of that is. I just know the last time someone was going to get tried after losing public office that dude crossed the Rubicon and was assassinated on the Ides of March to people he forgave and let go in some cases. The storm of civil wars in the Roman Republic only ended after Octavius defeated all of his enemies. People accepted the changes in Rome because people get tired of suffering with no end in sight. When people have enough they have had enough. Thinks are fineish because enough people haven't had enough.

 

I think the pandemic made people hungrier in the Western world for a more just, egalitarian, and post scarcity society. Rich people don't want that because then they can't have I guess Nazi memorabilia??? A market can't solve our climate crisis. It requires a command economy if you wanna still have a market as like a stepping stone to moving on. I just find markets horribly inefficient. Do we really need a fiber network for every cable and internet company? Is monopoly a mistake of the market or is it actually just going to the most efficient path of one provider of goods? I get the feeling from the desperation I feel from management at my job that they are running out of ways to make more money. It's the only way I can explain why you'd waste precious time trying to get a person that can't afford your service to buy your service. Work smarter not harder.

[SaysWho?]

17 minutes ago, Zaku3 said:

I'm passionate about helping people solve their problems. Nothing on that list actually solves all of our problems 100%.

 

Well shit, have you been holding out on the magical answer I could add to the list that'll allow the human race to reach nirvana?!?

[BloodyHell]

16 hours ago, SaysWho? said:

 

 

 

I feel I've lived through a different two years than some of you have.

 

First, a gentle reminder that if you're LGBTQ, black, woman, Asian, any combination, etc., the culture wars aren't some distraction; they're your life. I'm glad some of you don't have to worry about supposedly silly culture war stuff.

 

 

Ok, well, we’ve seen enough evidence that the culture war isn’t what people vote on, outside of abortion. People want the economy fixed and the wealth gap shrunk. If democrats were actually fighting to make lives better the fed wouldn’t be trying to put Americans out of work to satisfy the rich, they would be attacking corporate profits to bring down inflation. 
 

Theres no doubt that the GOP is a completely unacceptable political party. Doesn’t mean we need to praise a party who see’s the answer in raising interest rates with the intention to put people out of work and on the streets, all in the name of supply and demand, as their first course of action. They tried nothing and were all out of ideas. 
 

Corporate welfare: 

Helping the poor and middle class: 

[Dre801]

There should be a max age limit.  Once you hit 70, you gotta go.

[Firewithin]

5 minutes ago, Dre801 said:

There should be a max age limit.  Once you hit 70, you gotta go.

and by "go" we mean put in the ground 

[SaysWho?]

20 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

Ok, well, we’ve seen enough evidence that the culture war isn’t what people vote on, outside of abortion. People want the economy fixed and the wealth gap shrunk. If democrats were actually fighting to make lives better the fed wouldn’t be trying to put Americans out of work to satisfy the rich, they would be attacking corporate profits to bring down inflation. 
 

Theres no doubt that the GOP is a completely unacceptable political party. Doesn’t mean we need to praise a party who see’s the answer in raising interest rates with the intention to put people out of work and on the streets, all in the name of supply and demand, as their first course of action. They tried nothing and were all out of ideas. 
 

Corporate welfare: 

Helping the poor and middle class: 

On the contrary, abortion rights show culture issues are exactly what people vote on. Republicans overseeing 4k-5k increases in home insurance yet winning on “woke” in Florida show culture issues are winning issues.

 

Someone who is affected by a culture issue — meaning most of the nation — don’t view them as side issues. Someone who needs to seek an abortion because their sexual partner took off their condom without consent, effectively being raped, has one thing in mind, and it’s not the Fed.

