2020 Democratic Primary Thread: Focus on House & Senate races

☑

☑︎#VoteDemocrat

The Original
WOAT
Supporter
Hall of Shame
Joined
Dec 9, 2012
Messages
325,842
Reputation
-34,126
Daps
632,927
Reppin
The Deep State
Last edited:
A

afterlife2009

Superstar
Joined
Aug 15, 2014
Messages
4,804
Reputation
1,100
Daps
17,629
4e9owvE.png
 
Wargames

Wargames

One Of The Last Real Ones To Do It
Joined
Apr 1, 2013
Messages
28,236
Reputation
5,598
Daps
106,830
Reppin
New York City
Read this on resetera and it makes a lot of sense

Putting on my tin hat for a second...One thing I've been on the record saying in this thread is that I don't think Donald Trump is afraid of Biden at all. I've long suspected that Biden is the candidate Trump WANTS to run against. The ingredients are all there: He's the establishment candidate (so he'll immediately suck up critical support), but he lacks enthusiasm with key groups of the Democratic base. Over time, Biden has actually become toxic to key points of the base. Joe has always been the candidate Trump would most be able to "dirty" in the way he did Hillary.

And over the last month, we've seen why they wanted Biden. We've now learned that this entire time, they were conspiring to pressure Ukraine to not only investigate Biden, but to do so publicly. We've learned that the plan was to drag Biden through his son's work in Ukraine, and we've also learned that Putin's hands are all over this through that stupid Cloudstrike bullshyt. We've also learned that this trap sprang early. They wanted this bomb to go off closer to the election.

Going back to the first debate, it was ALWAYS weird to me (and not just because I'm #KHive), that Tulsi became almost laser-focused on Kamala after the debate. Tulsi had never talked about her before, never really seemed to have any opinion of her or any of the candidates, but suddenly she was attacking her in every interview she did in the lead up to the second debate. Then we get to the second debate, and she hits her with alt-right/breitbart talking points. At the time, people thought I was just a butthurt fan, but no...it was weird.

Weirder still that after that, she promptly forgot Harris. Even when Harris was wounded but still very much top-tier, nothing.

And then Warren surges, becomes a threat to Biden in much the same way Kamala had been at one point, and it's like suddenly someone flipped Tulsi's switch again.

And is she doing this out of some sort of affinity for Biden? There was early speculation that she might be vying for a VP slot, but I don't buy that either! Because she doesn't display any sort of actual affinity for him. She just goes after whoever threatens his status as a frontrunner.

I know this kind of sounds crazy, but...put a pin in it.
Click to expand...

Arguably is Tulsi another of their traps that sprang early?
 
D

Dusty Bake Activate

Fukk your corny debates
Joined
May 1, 2012
Messages
39,077
Reputation
6,023
Daps
132,782
Wargames said:
Read this on resetera and it makes a lot of sense



Arguably is Tulsi another of their traps that sprang early?
Click to expand...
Yeah I thought the same thing about the debates. It seems she’s strategically just choosing certain frontrunners to try and call out publicly and hatchet, whatever her motivations are. She tried to bloody up Warren last debate but it flopped.
 
storyteller

storyteller

Veteran
Joined
May 23, 2012
Messages
17,219
Reputation
5,552
Daps
65,617
Reppin
NYC
Smart marketing with the 4:20 drop and a really promising plan overall:
- Expunge records
- Make public benefits available to people caught up in the system
- Grant program for entrepreneurs of color
- Grant program for employee owned companies and areas that have been disproportionately targeted
- Another program for people who had been incarcerated for marijuana related offenses
- And an additional development fund targeting communities disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs.
- Incentivizes non-profits
- Bans tobacco companies
- No marketing to children or deceptive marketing allowed
- Market Share and Franchise Caps
- Safety reviews for the products

Bernie Sanders released a plan to legalize marijuana (at 4:20 pm)

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday — at 4:20 pm Eastern Time — released a plan to legalize marijuana.

