Comments

1
Given the dark clouds of pedophilia that has hovered over Dingy Harry, he should think twice about casting stones. In addition, the electoral college determines the election - not the popular vote. So this sophomoric pseudo punditry of his is quite moot. Enjoy your retirement Harry.
3
The formula is simple. As Mad Eye Moodie said: Constant vigilance.

Hate and fear mongering are not to be tolerated. Anything good he does is to be supported. I fear much more of the former than the latter.
4
@1 Thanks for the civics lesson.

Its great how nobody will ever actually defend Trump, only assert that his adversaries deserve him. Or cast aspersions on them - "dark clouds" indeed. *eyeroll*
5
@2: In her speech to supporters Wednesday, Hillary Clinton said that we not only respect the peaceful transition of power, we cherish it. Now is the time for every civic leader to follow President Obama's lead, all the way down to Harry Reid and Ed Murray.
I'm not happy about Trump's win, but that doesn't give me or anyone the credence to follow the sour-grapes cues from disgruntled elected politicians who are not performing to the best of their civic dispositions - especially when the correct behavior is beautifully demonstrated by Barack and Hillary.
7
@4: I haven't changed a thing. I'm simply logical, consistent, and don't slip into hysteria. Maybe you posted before you read @5.
8
He announced again today that he intends to violate the Constitution and make Muslims register in a government database. You can't in good faith administer the oath of office to someone who has vowed violate that oath. You can't have a peaceful transition of power to someone who has already declared war on your whole system. He's the one who broke the peace. It's on now.
9
@4: Dark clouds is a perfectly appropriate term for unsubstantiated innuendo and rumors of impropriety and otherwise circulating in the media.
10
@8: Trump said that in Nov 2015. I don't disbelieve you, but I can't find anything recently or today.
11
@10, how hard did you look? http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-dr…
12
@10, oh sorry Raindrop, that article IS from 2015.
13
I'm not sure why Harry Reid is saying anything; he's on his way out and this doesn't really serve anything.

As a country we need to come together; be more united and less split. Saying things like this don't serve the common good of society

Trump maybe a child molestor for all we know; it does no good to call him one. Especially in this great land of America where we are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Let's try that for once america. Let's stop judging people for a few days and open your heart and listen
15
I will add win back those working class voters. And you know what, we can win rural votes. It's about economic security and opportunity for them too you know. I wish people take more time to get to know these places better. I have taken care of burned miners from W. Va. and Kentucky and moms and their newborns in the Deep South and despite all our differences, we shared a lot of the same hopes and wishes.

The Democrats will lose again if we make this a rural/city war. We are missing the fact that in big cities across America, we have a HUGE divide. Cities are not Nirvannah. Gentrification, for better or worse, added to that widening wealth gap. Poor people and the middle class are being shifted out of 'successful' cities. Teachers, office workers and nurses can't afford to live in these cities. Cities like Chicago and Cincinnati, where there are poor or working class neighborhoods, violence, lost opportunity and despair still grip.

That's what progressives need to focus on. To change and improve the human conditions are our values. Live up to that claim of diversity and open mindedness. It can't just be about pronoun usage or embracing bike lanes.

16
@14: So you didn't vote for her? I did. Did you really find Johnson or Stein preferable? Did you write in someone? Or did you just not vote for the presidency?

Of course, you needn't feel obligated to answer. But it's delightful to know that from here on out that whenever you accuse someone in these comment threads as being a Trump supporter that such snippy words are coming from someone who actually greased the skids for Trump's victory.
17
@12: np
18
Geeze, right here

“Several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler's anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded..."

19
I don't know who's more annoying, Raindrop or the kumbaya-let's-all-get-together people.

These people in power now are hard people. They don't care how we feel about them or what we say about them. Harry Reid's exactly right in what he said, and what he said I'm sure only amused them, if they even noticed, because they don't have hearts.
20
@19: If only hearts voted, Hillary would have won. But more sweaty arm pits and pulled muscles voted than hearts, even in the states that voted for Barack Obama twice and even Sanders (like Michigan) in the primary.

Why is that? Dial up Morning Joe on MSNBC from Friday morning for some really great discussions.
21
I grew up in central Appalachia, in a county that voted 80% for Trump. I know these people, have known them for a long while, and can assert that "listening to them" and "getting to know them" will not yield anything positive. Their grievances stem from the same rancid stew of tribalism, economic obtuseness, and unhealthy lifestyle that has increasingly stunted their sorry existence for the past 70 years.

They will lash out against modernism in increasingly hostile fashion as their slow fade continues, with daily supplements of provocation from their self-interested industrialist masters. They are the rank and file base of genuine neo-fascism, and should be considered among the enemies of liberal democracy. Rather than wasting time trying to come to a common understanding, our energies must be devoted toward resistance.
22
@21. I'm sorry that was your experience. I didn't grow up in the Appalachia, just lived there in my 20's for 8 years. I encountered racism and sexism, but have also experienced these things living in Seattle for over 20 years. I find life in both places complex. I also hear many generalization of both places.

