LaBombo

Completely agree that there's certainly plenty of room for concern over the highly partisan nature of editorial commentary (Hannity/Lemon/Hayes/etc.) in cable news. But my greater concern is when the non-editorial product suffers bias, either unintentional or deliberate. It's probably impossible to make news coverage entirely unbiased, or even bias-neutral in the aggregate. Seems like a good goal for the news media to aspire to, though. And yes, thankfully the discussion here tends to rise above the more tedious and tabloid-y topics that don't do much for me, and are freely available for pie-fighting elsewhere if they did.

Freeper headline: 'Local leftist decries Minnesota-based website's lack of multicultural spiciness; ominously vows 'You Fargo-heads gonna taste the Internet sriracha!'

I'm not looking for overall political neutrality here, or 'fairness' or anything like that. But I would argue that part of the draw here should be a broader range of viewpoints precisely BECAUSE it's a baseball site. The vast majority of political discussion on the internet takes place in forums associated with content that leans heavily left or right, meaning that the posters lean heavily as well. So you get echo chambers with the occasional bumper car drivers butting heads with everyone in sight. And yet the paradox of this forum (at least to me) is that its value lies not in a left/right balance (there isn't one) that one might expect from posters whose common draw is not political affiliation. It's that the overall tone is usually more akin to a spirited... ok, sometimes heated... debate in a workplace lunchroom, rather than the typical internet political fare of contests to see who can pull off the sickest burn of Trump or AOC.

It's not my word for you (et al), and it's not their word for you, but it seems to fit the... atmosphere that you're trying to define, and which I see to a certain extent as well. In the end, I'm hoping that everyone will feel like the subject has been worthwhile.

That depends a great deal on the actions of the majority, as we've been told for at least two generations. And yes, I know exactly what you were going for there. The irony is that the nature of your post perfectly sums up the point that the non-left interlopers are trying to make about posting here.

Agree with this, and will throw out a couple of additions. The muddled, wildly uneven reaction to the yearbook by Northam and by Democrats in general was mostly a product of two things: the reflexive, defensive response that either party mounts when one of their own is in hot water, and nuclear retaliation by the most strident enforcers of identity politics. As is often the case, the middle ground wasn't represented proportionally. Self-policing is one of the most admirable traits that either party can demonstrate, but it would be nice to see it employed more often than in just the most extreme cases, or with other than the most extreme remedies. But the thing that bothered me the most was not the uneven, two-extremes response to the Northam photo itself. It was the Orwellian/Bradbury-esque followup action taken by many schools across the country: scouring countless old yearbooks for potentially racist or otherwise offensive content, and then either editing the offending portions or simply removing such books entirely from circulation. The removal of public statues created in tribute to those who fought to preserve slavery is one thing. Attempting to rewrite the history of our nation at its most intimate and personal level, and in places as far from involuntary viewing as public literature can possibly be, is entirely another.

I still find these admirable sentiments that you express above and your self-identification as a moderate very difficult to reconcile with your previous insistence that all Republicans are Nazis. Have you changed your mind about that equivalence (which is offensive on multiple levels), or do you still not see a conflict between those views?

Not trying to drag the discussion down with semantics. And I completely agree that there's no point in getting wrapped around the axle over more general philosophical terms like conservative/liberal. But real socialism encompasses some profound distinctions from the social democracy/'Nordic model' pool of examples that Democrats frequently cite. Conflating the two serves no purpose other than linguist expediency. If Democrats want a catchy, marketable name for a major expansion of entitlements/etc. and they stick with "socialism", they're going to be stuck with the ramifications of both the dictionary definition and the truckload of baggage (both deserved and not), that come with the word. That alone makes me hope they can set aside the word in favor of something else a little less convenient and a lot more accurate. Or they can stick with "Socialism", hope that the word will not be used as a 2020 campaign cudgel by President Nuance, and see where that takes them.

Pseudo mentioned vocational education in a much earlier post and I missed the chance to tip my cap to him for bringing up an often overlooked component of the college discussion. Many other nations have less of a hangup about making college/no college a binary equivalent of 'successful'/'not successful', and are better off for it. That false equivalence is still a hinderance to vocational education in the U.S. Germany is an excellent example, as over a third of their graduating secondary students immediately enter some form of government-sponsored vocational education or apprenticeships. And as Levi pointed out... Ask for a half dozen person-on-the-street opinions in Western Europe about whether 'Nordic socialism' or whatever will work in the U.S., and odds are that you will hear at least one or two answers that will range from a polite mention of demographics to polite 'white nationalist' racism.

