Open Thread and Link Farm, Pretty Taxi Edition

  1. The surprising success of Bernie Sanders’s insurgency should be a wake-up call to the Democratic establishment – Vox
    “But trying to foreclose any kind of meaningful contact with the voters or debate about party priorities, strategy, and direction was arrogant and based on a level of self-confidence about Democratic leaders’ political judgment that does not seem borne out by the evidence.”
  2. Federal Government Rules That Trans Woman are Entitled to Surgery Under Medicare | Advocate.com
  3. Balkinization: The Limits of Bernie Sanders’ Imagination
    For a real revolution, Sanders should be talking about amending the Constitution.
  4. Report: INS Raids on Central American Women and Children ‘Unconstitutional’
  5. Conservative Culture and the Fear of Reverse Racism | Mother Jones
    “But among whites, a majority believe that racism against blacks has improved so much—and reverse racism against whites has intensified so much—that today there’s literally more bias against whites than against blacks.”
  6. ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES: The Iowa Primaries. Lessons on Gender Politics and Gender in Politics.
  7. Gynnya McMillen, 16, Dies In Juvenile Detention After She Refused To Remove Her Hoodie
    It’s impossible to tell from the report if this was a freak accident after the use of appropriate force (I do believe that it is reasonable for guards to search all prisoners) or if the force used was inappropriate. Nonetheless, clearly procedures for making sure she remained healthy in the hours after the violence had ended were either not followed or completely inadequate.
  8. Study Proves That Physics Teachers Tend to Give Girls Lower Grades Than Boys for the Exact Same Questions | Alternet
    However, the same study found that experience changes things; teachers with more than 10 years of experience graded without bias. Also, male teachers in Germany were unbiased (unlike female German teachers), and there was no bias detected against students in language rather than science majors.
  9. Obese women experience much more negative social stigma than previously thought, study finds | MinnPost
    Rather than asking fat women to recall instances of past incidents, the researchers asked them to keep contemporaneous diaries. “The 50 women cited a total of 1,077 stigmatizing experiences during that single week — an average of three a day for each woman.”
  10. A Woman on the $10 Bill, and Everyone Has 2 Cents to Put In – The New York Times
    If the NY Times doesn’t let you read their articles, click on the link at google instead, and then you should be able to read it. Personally, I like the plan of getting fucking Andrew Jackson off the twenty and replacing him with Harriet Tubman.
  11. Ayn Rand’s Firefly – The Toast
    “Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not rescue your sister from torture school. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without rescuing her from torture school.”
  12. Barbie Debuts Curvy, Tall and Petite Dolls for Body-Positive Makeover
    Diversity is relative – real life bodies are a lot more diverse than these new Barbies are – but it’s still a significant step.
  13. Traditional Publishing, Non-Compete Clauses & Rights Grabs | Kameron Hurley
  14. Compassionate Bigotry and the Future of Anti-Gay Rhetoric
    Anti-gay rhetoric has gotten kinder, but the reality hasn’t changed enough.
  15. After Cologne, we can’t let the bigots steal feminism – Laurie Penny
  16. Masked men beat up immigrants in Stockholm, distribute anti-refugee pamphlets
  17. Liberals are not soft on, sympathetic towards, or defensive about Islamic terrorism – Amanda Marcotte
  18. What’s Behind the Clinton-Sanders Debate About Iran? – The Atlantic
    Clinton makes an attack that covers up her own hawkishness; if Clinton had beaten Obama eight years ago, the Iran deal might not have happened.
  19. Bernie Sanders’s Superior Foreign-Policy Judgement – The Atlantic
    Thanks to ClosetPuritan for this link.
  20. The Hillary Clinton Doctrine | Foreign Phttps://amptoons.com/blog/wp-admin/edit-comments.phpolicy
    A much more nuanced and in-depth look at Clinton’s foreign policy perspective. But it’s a longread. The author, James Traub (who definitely favors Clinton), seems to me to be oversure about some of his conclusions, but the article on the whole is excellent and I recommend reading it.
  21. Is Hillary Clinton More Electable Than Bernie Sanders?
  22. Trump Urges his Followers to Knock ‘the Crap’ out of Protesters, and Promises to Cover Legal Fees
    Whether or not he was joking (although he literally said he was serious), this is a dangerously irresponsible thing to say in front of a crowd.
  23. The unsexy truth about why the Arab Spring failed – Vox
    Save you a click (although it’s worth reading): Because dictators tend to hollow out governing and civil institutions, leaving a completely unstable situation for anyone who takes over.
  24. Bonnie Milligan & Laura Osnes – “Disney Princess Medley” – YouTube
  25. The Real Hero Of ‘Hamilton’ Is Aaron Burr
    It’s never too late to redeem a reputation.