The proposal is among the most ambitious from one of the Democratic presidential candidates. It would move to legalize marijuana within 100 days through executive action. But it would also address the potential downsides and criticisms of how several states have legalized marijuana so far — by trying to limit the size and scope of the marijuana industry and taking several steps to ensure that communities of color benefit from legalization while potential bad actors, such as tobacco companies, do not.

First, Sanders would sign an executive order directing the attorney general to declassify marijuana as a controlled substance — removing it from the drug scheduling system and effectively legalizing weed at the federal level. (For more on how this could work, read Gabrielle Gurley’s piece at the American Prospect.)

Sanders would then push Congress to pass a bill to “ensure permanent legalization of marijuana.”

Although 11 states and Washington, DC, have legalized marijuana, the drug remains illegal at the federal level, which imposes all sorts of barriers on state-legal marijuana businesses. For example, they must function as cash-only enterprises since many banks are nervous about dealing with businesses that are essentially breaking federal law. The businesses also can’t file for several deductions, and, as a result, their effective income tax rates can soar to as high as 90 percent or more. Marijuana’s classification in the drug scheduling system is also a basis for other restrictions on it, although federal penalties for marijuana are typically more lenient than they are for other drugs.

Separately, the Sanders administration would push state and federal authorities to expunge past convictions for marijuana. As noted in Sanders’s criminal justice reform plan, he would also set up an independent clemency board to grant those with federal convictions an early relief. And he would separately move to “eliminate barriers to public benefits for people who have interacted with the criminal justice system.”

Sanders also promises to use new tax revenue from legal marijuana to create a $20 billion grant program for “entrepreneurs of color who continue to face discrimination in access to capital” and another $10 billion grant program for businesses “that are at least 51% owned or controlled by those in disproportionately impacted areas or individuals who have been arrested for or convicted of marijuana offenses.”

He also vows to create supports for the formerly incarcerated, a $10 billion grant program to “help disproportionately impacted areas and individuals who have been arrested for or convicted of marijuana offenses start urban and rural farms and urban and rural marijuana growing operations,” and a $10 billion development fund to “provide grants to communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs.”

Finally, Sanders would try to prevent marijuana businesses from turning into an analog of Big Tobacco — a major concern even among some supporters of legalization. He would financially incentivize marijuana businesses to be nonprofits; prohibit products and labels that target young people; ban tobacco companies, as well as other companies that make cancer-causing products or are “guilty of deceptive marketing,” from the pot industry; set market share and franchise caps; and establish federal regulation for the safety of cannabis products.

Marijuana legalization has been a consistent winner in the 2020 primaries so far. With the notable exception of Joe Biden, the higher-polling candidates have come out in favor of legalization. Elizabeth Warren, like Sanders, said she would take executive action to legalize pot. Andrew Yang said he would pardon people locked up for a marijuana offense and “high five them on their way out of jail.” Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, among others, have also put out plans to legalize marijuana.

One explanation for that: Legalization is extremely popular, especially among Democrats. A Gallup poll this week found that 66 percent of Americans support legalization, including 76 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of Republicans.

Supporters of legalization argue that it eliminates the harms of marijuana prohibition: the hundreds of thousands of arrests around the US, the racial disparities behind those arrests, and the billions of dollars that flow from the black market for illicit marijuana to drug cartels that then use the money for violent operations around the world. All of this, legalization advocates say, will outweigh any of the potential downsides — such as increased cannabis use — that might come with legalization.

Opponents, meanwhile, claim that legalization will enable a huge marijuana industry that will market the drug irresponsibly. They point to America’s experiences with the alcohol and tobacco industries in particular, which have built their financial empires in large part on some of the heaviest consumers of their products. This could result in more people using pot, even if it leads to negative health consequences.

Sanders, at least, has come out on the side of supporters, although with acknowledgment of the potential threat of Big Marijuana.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top