 

Can you explain how lowering insulin prices, having the government and Medicare negotiate down drug prices, vastly expanding tax credits for energy efficient products (air conditioners, EVs, water heaters, etc), forgiving student debt, refunding money to students scammed by colleges such as MIT, removing lead pipes from poor neighborhoods, expanding the child tax credit during the height of the pandemic, a corporate tax and taxing stock buybacks, spearheading the expansion of electric vehicles to help halt greenhouse gas emissions, creating more manufacturing in America which creates more middle class jobs and helps lower the prices of technology such as anything with a semiconductor chip (which is most electronics you use), making it easier to unionize (which has led to more unions forming, which this board has been very vocal about since the wealth gap is at least partially tied to unions weakening), helping women under NDAs for sexual assault, many times by rich and powerful people, rapidly putting progressive judges (aka ones opposed to decisions such as Dobbs or Citizens United), and protecting gay marriage all help the rich at the expense of the poor and expand the wealth gap? I’d like to know.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

A "culture war" is as legitimate a war as any other and pretending that it's otherwise is another folly of privilege.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

A "culture war" is as legitimate a war as any other and pretending that it's otherwise is another folly of privilege.

Politics IS culture war! That’s why I’ve argued that DeSantis has been so effective at growing his stock in Florida, he has played the culture war stuff better than most, despite the insistence of many here that he doesn’t. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

3 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Politics IS culture war! That’s why I’ve argued that DeSantis has been so effective at growing his stock in Florida, he has played the culture war stuff better than most, despite the insistence of many here that he doesn’t. 

 

 

It REALLY gets my goat when I see dismissive comments about the relevance of the culture war which for some inexplicable reason invariably seems to come from the "left".

 

I just want to grab the person by the shoulders and shake the hell out of them while screaming repeatedly in their face "THE CULTURE WAR IS LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY EVERYTHING, YOU NINCOMPOOP!"

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

 

It REALLY gets my goat when I see dismissive comments about the relevance of the culture war which for some inexplicable reason invariably seems to come from the "left".

 

I just want to grab the person by the shoulders and shake the hell out of them while screaming repeatedly in their face "THE CULTURE WAR IS LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY EVERYTHING, YOU NINCOMPOOP!"

My read on it is those who are dismissive most often come from the dominant culture. They don’t really have much of a concept of the ways in which these issues connect because the consequences rarely impact them in any direct way.

[Fizzzzle]

DeSantis absolutely plays the culture war better than most.

 

The reason I hate it so much is that both sides want to play the culture war to deflect from the fact that neither side wants to do anything at all to change things like income equality. Both Democrats and Repbublicans both want to keep well-oiled the machine of capitalism that fucks ALL of us, regardless of race, gender, or sexuality.

 

I want to make it clear I'm "both-sidesing" it. I will never vote Republican because they are actively trying to dismantle civil rights, I just also realize that Democrats only play the civil rights angle until it actually hurts corporate interests, then they back off.

 

Biden's response to the potential rail worker's strike tells you all you need to know about how most Democrats actually care about the people. Republicans appeal to the white cristian voter base by invoking fear that "their" country is getting taken over, the Democrats appeal to everyone else by saying "if you don't vote for us, they will win."

 

 

And maybe I do only feel that way because I'm not a minority. That's entirely fair. I just think they also only care about civil rights so long as minorities vote for them, so there are certain things they have to do to placate that base. Underneath it all, they don't actually want to change anything. Corporate greed is the only thing that matters to them, because at the end of the day, that's what pays them.

 

I would rather have Democrats running the country, but that doesn't mean they're my friends. They are still an enemy to the people, just not quite as much as the Republicans are.

[SaysWho?]

Why is it some of you go back to vague platitudes every time concrete examples of progress by Democrats are brought up?

 

It’s frustrating how much people talk about the need to finally do something for working people… when even as progress is made, we pretend it doesn’t exist. I must have been posting on a different board for years considering how much I brought up was supposedly stuff Democrats would never do because corporate interests and such.

 

The chase is more important than the issue we’re chasing. Once you admit to it, you can transition to continuing to demand more while acknowledging the progress made toward a better future.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

34 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

I just think they also only care about civil rights so long as minorities vote for them

This is tail wagging the dog analysis, it’s very much the other way around, and not just for civil rights but basically all issues elected democrats support. Denying this is denying the agency of voters to elect their own representatives, somehow that they’re being bamboozled into supporting the democrats. 
 

it’s just important to remember that the Democratic Party is the actual big tent party because it is for everyone, by necessity, that doesn’t align with the radical right so to get more progressive politics, we actually need more democrats. Same thing was true in the 1930s. You don’t get social security and other programs without large democratic majorities in both houses and a dem in the White House. 