taxi-3

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39 Responses to Open Thread and Link Farm, Pretty Taxi Edition

  1. 1
    Ben David says:

    80 % of Republican Iowans who voted, cast their vote for a minority candidate (Cruz+Rubio+Carson).
    100 % of Democrats voted for an elderly white person.

    And that taxi would fit in perfectly here in Tel Aviv!

  2. 2
    lauren says:

    So the fact that one of those “elderly white persons” was the first women to ever win the Iowa causus and could be the first woman to ever become president should be ignored?

    I absolutly agree that both Sanders and Clinton have white privilege, but to ignore the fact that every candidate except for Clinton has male privilege in order to create a narrative that suggests only Republicans have/ vote for candidates who are not privileged in every way is ridiculus.

  3. 3
    Jake Squid says:

    80 % of Republican Iowans who voted, cast their vote for a minority candidate (Cruz+Rubio+Carson).

    And a mere 99.4% of Democratic Iowans who voted cast their vote for a minority candidate (Clinton+Sanders).

  4. 4
    Yvonne says:

    Looks like the discussion in this thread is going in the direction of the American elections, but I just want to say that Laurie Penny’s piece on Cologne and the way feminism got hijacked by racist bigots is spot on. The way it was treated in a lot of media and by some politicians (I’m in the Netherlands, so *cough*Geert Wilders*cough*) made my blood boil.

  5. 5
    RonF says:

    @ #1:

    The surprising success of Bernie Sanders’s Donald Trump’s insurgency should be a wake-up call to the Democratic GOP establishment”

    “But trying to foreclose any kind of meaningful contact with the voters or debate about party priorities, strategy, and direction was arrogant and based on a level of self-confidence about Democratic GOP leaders’ political judgment that does not seem borne out by the evidence.”

    I mean, really – did those guys think that Jeb Bush was really going to stand a chance with GOP voters? At all? Exactly what planet are these guys living on? They’ll be lucky to get Rubio as a candidate at the convention.

  6. 6
    MJJ says:

    100 % of Democrats voted for an elderly white person.

    In terms of being a diversity candidate, Sanders would be the first Jewish Presidential nominee of a major party were he to win.

  7. 7
    MJJ says:

    If we are to change who is on the $20, let’s give a little something to everyone – a black lesbian who advocated restricting immigration.

    Barbara Jordan.

  8. 8
    RonF says:

    If we’re going to change who’s on the $20 I’d suggest we put Samuel Adams on there. He had more to do with actually getting the American Revolution organized and started than anyone else who’s on our money, and the American public could use the history lesson. He’s not all about beer.

    Although it IS decent beer.

  9. 9
    RonF says:

    Those damn racist white Iowan GOP voters, voting for 2 Hispanics and a black guy.

  10. 10
    tlfk says:

    “….voting for 2 Hispanics and a black guy”.

    all of whom built campaigns promising to keep all the rest of the POC down and/or out. Racism manifests itself in more than in actions between individuals (I don’t doubt Donald Trump has black friends). My white father grew up listening to black artists like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, etc, more so than their white counterparts. To this day, however, he is racist.

  11. 11
    Lee1 says:

    I came across this link following through from #14, and I thought it was a good read.

