I like yang but his social media is too goofy.

He comes off to me like Elon Musk. Obviously great at certain things but not serious about other important things.

But yangs is amazing in interviews and I think if he can make it to a debate stage he’ll crush it.

But we also don’t know what kind of skeletons are in his closet... hard to believe he’s squeaky clean. Also yang says the right things on social justice issues, but I don’t see enough outreach on his social media to black women. Black women voted against trump at 98%, any democrat needs to make sure they’re promoting those viewpoints as much as possible.

4/18/2019 8:43:39 PM

Sanders is the only candidate with thr majority of his support coming from people of color (53% in the recent Emerson poll)

4/18/2019 9:18:18 PM

^Funny how the narrative changes when you have name recognition prior to the South Carolina Primary.

4/19/2019 1:36:32 AM

Yang's entire platform is basically a guarantee that everyone's rent will go up by $1,000 a month.

4/19/2019 4:00:27 AM

I'm potentially supportive of UBI but Yang would need a lot more name recognition - and good positions on a lot more issues - to even be in the same tier as Buttigeig, who is still a distant long shot in spite of the good press lately.

Castro, Delaney, Gabbard, Inslee, Gillibrand, Hickenlooper, and Yang are all minor players. I think O'Rourke will join them pretty soon, with one idiot statement after another and no real positions other than "Almost half of Texans found me less odious than Ted Cruz!" Klobuchar, too; she had a brief flurry of attention but it's been a while since she's had any media focus; now that Buttigeig's positioned himself as the "Midwestern mayor" the best she can do is be the "Midwestern woman," but it's hard to be folksy when people know about your salad comb habits.

4/19/2019 9:17:32 AM

Buttigeig has been meeting with some big power brokers, if these tapes dont become an issue I can see him moving up

4/19/2019 9:28:11 AM

Quote :

"It's pronounced Yang sir."

Young is a romanization of Chinese Yang

I like his slogan of Humanity First. But Joe is gonna win the nomination I think. And he's gonna be punched by Trump.

Yang may have a chance after 15-20 years if he's still active by then. He's too young.

[Edited on April 19, 2019 at 9:49 AM. Reason : add another note]

4/19/2019 9:45:38 AM

Even without the tapes I think Buttigeig's biggest problem would be drumming up enthusiasm with African American voters. He's a white boy without Biden's blackness adjacency. I suspect that as a group black voters are less gay-friendly than other Democratic constituencies. If he were the candidate I don't think African Americans would turn to Trump or anything, but I also don't think they'd come out in droves. It's early yet and there's time to fix that, but I think it would require bolder policies than what he seems to favor so far.

[Edited on April 19, 2019 at 10:17 AM. Reason : ]

4/19/2019 10:17:34 AM

Beto is hugely overrated, I get why people like him, but even running against Cruz he was weak on policies.

I've followed Yang on twitter for a while so i'm biased, but he has a well developed grasp on a wide range of policies, at least domestically. His basic premise is to follow the data, his biggest liability is foreign policy, because these are often not data driven sorts of decisions. I guess his biggest credit here is he can't be worse than Trump…

4/19/2019 11:39:20 AM

I don't think he's a bad guy. But even if he's the best candidate, he had a zero percent chance of being elected president in 2020.

4/19/2019 12:51:44 PM

Buttiegieg and Yang are not real candidates. Beto is a fading star, too. If Biden's groping of women doesn't do him in, his piss poor policy positions should.


Guys, it's the same group of people it's always been and always was going to be:

Kamala, Booker, Warren; with Sanders playing the popular outsider and probably getting shafted again.


Everything else is just noise. The Democratic primary seems to be following the footsteps of the RNC clown-car shitshow, only the strategy probably won't work.

4/19/2019 1:51:56 PM

Yang is a 2020 version of Bobby Jindal in 2016, representing Asians. And even weaker. He may show up in some primary debate scenes, but will quickly fade away.

4/19/2019 2:36:58 PM

Quote :

"^Funny how the narrative changes when you have name recognition prior to the South Carolina Primary."