[Fizzzzle]

16 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

Why is it some of you go back to vague platitudes every time concrete examples of progress by Democrats are brought up?

 

It’s frustrating how much people talk about the need to finally do something for working people… when even as progress is made, we pretend it doesn’t exist. I must have been posting on a different board for years considering how much I brought up was supposedly stuff Democrats would never do because corporate interests and such.

 

The chase is more important than the issue we’re chasing. Once you admit to it, you can transition to continuing to demand more while acknowledging the progress made toward a better future.

You just listed examples of things the Democrats are "pushing" for. I don't give a flying fuck what politicians say they're "pushing for" until it actually happens. It's easy to rile up your base by saying you want medicare for all or you want guns banned or you want to get rid of the IRS when you know there is a 0.0000% chance of that ever happening while you're in office. It's theater.

 

I'm not dismissing civil rights, hence why I said I still vote and don't vote Republican. I think the movement to make abortion a major voting issue was a massive mistake by Republicans and a major win for Democrats. And that was a good thing.

 

Watch what the Democrat response was to the potential railroad workers strike, when all they wanted to was to have more than fucking 4 days off a year and maybe a paid sick day or two while their companies were making billions in profit and spending billions a year in stock buy backs. It was "get back in line." How's that for a concrete example?

 

Again, I'm not equating Democrats and Republicans. You could say that the Democrats are the enemy of my enemy, but that doesn't make them my friend.

[SaysWho?]

8 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

You just listed examples of things the Democrats are "pushing" for. I don't give a flying fuck what politicians say they're "pushing for" until it actually happens.

You do NOT give a “flying fuck” because most of the stuff got done. I even followed the list up with:

 

“With a few exceptions that couldn't secure all Democrats, most of this got done in two years despite those who know everything trying to muddy the waters the entire way.”

 

When it “actually happens,” you’re unaware it happened. Are you watching the news at all? 

[Fizzzzle]

9 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

This is tail wagging the dog analysis, it’s very much the other way around, and not just for civil rights but basically all issues elected democrats support. Denying this is denying the agency of voters to elect their own representatives, somehow that they’re being bamboozled into supporting the democrats. 
 

it’s just important to remember that the Democratic Party is the actual big tent party because it is for everyone, by necessity, that doesn’t align with the radical right so to get more progressive politics, we actually need more democrats. Same thing was true in the 1930s. You don’t get social security and other programs without large democratic majorities in both houses and a dem in the White House. 

You're not wrong. Obama called the Republican party basically the "white christian conservative party" and the Democrat party as the "party of everyone else." It's hard to come up with any kind of consensus with the "party of everyone else."

 

And I do agree, I would rather have the two-party system be between moderate and progressive democrats than between Republicans, moderate Democrats (who are basically fiscal Republicans who support civil rights), and progressive Democrats.

 

I will say comparing it to the 30's is a false equivalency, though. Before the late 60's-70's, both parties had conservative and liberal wings, depending on the issue. Democrats weren't liberal and Republicans weren't conservative, or vice-versa. Roosevelt, very specifically in 1933, attacked big business. It was the one thing everyone could rally behind. So he ended up getting essentially a coalition government/voter base.

 

 

I kind of just think you're telling me I'm wrong for not holding my nose while I vote for scumbags who still want to keep the workers subjugated because sometimes they throw a bone to minority groups. And, again, maybe it's just because I'm not in a minority group that I feel that way, but I also can't help but feel reeeeeeeeeally fucking cynical about it.

[Guest]

I don’t get the sense that racial or ethnic minorities believe most Democratic politicians, and certainly not those in the leadership of the party, actually care about them.

 

But there is also a question of whether that matters or not. the very nature of the Democratic Party is collations of various interests that align in enough ways to hold together. Sometimes the bond is stronger than others.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Speaking of culture war stuff…I asked my dad who started drinking Keystone around here because he’s pretty much only ever drank Busch. Said he quit drinking “queer beer.” 
 

Good, so you switch to another beer company that has supported Pride for even longer!

 

These people. 

[silentbob]

2 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

 

It REALLY gets my goat when I see dismissive comments about the relevance of the culture war which for some inexplicable reason invariably seems to come from the "left".

