Tuesday: Open to Debate
This is an open thread for use during and after this evening’s vice presidential debate. Duke it out here, though comment policy is still in effect.
The one thing which really got under my collar today: UK’s Prime Minister Theresa May and Home Secretary Amber Rudd, and a demand to shame companies employing foreign workers by insisting these workers must be listed.
This is beyond the pale, just short of asking for badges denoting religion. I hope the financial industry takes a stick to these fascists.
“But, but the foreigners! Taking (white’s) jobs!” one may say. Right — all those financial industry jobs in London for which the UK does not seem to be educating and training enough people. Healthcare jobs likewise, while the NHS is under pressure to cut services and reduce spending.
The answer to the lack of job opportunities for the under-educated and under-trained isn’t limiting immigrants. It’s more investment in education and training to increase the pipeline to higher paying jobs, combined with a higher minimum wage to encourage movement to jobs requiring lower skills.
Okay, have at it.
Mike Pence creeps me the fuck out. How he maintains a banal milquetoast face while hiding his gross misogyny and racism is beyond me. Wish Kaine was a little more effective against this creepy dirtbag.
On reproductive rights, Pence lied about prosecuting women for abortion. He certainly didn’t have a problem when Purvi Patel was prosecuted for a miscarriage. If this guy ends up getting his way, there will be Black Monday protests across this country just like Poland.
One comment at the Great Orange Satan was that Pence is starting his 2020 campaign now, trying to pretend that he’s not really associated with Trump.
I saw quite a few comments in my Twitter feed to that effect. Pence screwed himself as soon as he compromised his own principles by accepting the veep nod. No frigging spine on top of a truly wretched track record.
She also told those “welfare junkies”, the “thieving Scots” to fuck-off this week: voting against Brexit doesn’t matter as the English want it and the Scots are just going to have to suck it up and go along. It was amusing that she made reference to the Scottish National Party, with no sense of irony, by using the phrase “devisive nationalists”. the SNP is a pro-immigrant, pro-European, outward looking civic nationalist party, unlike her own. The SNP are also the primary opposition to the Tories. The Labour Party is preoccupied with internal-squabbling and many in the party are pro-Brexit and peddling the same anti-immigrant agenda in the hope of winning English voters back. Like the Tories they are a lost cause in Scotland. This is going to get interesting. She is on track to be more detested than Thatcher north of the border the way she’s acting. It is just a matter of time before the UK comes apart.
Comments from Scottish alternative media:
http://wingsoverscotland.com/how-it-begins/
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2016/10/05/brexit-means-racism/
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2016/10/04/in-the-darkness-of-the-storm-we-can-see-the-rainbow/
Analysis of May’s politics:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/anthony-barnett/daily-mail-takes-power-0
SNP, Plaid Cymru and Green Party release joint statement condemning anti-foreigner rhetoric at Tory conference: http://www.snp.org/cross_party_statement_on_resisting_the_tories_toxic_politics
EU parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator: https://twitter.com/GuyVerhofstadt/status/783649855772164096
Tories do have some support. Telling.
https://twitter.com/ElyseeMarine/status/783668878144630793
What happened to Tim Kaine, and who was the imposter at the debate? In Virginia Kaine was a decent guy, absolutely unlike the jerk who showed up at the debate.
Is it the association with Hillary that’s turned him into an a**hole and a scary NeoCon?
Most of these politicians are opportunists who craft a public persona to sooth the rubes but when an opportunity such as a possible step towards the presidency presents itself they fall in line and spew whatever rhetoric is necessary to win. In this case Kaine is probably displaying what he actually is and has always been.
Liz Warren is another example of this power seeking opportunism morphing overnight from anti-bankster firebrand into Clintonite attack dog at least until she was eliminated from the possible VP picks.
Maybe the only positive development of this election cycle is that the masks have been removed from some of these parasites so people can see beyond what they wanted them to represent and see what they actually are.