Speaking of SC:
Sanders gets endorsements from 7 black S. Carolina lawmakers
https://apnews.com/feac565e4c374585a8d7a46cdca152da

4/19/2019 5:43:09 PM

Yang is also the political version of Jeremy Lin. Both have Taiwanese immigrant parents. Both went to Ivy schools. Lin created Linsanity, Yang has his Yang Gang. They make some noise and disappear.

4/19/2019 5:47:19 PM

Looks like Biden is about to announce

4/19/2019 5:55:34 PM

Warren made a great statement about why impeachment is necessary and important

Quote :

"The Mueller report lays out facts showing that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election to help Donald Trump and Donald Trump welcomed that help. Once elected, Donald Trump obstructed the investigation into that attack. Mueller put the next step in the hands of Congress: “Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.” The correct process for exercising that authority is impeachment. To ignore a President’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would suggest that both the current and future Presidents would be free to abuse their power in similar ways. The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States."

4/19/2019 6:04:00 PM

^it may not show up in the polling, but she is slaying it right now.

4/20/2019 8:22:47 AM

Buttigieg saying some weird stuff about Sanders I’m not liking, and making factually deficient statements that trump supporters were poor people who were frustrated, when data shows trump supporters are rich white people and uneducated white people.

4/21/2019 10:54:23 PM

Lau(Liu) is Warren's campaign manager.

4/22/2019 10:00:54 AM

Quote :

"Buttigieg saying some weird stuff about Sanders I’m not liking"

What are you referring to? I saw some hubbub about "comparing Trump supporters to Sanders supporters" that struck me as pretty far overblown. Buttigieg's right: both camps have an anti-establishment element. That isn't groundbreaking, and it certainly isn't equating Bernie fans with alt-right lunatics.

4/22/2019 5:38:10 PM

Yeah I don't get the hubbub either.

4/22/2019 5:56:38 PM

i'm pullin for Tulsi to get the nod

4/22/2019 7:57:06 PM

4/22/2019 10:12:39 PM

That's pretty on brand for you.

[Edited on April 22, 2019 at 10:34 PM. Reason : Trump or Bernie, who cares??? (Except you said you'd prefer Trump)]

4/22/2019 10:34:10 PM

Quote :

"NEW: South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is the only top-tier 2020 Democratic candidate talking money from lobbyists, a fact highlighted by his upcoming fundraiser hosted by Steve Elmendorf. https://t.co/PcrOiQvQwa"

Quote :

"Great of HuffPost to ask if candidates support treating voting as a right you can't be stripped of, & abolishing disenfranchisement. Sanders is only yes. Warren, Harris are "open." Gillibrand hasn't "thought about that one." Buttigieg & Gabbard are noes. https://t.co/fCrUUXjldU"

4/22/2019 11:28:26 PM

^^^ that shit is played out... has been played out

4/22/2019 11:32:10 PM

Quote :

".@PeteButtigieg won't say how he'd vote on impeaching Trump: "I think he's made it pretty clear that he deserves impeachment. I'm also going to leave it to the House and Senate to figure that out.""

Wow. Bold.

4/23/2019 12:43:42 AM

he's going hard for that "centrist but sometimes appear edgy" vote

4/23/2019 8:46:40 AM

Quote :

"support treating voting as a right you can't be stripped of, "

I don't favor permanent disenfranchisement for released felons but I'm down with saying you don't get to vote from prison. Being in prison restricts certain rights; that's part of the whole idea. So I don't buy the Sanders "slippery slope" here.

4/23/2019 9:30:00 AM

What rights do you think prisoners should be denied? Right now, it's basically movement/living location, unreasonable search and seizure and voting. Are there any I'm missing? Are there any youd like to add?

prisoners are counted for a voting population so they should be able to vote.

Disenfranchisement, like mass incarceration, came about from the abolition of slavery as an easy voter suppression method. There is still a much much racial bias in criminal justice which makes disenfranchisement racially biased.

