The Enemy of My Enemy
November 8, 2020
Is not always my friend.
Incredible though at this late date to hear Romney talk this way.
with Peter Sinclair
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) says who he voted for is “in the rearview mirror.”
— The Recount (@therecount) November 8, 2020
Now "I want to make sure that we conservatives keep on fighting to make sure we don't have a Green New Deal, we don't get rid of gas and coal and oil, that we don't have a Medicare For All plan …" pic.twitter.com/6DmUivyzs3
Is not always my friend.
Incredible though at this late date to hear Romney talk this way.
"The sharpest climate denier debunker on YouTube."
- TreeHugger
"@PeterWSinclair is a national treasure." - Brad Johnson, Publisher Hill Heat
November 8, 2020 at 12:21 pm
So VERY sad. Thought he was perhaps the nucleus of a more thoughtful and science based Repub party. I guess not.
November 8, 2020 at 2:05 pm
Very sad indeed. Conservatives and Republicans have lost their minds slowly over the past 40 years as they have sold out to the greedy rich and the corporations.
As far as helping to put the country back together, most are nothing more than something smelly and gross that needs to be scraped off one’s shoe before coming inside.
With any luck, Biden and the Democrats will succeed without them. (And I have scraped the DITCH MITCH sticker off the van—-Amy McGrath made a good run at him but fell short, and I don;t need to be reminded of his existence every time I walk by the van.
November 8, 2020 at 1:48 pm
Based on both his history and his ongoing platitudes about bipartisanship and “cooperation”, the GOP are going to eat Biden for lunch. He can’t be tough.
When one citizen asked Biden—during the primaries— to not replace gas pipelines as they age out, he responded by telling him to “go vote for Trump”.
November 8, 2020 at 2:49 pm
“As Biden reminded voters, ‘I said no fracking on federal land.’ That’s a big distinction: Roughly 90 percent of fracking occurs on state and private land, meaning he’d be leaving the vast amount of existing fracking alone.”
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/10/no-biden-wont-ban-fracking/
November 8, 2020 at 4:13 pm
Well, this is why bipartisanship is a fine idea, but largely impossible in this time. Even the relatively sane Republicans are still major hardliners when it comes to policy. They won’t agree to anything without major concessions to their agenda.
The mainstream Democratic party’s trend since at least Bill Clinton has been to get slight progressive advances while giving up just as much, if not more, towards Republican wishes. Biden’s Senate record is littered with these sorts of compromises. Then, we get a Republican President again, and all the slight progressive advances get erased.
Meanwhile, the kowtowing to Wall Street by Democrats and the corrupting influences of big money towards all political campaigns gets twisted to the advantage of populists like Trump. The Democrats just end up looking like elitists and protectors of the wealthy to large swathes of the country, when they’ve longed supposed to be the opposite, and when the Republicans themselves are unapologetic defenders of the rich.
I was disappointed by the Democrats’ complete failure to counter the ‘socialist’ charges in the campaigns. The BS smear campaign by the RNC of demonizing more progressive voices (for green, healthcare, and economic policies) made real strides towards lessening actual change even before Biden gets to the White House. The tendency now will be to limit more liberal representation in the Biden administration in favor of centrist voices.
Elizabeth Warren in the cabinet?:
https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/11/05/elizabeth-warren-faces-huge-obstacles-getting-a-biden-cabinet-spot/
November 8, 2020 at 5:03 pm
The US voting system is deeply flawed. There are better ways. Some countries have run off elections, where an initial vote for a minor party is not a vote for the most hated. Some countries have preferential voting, where you can vote minor party and then one of the majors. Sometimes the minor parties do get seats.
So yes Biden is way better than Trump, but there is so much I do not like about his policies and political business as usual. In so many ways I am glad I do not live in the US, I would not like having to choose between right wing and insane right wing.
November 8, 2020 at 7:46 pm
In some countries, every adult has the right to vote.
November 8, 2020 at 10:06 pm
The problem is essentially this – the rural parts of the country wield outsized influence in both the electoral college that selects Presidents as well as in Congress. We talk about how every person of age has a vote, but it really works out that people in high population states have one vote, and people in low population states have the relative equivalent of two or three votes:
So, when one party dominates the rural vote, as the Republicans do, they are actually over-represented in both Congress and the Presidential race. It’s much harder for the Democrats to win in this current situation – and that leaves obvious problems for things like climate change.
November 8, 2020 at 7:57 pm
“The Trump administration is reversing nearly 100 environmental rules.” Biden can reverse or halt all these actions without approval from Congress:
https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2020/11/08/us-environmental-policy/
November 8, 2020 at 10:45 pm
Self serving crap, as in lies, about the economy. When the population is doing ok, they spend and the economy ticks along. Multiple examples around the world like OZ with 30 years without a recession until Cov19. (As the wannabe feudalistic S.H.s chip away regardless.) The ‘country’ is the people, not some abstract where the ‘real’ people are doing well.
All the population lives in the Environment.
November 10, 2020 at 12:45 pm
I can understand Romney’s and other conservatives’ concerns with the Green New Deal (H.R 109). It includes items such as a guarantee of “a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States”.
See final section at: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109/text
That is definitely a huge new government commitment and involvement in the economy, in a way conservatives will object to. For the most part, I agree with them on this. Also, is it really inseparable from solving climate change?
But promoting gas, coal and oil? How did we get to where that is a conservative position? As Biden correctly said in the last debate, we urgently need to get away from these!
Romney is just a slimy political opportunist. He pretends to be ahead of other Republicans on climate, when it suits his interest, but he’s happy to disown that if he can score political points against Democrats on CNN. So sad!