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Kim Jong-un: fragile and under pressure but he won’t give up
The Observer The North Korean leader’s surprise freeze of his nuclear programme is less a genuine move than a diplomatic manoeuvre,...
Wednesday, 31 July 2019
What Biden meant to say in his bungled debate closing statement
Democratic presidential hopeful former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the second round of the second Democratic primary debates on July 31, 2019. | Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
He said to “go to Joe 30330,” and warned of “eight more years” of Trump.
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s closing statement at CNN’s Democratic debate Wednesday night was ... a bit of a mess.
First, he explained to the audience that while “four more years of Donald Trump” would “go down as an aberration,” “eight more years of Donald Trump” would “change America in a fundamental way.”
What Biden meant to say, of course, was that the four years of Trump’s first term would go down as an aberration, and that he shouldn’t win reelection. But he accidentally added the word “more” both times. So it sounded as if he was saying another Trump term wouldn’t matter much, it’s the third term that we should worry about.
Then, Biden closed out by telling the audience to “Go to Joe 3-0-3-3-0 and help me in this fight.” It was not clear how you could “go” to Joe 30330 — was it a website, or what? The answer is that you can text the number 30330 to get involved in the Biden campaign. The former vice president remembered the number, but didn’t properly explain how to use it.
It was a line that inspired an avalanche of internet jokes and a race to snatch up the website domain name.
"Go to Joe 3-0-3-3-0, and help me in this fight."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 1, 2019
Joe, what in God's name was this? pic.twitter.com/Yq1g5mXI6m
Biden has long been known for his unguarded way of speaking: He goes off-script, he embarks on lengthy riffs, and he sometimes says things he ends up regretting (like when he reminisced about working with segregationist senators at a recent fundraiser).
So while these verbal slip-ups are more amusing than they are important, they do point to a larger concern some Democrats have with Biden as a candidate. And of course, any contender would obviously prefer not to make mistakes in a closing debate statement.
Here’s Biden’s full closing remarks, gaffes and all:
Thank you. Thank you for Detroit hosting this. Look, I’ve said it many times, and I think everyone agrees with this: we’re in battle for the soul of America. This most consequential election any one of you, no matter how old or young you are, has ever, ever participated in. Four more years of Donald Trump will go down as an aberration. Hard to overcome the damage he’s done, but we can overcome it. Eight more years of Donald Trump will change America in a fundamental way. The America we know will no longer exist.
Everybody knows who Donald Trump is. We have to let him know who we are. We choose science over fiction. We choose hope over fear. We choose unity over division. And we choose the idea that we can, as Americans. when we act together, do anything.
This is the United States of America. We’ve acted together — we have never, never, never been unable to overcome whatever the problem was. If you agree with me, go to Joe 30330 and help me in this fight. Thank you very much.
from Vox - All https://www.vox.com/2019/7/31/20749675/joe-30330-biden-debate-closing-statement
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New top story on Hacker News: Apple is regressing to their 1990s identity
4 by jasoneckert | 0 comments on Hacker News.
Middlesbrough
'Jane the Virgin' gives fans a perfectly sweet goodbye
As our beloved and recently unveiled narrator tells us at the top of Jane the Virgin's final episode, everything ends. Stories end, friendships end, relationships end, and we must come to terms with it.
Yet so often in real life – outside of telenovelas and the CW shows that honor them – things don't end. Chapters of our own lives draw to a close, but then things go on. You learn to live without the thing that ended, or with the new change. The endings we experience in letting go of television are unique because rarely in life do we have to let go of so many beloved people and places at once, never to hear from them again. Read more...
More about Entertainment, Television, Jane The Virgin, The Cw, and Entertainmentfrom Mashable https://mashable.com/article/jane-the-virgin-series-finale-recap/
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Joe Biden’s long record supporting the war on drugs and mass incarceration, explained
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Biden was a major Democratic leader in spearheading America’s war on drugs during the 1980s and ’90s.
At the Democratic debate on Wednesday night, Democratic candidates ranging from Cory Booker to Julián Castro hit Joe Biden for his long, punitive record on criminal justice.
Biden’s record puts him at sharp odds with where Democrats are today: He has one of the most punitive, “tough on crime” records on criminal justice issues within the 2020 field — more so than even opponents Kamala Harris or Amy Klobuchar, both of whom have also been criticized for their records. In fact, Biden was at the center of building federal policies that escalated the war on drugs and mass incarceration.
Consider one moment in Biden’s career: In 1989, at the height of punitive anti-drug and mass incarceration politics, Biden, then a senator, went on national television to criticize a plan from President George H.W. Bush to escalate the war on drugs. The plan, Biden said, didn’t go far enough.
“Quite frankly, the president’s plan is not tough enough, bold enough, or imaginative enough to meet the crisis at hand,” he said. He called not just for harsher punishments for drug dealers but to “hold every drug user accountable.” Bush’s plan, Biden added, “doesn’t include enough police officers to catch the violent thugs, not enough prosecutors to convict them, not enough judges to sentence them, and not enough prison cells to put them away for a long time” — a direct call for more incarceration.
As the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Biden did not just support the war on drugs and mass incarceration; he wrote many of the laws that helped build a punitive criminal justice system. That included measures that enacted more incarceration, more prisons, and tougher prison sentences for drug offenses, particularly crack cocaine.
