Rep. Abigail Spanberger (VA-D) - Never use the words 'socialist' or 'socialism'

[dukkha]

I absolutely agree with everything you just said good brother, but this is a life or death issue that seems to be occurring every single day, My son is/was a cop who was murdered last month. He was killed by an inmate, but both he and I have always believed in and supported BLM and understood what defund the police means. Had his department spent more resources on protecting its own officers and less on weapons of mass destruction, my son would still be alive today. For the black community these are desperate and critical times, not a time for nuanced words, but again, I get your point and I agree with you.

my condolences. Cops dont want to be cops no more in NYCity and defund the police cities.
But I'm truly sorry you lost a son. the country lost a good man as well

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

Thank much good sister. If you like I will send you news articles about the murder of my son, but I warn you that it will only make you feel worse by the manner in which he was killed. I’m only now getting to talk about it because my son was the nicest person I have ever met. Now he’s gone.

You and your family are in my thoughts. (((hugs)))

 

[blackascoal]

You and your family are in my thoughts. (((hugs)))

I think you and I talked about it right after his death. I’m still grieving and still can’t even discuss it without the pain and tears. I thought talking about it might help me to reconcile with it, but I was wrong. I miss him so much. I cannot stop the tears and the pain, nor the remorse. I should have tried harder to keep him from joining the police force, but it was what he wanted to do, trying to make a difference. I’m his father, I blame myself.

 

[Cypress]

Thank much good sister. If you like I will send you news articles about the murder of my son, but I warn you that it will only make you feel worse by the manner in which he was killed. I’m only now getting to talk about it because my son was the nicest person I have ever met. Now he’s gone.

My sincere condolences to you and the family.

 

[Althea]

Yeah, I imagine given the spread through nursing homes and assisted living facilities, that Medicare has been taking quite a hit. A couple months ago I mentioned to Mr. Owl that private insurance companies must be hit hard too. He said no, just the opposite. People put off going in for routine things, elective surgeries were canceled for a while, so they were raking in the dough but not paying out as much for procedures, office visits, surgeries, diagnostics.

And I believe there was state funding for Covid related issues such as testing, etc. So insurers sidestepped that too.

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

I think you and I talked about it right after his death. I’m still grieving and still can’t even discuss it without the pain and tears. I thought talking about it might help me to reconcile with it, but I was wrong. I miss him so much. I cannot stop the tears and the pain, nor the remorse. I should have tried harder to keep him from joining the police force, but it was what he wanted to do, trying to make a difference. I’m his father, I blame myself.

Yes, we did talk about his passing at the time both PM and phone.

Unless you have a lost a child yourself no one can understand the pain you are going through. I can only say that my heart weeps with yours. May time bring you peace, may your memories of the good times you shared together give you solace.

 

[Althea]

We can agree Trump is a fucking self-serving moron. When he dies, I'll make an effort to piss on his grave.

Well, most do agree with you on that, but I keep seeing these claims about how Dems were trying to sabotage his administration. He broke numerous laws, including another failed attempt at getting a foreign nation to aid him in his propaganda efforts against a political rival.

He did a pretty damned good job of sabotaging his own administration

 

[Cinnabar]

Defund the police was the dumbest fucking title ever given a good idea


It lost us seats

Nobody ran on it. The seats were lost due to the no policy blue dogs. All Progressives retained their seats and new Progressive seats were added.



But I agree that the slogan is terrible. It should be "Demilitarize the Police" and redistribute the funds.

 

[Althea]

Frank is pissed at me over it on another thread:

So judging by your quote, it's the email thing? We could both burn out keypads debating that, and after numerous investigations it was determined that while inept perhaps, it wasn't criminal.

Avoiding the whataboutism angle, wait until we delve into the entire trump Klan, and their conducting govt. business over unsecured devices since they got into the White House.

 

[Althea]

What train? The Hillary is corrupt train?

My entire career has involved adhering to a code of ethics as if they were laws. I've seen officers, and senior NCOs, heavily reprimanded for violating ethics, not regulations. No charges, but their career ended at that point and they were forced out after failing to promote.