  12. 12
    closetpuritan says:

    @Lee1: I was thinking about linking to that one too. I agree with it.

    There’s also a bad version of that argument, though, and sadly Clinton herself is one of the ones advancing it–e.g. answering the question in the first debate of how her administration would be different from the Obama administration with, basically, “I’m a woman”, or that she can’t be an establishment candidate because she’s a woman. This version of the argument seems simplistic and honestly, kind of insultingly pandering to me as a woman.

    Speaking of Clinton [should these be going in the open thread or the Clinton-Sanders one?]…
    Hillary Clinton has a Henry Kissinger problem

    The point I’m making here is not, [Glenn Greenwald voice] HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTS A WAR CRIMINAL. (Trust me, I know Kissinger isn’t moving many votes in New Hampshire.) It’s that Hillary Clinton exists in a world where “Henry Kissinger is a war criminal” is a silly opinion held by unserious people. Her problem? Lots of those silly and unserious people want to wrest control of the Democratic Party away from its current leadership, which is exemplified by people like Hillary Clinton.

  13. 13
    Ampersand says:

    Gloria Steinem Tells Bill Maher Young Women Support Sanders Because “The Boys Are With Bernie”

    Excuse me while I wince and recoil. Sheesh.

    UPDATE: Steinem has walked her comment back, and apologized for what she’s (somewhat nonsensically) calling a misunderstanding. Still, I appreciate that she’s withdrawn her comment.

  14. 14
    Ampersand says:

    OTOH, Steinem hasn’t walked back or apologized for this transphobic exchange from the same interview:

    Maher: “The woman of the year [Caitlyn Jenner] has a dick!”

    Steinem: “And the highest-earning female in the corporate world [Martine Rothblatt], too, was a male previously.”

    Maher: “There’s no rules anymore.”

    Aaargh.

  15. 15
    closetpuritan says:

    Can’t remember if I’ve linked this here before, but it’s of a piece with Steinem’s “Where the boys are” theory:
    Gloria Steinem has a theory about why women don’t like Hillary Clinton

    Steinem describes herself as “blindsided by the hostility” toward Clinton from some white liberal women during her first run for Senate. Eventually, Steinem developed an idea about where that animus came from. “If Hillary had a husband who regarded her as an equal—who had always said this country got ‘two presidents for the price of one’—it only dramatised their own lack of power and respect,” she writes. “After one long night and a lot of wine, one woman told me that Hillary’s marriage made her aware of just how unequal hers was.”

    There are a lot of theories out there about the very real resistance to Clinton among women who, on the demographic surface, should be her base. This, however, is the first time I’ve seen it suggested that they wish their husbands would be more like Bill Clinton.

  16. 16
    Jut Gory says:

    Amp @ 13 & 14:
    This is the sort of things that drive conservatives nuts. Conservatives will talk about “Chicago” and liberals will hear dog whistles of racism. Steinem makes an explicitly bigoted statement and she gets a pass from liberals if she walks it back.

    I don’t mind the bigotry so much; people have biases, they have complicated thoughts, and they often speak impulsively. That’s a bad combination. I don’t fault Steinem for being bigoted; and I don’t necessarily fault her for walking it back, because her thoughts are probably more sophisticated than a simple bigoted statement. I fault her for hypocrisy in not owning her feelings and I fault her supporters for a double standard that gives her, but not others, a pass.

    -Jut

  17. 17
    closetpuritan says:

    Hmm, I guess Clinton’s Kissinger ties are a bit more substantial than I realized:

    Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state. He checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders and sending me written reports on his travels. Though we have often seen the world and some of our challenges quite differently, and advocated different responses now and in the past, what comes through clearly in this new book is a conviction that we, and President Obama, share: a belief in the indispensability of continued American leadership in service of a just and liberal order.

    My takeaway from this is not necessarily that Clinton agrees with Kissinger on war crime-related stuff, but it definitely reinforces the “regime change=good, isolationism=bad” strain of Clinton’s foreign policy vision.