Much of this matched the rhetoric of the day, when Democrats and Republicans in the ’80s and ’90s pushed for lengthier prison sentences and “tough on crime” policies in general to combat a crime wave and a crack cocaine epidemic.
But as Democrats have since evolved on criminal justice issues to support reforms that reel back the war on drugs and incarceration, Biden’s record puts him at odds with where much of the party is today — with polls showing that most Democrats and most of the public back at least some reforms.
“There’s a tendency now to talk about Joe Biden as the sort of affable if inappropriate uncle, as loudmouth and silly,” Naomi Murakawa, author of The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America, told the Marshall Project in 2015. “But he’s actually done really deeply disturbing, dangerous reforms that have made the criminal justice system more lethal and just bigger.”
Biden has backtracked since the ’80s and ’90s. Before he left the Senate to become vice president, he pushed to pull back tougher prison sentences for crack cocaine — an effort that helped lead to a law that President Barack Obama signed in 2010. And he’s recently acknowledged his mistakes.
“I haven’t always been right,” Biden said earlier this year, speaking to criminal justice issues. “I know we haven’t always gotten things right, but I’ve always tried.” (Asked about Biden’s record, his spokesperson pointed to this speech, but did not respond to further questions.)
As a former vice president for a still-popular administration, Biden currently has very good standing among Democrats. National polls of the 2020 primary consistently put him at the top of the pack, leading all the other candidates who have announced so far. He also has fairly high favorability ratings; a recent survey from YouGov and the Economist found that “he is the sole Democratic contender whose overall favorability ratings are positive,” scoring very high numbers among Democrats in particular.
But Biden also faces a Democratic constituency that has, during his time in the public spotlight, changed dramatically on criminal justice issues. He spent years promoting “tough on crime” policies that led to mass incarceration — and now Democrats want the direct opposite, supporting an end to mass incarceration, the war on drugs, and aggressive policing. How Biden navigates the conflict between his past and his party’s present could help decide if he becomes the party’s nominee for president.
Biden didn’t just support the war on drugs. He authored large chunks of it.
During the 1980s and ’90s, America was in the middle of a crack epidemic and a huge crime wave. In response to this, Republicans and Democrats competed to look “tough on crime” — enacting incredibly punitive policies at all levels of government that focused, in large part, on imprisoning as many people as possible. On the Republican side, these efforts were led by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. But on the Democratic side, Biden, as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was a major leader in these efforts.
He clashed with Bush throughout the late 1980s and early ’90s about crime and drugs — Bush would put out a proposal and Biden would try to go further. During a debate over a bill in 1991 (that would eventually become the 1994 crime law), Biden argued his plan was “much tougher than the president’s” and “provides for more penalties for death for more offenses than the [president’s] bill.” In response to Republican criticisms that his bill protected criminals, Biden claimed that “we do everything but hang people for jaywalking.”
In between the political squabbles, though, Biden really did help enact some very punitive legislation. Here are some examples from his record, drawn partly from Jamelle Bouie’s previous rundown at Slate:
- Comprehensive Control Act: This 1984 law, spearheaded by Biden and Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC), expanded federal drug trafficking penalties and civil asset forfeiture, which allows police to seize and absorb someone’s property — whether cash, cars, guns, or something else — without proving the person is guilty of a crime.
- Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986: This law, sponsored and partly written by Biden, ratcheted up penalties for drug crimes. It also created a big sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine; even though the drugs are pharmacologically similar, the law made it so someone would need to possess 100 times the amount of powder cocaine to be eligible for the same mandatory minimum sentence for crack. Since crack is more commonly used by black Americans, this sentencing disparity helped fuel big racial disparities in incarceration.
- Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988: This law, co-sponsored by Biden, strengthened prison sentences for drug possession, enhanced penalties for transporting drugs, and established the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which coordinates and leads federal anti-drug efforts.
- Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act: This 1994 law, partly written by Biden, imposed tougher sentences and increased funding for prisons, contributing to the growth of the US prison population from the 1990s through the 2000s — a trend that’s only begun to reverse in the past few years. It also included other measures, such as the Violence Against Women Act that helped crack down on domestic violence and rape, a 10-year ban on assault weapons, funding for firearm background checks, and grant programs for local and state police.
In short, Biden helped write and pass two of the most important pieces of federal legislation in the federal war on drugs — the 1986 and 1988 laws — and, in particular, helped create the sentencing disparity for crack and powder cocaine. And he was at least partly behind other laws that perpetuated mass incarceration and increased police powers. (A caveat: The great majority of incarceration happens at local and state levels, where federal law doesn’t apply.)
As Washington Post opinion writer Radley Balko tweeted in 2015, “The martial/incarceral state has had no greater friend in Washington over the last 35 years than Joe Biden.”
This reflected the politics of the time, as Democrats competed with Republicans to look as tough as possible on crime. It was a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who signed the 1994 crime law that Biden helped write. That was largely a response to public demand: Based on Gallup’s surveys, people were much more likely, particularly in the 1990s, to say that crime was the most important issue facing the country.
Since the mid-2000s, this has started to shift in the Democratic Party. With books like The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and movements like Black Lives Matter, the party has especially paid attention to the vast racial disparities in the criminal justice system that make it more likely a black man will be locked up for longer for the same crimes as a white man.
It’s in this new context that Biden’s record starts to look very dated. While other politicians can claim that they were simply following the politics of the time, or say they never supported mass incarceration to begin with, Biden was a leader in this space — and he earnestly and enthusiastically pursued mass incarceration and the war on drugs.