I still have friends who live there and are raising their families there. I guess I was lucky to have friends like them. Their families have lived in these communities for generations. They are black, white, and mixed. I find it hard to view these people in 2 dimension. When people say come and visit, they meant it. I remember visiting a friend's grandmother in Bassett, Va over Thanksgiving break. I was nervous about the reception. She was white and seemed old school. But you know what, she was old school and laid out the red carpet. We drove around the town and 30 years ago, Bassett was known for its furniture . Today, it's a different story. My friend, Susanne, who moved away after university tells me life has changed. She was glad her grandparents didn't see it. What happened? As the song goes- It's the same old story. They just couldn't compete with China.
http://www.newyorker.com/business/curren…

These were good jobs for both blacks and whites. The area (S. Virginia into NC) shed 19,000 jobs between 1990-2013.

WAPO had an article trying to figure out the post election why's.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/vir…

The Guardian has been running a series worth reading.
And this:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016….

I might be a bit nostalgic here, but it's not viewed through rose colored lenses. No different than how I view my hometown, Seattle.
23
I can't remember if it I read the story here about people who were advocating on behalf of people in Africa over the efforts of conservation. The article discussed how important it was if poaching or destruction of the environment was to be discouraged, then government and NGOs need to help people find other means to make a sustainable living. That mean teaching new skills and finding other income sources.

I think after NAFTA got passed and globalization happened, some places got wealthier and many places got poorer. For whatever reason, while we can understand the need to provide people in Africa alternative means to make a living, we have a far more diffficult time understanding why the same considerations weren't given to our citizens who lost jobs and watched their communities declined.

Maybe we can only imagine pockets of poverty in cities or in the Deep South or on the reservation. Not hidden away in small towns.
24
@21

" I know these people, have known them for a long while, and can assert that "listening to them" and "getting to know them" will not yield anything positive. Their grievances stem from the same rancid stew of tribalism, economic obtuseness, and unhealthy lifestyle that has increasingly stunted their sorry existence for the past 70 years."

Talking about any group of people like that is beyond the pale.

I honestly don't know what to say, that is just sick.
25
Reid is right. But first, how about a little history: In 2008, Obama won a decisive electoral vote, and an overwhelming popular vote. The biggest popular vote victory for a new party in over 60 years. This was done by a black man in an overwhelmingly white country. If ever there was a mandate, this was it.

But the Republicans had no interest in working with him, and they never worked with him. Despite Obama running an inclusive campaign ("There is not a liberal America and a conservative America—there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America—there's the United States of America") they had no interest in working with him. Despite being widely considered a moderate, Republicans had no interest in working with him. Even the signature policy issue was essentially a moderate one, first proposed by Richard Nixon (a health insurance mandate). Obama would have been thrilled if a moderate Republican had proposed some sort of modification -- that Senator would have gotten the royal treatment, and been able to basically write the law. But no one stepped forward. They all marched in line, taking no interest in working with the President.

Of course it was worse than that. They worked hard to slow down any legislation, just as they had done under Clinton. This, from an Atlantic Monthly article a few years back:

They [the Republicans] went about this by escalating an arms race that had been building in the Senate for the better part of a decade: the increasingly aggressive use of rules and procedures by successive minorities to frustrate the will of the majority. The very first bill to be considered on the Senate floor in the 111th Congress, in early January of 2009, before Obama was even inaugurated, was the Public Land Management Act, a sweeping conservation measure with broad bipartisan support that would protect 2 million acres of parks and wilderness in nine states. The Republicans filibustered, forcing a series of votes and requiring a weekend session to finish. The bill eventually passed, 77–20.

The same tactics were deployed against most other initiatives, and expanded into new realms. ...


This was long before his famous quote, which pretty much summed up his approach to government "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

There was no interest in working with a very popular President, why should we work with a very unpopular one? Why should we work with a guy that won an election because of an antiquated, outdated -- and yes, unfair -- mechanism for electing the President? Fuck that. We should play the same game. Delay, delay, delay. Throw sand in the gears and wait until the midterms.
26
@23 -- I think after NAFTA got passed and globalization happened, some places got wealthier and many places got poorer.

That is true in the United States, but that trend has been going on long before NAFTA (it started right around when Reagan got elected).

It is very complicated, of course, but the general trend has been a reduction in the worst poverty worldwide as a result of trade. Disparity in income has also dropped worldwide.

That is no excuse for bad trade policy that increases poverty or disparity of income. But passing legislation to combat a "race to the bottom" is often difficult. For example, the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle collapsed in part because developing countries objected to the Clinton administration’s attempt to include labor standards in multilateral agreements.* It is complicated. Do you pass deals that make no mention of labor standards (or right to self determination) knowing that it will at least mean that people in that country get a little more food to eat, or do you push for something better?

* http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Inter…

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