I'm saying that Democrats becoming indignant when people hold them to the actual meaning of their most strident voices' all-encompassing rallying cry is a pretty bad look for the party. But if you want to argue that Democrats have already succeeded in diluting "socialism" to mean capitalism with MFA, for example, then you're also arguing that Americans who overwhelmingly disapprove of "socialism" in recent polling are in fact already disapproving of the lesser 'socialism lite' version of socialism implied by our existing government incorporating more traits of social democracy, like MFA. And in any case there is no accepted formal definition of socialism that does not include a planned economy and other implications that are a non-starter for the vast majority of Americans.

If you're good with the rest, then I'm smiling too.

Every Democrat who advocates for socialism is advocating for the dictionary definition of the word until the dictionary changes. Pushing for the alteration of the word "socialism" to encompass capitalism with greater social spending just adds to the impression that the Sanders wing of the party is as much about hating capitalism as it is about achieving desired policy outcomes. And Sanders' personal history of advocacy for actual, for-real dictionary socialism (and yes, even the terrifying totalitarian kind) does little to discourage that impression.

Socialism has historically as often as not created its own scarcities, usually while blaming them on evil capitalist nations in the process. As for the idea of Plenty being an impediment to capitalism, well... in a world poised to break the 8 billion mark in population as soon as five years from now, and being told that it must cease using its most economical and freely available source of energy in ten, I wouldn't worry too much about running out of scarcity.

You certainly can keep going if you like, since you are a free citizen of a capitalist democracy, just like the citizens of all the nations which you named. Congratulations! But not one of the nations you named has "governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods". Therefore none of them are socialist. "Social democracy" seems to be the currently favored term for capitalist nations like the ones you mentioned, which possess a higher level of entitlement and regulation than the U.S. As much as Democrats might want to use the two interchangeably, it's probably time for them to consider the possibilities that many Americans a) know the difference and b] don't want actual socialism.

It seems to me like presidential approval polls, however they're worded or conducted, are affected by other things besides people's perception of how good a president is at his job. One is simply how well people estimate the country is doing, and that's often heavily influenced by their own personal experiences. Whatever people's opinion of an incumbent (within limits whose particulars are better left to the Trump thread), they seldom lose unless the majority perception is that the country needs a serious course correction. But another potential factor for approval polling of incumbents in the second half of their first term is that people start to think of the sitting president in relative terms to the perceived opponents in the upcoming election. That factor probably intensifies as the election draws closer and the field narrows, but this election cycle is different, at least so far. People are already seeing that whoever the Dem nominee turns out to be, the current field and their rhetoric suggest that said nominee will attempt to turn the country left in some key policy areas. There are separate polls for that, and they suggest that at least some moderates and independents probably see even Trump as the lesser of two evils when the other one is a far lefty president. If Sanders in particular ticks upward as a legit contender for the nomination, Trump's approval polling will probably reflect that devil-you-know group of voters even more.

You could even take your last sentence a step further, and ask if this is a Republican false flag operation designed to lure the AOC wing of the party into a PR roach motel detour en route to 2020. Or the happier version; that it's a Dem policy trojan horse designed to cause Republicans to believe there's no need to even raise funds for a 2020 campaign. In any case, it's interesting to see someone take Krugman's tax-and-spend dogma a step further so soon after a wave of articles noted that the annual debt payment is trending toward a trillion dollars by then end of the next decade.

Has anyone conflated dismay about lefty media's stories regarding mean emails and thrown binders with anger about questioning her stance on actual issues? My guess is that Klobsie would rather hear angst about her stance on health care all day long than field a single question about whether she ate salad with a comb and then made a staffer clean it.

In an ideal world, the person who took the other half would cover the 'e' and make it into a campaign sign for The Knights Who Say 'Ni!".

"Of course I know that. After all, you're an extremely rational and fair-minded person", he said as he turned to go, adding "... for a woman." under his breath. There was a sudden clatter from the neighboring room and he instinctively lunged for the door, fumbling for his car key as he ran.

It's definitely true that there's no mutual exclusivity here. HuffPo's motives could be purely political without those motives diminishing the concerns over AK's alleged Jekyll/Hyde thing. As a related aside, it seems worth mentioning that while there was ample evidence even before Trump that being a bad boss is a worrisome quality in a president, Klobuchar's disgruntled former employees would seem at first blush a more manageable liability than some of the baggage being toted into race by the other runners.