Biden has tried to repent for some of his past
Even before talk of his presidential run, and even before he became vice president, Biden did begin to distance himself from his past “tough on crime” record.
In 2008, he backed the Second Chance Act, which provides monitoring and counseling services to former prison inmates. In his last few years in the Senate, he supported the full elimination of the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. (The disparity was reduced from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1 in 2010 with the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010.)
Biden even offered somewhat of an apology during a 2008 Senate hearing:
Many have argued that this 100-to-1 disparity is arbitrary, unnecessary, and unjust, and I agree. And I might say at the outset in full disclosure, I am the guy that drafted this legislation years ago with a guy named Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was the senator from New York at the time. And crack was new. It was a new “epidemic” that we were facing. And we had at that time extensive medical testimony talking about the particularly addictive nature of crack versus powder cocaine. And the school of thought was that we had to do everything we could to dissuade the use of crack cocaine. And so I am part of the problem that I have been trying to solve since then, because I think the disparity is way out of line.
He echoed the same apology recently, telling attendees at a breakfast commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. in January that “it was a big mistake when it was made. We thought, we were told by the experts, that crack, you never go back; it was somehow fundamentally different. It’s not different.”
Biden’s supporters also point out that he was never totally on board with some of the harsher measures in previous laws. For example, in a 1993 symposium sponsored by the US Sentencing Commission, Biden argued for undoing some mandatory minimums for drug offenses. “I think we’ve had all the mandatory minimums that we need. We don’t need the ones that we have,” he said. “But quite frankly, I don’t think I will prevail … I’ve watched how the process works. I am not at all hopeful there will be [enough] senators prepared to vote with me.”
This wasn’t just talk, Biden’s office previously told me. The 1994 law ultimately included what’s called a “safety valve” that allows a very limited number of low-level first-time drug offenders to avoid mandatory minimum sentences. This part of the 1994 law — along with the Violence Against Women Act, the 10-year ban on assault weapons, funding for firearm background checks, and grant programs for local and state police, which were all part of the 1994 measure — were some of the big-ticket items that led Biden to back the bill, even though he didn’t support every part of it, his office previously claimed.
But Biden has seemed proud of the 1994 law, even some of its “tough on crime” measures, until fairly recently. In his 2008 presidential campaign website, Biden’s campaign called the 1994 law the “Biden Crime Law.” And the website proudly touted a funding program in the law that encouraged states to effectively increase their prison sentences by paying them to build more prisons — a direct endorsement of more incarceration.
And in 2016, after CNBC asked Biden if he was ashamed of the 1994 law, Biden responded, “Not at all. As a matter of fact, I drafted the bill, if you remember.” He acknowledged that there were parts of the law he’d change, but argued that “by and large what it really did, it restored American cities.”
The effects of Biden’s actions are still felt today. When Trump called for greater use of the death penalty to fight the opioid epidemic, then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited the 1994 crime law that Biden worked to pass to put legal weight behind Trump’s plan.
There’s way less ambiguity in Biden’s record than in his opponents’ pasts
Other presidential candidates have faced similar criticisms for their “tough on crime” records, including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) for her work as a prosecutor and California’s attorney general and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) for her time as a prosecutor in Minnesota.
But there are some nuances to these criticisms. Both Harris and Klobuchar did pursue some “tough on crime” policies, such as going after nonviolent offenders in certain cases. But Harris was also ahead of her time in, for example, supporting a “Back on Track” program that allowed first-time drug offenders to get a high school diploma and a job instead of prison time. And Klobuchar, while mostly an of-the-time “tough on crime” prosecutor in Hennepin County, worked with the Innocence Project to push for reforms in eyewitness identification and recorded police interviews — two big causes of the innocence movement at the time.
Biden’s record is much more straightforward. Sure, he occasionally spoke out against some tough measures, and some of his proposals included more funding for addiction treatment. But taken as a whole, Biden was very clearly and consistently pushing to make the criminal justice system much more punitive. His main criticisms of Bush and other Republicans were specifically that they weren’t “tough enough.”
As he said, touting the 1994 crime law:
The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is now for 60 new death penalties… The liberal wing of the Democratic Party has 70 enhanced penalties... The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is for 100,000 cops. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is for 125,000 new state prison cells.
It remains unclear just how big an issue this will be for Biden. Various polls, including one from Vox and Morning Consult, have found the majority of Democrats support at least some criminal justice reform efforts. But other surveys, like Gallup’s, have also found that criminal justice issues aren’t a top-tier issue for voters — falling behind, in recent times, concerns about the government and poor leadership, immigration, the economy, and race relations.
Still, his record is bad news for criminal justice reformers. A constant worry in the criminal justice reform space is what would happen if, say, the crime rate started to rise once again. If that were to happen, there could be pressure on lawmakers — and it’d at least be easier for them — to go back to “tough on crime” views, framing more aggressive policing and higher incarceration rates in a favorable way.
Given that the central progressive claim is that these policies are racist and, based on the research, ineffective for fighting crime in the first place, any potential for backsliding in this area once it becomes politically convenient is very alarming.
The concern, then, is what would happen if crime started to rise under President Biden: Would he fall back on old “tough on crime” instincts, calling for harsh prison sentences once again?
