President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Sounds like a motherf*ckin' Zamfir song.

 

California Democratic Party voter here. I care. But not only has there been no farm system developed for a replacement, but I haven't see a mass public outcry for her to leave until recently. On the other side, the last Republican elected to the Senate was Pete Wilson in the late 80s, and he resigned in 1991 after winning the governor's chair. The appointee to his chair lost to DiFi in 1992.
California, recall, doesn't have separate primaries for each party. The top-two vote-getters in the primaries advance to the general election. So any Republican with a chance is going to have to be very strong from the get-go. And as probably goes without saying, an association with Trump out here is a non-starter.

 

This is partly why I asked the questions -- because I've seen/heard of it in other fields, as well. Something has changed/is changing in the passing of torches that is weakening some of the parts of society that we actually need to be strongest.

What you've observed among lawyers, I would say is also happening in the medical field, where some of the problem is, I know from the experiences of a family member who originally wanted to become a doctor but who has since given up that path because it was simply taking too long to even get started. He, a white guy, simply couldn't get going, thanks largely to issues with quotas and preferences being given to diversity candidates, and he spent several years after high school going to college, getting top marks, preparing for and taking the necessary tests, building his background with jobs/internships with a heart surgeon, in an urgent-care clinic, serving as an EMT, etc., but never getting accepted into a medical program anyway. even though he applied to several of them. He finally gave up and is now working in a lucrative job in a hybrid Human Resources/Technology position for a pharmaceutical company instead.

He says he has left what would have been his chosen field behind for good now, and I think that's a shame because he had always said was going to do it, that he wasn't going to give up. That the field and his experiences with it and the mechanisms with it made him do it is sad, and a loss for the future.

 

My lifetime experience in Utah consists of the 1979 Final Four weekend. I was 20. Forget alcohol, I had hell's own time finding a can of regular Coke (with caffeine).

 

Bless your heart.

 

I've been workshopping a theory.

It's my opinion (as well as that of some political experts, I believe) that you can trace the Republican Party's collapse in California to the party's support of the 1994 Proposition 187, which would have prohibited non-documented people from receiving government services. In the wake of that racist overstep, the GOP has continued to be less and less of a factor out here as voters were presented with crystal-clear proof of what Republican candidates would do in office.

Perhaps this SCOTUS ruling, coupled with the quick embrace of it by every GOP officeholder, will do the same in other places like Texas, Florida, Arizona and more purply-places? I dunno, but one can hope this disaster results in a tidal wave of new Democratic voters, like Prop 187 did in California

 

This should be a thrilling time for political journalists, because holding the powerful accountable is their highest calling, and accountability is in the offing.

But, as I wrote a few months back, journalism’s devotion to accountability pretty much died last year. A party that violently attacked the government, attempted to steal a presidential election, and is vowing to reject defeat going forward, continued to be treated by political journalists as legitimate and viable — and is now considered to be understandly headed for victory in 2022 and maybe 2024.

 

My experiences in Utah:

-- pulled over (with some weed in the car) on the interstate near Green River but let go with a warning to slow down.

-- witness to a Greyhound ticket guy being racist cocksucker to a black guy trying to get on the bus.

 

There have been several possible replacements for Feinstein, one of them replaced Harris, another one, Becerra is now the Californa AG and will probably run for governor after Newsom terms out. I've never understood the "seniority" angle in Congress being advantagous to a state's voters and meriting re-election til death, with the exception of Appropriations and Finance, where your state usually has no problem acquiring federal money. Our state's senior senator is the Finance Chair, so he's not going anywhere.

And if you ask me, the reason the Dems always choose Pelosi as leader is because she keeps a wall of senior members of Congress who hold a lot of sway, between herself and any potential rival. But it Is - or was - her job to prepare the next generation of Dem leadership and she's failed at it - probably intentionally, to protect her position. The Republicans seem to turn over their Congressional leadership every six or eight years.