Believe it or not, the mansplaining angle occurred to me as I wrote that last post, but text in general is so gender-neutral that after a thorough and unbiased evaluation of what I wrote, I let myself off the hook. And your original post definitely applies to other situations, which in turn brings up a difficult and ongoing struggle within both parties: balancing the desire for unity with the occasional need for what I'm going to call (for lack of a better term) self-policing. One additional thought on the sexism component of political reporting...I've already cast my vote for HuffPo's motivation being ideology rather than sexism. But one area that I think women might be a little more guilty of passive sexism toward other women is with regard to the type of question being asked of candidates. Not all bias is with malicious intent. But if you're going to ask female candidates about things like balancing career with parenting and marriage, ask the male candidates too.

Oh, cut the false modesty! Sorry, Simpsons reference, couldn't resist. It was you who posted a single sentence arguing that the Klobuchar article was more likely an example of "the more liberal attacking the more moderate" than sexism. So my apologies for not acknowledging or crediting that post, and for taking up a great deal of space without adding anything to the discussion for you. But it might be worth noting that your point included no specifics about the nature of the possible ideological rift between HP and Klobuchar, and that it was immediately dismissed by multiple posters who are apparently sticking with the idea that sexism was the root motivation of the piece.

Well, sexism is certainly one way to go if you're doubting the credibility of the article. But is the sexism narrative hammer really the right tool for this particular job? Obviously the article was written by two women, but co-author Amanda Terkel isn't just any female HuffPo reporter. She's also their Washington Bureau Chief. And literally everyone above her in the editorial pyramid - Senior Editors, Deputy Editor, Managing Editor, Executive Editor, Editor-in-Chief.. every one of them is female. Overwhelmingly female leadership is such a point of pride for HuffPo that it even tweeted a photo of an all-female editorial meeting in 2016. Along with the less satisfying narrative offered by the idea of sexism against a woman by women, there's a plausibility issue as well, since there have been no credible allegations (that I could find, anyway) of sexist negative coverage by HuffPo of the other female presidential candidates' conduct. And since I've disputed the credibility of the sexism explanation, it's only fair to offer an alternative theory as a target for return fire, so here goes. On 2/5, AP beat reporter Elana Schor continued her ongoing coverage of Klobuchar's possible candidacy by breaking the news that an announcement was coming the following week. Well prior to that day, all the other announced 2020 candidates had announced co-sponsorship of the GND, while Klobuchar pointedly had not. Late in the evening of 2/6, HuffP ran the piece about Klobuchar's alleged tantrums, one that rehashed the same LegiStorm data from an old Politico piece dating way back to April, no less. On 2/7, as the GND was officially rolled out, Elana Schor breathlessly reported that Klobuchar WOULD co-sponsor the GND. Is that sequence of events any sort of proof that Klobuchar finally signed the Green New Deal/2020 suicide pact because HuffPo left the 'Mean Boss' horse's head in her bed the night before? Of course not. But Klobuchar is clearly the GND's most reluctant signatory, a fact she made plain by refusing to mention it by name at her campaign kickoff and then reinforced since then with an open and complete disavowal of GND's most... what's the polite word?.. controversial goals. Anyway, call it a conspiracy theory if you like, and feel free to tear it apart. I've no stake in the matter, and fwiw, I think Klobuchar would make a better president (if not candidate) than most of the rest of the field.

Dear Mr. A. John, All of us here at Mr. Schultz's 2020 campaign headquarters sincerely appreciate your confidence in our candidate's electoral prospects and wish to forward our sincerest gratitude. However it should be pointed out that Mr. Schultz has not yet formally issued a statement confirming his reversal of the E.O. in question following his inauguration. That said, we look forward to earning and receiving your support in 2020! Regards, Mr. L. Bombo Vice Chairman, Caribou Customer Outreach Program 2020 - When the Schultz Hits the Fan!

Rubio has called Trump's threat to declare a national emergency a "terrible idea". That's not "we need more details" or even "it raises concerns", it's "terrible", and it's not coming from a Never Trumper. It is extremely unlikely that he's the only such Republican so vigorously opposed. You can certainly argue that being opposed and actually doing something to oppose it are two different things. But I think as the SS Trumptanic gets closer to launching its 2020 voyage, many Republicans will likewise get closer to the point where they either reluctantly board or wave from the pier and tend to their own political fortunes.