“[E]ven if Biden has subsequently learned the error of his ways,” Branko Marcetic wrote for Jacobin, “the rank cynicism and callousness involved in his two-decade-long championing of carceral policies should be more than enough to give anyone pause about his qualities as a leader, let alone a progressive one.”
If enough Democrats come to that view, it could threaten Biden’s chances of becoming the next president of the United States.
from Vox - All https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/25/18282870/joe-biden-criminal-justice-war-on-drugs-mass-incarceration
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2020 Democrats are getting more confrontational with the fossil fuel industry
Sen. Bernie Sanders repeatedly called out the fossil fuel industry as the adversary in the fight against climate change, during the second round of the Democratic presidential debates. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
It shows just how much the party has moved on energy and climate change.
In a stark shift since the last campaign cycle, a significant number of Democratic candidates for president are now aggressively treating the fossil fuel industry as an adversary in the fight against climate change.
During Tuesday night’s Democratic debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called out coal, oil, and natural gas producers in five separate instances.
“We have got to be super aggressive if we love our children and if we want to leave them a planet that is healthy and is habitable,” Sanders said. “What that means is we got to take on the fossil fuel industry.”
Other 2020 candidates are also confronting major greenhouse gas emitters — and pushing for policies to hold them accountable. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has proposed targeting carbon dioxide emitters directly with a carbon pollution fee. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand wants fossil fuel companies to pay for climate change-related damage. Former Vice President Joe Biden has pledged to “take action against fossil fuel companies.”
It’s a big shift in rhetoric since the Obama years, when the United States experienced a surge in domestic fossil fuel production with the advent of hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas. Democrats at that time were saying natural gas could serve as a bridge fuel to a low-carbon future. President Obama himself bragged about low gasoline prices during his 2015 State of the Union address.
And leaked emails showed that the last Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton, defended fracking and disparaged environmental activists. “They come to my rallies and they yell at me and, you know, all the rest of it,” Clinton said in a 2015 speech. “They say, ‘Will you promise never to take any fossil fuels out of the earth ever again?’ No. I won’t promise that. Get a life, you know.”
Since then, the climate crisis has worsened, the Trump administration has abdicated all responsibility, and climate scientists have sounded a shriller alarm about how little time we have left to avert catastrophic warming. In response, climate activists, like the Sunrise Movement, have been pushing for more ambitious climate policies. And the Green New Deal, which most of the Democratic candidates endorse, has emerged as a powerful framing device for decarbonizing the US economy.
All of this momentum — plus polls showing Democratic voters are worried about climate change — appears to have propelled many of the candidates into making it a top-tier issue. The push to prioritize climate change — and more directly challenge the political power of the fossil fuel industry — has been so strong that it’s carried almost all of the candidates along with it.
Even candidates from big oil and gas states have pledged to refuse donations from the fossil fuel industry. To date, 21 candidates have signed a “no fossil fuel money” pledge.
But not all the 2020 Democrats appear ready to lock horns with dirty energy. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, who is pitching himself as a Democrat who won in a state that voted for Trump, said he feared losing support from workers in those industries. “As we transition to this clean energy economy, you have got to recognize there are folks that have spent their whole life powering our country,” he said during the debate. “And far too often Democrats sound like they’re part of the problem.”
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s climate change proposal doesn’t mention “fossil fuels” once, but touts his record of working with the oil and gas industry to limit emissions of greenhouse gases like methane.
The question then is whether this rhetoric in the primary will still carry on through the general election, and if it will translate into any concrete action against companies that extract and sell fossil energy.
So if debate moderators want to highlight how candidates stand apart on an issue that’s a high priority for many primary voters, it would behoove them to ask how contenders see the fossil fuel industry fitting into their visions for the future.
from Vox - All https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/31/20748784/2020-democratic-debates-climate-change-fossil-fuels
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This Is The Beginning Of The End Of The Beef Industry
This Is The Beginning Of The End Of The Beef Industry
Alt meat isn't going to stay alt for long, and cattle are looking more and more like stranded assets.
July 31, 2019 at 04:23PM
via Digg https://www.outsideonline.com/2399736/impossible-foods-beyond-meat-alt-meat?utm_source=ifttt Middlesbrough
Tuesday, 30 July 2019
Pete Buttigieg says he’d withdraw troops from Afghanistan in his first year
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks during the Democratic presidential debate on July 30, 2019. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
“We will withdraw,” the South Bend, Indiana, mayor and Afghanistan vet responded. “We have to.”
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg said during Tuesday’s Democratic debate that he’s committed to withdrawing all troops from Afghanistan by the end of his first year in office if elected president.
The 2020 Democratic candidate, who did a seventh-month tour in Afghanistan as a naval officer, made the promise during the first night of this week’s Democratic primary debates in response to a question from CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Tapper mentioned the two US service members who were just killed in Afghanistan this week — making that 14 deaths in 2019, the 18th year of the war. “You said one thing everybody can agree on is we’re getting out of Afghanistan. Will you withdraw all US service members by the end of your first year in office?” Tapper said.
“We will withdraw,” Buttigieg responded. “We have to.”
Tapper pressed him again if that meant in his first year. Buttigieg said yes.
“Around the world, we will do whatever it takes to keep America safe,” he continued. “I thought I was one of the last troops leaving Afghanistan. I thought I was turning out the lights years ago.”
