The 2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination Campaign

Joe Biden: Creepy, Uncle Joe who loves to inappropriately touch women and little kids... the human gaffe machine that has an uncanny knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. His age is certainly a question mark, but he does have a ton of political experience. He knows how Washington works... I'll let you decide if that's a liability or an asset. He'll have a deep electoral base though.Tulsi Gabbard: I don't think she'll have the push to be a serious contender, but she is 1 of 2 Democrats that I would ever remotely consider electing. I like her military background and she's very eloquent. Ultimately I think she's a high rising meteor that will fizzle out. The crooked DNC will make sure she's a hit job if she comes anywhere close to the reigns of power.Kamala Harris: She tries too hard to rebrand herself as a true liberal while having been a hard-nosed prosecutor in California. She is eloquent and has a veneer of presidential qualities, but to some Democrats she's way too conservative and to Republicans she's way too liberal (especially on guns). She's in a political no-man's land. But then again, Trump got elected so.... stranger things have happened.Beto O'Rourke: Mr. Platitude; oh, but he's so Obama-esque! This guy has nothing substantive to say. When you get through all his double-speak the guy doesn't have a single definable plan for any of his pie-in-the-sky platitudes. He just knows what sounds liberal to liberals...Bernie Sanders: He's got a lot of experience... and while I vehemently disagree with just about everything that comes out of his mouth, I sense that he is genuine whereas most politicians are, well, typical narcissistic politicians who will do anything and say anything if it ascends them to a role of power. His age is a factor, but he's got a very deep base. He's one of the only real contenders in the race.Elizabeth Warren: Fake. Fake. Fake. She's cut from the same cloth as Hilary Clinton - a fake as fuck blowhard who is the antithesis of Sanders. There is nothing genuine about her, except her genuine desire for power. I have ZERO respect for her. She's a moron and a died-in-the-wool politician. But she will have a big backing from the behemoth that is the DNC. I would like to think that real liberals can see through the smokescreen just like they finally did when they saw the Clinton/DNC derail Bernie.Andrew Yang: Probably the only Democratic candidate to get praise from FOX viewers... why? Because he has an actual plan that actually is measurable and based on rational inferences. He's the exact opposite of Beto (Mr. Platitudes). But his problem at this point in time is that he's really only known for his universal income schtick. He's a one-trick pony at this point. If he wants to be a serious contender, he is going to have to expand on his ideas. If he can follow suit he has the potential to bring a lot of Republicans over.Corey Booker, de Blasio, Julian Castro, Buttigieg have some qualities that are appealing and some not so appealing.... they'll all likely fade away.Howard Schultz, running as an Independent, has a lot of good ideas... he's a candidate who is liberal, but not too liberal, with some conservative ideas, but not too conservative... But he has no real big push or star power.

I can only speak for myself, but she strikes me as a total elitist who bemoans the injustices of the poor while being so wildly removed from it. Pelosi, Clinton and Warren come to mind as being disingenuous and hyper-partisan.

Did you miss the part where I was critical of men on the list or that I lauded Tulsi Gabbard as being 1 of 2 considerations for my vote? You cited Mitch McConnell in the previous paragraph... does his "expert-level knowledge" give him any credibility? No, I didn't think so... I mean, to say that a politician is knowledgeable of politics is about as redundant as a plumber being knowledgeable about plumbing. Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Arlen Specter, John McCain, Joe Lierberman, etc come to mind as people willing to reach across the aisle. But of course, more could be said of the question itself. Because of this hyper-partisan political climate we live in, as soon as I was critical of people from the Democratic Party you rushed in to counter with Republicans. I'm not a Republican and I'm very critical of Donald Trump who, by the way, was a lifelong Democrat up until about 10-5 years ago.... I guess that means he's willing to reach across the aisle too!

I still don't know what it is that they actually want and at this point I don't think they know what they want. They say the border patrol is akin to the gestapo but many say it's "bullshit" that democrats want open borders and to stop using that argument. So what exactly is it that you do want? Because as it stands, CPB is enforcing laws that Congress passed. And then Congress are the one's who bitch about it as if CPB has any control over what laws are passed. I mean... seriously?

I think 90% of that controversy is embellished, but I don't want to get lost in the weeds in the minutia. I'm curious to know what precisely most Democrats want when it comes to the border. Everything I've seen seems to indicate an open border. Whenever that's mentioned, they say, no but offer no real provisions. So what is it that Democrats want when it comes to immigration policy?

Answer the question I posed already and I'll answer yours. If you don't want open borders then what do you want?

