Octopus Overlords

Defiant wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:49 pm Possibly the oddest meme a campaign has put out.

https://twitter.com/Mike2020/status/1217254115132235776

malchior wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 5:00 pm

Grifman wrote: Tue Jan 14, 2020 4:39 pm My prediction is Biden/Harris or Biden/Warren, but probably the former. If they have an old white guy at the top, they need a POC in the second slot.

I tend to agree but Biden/Harris is going to be a tough pill for the Bernie Bros and she has some baggage. Perhaps Biden/Booker. Booker was a lot of folks number 2 or 3.

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2020 1:40 pm It's a sailboat.

Isgrimnur wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2020 1:40 pm It's a sailboat.

hepcat wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2020 1:39 pm I'm still having trouble with the meatball photo. Should I be squinting my eyes or something?

In a Joe Biden interview in The New York Times, the former US vice president and current presidential hopeful discusses technology, saying he's in favor of revoking Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says that online platforms aren't liable for things their users post on them. He also talks about his dealings with silicon valley during his time at the White House. In one of his signature freewheeling rambles he calls the executives he spoke with "creeps," "righteous," and "arrogant," referring to their output as "games to teach you how to kill people." Here's the perspective on current technology from someone who still refers to phone calls as coming through a switchboard:

And you may recall, the criticism I got for meeting with the leaders in Silicon Valley, when I was trying to work out an agreement dealing with them protecting intellectual property for artists in the United States of America. And at one point, one of the little creeps sitting around that table, who was a multi- — close to a billionaire — who told me he was an artist because he was able to come up with games to teach you how to kill people, you know the ——

CW: Like video games.

Yeah, video games. And I was lectured by one of the senior leaders there that by saying if I insisted on what Leahy’d put together and we were, I thought we were going to fully support, that they would blow up the network, figuratively speaking. Have everybody contact. They get out and go out and contact the switchboard, just blow it up.

And then one of these righteous people said to me that, you know, “We are the economic engine of America. We are the ones.” And fortunately I had done a little homework before I went and I said, you know, I find it fascinating. As I added up the seven outfits, everyone’s there but Microsoft. I said, you have fewer people on your payroll than all the losses that General Motors just faced in the last quarter, of employees. So don’t lecture me about how you’ve created all this employment.

The point is, there’s an arrogance about it, an overwhelming arrogance that we are, we are the ones. We can do what we want to do. I disagree.

malchior wrote:That seems very unlikely. McConnell or some other shitbag GOP leadership type is going to fall back on obstruction.

YellowKing wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 8:22 am

malchior wrote:That seems very unlikely. McConnell or some other shitbag GOP leadership type is going to fall back on obstruction.

That's going to happen whether it's Biden, Warren, or Sanders. So I'm not sure what difference it makes. It's not like just because Warren and Sanders expect obstruction going in that it's going to change the outcome.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden accused rival Bernie Sanders’s campaign on Saturday of disseminating a “doctored” video edited to falsely appear to show the former vice president supporting cutting Social Security, and called on the Sanders campaign to disown it.

At the center of the back-and-forth is a newsletter the Sanders campaign distributed recently that pointed to a speech Biden gave to the Brookings Institution think tank in 2018. Biden is quoted as saying, “Paul Ryan was correct when he did the tax code. What’s the first thing he decided we had to go after? Social Security and Medicare.”

However, the video of the speech makes clear Biden was actually mocking Ryan for the proposal. He leans into the microphone and says in a deep, menacing stage whisper: “Social Security and Medicare.” Biden then goes on to say – in remarks not disseminated by the Sanders campaign – that the tax code needs to be reformed so enough revenue is raised to save Social Security and Medicare.

PolitiFact, an independent fact-checker, rated the Sanders newsletter as false

Daehawk wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:57 pm I wish the democratic party would stop being so old. No point in catering to older folks as a lot of Trump worshipers.

Daehawk wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 1:36 am Thats why all positions need term limits.

Holman wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 12:22 pm

Daehawk wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 1:36 am Thats why all positions need term limits.

So that young politicians will be *completely* at the mercy and under the control of corporate lobbyists?

Holman wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 12:22 pm

Daehawk wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 1:36 am Thats why all positions need term limits.

So that young politicians will be *completely* at the mercy and under the control of corporate lobbyists?

Defiant wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:19 am The New York Times has endorsed....

(Drum roll, please)

Spoiler:

Klobuchar and Warren

LordMortis wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:05 pm Booker and Beto really seemed like the best of people. I dunno about the best of Presidential materials but as to being people goes, those two were just at the top from everything I could see. (It took a bit of time to see it Booker as I didn't know he existed before his run)

Two weeks before Iowa and I'd say it's entirely unclear which candidate, if any, is on an upward trajectory (a.k.a. has "momentum") there.

* Biden's had a couple of nice polls recently along with some not-so-good ones. But it's not clear that he's *moving up* so much as that his position has been a little stronger than acknowledged all along.

* Sanders had seemed to be rising, but his post-debate polls have been.

* Warren does appear to have rebounded off her lows from a month or so ago. Still, most polls show her in 3rd/4th place.

* Buttigieg has been moving *down*, though he's still in the running.

* Klobuchar's numbers probably are moving up, but quite possibly too little, too late.

Kraken wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:08 pm

Defiant wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 12:19 am The New York Times has endorsed....

(Drum roll, please)

Spoiler:

Klobuchar and Warren

Before reading their editorial, I thought endorsing two candidates was weasly, but their reasoning is sound enough. They acknowledge that their own history should steer them toward the establishment candidate, so foregoing the easy step took some courage.

I've been on Team Warren from the start, so I'm pleased to see them agree that she's the best progressive standard-bearer.

I don't particularly like any of the centrists, and Biden least of all. Among the not-Bidens, Klobuchar is as good as any, I suppose.

A few days ago I took one of those 20-question quizzes to determine which candidate's views are closest to your own. Unsurprisingly, Warren won by a large margin. Steyer and Klobuchar tied for a distant second. Biden was dead last, getting only 5/20 answers right.

I only read the first parts of the linked story (The Choice and The Endorsement). Might go back later and look at each candidate's individual assessment, but since NYT's conclusions basically match my own, I don't feel the need to dig deeper into their reasoning.

YellowKing wrote: Mon Jan 20, 2020 6:38 pm I think Biden's a done deal barring any unexpected Ukrainian probes or Trump-sponsored hit jobs. He's been a steady ship while others have either scrambled past him in short bursts or been left in his wake. He's holding his own in two of the whitest states in America even though his superpower is support among African-Americans.

i'm not saying that as an enthusiastic Biden supporter, just a realist. I've seen absolutely nothing that's put even a wobble in his campaign so far.