Hillary, and Bill, repeatedly violated ethics while remaining (mostly) within the law. They'd run, no walk, up to the legal line then walk along it. Unethical? Yes. Illegal? No.

She did violate classified material protocols. That's a matter of record. Also a matter of record is that a Democratic WH and DOJ chose not to do anything about it in an election year.

Comey soft-peddled it, but he clearly states she did violate the rules.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/p...-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system
...Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails).

None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.

Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.

While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government....

Yea. We all read this years ago. I'm still hunting for the corruption.

Not dismissing Clinton's use of private servers, but I seem to remember that they were considered as, or more secure in the long run than some of our govt. servers. She was never hacked. Her explanation was that these were the same servers that were used for the Clinton Foundation, where there were countless govt. contacts from other nations. Supposedly, it was handy to use that database as it was well established for many years.

Not weighing in on whether that's valid, but at no point did she hold secret meetings with our enemies without anyone else in the room, or invite Russian operatives into the White House and divulge sensitive information.


Still not seeing corruption.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Well, most do agree with you on that, but I keep seeing these claims about how Dems were trying to sabotage his administration. He broke numerous laws, including another failed attempt at getting a foreign nation to aid him in his propaganda efforts against a political rival.

He did a pretty damned good job of sabotaging his own administration

Trump always was his own worst enemy.

 

[Althea]

Sorry if defunding the police, ie, REFORMING police policies and practices, sounds stupid to you, but you aren’t in the line of fire. Any association with BLM is offensive with centrists, even though BLM is supported by a wide range of voters, and Cori Bush won her race for a House seat campaigning as an advocate for police reform AND defunding the police. So what makes her district less Important to win then districts where republican lite democrats run?

Excuse my frankness, but Obama accomplished almost nothing on the issues of reigning in police murders and abuse.

Obama has failed victims of racism and police abuse, by Cornel Weat, the Guardian 14 July 2016.

How do centrists get to define what political tactics those most affected by police murder and abuse should employ when they are doing virtually noting about it and don’t even want the subject brought up?

I, like most progressives have no problem discussing this issue with centrists and the right wing of the Democratic Party, but I am not going to allow them to attack the left wing of the party without a response. It is that same right wing faction that does not want to engage in constructive dialog, rather than engaging in finger pointing and attacks, which is exactly what they are doing today.

Even on this site, centrists don’t want to talk about it. I’ve become an obstacle, a pariah, to Democratic delusions of grandeur. It’s the centrist way of marshmallow politics or the highway in this supposedly big tent party.

Please don’t take this as a personal attack. You and I have been talking for many years and I’m serious about the respect I’ve always had for your thoughts and opinions. .. one more thing, the future of the party rests in the hands of the youth. Who do you think has been FAR more effective in bring young voters into the fold, progressives or the marshmellows?

Sorry. You don't get to 'IE' a stupid catchphrase when it's political suicide. If 'reforming the police' is what Progressives want, then why would they ever come up with such an idiotic catchphrase? What's wrong with the platform being 'reform the police'?


Because that doesn't get the attention that the alternative does. So these kids who are in safe districts jeopardize the seats that are in very tight districts. That doesn't get you a Progressive in that seat. That gets you a Republican. See how that helps the Progressive agenda down the road.

I'm never insulted in our discussions. Never have been. But if you don't stop referring to me as a female, I might be! .

You've been on hiatus, so you get a pass. One last time...Althea was my cat!

 

[Dutch Uncle]

So judging by your quote, it's the email thing? We could both burn out keypads debating that, and after numerous investigations it was determined that while inept perhaps, it wasn't criminal.

Avoiding the whataboutism angle, wait until we delve into the entire trump Klan, and their conducting govt. business over unsecured devices since they got into the White House.

It's the classified material thing. Yes, it was criminal as Petraeus, Snowden and Manning know.

Trump will probably never go to jail, but his kids and SIL may not be so lucky. I'm curious to see if anything is done about it.