Buttigieg also pointed out that “we’re close to the day” when America will get news of the death of a US service member in Afghanistan who wasn’t even alive on 9/11, the attack that prompted the US to invade the country in the first place.
His commitment on the debate stage is a big one. Three presidents have overseen the war in Afghanistan. Barack Obama was unable to end the war, and Donald Trump, who promised to reduce America’s commitments overseas, has also kept troops there.
Buttigieg, like other Democratic candidates, has discussed ending America’s “forever wars.” He has also previously vowed to “repeal and replace” the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which allowed the president to use all “necessary and appropriate” force against those organization responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Though this largely meant going after al-Qaeda, the AUMF gave the president broad authority to go after terrorism anywhere, including in Syria and some regions of Africa.
Buttigieg said during the debate that any future AUMF should include a three-year sunset clause that must be renewed if engagement is to continue. “If men and women in the military have the courage to serve, members of Congress have the courage to vote.”
Other Democratic primary candidates, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), have suggested repealing and potentially replacing the AUMF, including by adding time limits. And candidates such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have criticized America’s “forever wars.”
But on the debate stage, Buttigieg offered a definitive and ambitious timeline — a sound bite that will be played over and over again if he gets close to the Democratic nomination or becomes president. That the only person to make such a commitment is also the only person on the debate stage Tuesday to have served in the US military is likely no coincidence.
Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, asked the same question in Tuesday’s debate, said he would commit to withdrawing troops by the end of his first term, but not necessarily by the first year. “There is nothing about the war in its 18th year that will make it better,” O’Rourke said. “We have satisfied the reasons for our involvement in Afghanistan in the first place. It’s time to bring the service members back home.”
The Council on Foreign Relations, in an article published ahead of the debates, asked 2020 Democratic candidates a slew of foreign policy questions, including whether they’d commit to removing US troops from Afghanistan by the end of their first term.
Few gave clear timelines, though Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), also committed to bringing troops home by the end of this first term. Sanders said he’d withdraw troops “as expeditiously as possible.” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) also said he’d bring troops home “as soon as possible.”
Foreign policy didn’t get all that much attention in the latest debate, though it made an appearance toward the end, and there was some substantive discussion not just on Afghanistan but on North Korea and nuclear proliferation as well.
But Buttigieg’s first-year promise could change the discourse around the “endless wars,” giving candidates an ambitious road map to follow. Buttigieg, and Democrats writ large, may also be helped by an ongoing peace process in Afghanistan and the Trump administration’s plans to reduce troop deployment to the region in 2020.
Or maybe not. If America’s “endless wars” have taught us anything, it’s that they’re extraordinarily hard to end.
from Vox - All https://www.vox.com/2019/7/30/20748070/democratic-debate-pete-buttigieg-afghanistan-troops
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Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders talked the most during Tuesday’s Democratic debates
Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speak during the first night of the second Democratic debate on July 30, 2019. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Their policies were also central to many of the night’s biggest exchanges.
If speaking time is any indication, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders completely dominated the first night of this week’s Democratic debates.
Not only was discussion over their policies on health care and trade central to some of the night’s biggest exchanges, they also offered notable responses to attacks from moderates like Rep. Tim Ryan. (See: Sanders’s “I wrote the damn bill!” when Ryan questioned his claims about Medicare-for-all.)
According to a Washington Post tracker, Warren spoke the most of the 10 candidates onstage, for a total of 17.9 minutes. Sanders came in a close second, talking for 17.6 minutes. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, meanwhile, came in a distant third and fourth behind them, with 14.4 and 10.9 minutes, respectively.
Across gender lines, women talked more than men overall, speaking for 12.5 minutes on average, compared to men, who spoke for 11.8 minutes. This was consistent with the breakdown in June, when female candidates, on average, spoke more than the male candidates — even though both times they spoke less overall, because there were still far more men onstage than women.
In total, female candidates on Tuesday spoke for 37.5 minutes, while male candidates spoke for 82.6 minutes.
Although the candidates who spoke most on Tuesday were closely in line with those who are currently polling the highest, one candidate who stood out for his unexpected presence in the debate, at least early on, was former Maryland Rep. John Delaney. Delaney has consistently polled among the lowest of the crowded Democratic field, most recently hitting around 1 percent in the Morning Consult Democratic tracker. At one point in the debate, however, he ranked in the top four in speaking time, trailing Warren and Sanders by only a couple of minutes.
Overall, Delaney helped serve as a foil for both Warren and Sanders, who attacked his positions as too moderate and complacent. At one point, Warren delivered one of her most pointed lines of the night when Delaney questioned the practicality of her policies. “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for,” she said.
It’s worth noting that speaking time is a relatively simplistic measure, though several Democratic frontrunners did ultimately lead last month’s debates in Miami. The top four across the two nights of the June debates, according to the Post tracker, were former Vice President Joe Biden, leading with 13.6 minutes of speaking time; Sen. Kamala Harris, with 11.9 minutes; Sen. Bernie Sanders, with 11.0 minutes; and Sen. Cory Booker, with 10.9 minutes.
This time around, Tuesday’s top candidates appeared to command the conversation as well.
from Vox - All https://www.vox.com/2019/7/30/20748011/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-democratic-debate-talking-time
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America deserves a debate between Joe Biden and his main progressive critics
Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
Elizabeth Warren versus John Delaney is not the drama we’ve been craving.
Most of the standout moments during the Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday night involved Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren teeing off against someone nobody has heard of.
