The vice president debate was entertaining at best. Ron D. was exceptional showing the nation, Nikki H is an America Last candidate. Vic is playing for Sec of state at best, maybe HHS secretary at worst. Christie is the Mitt Romney of the bunch, a corpulent disaster. Without immigration, border control and deportation on a massive scale, we should either learn to make meth, or learn sharia law.
Keeping abortion in headlines is GOP's greatest weapon for losing elections and they intend to keep it that way, even if they have to do it by showing "concern" about abortions or abortion pills
in the District of Columbia:
11/8/23 headline, "House GOP government funding bill hits snag amid abortion concerns," The Hill, Aris Folley
"Another House GOP-backed funding plan is hitting snags this week as some in the party are raising concerns about an abortion-related provision....There is uncertainty around its chances of passage as some members take issue with a thorny policy rider.
Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday that he opposes the plan over a measure that seeks to prohibit Washington, D.C., from carrying out the Reproductive Health Nondiscrimination Act, a law that aims to protect individuals from employer discrimination based on their reproductive health decisions....Reporters also asked the lawmaker about whether the recent victories for abortion-rights advocates seen at the ballot box this week would impact the party’s approach on the issue."...https://www.aol.com/house-gop-government-funding-bill-225837344.html
What is really demoralizing is how badly Republicans did in local school board elections running on parental rights platform in Virginia. I think that might have been the most dispiriting thing I have read in the post-election analysis.
Thank you Ann and Ryan for follow up on abortion debate. Got it. Not a federal issue. (as if the government could honestly, factually, etc., discern the meaning, of life). I respectfully refuse the notion of a “losing game.” on the basis of building a country up, not down. Pre-cursor chemicals are every parents and persons nightmare.
Ann is making some unexpected and powerful points about abortion. She invokes Justice Scalia for the state, not federal, regulation of abortion. Scalia said there was no federal constitutional right to an abortion. Ann hit this point hard in the talk with Ryan. However, did Scalia ever express opposition to federal regulation of abortion by statute, or was he merely silent on that issue? Whether that is politically wise or not is another question, but federal laws regulate all sorts of conduct that do not involve constitutional rights.
My favorite line of the podcast was on Hannity and Fox.
Not the most intellectually based question but I have to ask, why is Nikki Haley always wagging her finger in the face of the audience just like Babu Bhatt in a Seinfeld episode? In fact, I believe bin Laden used to do the same thing as well as Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida who was finger wagging on Monday Nov 13.
This seems to be a cultural thing and, while I am well-schooled in Western culture, I know nothing of in-your-face finger wagging or other such diverse practices.
You all are a little too off the rails for me at this point, but just for internal consistency in your world view, how do you square lamenting the changing demography of Europe and saying at least when Republicans are president the country moves laterally when it was George W. Bush's two wars in the Middle East leading to the massive displacement and migration crisis across Europe? I'll happily throw Hillary Clinton in with George W. Bush who glibly destabilized Libya ("We came, we saw, he died") and led to displacement there, as well, and migration to Europe.
Also will someone finally realize that this make america great again thing (the reference to norman rockwell) that conservatives has overlaps entirely with the Bernie Sanders economic justice of wanting to return to the economic policies of the 1950s? Conservatives want the social mores of the 1950s and leftists like myself want the economic policies of the 1950s.
Which always makes me wonder, you all want some semblance of homogeneity to what end? You decry the welfare state which was actually dismantled in the 1990s under Clinton (no having more children does not get you exponentially more welfare anymore). But what is the end panacea of this whiter nation you desire? I have never heard a word about returning to a juster economic system. Would you support a robust Scandinavian welfare net if you had a homogenous stable demography? And then you say Democrats are bringing us to socialism: because they quibble with Republicans about marginal tax rates over 2-3%? What about the 90% marginal tax rates from the 1950s? There is no socialism in any classical sense of the term. There is an inefficient piecemeal patchwork of leaky bucket initiatives that Democrats seem to love having ribbon cuttings over. No coherent care for the people that would actually be less expensive, when it comes to healthcare for example, than the medusa-headed monster we have today. Even Medicare is a corporate handout with a gazillion Medicare Advantage plans.
I think the only area we have agreement is over Ukraine, which I think is ghoulish, especially when McConnell comes out saying what a great deal it is for us in that we're funding Raytheon etc without having to sacrifice any American bodies, as if it's OK to put Ukrainian bodies in a meat grinder. Russians and Ukranians are dying, so of course they have to make a peace deal, and it's obvious they're happy to never have one.
But then I don't understand your support for Israel. You don't like foreign aid and say it could help Americans but Israel receives more foreign aid than any other country in the world from the US. They have more advanced defense weapons than any other country in the world. And yet they couldn't deter this attack and their forces are not good enough to go after Hamas without making what are mostly (and ostensibly) accidental kills. Where is their intelligence service? Why is Israel the exception?