Some states already allow prisoners to vote so it isn't unheard of

4/23/2019 10:27:31 AM

I'm all for reducing the number of people who are incarcerated through alternative sentencing measures and particularly through reform of drug laws. I don't think that expanding rights for prisoners goes hand in hand with that. I'm fine with prison being bad. That's not the problem. The problem is applying it in cases where it is counterproductive.

As to counting for voting population, I'd need to know a little more. Do we count kids? If so, your argument falls apart a bit. If not, I'm fine with not counting prisoners. I'm still opposed to the idea of giving inmates a voice in how they get punished.

4/23/2019 10:48:32 AM

That last line feels kinda squishy paternalistic.

4/23/2019 11:01:24 AM

Quote :

"I'm fine with prison being bad"

This is a pretty broad statement. Prisoners are already taken advantage of in tons of immoral ways (treated as slave labor, price gouged, violence, lack of health care, used for profit) that also hurt the ability to reform and reintegrate them into society. That's sort of a separate point from voting rights except that also hurts their ability to reintegrate and stay involved with their community. And it goes to my question in the previous post, maybe a slippery slope argument too but what rights are you ok with stripping from the incarcerated?


And yes of course the census counts children, but they aren't considered as voters until 18, incarcerated people are counted as voters in the prison districts.


And if you agree that mass incarceration is a problem then you should support enfranchisement at least until that problem is solved, imo.

[Edited on April 23, 2019 at 11:12 AM. Reason : E]

4/23/2019 11:11:06 AM

Quote :

"Prisoners are already taken advantage of in tons of immoral ways"

How should hard time be served in your opinion? Should it just be rehabilitation and job training?

4/23/2019 12:08:30 PM

This conversation probably almost needs to be moved to the another thread, but for the most part: yes. Prison punishes you by removing your freedom of movement and associations.

At a minimum prisoners should have full, timely, free health care (mental and physical), be paid a real wage for any work they choose to take part in, have some bank of free phone calls (at least), be provided with healthy safe meals, and not have to live in fear of violence from guards and fellow inmates. Optional items like commisary shouldnt cost much more than at a grocery store or vending machine.

4/23/2019 12:22:10 PM

I'll wait for a separate thread to talk about other prison reform issues. As far as voting goes, I stand by what I've said. Sanders' line about "slippery slopes" is shit. There may be good arguments for enfranchising prisoners but that ain't it.

Quote :

"That last line feels kinda squishy paternalistic. "

It's not. Paternalism implies that I want to restrict their freedom for their own good. I don't give a shit about their good. I want to restrict their freedom for our good.

Of course, by "they" I mean the people who should be in prison, which is a subset of the number who actually are in prison. For the rest, I don't generally want to restrict their rights to anything like the same extent, or often at all.

[Edited on April 23, 2019 at 12:41 PM. Reason : Typing on phone is hard]

4/23/2019 12:41:30 PM

It's not the typical slippery slope bc we are already at the bottom (lifetime felony disenfranchisement in some states) and trying to climb back up. But also some states have managed to stay at the top of that slope, Maine and Vermont already allow prisoners to vote.

Also your position seems to be "these people shouldn't be in prison but while they are I want it to be as bad as possible for them" but maybe I'm projecting/misreading

[Edited on April 23, 2019 at 12:55 PM. Reason : E]

4/23/2019 12:54:09 PM

Not allowing incarcerated people to vote only works if you have a fair criminal justice system

Our criminal justice system is not fair

4/23/2019 1:09:59 PM

The world's largest prison population is mostly comprised of non-violent black and brown bodies. Most of whom were imprisoned for crimes that are no longer considered illegal in many states. And not only are these crimes no longer illegal, but budding industries which are highly profitable have emerged as a result of this decriminalization.


That's not a coincidence.

4/23/2019 1:50:35 PM

Quote :

" Of course, by "they" I mean the people who should be in prison, which is a subset of the number who actually are in prison. For the rest, I don't generally want to restrict their rights to anything like the same extent, or often at all."

You just admitted that there is a significant percentage of people who should not be in prison

Why, then, is your position with regards to these people anything short of their immediate release?