But these exchanges about decriminalizing illegal entry into the United States, replacing union health plans with a new government-run plan, providing public health benefits to unauthorized immigrants, and other topics that pit activist priorities against public opinion are critical to the 2020 primary.
The problem is that the candidates taking the more moderate stance on these issues relative to Warren and Sanders — Tim Ryan, John Delaney, John Hickenlooper, and Steve Bullock — are not even remotely central to the 2020 primary. But that’s not because moderates have become marginal in the Democratic Party. It’s because Joe Biden, who sits at the top of the polls and broadly agrees with Ryan, Delaney, Hickenlooper, and Bullock — wasn’t on the stage. Biden won’t appear until Wednesday night, in the second night of the debate.
So the debate between the current frontrunner and self-proclaimed successor to Barack Obama and his leading critics on the left happened only by proxy. Someday, one hopes, we’ll get a proper debate. But for now we need to wait.
An annoying debate Democrats need to have
CNN’s moderators framed some of the big policy debates inside the Democratic Party around narrow, technical questions that aggravate liberals.
For example, moderators picked out the least popular pieces of the health care debate over Medicare-for-all. The plan does controversial things like replace private plans and raise taxes but would also eliminate all premiums, all copayments, and all deductibles — stuff that polls really well!
By the same token, moderators pressed on whether candidates would switch illegal entry from a criminal offense to a civil one t is, at the end of the day, a pretty peripheral question in immigration policy. The DREAM Act, a path to citizenship for 10 million more long-term resident undocumented Americans, Trump's squandering of America’s leading role as a destination for foreign-born students, and the future of legal immigration are all much more important issues on substance.
At the same time, the conceit from some on the left that if all Democrats just agree to avoid using “Republican talking points” on these questions then they can sneak into the White House without confronting them is absurd. Republicans will obviously use Republican talking points on these topics. Democrats need to decide whether they really want to run on these policy commitments, and if they do, they need to stress-test their talking points and counterarguments. Which they did — but only sort of.
Progressives faced down weak opponents
If you stop and think about it for a minute, there is probably some wisdom to be gained from the reality that the biggest proponents of progressive policies on the stage hold safe blue Senate seats from New England while the former governors of Montana and Colorado are skeptical.
So is a very electorally successful senator from the blue-leaning state of Minnesota, and the former holder of a somewhat swingy House seat in Maryland. The mayor of the fourth-largest city in Indiana knows he’s much too liberal to run statewide, and that’s why he’s running for president despite a skimpy résumé. Beto O’Rourke, similarly, impressed a lot of people with his Texas Senate run, which — precisely because it was impressive — tended to demonstrate that his ideas are simply too left-wing for Texas.
It would be absurd to conclude from this that Sanders or Warren is “unelectable.” Donald Trump holds lots of unpopular positions, and while ideology and issues matter in elections, they only matter a modest amount.
But the question of whether Democrats really want to carry the extra electoral weight of a certain number of unpopular left-wing ideas that are almost certainly not going to be implemented no matter who wins the election is important. It’s just that having the argument with Ryan and Hickenlooper felt unimportant because Ryan and Hickenlooper are extremely unlikely to become the nominee. Delaney did an admirable job of standing his ground and articulating his view, but there was still something vaguely absurd about him going toe-to-toe with Warren. He’s just too overmatched in terms of star power, fame, charisma, fundraising, depth and breadth of staff work, and all the rest. It created an atmosphere in which progressives dominated the stage and moderates looked marginalized. But it wasn’t reality.
Joe Biden won the debate
The reason Delaney — or a more plausible candidate like Bullock or Klobuchar — isn’t doing better isn’t that he can’t win an argument with Warren and Sanders.
It’s that the vast majority of the people who agree with him support Joe Biden. Reasonable people can disagree as to whether proponents of moderation are well served by having a septuagenarian Washington insider rather than a two-term Montana governor or a younger but experienced woman from Minnesota serve as their champion. But for now that’s clearly what Biden is, and you’d expect the VP from a popular and successful recent administration to be a strong candidate.
And Biden is not just a strong candidate but currently leading the race — and by a pretty large margin. The view on display Tuesday night of two New England progressives taking center stage and shooting down all comers was powerful but doesn’t reflect the actual state of the primary. The central figure is Biden, the progressives are taking potshots at him, and so far, he’s holding them off in opinion polls and dominating in endorsements.
That’s the actual state of the Democratic primary, and it’s difficult for debates to move the conversation forward unless the frontrunner engages with his main critics not on obscure aspects of 1970s civil rights policy but on the big issues of 2020. It didn’t happen in the first debate, and the structure of the second one makes it essentially impossible. That means round three, when the roster will narrow and the format will shift to a single stage, will in most respects be the first real contest of the season.
from Vox - All https://www.vox.com/2019/7/30/20748020/democratic-debate-biden-warren-sanders
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Pete Buttigieg had the most important answer at the Democratic debate
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Buttigieg is right about why Democrats keep failing to pass their big plans.
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg gave the single most important answer at Tuesday’s Democratic debate.
It came after a lengthy section in which the assembled candidates debated different health care plans that have no chance of passing given the composition of the US Senate, and then debated decriminalizing unauthorized border crossings, which they also don’t have the votes to do, and then debated a series of gun control ideas that would swiftly fall to a filibuster and, even if they didn’t, would plausibly be overturned by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.