    ***
    Not exactly related to the Gloria Steinem thing, except my reaction to both is “can we please stop with the amateur psychoanalysis as sly putdown?!”
    A clothing store owner does not want photos of people wearing the store’s clothes on its Instagram unless they are a size small

    “This girl has now created a hostile work environment because she has a sad body image of herself. She’s not mentally healthy.”

    And then, to top it all off, some of the people commenting on this on facebook were talking about how the store owner must be the one who’s really insecure. (The store owner’s stated reason was about “presenting our brand”. It may or may not be the only reason, but it certainly seems like sufficient reason for the store owner to believe that she’s protecting her business, even if I think she’s mistaken.)

  18. 18
    closetpuritan says:

    @Jut–I’m not sure why you think this is “giving her a pass”. It might not always be fair for someone to see dog-whistle-racism in “Chicago”, but “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant and I misspoke” comes across way differently from “What are you talking about? How dare you say that something I said sounded racist?!” Also, I don’t know how Amp feels, but although walking it back does help some, I still have some lingering distrust of her on this issue, especially given that this seems to be a pattern with her.

  19. 19
    nobody.really says:

    Here’s a geeky essay on the psychology of sci-fi, structured around comparing the two types of X Files episodes: the conspiracy theory (Moral: we can uncover a secret that will explain all the phenomena that currently confound us), and the hunt for a monster (Moral: the universe is full of secret exceptional circumstances that will constantly confound our explanations).

  20. 20
    JutGory says:

    Closetpuritan @18:

    Except “Chicago” is not a dog whistle. If you do not understand that “Chicago” means “corrupt” politics, “vote early, vote often,” that is your problem. Mayor Daley was not black (any of them). Your dog whistle and your misunderstanding of history means nothing. Your ignorance does not make me a racist. But giving Steinem a pass when you don’t give Lott a pass makes you a bigot.
    -Jut

  21. 21
    Ampersand says:

    Let’s recall what Lott said:

    (From Wikipedia: Lott said: “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.”

    Thurmond had based his presidential campaign largely on an explicit States’ Rights platform that challenged the Civil Rights Movement and later, the Civil Rights Act as illegally overturning the Separation of powers under the United States Constitution and called for the preservation of racial segregation. The Washington Post reported that Lott had made similar comments about Thurmond’s candidacy in a 1980 rally.

    So first of all, what Lott said was leagues worse than what Steinem said.

    Second: Jut, does Steinem even have a job these days? I thought she was retired. At most, she’s a self-employed author.

    Your argument relies on the belief that we should be holding Lott in 1992, and Stienem now, to the same standard. To the contrary, the Senate Minority Leader- one of the most important elected officials in the entire government – should be held to a much higher standard than a retired activist. Lott himself seems to agree; at the press conference where he apologized for his remarks, he said “when you are Republican leader, you got an extra burden to make sure you think about every word and every phrase so that it doesn’t convey the wrong impression or hurt people.”

    Furthermore, it’s not like Lott could have been fired (or forced to resign) by Democrats; either Lott made the decision to resign as minority leader by himself, or he was pressured by other members of the GOP. (Lott continued being a senator for several years after that).

    Third: I don’t think I harped on about Lott much after his apology; I had a lot of problems with Lott, including on racial issues, but that particular comment is at most a footnote. If the only objectionable thing Lott ever did was that one comment, then yes, after the apology he should have been let off the hook. But the problem is, policy makers – not only Lott, but including Lott – did a hell of lot worse than that one comment.

    Fourth: That said, I am still annoyed with Steinem for her transphobic chuckling with Mahar; and more annoyed that the pressure that got her to (sort of) apologize about her sexist comment, doesn’t seem to have been brought on her regarding her transphobic comment.

