Both Clinton and Trump represent a certainty of catastophic climate change.
If by “represent” you meant “it will happen whoever gets elected” then you might as well say that Clinton represents people dying in car crashes next week in LA. It is not a very useful statement in a dicussion of political contrasts.
Your statements suggest you think there is little difference between the two candidates on this issue. Is this a fair characterization of your position?
Do you believe there is an American who as president would be able to do more about climate change than you expect HRC to do?
No, but maybe it isn’t a relevant objection to a choice of a VP running mate, which is what this thread is about. And to the extent that “immediate action from the legislature” is a possibility, it is meaningless if you have a president who is ready to veto any such action.
If we are really too late on climate change then this is all academic, but if we aren’t then I believe there is a substantial and meaningful difference between the candidates, in Clinton’s favor.
I hope it sticks. I’m not optimistic, but lip service is at least acknowledging that there are counter-points that you need to listen to.
Bernie’s (as always) being Sensible As Fuck about it. He’s got a view of his agenda that reaches beyond the 2016 presidential election. He’s got the platform bending his way, he’s got DWS done rigging the system, he’s setting up the people who follow in his footsteps to do better than he could. It’s kind of beautiful. He says “Vote for Hilary.” He also says, “Change needs to happen.”
We’re a funny country. An anecdote from last year: we live in Florida, my wife is Jewish I am not. I know the nicest lady from Missouri. One day I excused myself from an invitation due to an obligation at the synagogue. She looked right at me and said “Oh, I always thought you were white.”
Oh that. You know particularly this time around I’ve become really cognizant of how often that particular call seems to come from people who have it pretty well, have an awful lot (often times more than I’ve had for much of my life), and in places where the existing system allows pretty god damn open path way to remedy the situation.
I came from a working-class family, with a multi-generational history of violence, alcoholism and suicide. I was only the third person amongst any of my relatives to complete high school. I was raised in a single parent household, and spent my late teens and early twenties sharing slums with IV drug addicts and sex workers. My highest ever annual income was just below $40,000 (once). The last time I made a wage high enough to pay any income tax was over a decade ago. I am currently medically disabled, heavily in debt, living on charity, and unlikely to survive into the next decade.
Then why do I get daily death threats from white supremacists for the crimes of being a Jew on the Internet and a Threat To The Purity Of The White Race?
(as an aside, my fiancee is German; we find the fact that our happiness drives the bigots into frenzy to be a delicious silver lining)
While definitely nowhere near the level or scale of the Birther hysteria, there’s been alot of emphasis from Trump’s white supremacist fandom on the topic. It just tends not to get covered/promoted, thankfully. But there has been significant Blood Libel BS from several sources on both sides of the political divide, for example.
And that, right there, is the weirdness of being Jewish in America; some of us can pass as white on a surface level–at least enough to be accorded some of the benefits and protections of white privilege, assuming we don’t dress in certain ways, keep our hair short, and stay out of the sun enough not to bronze. But we’re still not members of the White Club, and all of us are threatened by White Supremacy. We don’t fit in the White/POC dichotomy that dominates American preconceptions. Am I White in NYC? Maybe. Depends if I’m wearing a yarmulke or not. Am I White in Missouri? Nope.
I think it was Dan Savage who said we all need to stop demonizing politicians who switched from “opposing gay marriage” to “supporting gay marriage” because when we do it removes any incentive for politicians to abandon bad policy for good policy.
In gov’t class we were taught that in a representative system like we have the elected have a dual role as both representatives and leaders. I think within that, the representation is also split into a duality; representing people “as one of them”, or simply being willing to represent a viewpoint regardless of their own personal feelings, like an empty vessel. There is clearly tension between the two and I think a lot of political conflict is rooted in people switching expectations between the two without thinking about it. Often when a politician holds a view I find wrong, I find it hard to fault them when they are representing their constituents, and I think sometimes we expect too much of them to do the right thing (in my view) when their constituents would simply vote them out for not representing them.
Where I will hold it against them is when they are clearly playing both sides and lying about it. If you sincerely believed gay people should not be able to have their marriages recognized by the state, then say so. If not, don’t pretend those are your beliefs, but say hey, my own beliefs don’t matter, because this is what my constituents want. We get chronically lying politicians because we practically require them to lie in this regard.
An honest bigot is still a bigot. I’ll take a politician who does the right thing for cynical reasons over one who does the wrong thing for principled reasons.
I appreciate much of what they’ve done. However, one of their recent leaks included SSNs of random people, without their knowledge or permission, which kind of sucks, given what can be done with an SSN. They also endangered Afghans and Iraqis working with the US government by releasing their names.
I appreciate that she did not choose someone based on their racial background or gender. The goal is not to get a minority VP but to make sure that we live in a world where everyone gets a fair chance based on their credentials and character.
How do you know she didn’t have a more qualified woman or minority on the shortlist who was passed over because she or her advisors were worried that she wouldn’t be able to win without a white man on the ticket?
No. Under the original rules, each electoral college delegate could cast two votes.
In the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each received 73 electoral votes. The Demopublicans had intended that one of their delegates would vote for Jefferson and someone else, thus assurring that Jefferson would get 73 votes and become President, Burr would get 72 votes and become Vice President, and the Federalist candidates-- Adams (with 65 votes) and Pickney (with 64 votes) would get nothing.
The Federalists had the same idea-- which is why John Jay received one vote.
Unfortunately, the Democratic Republican delegate who was supposed to vote for that someone else failed to do so. The resulting 73-73 tie threw the election to the House.
The 12th amendment allowed electors to vote for each office in turn.
He’s woefully under-experienced at this point, the VP still needs to step in if the President dies and it’s very unlikely he’d have the skills to deal with the media and running the administration. He really needs to prove himself as a governor, senator, or, since he’s from Texas, spend a few years in congress building a profile like Paul Ryan. Nominating him at this point risks a Palin-like situation where you get someone who collapses under the extra scrutiny.