That’s when Buttigieg spoke up:
[This is] the conversation that we have been having for the last 20 years. Of course we need to get money out of politics, but when I propose the actual structural democratic reforms that might make a difference — end the Electoral College, amend the Constitution if necessary to clear up Citizens United, have DC actually be a state, and depoliticize the Supreme Court with structural reform — people look at me funny, as if this country was incapable of structural reform.
This is a country that once changed its Constitution so you couldn’t drink and changed it back because we changed our minds, and you’re telling me we can’t reform our democracy in our time. We have to or we will be having the same argument 20 years from now.
So far, I’ve found Buttigieg’s campaign underwhelming on policy. But where he’s clearly leading the field is his emphasis on structural reform. Buttigieg isn’t the only candidate with good ideas on this score — Elizabeth Warren and Jay Inslee have been strong on this too — but he’s the only candidate who consistently prioritizes the issue.
The reality is Democrats are debating ever more ambitious policy in a political system ever less capable of passing ambitious policy — and ever more stacked against their policies, in particular. Their geographic disadvantage in Congress is only getting worse, Republicans control the White House and the Senate despite receiving fewer votes for either, and an activist conservative Supreme Court just gutted public sector unions and greenlit partisan gerrymandering.
Policy isn’t Democrats’ problem. They’ve got plenty of plans. Some of them are even popular. What they don’t have is a political system in which they can pass and implement those plans.
Buttigieg, to his credit, has a clear theory on this. When I interviewed him in April, he argued that “any decisions that are based on an assumption of good faith by Republicans in the Senate will be defeated.” The hope that you can pass laws through bipartisan compromise is dead. And that means governance is consistently, reliably failing to solve people’s problems, which is in turn radicalizing them against government itself.
There’s nothing new about a Democratic candidate promising to fix the system. Obama ran on similar themes in 2008. House Democrats opened their session by passing a sweeping package of good-government reforms. But once Democrats take power, concrete policy change, with the immediate benefits it promises, tends to win out over the abstractions of procedural reform. It’s easier to run for reelection bragging about a tax cut than about weakening the Electoral College.
What’s different about Buttigieg is his insistence that he would prioritize political reforms over policy wins. “This is the difference between somebody who’s thinking about 2024 versus somebody who’s thinking about 2054,” he said. “To me, yes, it’s worth it because we’re talking about setting the terms of the debate as they will play out for the rest of my life.”
This is what Buttigieg gets: To make policy, you have to fix the policymaking process. Some of the other candidates pay that idea lip service, when they get pushed on it. But he’s the one who places that project at the center of his candidacy.
You can listen to our full interview here, or by subscribing to The Ezra Klein Show wherever you get your podcasts.
from Vox - All https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/30/20748078/pete-buttigieg-democratic-debate-cnn
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“Your question is a Republican talking point”: CNN frames debate questions around right-wing concerns
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Republican weren’t onstage during the Democratic debate — but were living rent-free inside moderators’ heads.
People who tuned in to the Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday night could have been forgiven for thinking they accidentally turned the channel to Fox News.
At times during the debate, CNN hosts framed policy questions around Republican talking points. The first instance of this came during the very first question of the debate, when host Jake Tapper’s question to Sen. Bernie Sanders about Medicare-for-all was framed around concerns that President Donald Trump will make it a 2020 campaign issue.
“You support Medicare-for-all, which would eventually take private health insurance away from more than 150 million Americans in exchange for government-sponsored health care for everyone,” Tapper said. “Congressman [John] Delaney just referred to it as bad policy, and previously he’s called the idea political suicide that will just get President Trump reelected. What do you say to Congressman Delaney?”
A short time later, Tapper asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren if she’s “with Bernie on Medicare-for-all,” even though the middle class would pay more in taxes. Warren responded not by discussing the policy in terms of taxes (a frame the GOP has frequently deployed), but by talking about the total cost American families pay now for their health coverage, through both taxes and the cost of health insurance. Sanders was even more direct — he accused Tapper of invoking a “Republican talking point.”
“Any by the way, the health care industry will be advertising tonight on this program,” he added, as Tapper tried to move on quickly — another common occurrence that was widely criticized by debate observers.
Bernie Sanders accuses Jake Tapper of framing a health care question around a "Republican talking point." #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/gz1eUDru0v
— IJR (@TheIJR) July 31, 2019
The conversation about immigration was also framed around talking points Republicans regularly invoke, such as Democrats incentivizing unauthorized immigration by being soft at the border and providing health insurance to unauthorized immigrants.
On numerous occasions, moderators’ questions seemed to lead candidates to attack some of the field’s more progressive ideas.
CNN moderators very, very concerned about any policy that might mean progress for this country and the world pic.twitter.com/OvFv0lUnR3
— Jennifer Hayden (@Scout_Finch) July 31, 2019
Though no Republicans were physically onstage on Tuesday night in Detroit, it too often seemed they were living rent-free inside the moderators’ heads. But candidates mostly handled it well, and occasionally — as in the case of the health care discussion — it helped lay out the spectrum along which the 10 candidates fell, with Sanders and Warren supporting Medicare-for-all while more moderate candidate like Delaney attacked it.
Even so, the debate sometimes felt like it was more about attacking progressive policy proposals or responding to Republican talking points than it was substantively exploring the differences between the candidates.