  22. 22
    JutGory says:

    Thanks for the response, Amp.
    Not to engage in a bait-and-switch, but I have thee words: “Robert ‘KKK’ Byrd.”
    Storm and Byrd are often contrasted in Conservative circles. Both opposed the civil rights act (as Democrats or Dixiecrats, whatever). Good words of Strom are evidence of racism, good words of the former KKK member by Democrats us a nothing-burger. Frankly, I give Byrd and Thurmond a pass because they were dumb racists and both of them probably “evolved”, just like Clinton and Ibama did on their homophobia, buried despise the double standard applied to Strom and Byrd by Democrats.
    -Jut

  23. 23
    JutGory says:

    Damn that auto-correct!
    Read at your own risk!
    -Jut

  24. 24
    Ampersand says:

    I’ll quote a 2002 Timothy Noah piece about the Byrd vs Thurmond comparison:

    Byrd, unlike Thurmond, renounced his youthful participation in a racist cause. See, for example, this exchange with CNN’s Bernard Shaw in Dec. 1993:

    Q: What has been your biggest mistake and your biggest success?

    A: Well, it’s easy to state what has been my biggest mistake. The greatest mistake I ever made was joining the Ku Klux Klan. And I’ve said that many times. But one cannot erase what he has done. He can only change his ways and his thoughts. That was an albatross around my neck that I will always wear. You will read it in my obituary that I was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

    Contrast that with an interview Thurmond gave Joseph Stroud of the Charlotte Observer in July 1998 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his presidential bid on the segregationist Dixiecrat ticket. Asked if he wanted to apologize, Thurmond said, “I don’t have anything to apologize for,” and “I don’t have any regrets.” Asked if he thought the Dixiecrats were right, Thurmond said, “Yes, I do.” Thurmond said this four years ago!

    So up to the end of his days (or at least, four years before the end of his days), Thurmond was still pro-Dixiecrat.

    Byrd had a 100% rating from the NAACP (although he was still a horrible homophobe), so on what matters most for a Senator – how he votes – he actually did turn 180 degrees from the racism of his early career. Thurmond, in contrast, had a 20% rating – so while he wasn’t 100% anti-Black in his voting (he voted for the MLK holiday, for example), he certainly never became a supporter of Black causes. And while Byrd apologized many times for his early racism, unambiguously and strongly, Thurmond never once apologized.

    Of course, Byrd had to apologize – by the last decades of his political career, not apologizing for being a segregationist would have ended his career among Democrats. No such problem applied to Thurmond – apparently Republican voters don’t have a problem with a politician who still thought that the Dixiecrats were in the right.

    By the way, you’re really reaching very far back – all these examples are over a decade old, aren’t they? Also, you were originally talking about “feminists,” but now it’s become “Democrats.” This is a very weak case you’re making.

    Finally, I’m not saying that everything Byrd did was fine because he apologized. He began his political career before I was born; but I don’t think anyone with his past could start a career as a Democrat today, and that’s a good thing. I’m glad Byrd apologized and (by all appearances) reformed, but having been a KKK leader should make someone permanently unelectable.

  25. 25
    closetpuritan says:

    Jut,
    I wasn’t sure if you were referring to any specific quote earlier when you mentioned Chicago-as-dogwhistle* or just a general phenomenon, but Lott certainly does not say “Chicago” in that quote.
    I threw in a caveat that sometimes dog whistle accusations are unfair, and your response is, as best I can understand it, that I’m being obtuse because “Chicago” always always always means “corrupt politics” and never never never “race”?
    After I said that I still mistrusted Steinem, you think I’m “giving her a pass”?!

    This is kind of meta, but also sincere: In this case, I don’t think I mispoke, and I’m not apologizing, I think you just read my comment wrong based on the argument you wanted to have with me.

    *The only one that came to mind was Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” remarks; I do agree that it comes across as a dog whistle, so I think if it was not intended to be a dogwhistle, a response of “I can see how it sounded that way” is much more appropriate than “how dare you say that’s a dogwhistle” in that case.

  26. 26
    closetpuritan says:

    Shorter, possibly clearer? version

    My comment was not about the merits of any particular case, it was about the fact that it’s unsurprising that people would react differently to an apology from the speaker, even a somewhat implausible one, than umbrage from the speaker.