This may be a naive take, and I want to learn more about the history of Israel, but I never understood why Germany didn't have to give up its land following WW2 to the Jewish people if there is to be such a thing as the Jewish state. This thing about needing to be in a particular place because of particular holy sites seems to be a perseveration everyone needs to get over. I've never gotten to live where I've wanted. And the Jews in Germany had been there since the year 1000! Before there even was a Germany. It was the Nazis who were the ones who came up with arbitrary insane definitions of what made a Jew and not a Jew. In reality any sane outsider would have said they were all Europeans. It was insanity to say otherwise. Hitler had even divided up Aryans (another artificial construct) into hierarchies with Swedes as the highest. It was all made up, arbitrarily. Yet the one true distinction is Jews? We dispense with all the rest except that one. We're supposed to continue to believe a tribe that only religious accounts exist for has persisted for over 6,000 years and has to be in one particular part of the world when a large part are indistinguishable from generic Europeans? If you're from Luxembourg for example you don't know where your ancestors were from 6,000 years earlier. Is there any other ethnicity that claims and has acknowledged this fantastical cosmological origin story as historical fact? I don't think sending European Jews to Israel—if that is indeed what happened (my high school history never got that far)—to the Middle East was ever a winning idea.
I stand by all of what I say except the Israel stuff which I have murky knowledge of and will endeavor to learn more about. I've always found it difficult to decipher the history from the religious stories, especially when in school we're shown History Channel documentaries about Exodus as if it's actual historical fact when there's no evidence for it.
Both Ann and Ryan have Haley pegged. Haley wants to rebuild the Sixth Fleet, which prompted me to look up the US Navy fleet strength. I didn’t know how many fleets the Navy has and it’s clear Haley doesn’t know either. Why build or rebuild the Sixth fleet and not the other 6 fleets? Cause that’s the only one she has ever heard of. Just another one of the clowns running the Sixth Fleet, the other 6 fleets and the US Navy aground.
I think the Nikki-Vivek thing is more like a Bitchy Big Sister vs. Annoying Little Brother thing with some South Asian overtones built in. And yes, as I have said before, Haley is even worse than having no experience, she has bad foreign policy experience. She has learned nothing from the past 25 years. She is running to be GWB's running mate.
Correction on Nixon ending Vietnam. I saw him at Long Beach in ‘68 on the campaign trail. Like Trump promises made promises broken. He ramped up the war secretly and in essence slow walked us into ending our involvement in a civil war of another country.
The vice president debate was entertaining at best. Ron D. was exceptional showing the nation, Nikki H is an America Last candidate. Vic is playing for Sec of state at best, maybe HHS secretary at worst. Christie is the Mitt Romney of the bunch, a corpulent disaster. Without immigration, border control and deportation on a massive scale, we should either learn to make meth, or learn sharia law.
I personally know Republicans who are pro-choice for exactly reasons laid out by Ryan-they simply don’t want to support black illegitimacy
Keeping abortion in headlines is GOP's greatest weapon for losing elections and they intend to keep it that way, even if they have to do it by showing "concern" about abortions or abortion pills
in the District of Columbia:
11/8/23 headline, "House GOP government funding bill hits snag amid abortion concerns," The Hill, Aris Folley
"Another House GOP-backed funding plan is hitting snags this week as some in the party are raising concerns about an abortion-related provision....There is uncertainty around its chances of passage as some members take issue with a thorny policy rider.
Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday that he opposes the plan over a measure that seeks to prohibit Washington, D.C., from carrying out the Reproductive Health Nondiscrimination Act, a law that aims to protect individuals from employer discrimination based on their reproductive health decisions....Reporters also asked the lawmaker about whether the recent victories for abortion-rights advocates seen at the ballot box this week would impact the party’s approach on the issue."...https://www.aol.com/house-gop-government-funding-bill-225837344.html
What is really demoralizing is how badly Republicans did in local school board elections running on parental rights platform in Virginia. I think that might have been the most dispiriting thing I have read in the post-election analysis.
People who are not parents should not be allowed to vote in school board elections.
There is something disgusting about a candidate, running on the platform of "war, War, WAR!"
Especially after the past 70 years of our "war record". Frankly, if you have never carried a rifle into a war zone, you should stick a sock in it.
Thank you Ann and Ryan for follow up on abortion debate. Got it. Not a federal issue. (as if the government could honestly, factually, etc., discern the meaning, of life). I respectfully refuse the notion of a “losing game.” on the basis of building a country up, not down. Pre-cursor chemicals are every parents and persons nightmare.
Ann is making some unexpected and powerful points about abortion. She invokes Justice Scalia for the state, not federal, regulation of abortion. Scalia said there was no federal constitutional right to an abortion. Ann hit this point hard in the talk with Ryan. However, did Scalia ever express opposition to federal regulation of abortion by statute, or was he merely silent on that issue? Whether that is politically wise or not is another question, but federal laws regulate all sorts of conduct that do not involve constitutional rights.
My favorite line of the podcast was on Hannity and Fox.
Missed it
Not the most intellectually based question but I have to ask, why is Nikki Haley always wagging her finger in the face of the audience just like Babu Bhatt in a Seinfeld episode? In fact, I believe bin Laden used to do the same thing as well as Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida who was finger wagging on Monday Nov 13.