 

I just want to grab the person by the shoulders and shake the hell out of them while screaming repeatedly in their face "THE CULTURE WAR IS LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY EVERYTHING, YOU NINCOMPOOP!"

 

just like the movie, I’m sure a lineup of folks will be right behind you to do the same.

[stepee]

Culture war stuff is tough because so much of it comes across as complete nonsense. Like nobody actually cares about sexy mnms or dr seuss corp removing some old racist books or stories about what one random person with 15 twitter followers on twitter thinks about the casting of a movie. 

 

But the purpose of all that stuff, what the aim is and it’s use as weaponizing people against each other is important and bleeds into the fabric of every conversation over human rights and the struggle toward equality. 

[Fizzzzle]

3 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

You do NOT give a “flying fuck” because most of the stuff got done. I even followed the list up with:

 

“With a few exceptions that couldn't secure all Democrats, most of this got done in two years despite those who know everything trying to muddy the waters the entire way.”

 

When it “actually happens,” you’re unaware it happened. Are you watching the news at all? 

Okay, let's go through it:

A massive infrastructure overhaul - This one we need to go through a bit, because there's a lot:

• $55 billion to expand clean water access to American households: GOOD (by the way the money for decreasing lead pipes is included in this, they're not separate).
• Make sure every American has access to high speed internet? $65 billion for what? All of that money is just going to Comcast etc. It won't actually go to the rural areas that need it, which is what the bill is supposed to do. It was never specified how ISP companies will actually be forced to spend that money, if at all.
• Repair our roads and bridges? This is, by FAR, the highest costing part of the project (something like $120 billion), and the vast majority of it is going to go to expanding freeways, which is the opposite of what we should be doing.
• Invest in public transit? Glad to hear it, I just noticed that you want to spend 3 times as much money expanding fucking freeways (the rest of the money for public transit was just a "we won't pull the funding we already promised you" money). If you want to help climate change, the goal should be removing car trips, not encouraging them.
• $17 billion to improve aiports? GOOD. I mean, aiport projects are so expensive that I don't know how far that money will go, but I'll take it.
• $66 billion to amtrak? GOOD. Look... I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but is any of that money going to high speed rail? nope. It's all going to fix a completely broken system that has been running on fumes for decades and maybe add a few more lines in that no one will ever use because amtrak sucks so much.
• Build a national network of EV chargers: BETTER THAN BAD, but we should be focusing more on, like.... not having people need to drive everywhere. If you live in an area powered by gas, your emissions from an EV are barely better than a regular car. That's most of the country, by the way. The energy still has to burn somewhere.
• Clean energy: Hear's the fun one - it makes it sound like they're spending $65 billion to convert dirty energy to clean energy, but they're not. Most of the money is going to new transmission lines which improve efficiency, it's only about wasting less dirty energy, not making sure we have more clean energy to start with.
• $50 billion to basically improve FEMA: GOOD
• $21 billion to clean up superfund and brownfield sites: GOOD... if only there was a government body that should have enacted laws years ago that would have significantly penalized companies for creating those sites in the first fucking place... oh, there is? awesome, then why don't we do it now? Oh, right, corporate interests, I forgot that's a non-starter...

So, the "revolutionary" infrastructure overhaul? Is it a net good? Yes. Am I glad it happened? Yes.

Do I also think that the vast majority of it is made up of things that should have happened a long time ago, is probably not enough to solve any meaningful problems, but because of this bill Congress will just say "gg, job done" and not do anything about infrastructure for the next 30 years? You'd bet your sweet ass.

 