Another factor to consider is if Trump opens his mouth about what he knows post-President. I'd love to see him taken down for it.

 

[Althea]

Trump always was his own worst enemy.

When you never suffer repercussions for your mistakes, that tends to happen. Daddy T was always there with his wallet to bail Donald out.

This might be the first time in his life that he has to look failure in the eye. He's still making excuses, but he can't 'default' on this one.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Sorry. You don't get to 'IE' a stupid catchphrase when it's political suicide. If 'reforming the police' is what Progressives want, then why would they ever come up with such an idiotic catchphrase? What's wrong with the platform being 'reform the police'?


Because that doesn't get the attention that the alternative does. So these kids who are in safe districts jeopardize the seats that are in very tight districts. That doesn't get you a Progressive in that seat. That gets you a Republican. See how that helps the Progressive agenda down the road.

I'm never insulted in our discussions. Never have been. But if you don't stop referring to me as a female, I might be! .

You've been on hiatus, so you get a pass. One last time...Althea was my cat!

A catchphrase that resonates with the public is hard to stop. "Hands up, Don't shoot" was proved to be a lie in the case of Wilson-Brown, but it happened enough times in other cases that it resonated.

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

And I believe there was state funding for Covid related issues such as testing, etc. So insurers sidestepped that too.

I knew a few who had to pay out of pocket when the pandemic first began, but mostly the state and/or county picked up the tab.

 

[Althea]

It's the classified material thing. Yes, it was criminal as Petraeus, Snowden and Manning know.

Trump will probably never go to jail, but his kids and SIL may not be so lucky. I'm curious to see if anything is done about it.

Another factor to consider is if Trump opens his mouth about what he knows post-President. I'd love to see him taken down for it.

We just suffered an unprecedented tenure of a sitting POTUS. In fact, we're still going to suffer for two months as he continues to actively destroy the nation.

We're going to see an unprecedented post presidency soon. I hope Biden learned from Obama's folly, and chooses not to take the high road with trump. trump is finally going to pay for years of criminal activity.


As we speak, his CFO is in front of SDNY for yet another round of investigations. He got a free ride on the campaign finance fraud, but I'm not sure they're offering him the same deal for tax fraud and bank fraud.

Gonna be a great distraction next year.

 

[Althea]

I knew a few who had to pay out of pocket when the pandemic first began, but mostly the state and/or county picked up the tab.

Yep. Each state was different. NY got hit hard, so they mobilized pretty quickly. There were exorbitant charges for testing, especially blood testing. Labs were taking advantage, and running panels that had nothing to do with Covid. But the invoices for all testing were sent to us with a list of charges, and zero balance.

I'm guessing they were also sent to the states.

 

[Althea]

A catchphrase that resonates with the public is hard to stop. "Hands up, Don't shoot" was proved to be a lie in the case of Wilson-Brown, but it happened enough times in other cases that it resonated.

I find it hard to believe that not one person had a cell phone capable of shooting video back then, but it was a long time ago. None of us know what happened in that street, because the Grand Jury was tainted, and witnesses were all over the place on both sides of the discussion.

Agree about catchphrases. The Progressive kids like them, but in the long run they can be very costly politically. These kids tend to be greedy and inconsiderate, as they have the same 'I got mine' mentality that many staunch Conservatives do.

They start these 'movements' with hastily coined phrases because they can get away with it in their districts. They'll enjoy being in the minority party soon.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

When you never suffer repercussions for your mistakes, that tends to happen. Daddy T was always there with his wallet to bail Donald out.

This might be the first time in his life that he has to look failure in the eye. He's still making excuses, but he can't 'default' on this one.

True.

While Trump choking on a chicken bone (remember John Belushi playing Elizabeth Taylor) or dropping dead might seem like justice, it's too quick.

Something more just would him having a paralyzing stroke, then spend 10 years watching Melania bang a different guy every day on the same king-sized bed....maybe even watching Ted Cruz take his turn.