Democratic Party Presidential Candidates for 2020

[Innula Zenovka]

You're so funny with your hard on for negative bernie press tho. Did they ask this of Kamala and Pete too? Did they make sure to ask de Blasio if he will go back to throwing groundhogs around if someone else is the front runner?

It would have been difficult, though, to compose a sensible question for the others based on their conduct in a campaign for the democratic nomination in which they were not candidates.

They don't. It's not for cultural issues why she gets independents or some on the right. The anti-interventionist right is willing to overlook certain things to stop the wars, which happens to be a good thing. It's easy to smear, which the establishment left is happy to do to tear her down. They're the ones bringing this stuff up and completely ignoring her actual record of governing, which is near perfect on this issue.

But I don't think she's been trying "to stop the wars," though. Rather, she has pretty consistently applauded the Syrians and Russians for prosecuting their wars against both Daesh and the all the other Syrian opposition groups, conflating, some would say deliberately and misleadingly, secular and progressive groups like the Kurds with people like Al Qaeda and Daesh, and unfavourably compared President Obama with President Putin for not showing, as she saw it, similar determination to that of the Russian ruler.

While, in general, stopping wars is of course a good idea, it's not a universal rule.

I am sure that some day the Czechs will see that what we did was to save them for a happier future. And I sincerely believe that what we have at last opened the way to that general appeasement which alone can save the world from chaos.

Neville Chamberlain - Wikiquote

en.wikiquote.org

And, of course, we have the example of the original America First Committee.

 

[Cristiano]

Joe Biden comes out swinging in defense of Kamala Harris

...

www.palmerreport.com

 

[Cristalle]

But I don't think she's been trying "to stop the wars," though. Rather, she has pretty consistently applauded the Syrians and Russians for prosecuting their wars against both Daesh and the all the other Syrian opposition groups, conflating, some would say deliberately and misleadingly, secular and progressive groups like the Kurds with people like Al Qaeda and Daesh, and unfavourably compared President Obama with President Putin for not showing, as she saw it, similar determination to that of the Russian ruler.

While, in general, stopping wars is of course a good idea, it's not a universal rule.

Neville Chamberlain - Wikiquote

en.wikiquote.org

And, of course, we have the example of the original America First Committee.

That is a really gross distortion of her positions.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

That is a really gross distortion of her positions.

Probably mistakenly, I take her comments here -- clip found simply by random Googling, but it seems a fair one to use, since it's of her recent reply to an open-ended question -- to suggest that she thinks the USA should disengage from Syria and, possibly with regret and misgivings, watch as President Assad, with some assistance from President Putin and PM Erdogan, put an end to military opposition to the current regime, including the opposition of the US's some-time Kurdish allies.

You wouldn't agree, I take it, so how should I take what I hear her say in this clip? What am I missing?

 

[Romana]

Probably mistakenly, I take her comments here -- clip found simply by random Googling, but it seems a fair one to use, since it's of her recent reply to an open-ended question -- to suggest that she thinks the USA should disengage from Syria and, possibly with regret and misgivings, watch as President Assad, with some assistance from President Putin and PM Erdogan, put an end to military opposition to the current regime, including the opposition of the US's some-time Kurdish allies.

You wouldn't agree, I take it, so how should I take what I hear her say in this clip? What am I missing?

And how should we take this?

 

[Cristalle]

Probably mistakenly, I take her comments here -- clip found simply by random Googling, but it seems a fair one to use, since it's of her recent reply to an open-ended question -- to suggest that she thinks the USA should disengage from Syria and, possibly with regret and misgivings, watch as President Assad, with some assistance from President Putin and PM Erdogan, put an end to military opposition to the current regime, including the opposition of the US's some-time Kurdish allies.

You wouldn't agree, I take it, so how should I take what I hear her say in this clip? What am I missing?

I don't see what is problematic about what she said. What she said is entirely reasonable. The reality is that our actions, regardless of intent, create a power vaccum that invites worse powers to come in. WE created a failed state in Libya, where people are openly sold as slaves in markets. Our needless intervention in Iraq not only created ISIS and a huge humanitarian crisis, it ultimately was a major contributing factor to the initiation of the Syrian Civil War. And while ISIS has largely been defeated in Syria, we've been funding rebels that while they may not be friendly to Assad are associated with Al Qaeda. The enemy of my enemy is my friend logic utterly fails in Syria, and we are giving funds and weapons to people who will ultimately turn around and try to kill our troops. This morass of endless war has to end. Military disengagement is not tantamount to isolationism. Bombing and assassination are not the only tools for engagement in the world. It saddens me that educated people are so indoctrinated to this that they cannot see how wrong it is, on top of the wastefulness.

 

[Kara Spengler]

And how should we take this?

Interesting since she is not one of the top tier candidates. Maybe they think she will be grateful if they clear a path for her?

 

[Cristalle]

And how should we take this?

I take it as a smear job by people who want to slam her for quitting her post as Vice Chair of the DNC to support Bernie Sanders in 2016.

 

[Eunoli]

I take it as a smear job by people who want to slam her for quitting her post as Vice Chair of the DNC to support Bernie Sanders in 2016.

Are you suggesting that the DNC or people supporting it are working with Russian trolls?

 

[Cristalle]

Are you suggesting that the DNC or people supporting it are working with Russian trolls?