• Forgiving student loan debt, including those who were scammed by colleges such as M.I.T - that seemed cool for a little bit until it got shut down. Points for trying, though
• Decriminalizing marijuana - didn't happen
• National paid leave - didn't happen
• Universal pre-K - didn't happen
• Free community college - didn't happen
• Ambitious climate change legislation - didn't happen
• Raising the minimum wage - didn't happen
• Expanding the electric charging grid and making it easier to purchase EVs and energy efficient tech - part of the bill already covered
• Expanding the child tax credit - GOOD. I commend the try.
• Strengthening the Affordable Care Act - If someone has written about how that has happened, I haven't seen it.
• Capping insulin prices - Wasn't the Democrats
• Increasing American manufacturing, including semiconductor chips, solar plants, and electric vehicle plants - semiconductors would have happened either way. You know how I feel about EVs, and if solar plants were a priority, they would have been a part of BBB.
• Gun control - hasn't happened
• Electrifying the USPS and fixing a decade and a half of financial bleeding - has happened so little that we might as well say it has barely happened
• The first black woman on the Supreme Court - GOOD
• Overhauling the judiciary and adding more justices who are public defenders and civil rights lawyers - GOOD, but not guaranteed to make an impact yet. I don't fault them for that, though.
• Making it easier to unionize - hasn't happened
• Banning noncompetes - what the hell are you talking about?
• Increasing care for veterans, especially those hurt by burn pits - can't say enough about it, I hope that happened
• Protecting same-sex marriage - GOOD
• Strengthening NATO - Pretty much Russia's fault, America didn't really do anything there

 

 

So, as you can see, is it a net fail? No. I just think there's a lot of back-patting involved that I think is unwarranted

 

 

 

I want to reiterate, I don't think what' they've managed to accomplish is bad. What I DO think is that  what they have passed will make them just say "gg job done" and we won't hear a fucking thing about any of this shit for another 10 years. The elephant in the room is that we need to reappropriate defense spending to things that actually help people, but committing to that is political suicide for 80% of congressfolks because the people live in fear.

[stepee]

I was reading this topic then took a shower and started day dreaming ideas and I started thinking about why is it there are a few conservatives that I still like, like Biggie and AbsolutSurgen here.

 

And I think like with those two, I think we see the world as it is differently, and thus our responses to how society should be guided along differs. But I don’t think if we sat down together and we had unlimited power to shape the world in an end state we agreed upon, that the differences would be nearly as broad. I think they generally believe that everyone should be entitled to a good comfortable life (even if Biggie tries to hide that!). 

 

The problem we have with most conservatives in America is that their end goal is incompatible with mine. Their idea of what a perfect world would be is very different and segmented and controlled and there is a demand for other people to not live comfortable lives because they find that unacceptable.

 

I think most democrats besides the very most opportunist ones fall into the first category where even if we don’t agree on the way things currently are and how they should be handled, the end goal is the same. So usually when you guys have these arguments I get both sides of the coin, I think the more pro democrat and the more anti democrat (but leftist) sides are trying to reach the same goal, and it’s always hit and miss.

 

If anyone actually knew how to reach the goal without error they would have essentially figured out how to resolve the whole “human civilization” issue, which is just a really tough nut to crack.

 

I’ll be back tomorrow to rant about my thoughts during that morning shower.

[SaysWho?]

THANK YOU for responding thoroughly! Okay, now we can start to talk about the nitty-gritty since we know where each other stand. I have a lesson soon, so I'll do the non-infrastructure, with bold being me and with linethroughs on things that are very very wrong, to which I'm sorry to say there's a lot:

 

• Forgiving student loan debt, including those who were scammed by colleges such as M.I.T - that seemed cool for a little bit until it got shut down. Points for trying, though It's not "shut down;" it's on hold in the courts. There have been many who have already benefited, and I hope many more do this summer once the decision is made.
• Decriminalizing marijuana - didn't happen What Biden is doing very well could lead to it. This is a BIG deal.
• National paid leave - didn't happen
• Universal pre-K - didn't happen
• Free community college - didn't happen He spent quite a bit of political capital trying to make all this happen; it's disingenuous to believe that they're not doing anything.
• Ambitious climate change legislation - didn't happen Wrong. The Inflation Reduction Act is a big fucking deal and one that climate scientists with whom I speak are extremely excited about, including former NOAA scientists.
• Raising the minimum wage - didn't happen Didn't have the votes, but it was included in the American Rescue Plan.
• Expanding the electric charging grid and making it easier to purchase EVs and energy efficient tech - part of the bill already covered
• Expanding the child tax credit - GOOD. I commend the try. We agree.
• Strengthening the Affordable Care Act - If someone has written about how that has happened, I haven't seen it.  Here's a start:

  The Inflation Reduction Act Lowers Health Care Costs for Millions of Americans | CMS

  WWW.CMS.GOV

  ---

  Through the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden is delivering on his promise to lower prescription drug costs, make health insurance more affordable, and make the economy work for working families. This law means millions of Americans across all 50 states, the United States territories, and the District of Columbia will save money from meaningful benefits like:
• Capping insulin prices - Wasn't the Democrats Yes, it was. If you want to argue their success on the Medicare front had no impact, I guess it can be made? But at that point, it starts to seem petty and not acknowledging progress.
  