The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox’s policy and politics coverage.
from Vox - All https://www.vox.com/2019/7/30/20748009/democratic-debate-cnn-moderator-questions-republican-talking-points-bernie-sanders
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Elizabeth Warren schooling John Delaney ends with his death on Wikipedia
You might not be able to pick John Delaney out of a lineup, but he'll go down in history in at least one way: as the first 2020 presidential candidate to drop dead during a live televised debate.
OK, not really, but for awhile there, Wikipedia said so. His Wikipedia page was edited mid-debate to list his date of death as Tuesday, July 30, at the hands of Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Delaney, a former congressman from Maryland, tried to position himself as a realist, saying he wanted to avoid "impossible promises" and "run on things that are workable, not fairytale economics."
And to that, Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, had this to say: Read more...
More about Democratic Debate, Elizabeth Warren, Wikipedia, John Delaney, and Watercoolerfrom Mashable https://mashable.com/article/john-delaney-elizabeth-warren-wikipedia-dead-debate/
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In Night 1 of the Democratic Debate, It Was Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Versus the Moderates
from Everything https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/in-the-democratic-debate-it-was-elizabeth-warren-and-bernie-sanders-versus-the-moderates
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Snapchat trolls Instagram with 'real friends' ad campaign
Snapchat is finally growing again, and it's using that momentum to engage in some (not so) subtle trolling of its biggest rival: Instagram.
Snap introduced a new ad campaign that's all about promoting Snapchat as the home for "real friends." The implications, of course, being that other platforms aren't about "real friends." Think that's too subtle? Well, just in case there was any question of what they really meant, Snap kicked off the campaign. on none other than Instagram.
Snap doesn't have its own presence on Instagram, so it worked with dozens of "quotefluencers" — high-profile accounts that primarily post inspirational quotes. Together, these accounts flooded Instagram with cheery quotes about friends using the "#realfriends" and "#friendshipquotes" hashtags. The posts were all on a yellow background, complete with Snapchat's ghost logo and "brought to you by Snapchat" captions. Read more...
More about Tech, Instagram, Snapchat, Snap Inc, and Social Media Companiesfrom Mashable https://mashable.com/article/snapchat-trolls-instagram-real-friends/
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We Asked 20 Brewers: What Are The Worst Trends In Beer Right Now?
We Asked 20 Brewers: What Are The Worst Trends In Beer Right Now?
There are several movements coursing through American breweries that are worth celebrating, but, for now, let's focus on the absolute worst. We're examining the garbage gimmicks that deserve a good riddance. That leave a bad taste in your mouth. That make you want to White Claw your eyes out.
July 30, 2019 at 08:26PM
via Digg https://vinepair.com/articles/20-worst-beer-trends-craft/?utm_source=ifttt Middlesbrough
Monday, 29 July 2019
The softblocking meme blends literary references with cancel culture
Oof. Yikes. A new copypasta has everyone softblocking problematic villains from well known stories, all in the name of the meme.
Urban Dictionary defines softblocking as "A phrase often used by Twitter users to describe the blocking of another person, then immediate unblock."
Essentially, it forces the blocked party to unknowingly unfollow the user so they stop interacting with the user's tweets.
It's a passive-aggressive — but drama-skirting — way to get someone out of your social sphere. When Twitter users find out that someone has been problematic — whether it's a terrible take they had on a marginalized group or allegations of sexual harassment — they'll softblock the person to gently remove them from their online social lives. Read more...
More about Twitter, Memes, Books, Culture, and Web Culturefrom Mashable https://mashable.com/article/oof-yikes-softblocking-meme-explained/
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Think FaceApp's privacy policy is sketchy? We've got some news for you.
So we all know FaceApp is sketchy. But uniquely sketchy? Not so fast.
Years after its rocky and arguably racist start, FaceApp once again jumped to viral fame this month before users pointed out the selfie-filter app had a questionable privacy policy. People were shocked (shocked!) that the app, among other unsettling practices, gathered location data.
While there's something decidedly unpleasant about realizing only too late that the app on your phone is too invasive for your liking, here's the thing: Pretty much all popular free apps are invasive to some degree. In fact, many of the free applications you likely have on your smartphone have privacy policies that make FaceApp's look good. Read more...
More about Iphone, Apps, Faceapp, Tech, and Smartphonesfrom Mashable https://mashable.com/article/faceapp-privacy-policy-free-apps/
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100 million Americans' data accessed in massive Capitol One hack
Well, this is not good.
Finance services giant Capital One announced Monday that there had been a major cybersecurity incident directly affecting 100 million Americans and six million Canadians. Specifically, a host of their customers' private financial data had been accessed by a hacker.
According to a statement issued by the company, two separates breaches occurred — once on March 22 and another on March 23 — and were discovered on July 19.
Bloomberg reports that a Seattle woman has been arrested and accused of hacking Capital One's server at an unnamed cloud-computing company.
Notably, it seems that although the customer data in question was encrypted, the hacker was able to decrypt it. Read more...
More about Capital One, Data Breach, Tech, and Cybersecurityfrom Mashable https://mashable.com/article/capital-one-hack-100-million-americans/
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A Death In Paradise
A Death In Paradise
An American tourist killed a hotel staffer in Anguilla. No one knows why.
July 29, 2019 at 02:15PM
via Digg https://www.insidehook.com/article/news-opinion/a-death-in-paradise-anguilla-malliouhana-hapgood?utm_source=ifttt Middlesbrough