Warren was profoundly disappointing too. Thought about sending her book back to her.
Our experience with Kaine goes back to his days on the Richmond City Council. As members of the the Virginia Dem structure (we quit the party about 5 years ago) we rubbed elbows with him fairly regularly while he was Lt. Gov. and Gov. During all that time he was pretty straight up and we respected him more than most other Virginia pols we ran into.
He was on the left end of Virginia politics which made him moderate nationally. Some of his recent flips in the Senate along with his campaign and debate performances make me question if I’d be comfortable with him in office. Previously he’d been the bright spot.
Nice try on Warren. If she wanted to be VP she would have been offered the job. However, if even remotely knew what you were talking about you would know that the Republican governor of MA would have put a GOP twit (maybe you?) in her seat, but more likely Scott Brown (not much better). You also would know that Warren relishes taking apart phonies in committee, as well as knowing that protecting the CFPB (who is the agency that busted Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank) from the continuing GOP attempts to defund it so their banker friends can continue to rip YOU off with total impunity. Wake up.
The news also included May unilaterally deciding that Britain would not hold to treaty obligations (think Geneva Conventions) in wartime because of frivolous lawsuits. She promises an Article 50 invocation by the end of March. When the invocation event happens the bets are off. One also wonders how foreigners are to be identified, since I’m pretty certain the birthright citizenship of our 14th Amendment is not in effect in the UK.
The SNP will doubtless agitate to leave, but the Act of Scotland (1998) as amended in 2012 does not allow Holyrood to decide to leave. However, it would be some very poor optics for post-Brexit Britain to hold Scotland hostage and I doubt that May would be arrogant enough to believe that the UK could survive without outside trade. If that happens, the pound sterling will fall from grace as a stable currency since its financial foundation would be more restricted.
Pence put on a good show, but that is all it was because it was also very fact free which has already been noticed. Once the HRC camp gets their ads going it will become evident. Running away from Trump’s words did not help Trump. Pence’s flash poll victory will prove to be Pyrrhic. His sang-froid is also a consequence of his belief he has all of the answers, but recall also that when he proposed and passed the LGBTQ law in Indiana, he immediately blinked and reversed course (McGrory doubled down in NC in contrast) which tells me that deep down money and power counts more than faith. Let’s also remember that Pence chose not to seek reelection because his numbers in Indiana were so hopeless.
Video of May attacking human rights laywers
https://twitter.com/silverscotland/status/783627449850626048
Yikes. She almost makes Boris look rational. Almost.
Unless the Tories are willfully blind (possible), they must know that actually going through with the Article 50 gambit is national suicide. However, because the Brexit referendum was a Tory idea they’re also painted into a corner. Nonetheless, I would think that a parliamentary democracy as experienced as Westminster’s wouldn’t be able to find some way of making the Brexit vote a non-event by tabling or studying it to death. As noted before, there are many real consequences involved on the financial side alone so the study of the mechanism is perfectly valid.
Note also that the EU will demand a high price to leave, and not just because of lingering rivalries with the French and the Germans. The EU also wants to discourage any others thinking about leaving and no better opportunity will present itself to make the point clear that if you leave you will suffer much.
Just a quibble: Your first cite at the top leads to an article on Amber Rudd in the centrist Independent, but the graphic is from the right of center Times. More problematic is that the Independent article contained at least 140 cookies (at which point I stopped counting). That’s several times what I’ve encountered even at the NYT.
I think you have Rudd’s and May’s execrable, racist, xenophobic politics about right – assuming they believe any of it and aren’t just selling bent focus group-derived rants. The language used is as vehemently anti-EU as it is against people of color, foreigners and the foreign in general. May’s Tories are reaching back to Enoch Powell (without the brilliance) and a long line of Tory grandees. Labor ought to get their house in order so that there is a credible alternative. I don’t believe May has ever come across a civil right she didn’t want to crush.