I'm saying that Russia is being used as a bogeyman to make people disengage their brains. If the Russians are for it, we must be against it. Like it's team sports.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I don't see what is problematic about what she said. What she said is entirely reasonable. The reality is that our actions, regardless of intent, create a power vaccum that invites worse powers to come in. WE created a failed state in Libya, where people are openly sold as slaves in markets. Our needless intervention in Iraq not only created ISIS and a huge humanitarian crisis, it ultimately was a major contributing factor to the initiation of the Syrian Civil War. And while ISIS has largely been defeated in Syria, we've been funding rebels that while they may not be friendly to Assad are associated with Al Qaeda. The enemy of my enemy is my friend logic utterly fails in Syria, and we are giving funds and weapons to people who will ultimately turn around and try to kill our troops. This morass of endless war has to end. Military disengagement is not tantamount to isolationism. Bombing and assassination are not the only tools for engagement in the world. It saddens me that educated people are so indoctrinated to this that they cannot see how wrong it is, on top of the wastefulness.

So, in other words, leave all the various rebel forces in Syria, including the more secular and progressive ones (including, of course, the Kurds and the Palestinians, at least those in Syrian refugee camps) to their fates, as a Baathist fascist (Assad), an Islamo-fascist (Erdogan) and a Christo-fascist (Putin) get on with putting an end to this "morass of endless war"?

 

[Romana]

People just start to wonder when RT News, Russia's official news outlet, starts to get a particular candidate.
Their motives in doing so, who knows? Could be taken a number of ways.
But if Russia wants a candidate, it's probably because they think it would be in their interest.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I'm saying that Russia is being used as a bogeyman to make people disengage their brains. If the Russians are for it, we must be against it. Like it's team sports.

Speaking as someone who had, some 30-odd years ago, dealings with Vladimir Putin back when he was Director of External Economic Affairs for the Leningrad (and later St Petersburg) oblast, I can assure you that Mr Putin is a very able, ruthless and dangerous man, of whom Russian Mafiya bosses were rightly frightened (which is why he survived in the job, which included within its purview the port of St Petersburg and one of the main land routes into Northern and Western Russia) and that he really, really doesn't like America.

If President Putin is for something, to my mind it's a very wise precaution to look at all the angles. It's not just dimwits like Trump he can easily fool.

 

[Cristalle]

So, in other words, leave all the various rebel forces in Syria, including the more secular and progressive ones (including, of course, the Kurds and the Palestinians, at least those in Syrian refugee camps) to their fates, as a Baathist fascist (Assad), an Islamo-fascist (Erdogan) and a Christo-fascist (Putin) get on with putting an end to this "morass of endless war"?

It is realpolitik.
We have no problem with the fascists in Saudi Arabia and Trump is chilling with Kim Jong Un as we speak. The reality is that the American government is perfectly fine with a very high percentage of dictators and strongmen around the world. Only a certain few seem to have a media campaign against them (Iran in particular).

Let's play a game. Let's say by fate that Assad is deposed the same way Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi were. Who is going to step in to fill that vacuum? History has shown us what happens when you take one strongman out. Iraq became a failed state, Libya became a failed state. Syria will become yet another failed state, no matter our intentions. The Kurds will not be able to maintain what they have, Turkey will step in regardless of when we leave and try to eliminate the Kurds. We cannot stay there forever. We do not have endless resources for endless war. Aside from the immorality of it, we just cannot do this indefinitely, with a waning economy.

We may not like who is in power, but sometimes they are better than the alternative. It costs us trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, it costs the region trillions of dollars and millions of lives either uprooted as refugees, injured or killed.

 

[Cristalle]

People just start to wonder when RT News, Russia's official news outlet, starts to get a particular candidate.
Their motives in doing so, who knows? Could be taken a number of ways.
But if Russia wants a candidate, it's probably because they think it would be in their interest.

Are you actually watching RT or RT America? Can you quote something that they've said? I see snippets from them on YouTube sometimes but they don't spend a lot of time talking about her. Sounds more like you're being torqued, which is precisely the point of articles like these.

 

[Cristalle]

Speaking as someone who had, some 30-odd years ago, dealings with Vladimir Putin back when he was Director of External Economic Affairs for the Leningrad (and later St Petersburg) oblast, I can assure you that Mr Putin is a very able, ruthless and dangerous man, of whom Russian Mafiya bosses were rightly frightened (which is why he survived in the job, which included within its purview the port of St Petersburg and one of the main land routes into Northern and Western Russia) and that he really, really doesn't like America.

If President Putin is for something, to my mind it's a very wise precaution to look at all the angles. It's not just dimwits like Trump he can easily fool.

I am not saying at all that we should disengage our brains when it comes to Vladimir Putin. But everything has to be analyzed critically from our own interests first. The reality is that sometimes Russia and Putin as its leader will have interests that coincide with ours, and often times it won't. We have to be able to parse the times when it helps us to work with them, such as Obama calling on Putin to defuse the situation in Syria after the "red line" was seemingly crossed. I seem to recall a very different response to that exercise of diplomatic power with Russia.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Cristiano]

Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris Looked Like Winners At The First Debates: Poll

Joe Biden's electability edge has eroded as Democratic voters see new options for taking on Trump, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll shows.

www.huffpost.com

 

[Romana]

Are you actually watching RT or RT America? Can you quote something that they've said? I see snippets from them on YouTube sometimes but they don't spend a lot of time talking about her. Sounds more like you're being torqued, which is precisely the point of articles like these.

Oh, FFS. "Torqued"?
No, I am not watching them, or any dedicated news outlet, for that matter.
I have seen enough examples of people posting their retweets of Tulsi to convince me.
And no, I can't be arsed to go look for them now; I have other things to do.
I can think for myself, thanks.

 

[Cristiano]

Joe Biden explained opposition to desegregation busing in 1981 CNN interview

Joe Biden said in a 1981 CNN interview that he opposed busing to desegregate schools and that he supported efforts to cut back on courts' ability to order busing.

www.cnn.com