  The Inflation Reduction Act caps costs for Medicare patients on insulin. Where the push for broader relief stands

  WWW.CNBC.COM

  ---

  The Inflation Reduction Act will limit insulin co-pays for Medicare patients to $35 per month. Where efforts to provide similar relief to other patients stand.
• Increasing American manufacturing, including semiconductor chips, solar plants, and electric vehicle plants - semiconductors would have happened either way. You know how I feel about EVs, and if solar plants were a priority, they would have been a part of BBB. Companies have specifically pointed to the CHIPS Act when building new plants: https://investors.micron.com/news-releases/news-release-details/micron-invest-15-billion-new-idaho-fab-bringing-leading-edge And I'm not sure what the last part's point even is since it's in the Inflation Reduction Act, which was PART OF THE ORIGINAL FRAMEWORK FOR BBB. 
  

  First Solar announces new U.S. panel factory following the Inflation Reduction Act

  WWW.CNBC.COM

  ---

  CEO Mark Widmar told CNBC the Inflation Reduction Act was the key catalyst for building another factory in the U.S.
• Gun control - hasn't happened Yes, it has. "But it didn't do everything" is letting perfect be the enemy of good.
• Electrifying the USPS and fixing a decade and a half of financial bleeding - has happened so little that we might as well say it has barely happened wat? It literally happened.
• The first black woman on the Supreme Court - GOOD
• Overhauling the judiciary and adding more justices who are public defenders and civil rights lawyers - GOOD, but not guaranteed to make an impact yet. I don't fault them for that, though. It's almost like these things take time, dude. You would have no more success trying to get this to happen.
• Making it easier to unionize - hasn't happened Yes it has. 
  

  Biden’s NLRB Was Essential to Unionizing the Amazon Warehouse in Staten Island

  THEINTERCEPT.COM

  ---

  The aggressive appointment of Jennifer Abruzzo shows how electoral politics set the groundwork for mass organizing.
• Banning noncompetes - what the hell are you talking about? If you're for working people, it's very strange you don't know what a noncompete is to the point of "what the hell are you talking about?" And honestly, it's unacceptable you don't know that or what the FTC had been doing. My industry is full of noncompetes... and freaking SUBWAY is... which means you've never fought for me ever. But even people who work for fast food places can be stuck with a noncompete.
  

  FTC's new rule could end noncompete agreements for millions of workers - ABC News

  ABCNEWS.GO.COM

  ---

  In a sweeping step earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a rule that would void non-compete clauses and ban their use in future contracts.
• Increasing care for veterans, especially those hurt by burn pits - can't say enough about it, I hope that happened What did you think the whole Jon Stewart thing was about? 
  

  Biden touts new law giving veterans suffering from burn-pit exposure more help: ‘The benefits are real’

  WWW.NBCNEWS.COM

  ---

  Biden has said he believes his late son Beau's brain cancer might have been linked to exposure to burn pits during his deployment to Iraq.
• Protecting same-sex marriage - GOOD
• Strengthening NATO - Pretty much Russia's fault, America didn't really do anything there Likely a load of horseshit, dude. Nobody had any idea if NATO would hold together or get lost in arguments, and Biden's been reported to have played a big hand in its unity against Russia. 
  

  Inside Biden's successful six-month bid to expand NATO | CNN Politics

  WWW.CNN.COM

  ---

  President Joe Biden was meeting royalty in Spain on Tuesday when word arrived that an audacious plan he had hatched six months earlier was in the final stages of completion.

 

 

Infrastructure response will have to come later but dude.... 

 

[Kal-El814]

2 hours ago, sblfilms said:

My read on it is those who are dismissive most often come from the dominant culture. They don’t really have much of a concept of the ways in which these issues connect because the consequences rarely impact them in any direct way.