[Edited on April 23, 2019 at 4:00 PM. Reason : ]

4/23/2019 3:59:16 PM

Quote :

"your position seems to be "these people shouldn't be in prison but while they are I want it to be as bad as possible for them" but maybe I'm projecting/misreading "

I think it's more "these people who shouldn't be in prison would probably prefer 'not prison' to 'slightly nicer prison." You're talking about sprucing the place up for people who shouldn't even be there; I'm talking about getting those people the hell out of there.

The priority should be fixing the system so that fewer people go to or stay in prison. After that, we can argue about how soft the pillows should be for Dylann Roof, El Chapo, and the other people who should probably stay there.

^Um... That pretty much is my position

[Edited on April 23, 2019 at 4:03 PM. Reason : ]

4/23/2019 4:02:36 PM

^well that's good, then.

But wouldn't re-enfranchising prisoners be a good measure against using incarceration as a form of voter suppression? Doesn't revoking voting rights from prisoners lend itself to wanton forms of criminalization and abuse?

4/23/2019 6:02:07 PM

^^"do this first, then do that" is a false choice, you can do more than one thing at once. If we finish solving racial (and class, in many ways) injustices in the criminal system before giving them the vote, we'll have to have this discussion again.

And frankly "giving them softer pillows" is pretty crass toss off to the frankly basic human rights I outlined in my post.

[Edited on April 23, 2019 at 7:48 PM. Reason : I like saying "frankly" ]

4/23/2019 7:48:13 PM

^^If I thought disenfranchisement were the driving factor behind mass incarceration I would be slightly more inclined to agree with you. I still wouldn't, really, because I think we're better off making the system not put people in prison for trifling bullshit, regardless of whatever the true nefarious motive is; but I'd be slightly more inclined.

Quote :

""do this first, then do that" is a false choice, you can do more than one thing at once."

I think you took me too literally. As should be clear by now, I'm saying, "Do this, and don't do that." I want a lot of prisoners to not be in prison anymore. Let's get them out - that's the "do this." As for the rest...well, when I say "We can talk about it later," what I mean is, "They can get fucked." I don't give a shit if Ramzi Yousef can get Three Musketeers bars in prison at market price. I don't want Ted Kaczynski making free phone calls to whoever (not that he would, since he's a violent crazy person who hates technology, but still). If Dylann Roof is worried about violence from fellow inmates, maybe he should take it up with said inmates - I'm sure that will go over real well - or wonder about the life choices that led him to a disproportionately black place by way of shooting a bunch of black people in church.

4/23/2019 9:58:24 PM

Wihs we had a constitution that covered all that.

And while we are waiting for the others to get out, I guess they can just get fucked.

4/23/2019 10:16:42 PM

I think if there was a stipulation that people convicted of a non-violent felony could vote while in prison, but people who were convicted of murder, manslaughter, etc could not vote until they had served their sentences, that could get some mainstream support. But it's hard to get the majority of people to want to give voting rights to serial killers, terrorists, etc, and rightfully so.

4/23/2019 10:53:05 PM

Quote :

"^^If I thought disenfranchisement were the driving factor behind mass incarceration I would be slightly more inclined to agree with you."

If you don't think the motivating factor behind our prison population is political, then what DO you think is the reason? Why is our prison population overwhelmingly comprised of a very specific demographic?


Just a co-inkydink?

4/24/2019 12:51:46 AM

^I think it's absurd to distill the whole issue down to one motivating factor, particularly one that would require a massive, preconceived effort on the part of politicians from both parties. No. As with most political decisions, I think the ones that have been taken to build up the prison-industrial complex were generally made to capture short-term political gains, not a grand plot to deny brown people the vote. In short, I think it's a bunch of (generally racist) things that have varied across time and place within the country, not one big voteer suppression effort.

4/24/2019 6:47:52 AM

Short term political motives are usually in service of a larger political vision.

If you are incapable of observing historical patterns then you're a little slow on the uptake

4/24/2019 11:51:53 AM

where can I watch all these CNN town halls?

[Edited on April 24, 2019 at 12:26 PM. Reason : i've looked a couple times and can't find them]

4/24/2019 12:25:19 PM