This seems to be a cultural thing and, while I am well-schooled in Western culture, I know nothing of in-your-face finger wagging or other such diverse practices.
Just curious.
You all are a little too off the rails for me at this point, but just for internal consistency in your world view, how do you square lamenting the changing demography of Europe and saying at least when Republicans are president the country moves laterally when it was George W. Bush's two wars in the Middle East leading to the massive displacement and migration crisis across Europe? I'll happily throw Hillary Clinton in with George W. Bush who glibly destabilized Libya ("We came, we saw, he died") and led to displacement there, as well, and migration to Europe.
Also will someone finally realize that this make america great again thing (the reference to norman rockwell) that conservatives has overlaps entirely with the Bernie Sanders economic justice of wanting to return to the economic policies of the 1950s? Conservatives want the social mores of the 1950s and leftists like myself want the economic policies of the 1950s.
Which always makes me wonder, you all want some semblance of homogeneity to what end? You decry the welfare state which was actually dismantled in the 1990s under Clinton (no having more children does not get you exponentially more welfare anymore). But what is the end panacea of this whiter nation you desire? I have never heard a word about returning to a juster economic system. Would you support a robust Scandinavian welfare net if you had a homogenous stable demography? And then you say Democrats are bringing us to socialism: because they quibble with Republicans about marginal tax rates over 2-3%? What about the 90% marginal tax rates from the 1950s? There is no socialism in any classical sense of the term. There is an inefficient piecemeal patchwork of leaky bucket initiatives that Democrats seem to love having ribbon cuttings over. No coherent care for the people that would actually be less expensive, when it comes to healthcare for example, than the medusa-headed monster we have today. Even Medicare is a corporate handout with a gazillion Medicare Advantage plans.
I think the only area we have agreement is over Ukraine, which I think is ghoulish, especially when McConnell comes out saying what a great deal it is for us in that we're funding Raytheon etc without having to sacrifice any American bodies, as if it's OK to put Ukrainian bodies in a meat grinder. Russians and Ukranians are dying, so of course they have to make a peace deal, and it's obvious they're happy to never have one.
But then I don't understand your support for Israel. You don't like foreign aid and say it could help Americans but Israel receives more foreign aid than any other country in the world from the US. They have more advanced defense weapons than any other country in the world. And yet they couldn't deter this attack and their forces are not good enough to go after Hamas without making what are mostly (and ostensibly) accidental kills. Where is their intelligence service? Why is Israel the exception?
This may be a naive take, and I want to learn more about the history of Israel, but I never understood why Germany didn't have to give up its land following WW2 to the Jewish people if there is to be such a thing as the Jewish state. This thing about needing to be in a particular place because of particular holy sites seems to be a perseveration everyone needs to get over. I've never gotten to live where I've wanted. And the Jews in Germany had been there since the year 1000! Before there even was a Germany. It was the Nazis who were the ones who came up with arbitrary insane definitions of what made a Jew and not a Jew. In reality any sane outsider would have said they were all Europeans. It was insanity to say otherwise. Hitler had even divided up Aryans (another artificial construct) into hierarchies with Swedes as the highest. It was all made up, arbitrarily. Yet the one true distinction is Jews? We dispense with all the rest except that one. We're supposed to continue to believe a tribe that only religious accounts exist for has persisted for over 6,000 years and has to be in one particular part of the world when a large part are indistinguishable from generic Europeans? If you're from Luxembourg for example you don't know where your ancestors were from 6,000 years earlier. Is there any other ethnicity that claims and has acknowledged this fantastical cosmological origin story as historical fact? I don't think sending European Jews to Israel—if that is indeed what happened (my high school history never got that far)—to the Middle East was ever a winning idea.
I stand by all of what I say except the Israel stuff which I have murky knowledge of and will endeavor to learn more about. I've always found it difficult to decipher the history from the religious stories, especially when in school we're shown History Channel documentaries about Exodus as if it's actual historical fact when there's no evidence for it.
Both Ann and Ryan have Haley pegged. Haley wants to rebuild the Sixth Fleet, which prompted me to look up the US Navy fleet strength. I didn’t know how many fleets the Navy has and it’s clear Haley doesn’t know either. Why build or rebuild the Sixth fleet and not the other 6 fleets? Cause that’s the only one she has ever heard of. Just another one of the clowns running the Sixth Fleet, the other 6 fleets and the US Navy aground.
I think the Nikki-Vivek thing is more like a Bitchy Big Sister vs. Annoying Little Brother thing with some South Asian overtones built in. And yes, as I have said before, Haley is even worse than having no experience, she has bad foreign policy experience. She has learned nothing from the past 25 years. She is running to be GWB's running mate.
Correction on Nixon ending Vietnam. I saw him at Long Beach in ‘68 on the campaign trail. Like Trump promises made promises broken. He ramped up the war secretly and in essence slow walked us into ending our involvement in a civil war of another country.