    I don’t think there’s merit in an argument that takes the above statement as evidence that I am a bigot.

  27. 27
    RonF says:

    Conservatives will talk about “Chicago” and liberals will hear dog whistles of racism.

    I’m lost on this one. What does this refer to?

  28. 28
    closetpuritan says:

    So, kind of going off on a tangent about, the Gloria Steinem quote…

    Part of the quote that she didn’t seem to be walking back was that women lose power as they age (vs. men gaining power as they age). I think she’s completely wrong. I don’t think she’s talking about physical strength, because both men and women lose that and if anything it’s more important to men. So I’m assuming that she’s talking about looks (which both men and women lose as they age, but Hollywood at least seems to think that women lose it more quickly, and looks are deemed more important for women than for men). I think that the idea that women’s looks are a significant form of power is BS, and I think the idea of beauty/attractiveness to men=empowerment is a very corporate-friendly/corporate-promoted narrative. (Many women never have a great deal of this sort of “power”, anyway; it seems mostly reserved for women whose looks are considered above average even for their age group.) I think this sort of “power” hurts as often as it helps–see, for example, this post about working in the Clinton White House:

    The male interns were learning how to navigate office BroWorld — how to get a more powerful guy to see himself in you, mentor you, ally with you.

    The females interns were also learning how to navigate BroWorld — how more powerful guys often said they wanted to mentor you, but then got mad when you refused their sexual advances, and then either ignored or retaliated against you. These were the mid-level staffers, the advance men, the everyday bros whose mentorship could have launched our careers.

    I think that the kind of power that you get from getting a better job or more money counts for more, and in any case is more fully under your control than the soft power you get from how much people like you and trying to convince them to do what you want them to.

    Also, I think that Amanda Marcotte had a good post about how this whole thing plays into sexist media narratives about young and old women.

  29. 29
    Ampersand says:

    I’m working on the script for a upcoming cartoon; if you’d care to say, which version do you prefer?

    (Click to see it biggified.)

    wall-st-water-options

  30. 30
    Jake Squid says:

    I prefer option 2 but I’m always wrong, so…

  31. 31
    Harlequin says:

    I’m neutral on the bottom 4 panels, but I think the top 2 of option 2 are stronger. I don’t like the “Don’t worry, this water isn’t a bribe”–it makes it sound like the Wall Street guy is sort of winking at it, like it really is a bribe. If I’m interpreting you correctly, what you’re trying to highlight is that it’s a problem even when it’s not a bribe, and I think mentioning bribes directly undercuts that.

    (Bribe no longer looks like a word)

  32. 32
    Ampersand says:

    BribebribebribebribeBRIBEbribebribe…. Huh.

  33. 33
    Charles S says:

    I like option 2 first 2 panels better, but I like option 1 panel 5, even though it means have the over-wordy option 1 panel 3. I feel like option 1 panel 5 makes explicit the argument of the strip in a way that option 2 never does.

  34. 34
    Lee1 says:

    Overall I like option 2 but I like the first panel of option 1 better – “Forget it! My votes are not for sale!” sounds more real to me than “Forget it! I’m a person of integrity.” (Also, the switch from exclamation point to period at the end – was that intentional? I like the exclamation point. It’s more righteously indignant.) For the rest of it, panel 5 of option 1 seems a bit too on the nose to me – I think option 2 does it better.

  35. 35
    closetpuritan says:

    At first I was thinking I liked the reduced explanation of the metaphor in the second one, but then I was thinking that that was probably because I’d already read the first one and the metaphor wasn’t really that obvious if you had not already read it. I asked someone else to read the 2nd one first and then say which one she liked better, and she said the first one was a little bit better.