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Elizabeth Warren has an immigration plan. Here are the highlights:

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*Decriminalizes unauthorized immigration and returns to the civil enforcement we had before George Bush began Operation Streamline.
*Eliminates abusive immigration enforcement and keeps law enforcement at arms length from CBP and ICE.
*Reduces and reforms immigrant detention.
*Reforms immigration courts.
*Raises the refugee cap to 125,000 and affirms refugee protections.
*Reforms legal immigration and creates a path to citizenship.

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This is a curious plan. As near as I can tell, it recommends no actions to improve border law enforcement in any way. There’s nothing about either a wall or a virtual wall. There’s nothing about E-Verify. There’s nothing about smarter or more efficient enforcement. No one will ever be deportedexcept, presumably, for serious felons, though Warren doesn’t even say that explicitly. Expedited removal will be ended. The Border Patrol will be reshaped from top to bottom, and will focus their efforts on homeland security efforts like screening cargo, identifying counterfeit goods, and preventing smuggling and trafficking. The whole thing is very similar to Julian Castro’s plan.

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I have previously criticized Republicans who accused liberals of wanting open borders. President Trump tweets about this endlessly. But I have to admit that it’s hard to see much daylight between Warren’s plan and de facto open borders.

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Source from a liberal rag so you can't conveniently dismiss itNow answer the question that I asked first... If you or other Democrats don't want open borders, then what do you want when it comes to immigration?

His point is that whenever we hear a Democrat explain the situation on the border, its unequivocally met with a bunch of platitudes. And Warren's proposal, for what its worth, does sound like a de facto open border. All of the criticism is on CPB and every illegal alien is treated within the plan to have some pathway to citizenship. But nowhere in that, or any plan that I've ever seen proposed, does it clearly diagram how it ought to operate on a day-to-day basis. Then why do multiple left-leaning outlets report the same thing? SourceYeah, no candidate is stupid enough to say that outright... as I'm sure even they are aware of the issues concerning human trafficking, drug smuggling, indentured servitude, etc that occurs simultaneously with benign families crossing. But as Drum's article points out, as well as others, making any attempt to see anything less than a de facto open border nearly impossible. Immigration is of vital and critical importance to the stability of the US; even on the Southern Border. We need immigrants, so long as it is done the right way. I'm all for easing restrictions, but not bypassing a port of entry. This is certainly a challenging issue and I don't envy anyone in the position of correcting past mistakes without sacrificing things that do work. The problem is that I rarely see politicians, on both sides of the aisle, making a concerted effort to actually address the issues at hand beyond making platitudes and empty promises.On Trump's side its "Build a Wall and Mexico is gonna pay for it." Yeah, okay.... Just another empty and unfulfilled promise, even though that was categorized as one of his top priorities as first day on the job... meanwhile, four years later....On the other side of aisle, I see a lot of platitudes that refer only to the positive aspects of illegal immigration and a scathing critique of CPB. Not much else. Beto is probably the worst when it comes to this. The guy doesn't have an actual plan for anything... he just knows what voters like to hear.I, for one, would like to see a comprehensive plan that gets into the finer details. I'm sick of bullet-point talking points. Give us some substance. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

If you read the post, they are without outright saying it... just as you've been saying Trump is a racist without outright acknowledging it.

The media in the United States is beyond corruption at this point. There is no such thing as objectively reporting the news any longer, its about manufacturing the news... Guiding it, steering the course of destiny, by hook or crook. Its so obviously a hit job against Tulsi because she's now viewed as a legitimate threat after she scalped Harris in the 2nd debate. Establishment Democrats view her as a potential regime change against the status quo.If Tulsi's talking points were made against Trump, they'd all give her a standing ovation. But because its against their establishment candidates, Kamala and Biden, they have to rush in with a smear campaign in this political assassination attempt. He may be loathsome to you, but when Trump talks about "Fake News," its hard to argue against it. Pure propaganda. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

This is why I think straw polls are so dangerous. It forces many voters into picking a candidate that they don't actually believe in but think can be the lesser of evils. Vote your conscience.