 

This cuts both ways though unless I'm not understanding you correctly. The people that carp most loudly about culture war stuff are also the people who are the dominant culture and it's often about things that really don't matter like not being able to say Merry Christmas anymore or Bud Light working with one trans person. It's an easy war to wage for the same reason that it's easy to dismiss; for them the stakes are low and at the end of the day the color of their Starbucks or who InBev works with doesn't really matter.

 

But I agree in general that politics often if not always involve culture wars, and the ability to dismiss them is a privileged position.

[marioandsonic]

I keep coming into this thread thinking she finally died

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

This cuts both ways though unless I'm not understanding you correctly. The people that carp most loudly about culture war stuff are also the people who are the dominant culture and it's often about things that really don't matter like not being able to say Merry Christmas anymore or Bud Light working with one trans person. It's an easy war to wage for the same reason that it's easy to dismiss; for them the stakes are low and at the end of the day the color of their Starbucks or who InBev works with doesn't really matter.

I think it is a bit different. The people complaining most vociferously, like about the “war on Christmas”, are actually correctly seeing that their reign as the dominant culture is waning over time due to demographic shifts and the general secularization of western society.

 

It is true that each of these skirmishes is most often over something that doesn’t matter almost at all, but it still is a sign of the changing times. I think it is why we are seeing an escalation in violent rhetoric by those who dislike these shifts in power.

[CitizenVectron]

I'd like to throw in a radical opinion here: I don't think the Democrats or Republicans want to keep wealth inequality in place, or protect the wealthy, etc. I think each individual member mostly just wants:

• Win the next election
• Make money

There are some true believers on both sides (for good and ill), but I think most just want to keep their hold on power (even with no desire on how to use that power), and to make money. Because rich people (including corporations, etc) have effectively unlimited ways to give politicians money in the US, it is their interests that win. But if, for some reason, poor, single mothers were the primary donators to political campaigns, then you'd likely see both parties campaigning on free school lunches, child benefit payments, public housing, etc.

 

It's not some conspiracy that drives both parties to preserve the existing wealth system, it's just money. Remove (or severely limit) the money, and you change motivation to some degree. Obviously there will still be elements of patronage and promising favours after people leave office, etc (which you can still deal with to some degree), but it would be better.

[BloodyHell]

2 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

 

 

Watch what the Democrat response was to the potential railroad workers strike, when all they wanted to was to have more than fucking 4 days off a year and maybe a paid sick day or two while their companies were making billions in profit and spending billions a year in stock buy backs. It was "get back in line." How's that for a concrete example?

 

Again, I'm not equating Democrats and Republicans. You could say that the Democrats are the enemy of my enemy, but that doesn't make them my friend.

This one makes me livid. Instead of doing the bare minimum, every DNC politician voted to fuck over rail workers, including the supposed progressive wing. Biden also could have given it to them.

[5timechamp]

I just love that the only thing Dems and GOP fight to truly preserve is the 2 party system..

 

The United States of America, the melting pot of various cultures and beliefs are somehow “adequately” represented by only 2 political parties.. its almost as if they take turns having periods of better profits through exploiting the differences of the population… the 2 party system is the only true unbreakable ceiling in this country

[Spork3245]

2 hours ago, marioandsonic said:

I keep coming into this thread thinking she finally died

This is basically the reverse RBG thread

[5timechamp]

10 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

This is basically the reverse RBG thread

 

My conscience would feel perfectly fine if we were on Donald and McConnell watch specially if they were in significant  suffering

[outsida]

Seems to me like Fizzzle hasn’t paid attention to Biden accomplishment or is concern trolling. 

[Fizzzzle]

1 hour ago, outsida said:

Seems to me like Fizzzle hasn’t paid attention to Biden accomplishment or is concern trolling. 

Or... Or ... Or...

 

I don't suck politicians dicks for doing like a half assed job of an eighth of the things they campaigned on.

 

I can both recognize how much better Biden is than trump while also recognizing the people deserve so much better.

 

Always hold their fucking feet to the fire. I'm not going to congratulate these corrupt capitalist pigs for being better than the other capitalist pigs because they don't want to burn a cross on my lawn.

 

Edit: that was an inappropriate metaphor for me to use. I apologize.