  36. 36
    closetpuritan says:

    Some more Democratic primary stuff, for those who are not sick to death of it:

    Interesting explanation of the factors leading to Sanders’ difficulty getting foreign policy advisors:
    Why Bernie Sanders can’t get even one foreign policy advisor
    It contains a reminder of how Clinton, while not nearly as bad as Trump and Christie, to some degree shares (IMO) a character defect in common with them:

    The Clintons are notorious for rewarding loyalty and punishing perceived disloyalty — no matter how slight or how long ago. Even when Clinton was part of the Obama administration, her State Department shut out quite a few people who had supported Obama.

    I think that this is a little too cautious:

    I still think it is at least theoretically possible that Sanders, if he wins the nomination, could then recruit foreign policy staffers and advisers who would, at that point, feel freer to defect from Clinton. But the longer this is delayed, the less time Sanders will have to prepare for the general election or for the presidency itself.

    [Also note that the part about failing to criticize Clinton for describing Kissinger as a friend and mentor is no longer true.]

    It seems more than theoretically possible–to think that no Democratic/left-leaning foreign policy advisors would want to come work for the Democratic nominee (rather than a candidate who’s still the underdog) seems pretty implausible to me. But I agree that waiting until he’s the nominee will be a disadvantage in the general election, though not an insurmountable one, I think.

    Why I’m not writing off Bernie Sanders on foreign policy. An argument that the tests we use to determine if a candidate is “serious” on foreign policy aren’t that meaningful.

    Bernie Sanders’ grassroots revolution isn’t interested in Barack Obama’s bipartisan dream Contains a welcome reminder that “no, you weren’t completely crazy to think that Obama could work with Republicans in 2008”:

    There was reason to believe in 2008 that on policy grounds, political differences were relatively bridgeable, and a compelling figure like Obama could get Democrats and Republicans in a room to ice the deal. Both President George W. Bush and Obama’s Republican general election opponent, Sen. John McCain, by then accepted the science of anthropogenic climate change and supported plans to combat it—McCain perhaps a bit more seriously than Bush. Both Democrats and Republicans were warming to tackling universal health care reform for the first time since President Bill Clinton’s first term. Both McCain and Obama stated their desire to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, something that even the Bush administration had considered near its end before leaving it to its successor.

  37. 37
    closetpuritan says:

    OK, one more:
    Bernie Sanders is more serious on foreign policy than you think

    On CNN last week and on Meet the Press this week, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders cited me as someone who has given him foreign policy advice. I admit I was surprised to hear this—I have spoken to Senator Sanders only once since he declared his candidacy, in October. In the time since, this fact has been used by the media and his opponents to cast doubt on Sanders’ foreign policy credibility, to point out a supposed weak spot in a surging candidacy: Since I’m not on his campaign, and have met with him only once, how serious could Sanders—the socialist crusader battling the former secretary of state—really be?

    The answer is: serious. Since Sanders’ public mention of me, I have been asked repeatedly whether I think his foreign policy positions and experience are sound. I do.

  38. 38
    closetpuritan says:

    I’m assuming Brian’s link in the Scalia thread was meant to go to the open thread, so I’ll comment on it here.

    I noticed (Brian may not have) that it has a misleading subhead: “Only 14% are not sure if whites are the superior race.” It seems to be trying to make it sound more sensational, like everyone who didn’t put “not sure” is either in the “definitely superior” or “probably superior” camp. But according to the chart they published further down, 60-something percent of Trump supporters say that whites are not superior.

  39. 39
    Lee1 says:

    That is a pretty misleading subhead, but it’s still plenty disturbing that fully 1/6 of his supporters in SC are white supremacists. More disturbing if you follow through the link to the PDF is that when they break it down by age (not just for Trump supporters, but all likely GOP primary voters), the youngest people are the most likely to be white supremacists (18-45: 21%; 46-65: 5%; older than 65: 9%).
    Also, more than 30% of Trump supporters think homosexuals should be banned from entering the US. Barely over half think they shouldn’t. Lovely.

    It would be fascinating to see a similar poll of likely Dem primary voters in SC, but for whatever reason, unless I missed it the pollsters didn’t ask that question of them (although there were some hard-hitting questions about barbecue sauce preference for both parties…).