If you take the average salary aggregate of employees working for companies like Google and Facebook, Google averages at $115,000 annually and Facebook averages at $119,980. Source. Not exactly slumming it.... They also have massive perks, like stock options that you mentioned which pay handsome dividends or sell for thousands of dollars per share. Everything is designed around the comfort and happiness of the employee. "Sweatshop conditions?" I actually couldn't think of two companies that are more the antithesis of what a sweatshop actually is. Google and Facebook might actually be the absolute worst example I could think of to describe sweatshop conditions.The market right now is so competitive for engineers at the present time that tech companies are ever-increasing the salaries and bonuses for their employees so that they can retain them and not lose them to competitors.This isn't a defense of Google or Facebook who treat their employees far better than they do their customers and have created an industry on selling your data at our own expense, but the companies you selected were not demonstrative of companies that routinely mistreat or pay shit wages to. Had you said Walmart that would have actually made more sense.

Yeah, this is a big incentive with companies like Apple, FB, and Alphabet... its all about employee retention in tech these days because it is so competitive. My wife is of the same mindset... She writes code from home. Although she is paid slightly less than the industry standard, she finds a lot of value in working from home. Aside from avoiding a killer commute to the office (which conservatively averages about 45 min each way, and not because its far away), it also removes a lot of wear and tear on a vehicle, cuts down on fuel consumption, she doesn't have to deal with constant noise or constant interruptions (except our dogs who can be bit a needy and time-consuming). We have a nice, quiet work office right at home.One of my criticisms of companies like Google, Oracle, Apple, FB, and other big tech companies is that while they have created these elegant workspaces, its for a specific reason. The food is always top of the line and totally free to the employee. This is all designed around productivity. While these companies pay well and have a lot of perks, they want to squeeze every last drop out of their employees. They want an environment where you don't come in from 9-5, but one where you are okay with coming in from 11am to 9pm. You leave when the job is done.... and when is the job ever really done in that industry? They want to make it comfortable enough to where you're okay with not leaving and continue to work beyond a standard 8-hour workday.Smaller tech companies are able to have most of their employees working from home and have very good ways of monitoring their productivity levels. If you're supposed to be at your computer writing code when you're actually watching Jerry Springer and eating ho-ho's on your couch, it won't be long before they are aware.All of these companies have this ability and should encourage people to work from home, I think. You can even work collaboratively from home just as easily as in a board room. It helps decongest traffic, makes employees happier and more productive. And commutes really take a toll on mental health day after day. People are coming in to work tired and leaving exhausted.Most jobs require people to physically be present... but more and more jobs can, and I think should, be offered remotely. It just makes sense. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

There are so many advantages to making it more ubiquitous to count, but some of the big ones are job satisfaction, more alert employees, less traffic for those not fortunate enough to work remotely, less traffic accidents, less CO2 emissions from less cars on the road, etc, etc.

Well, and Cuba, and North Korea, and Bolivia, and Ecuador, and Nicaragua, and Peru, etc... Its funny, when you ask the Nordic countries why they switched to a Socialist model some said it was because of how they saw the United States using the Veterans Affairs as a template. Now most Americans distance themselves from terms like Socialism.But in any event, people forget that China is still a communist nation, albeit they changed how they do business. They knew they could never compete in a true Marxist/Leninist/Maoist style of communism in terms of production and GDP compared to capitalist societies. So they, quite cleverly actually, said if you can't beat them, join them.... sort of.The architect of the Command Economy, which also is a hybrid of communism and capitalism, allowed for a semi-autonomous free market that is more or less still under the thumb of the PRC. The only problem is that they still hold very draconian views on personal rights and zero tolerance for dissent against the government. It didn't end with Tank Man. China still has a rich and storied tradition of making figures oppositional to the government to magically and mysteriously vanish... even under one of the largest surveillance states ever erected. I think Percy is right to point out that the term might as well be toxic waste in the present era. Timing is everything. In the 90's, there was a gay rights push that was suppressed. People like Hilary Clinton, knowing the pulse on the street, distanced herself from it because she didn't think Americans were ready to accept it. And she was right.The same applies. Maybe socialism is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but good luck convincing the bulk of Americans that when they have so many real-world examples of why it should never take root.If you go to the extreme that Bernie is, the chance of beating Trump diminishes. Death by a thousand cuts, while taking much longer, is preferable than a decapitation. People are more comfortable with the devil they already know.Now is not the time to go full bore Socialist. It has too many negative connotations associated with it. Timing is everything. If your goal is to beat Trump in the next election, its gonna be hard to argue against the numbers he's putting up under an extremely capitalist structure. Jobs are up, unemployment is down, fuel prices are the lowest they've been in a long time, the economy is booming, etc.If the goal is beat Trump then you're going to have to find someone that can deliver similar expectations while still able to make improvements. You're going to need someone more moderate than Bernie's views to do it, more than likely.I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I'm just saying there is compelling evidence to assume it true and accurate.Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.