After watching the interview, it’s clear---Katie Porter doesn’t have the temperament to be Governor. As a candidate, I welcome the hard questions---the next governor must be accessible and transparent.
No place for temper tantrums. No place for dodging the public’s right to know.
If we get a chance to hurt just Republicans, we should take it (like CA prop 50, which I just voted yes on), otherwise, chances to allow Republicans to nearly uniformly hurt all Americans via letting the ACA subsidies expire is as good as we're going to get.
I am absolutely willing to sacrifice the American public writ large, who in aggregate voted for Donald Trump, in order to save millions around the world, who did not vote for Donald Trump.
"we are not allowed to let the Republicans inflict pain on any American unless it is perfectly equally distributed to all Americans, otherwise we must step in and save them" no, I don't believe that. This doesn't even target marginalized groups. "People who use healthcare" is as wide as you can get
It is absolutely imperative that Democrats win in 2026 and 2028 and "we can only pursue strategies that minimize the amount of American suffering" is a selfish handicap we cannot afford to operate with. I called all my reps and told them even if they get ACA back they should keep the gov shut down.
Yeah, about 14 million pointless deaths around the world, including 5 million children. But I'm glad you believe American lives matter more than the rest of the world.
Also, the most generous retrospective of the stimulus is "the stimulus worked, but voters punished Biden because he was in power when the temporary benefits ended" which is exactly what is about to happen with the ACA subsidies and Trump.
It was the right move given what we knew at the time, but we have 5 years of additional experience since they and it is imperative that we learn and change because the consequences are millions and millions of underserved deaths.
It is impossible to know alternate histories, but "the economy completely crashes, many more Americans die, Trump leaves office with Bush approvals, Biden wins in both 2020 and 2024, and 14 million people around the world do not die pointless deaths due to the end of USAID" is a possibility.
The "people don't suffer" option was "win the 2024 election". There is no option without suffering now. People can either suffer in vain or suffer for the reconstruction of American democracy.
This directly speaks to her inability to properly represent Californians as Governor. It's not just a purity test. If the staffers are scared of abuse, how can I trust that the concerns from my calls are actually being told to the elected, and not silenced out of fear?
It's not just a purity test. The staff are the people who keep the elected informed, and who communicate from the constituents to the elected. If the staffers are scared of abuse, how can I trust that the criticism from my calls are actually being told to the elected, and not silenced out of fear?
Quite simply, your staff is your connection to the public, and if you don't have a good connection with your staff, you don't have a good connection with the public. How can I trust that the staffer will actually pass my concerns to the senator, if all of the staff are afraid of the senator?
Yep, which is why when I can feel the other person's blocking finger getting itchy I save their handle so I can block them from the grave. If I'm going down I'm taking them with me!
Schiff: "If a president in secret can put names on a list and kill them, then there is no war power still retained by Congress, and there's no check on an executive who may drag us into another war."
He wouldn't grant even that. Actual quote: "there was still a difference between giving money to help and having money taken to penalize you, where the second was the equivalent of being punched" but I was "mischaractizing" him when I said that's the same as "getting taxed is like being punched".
That guy straight up said to me "I'm not saying taxing someone is like punching someone in the face, I'm saying taking money from someone as a penalty is like punching someone in the face" like dude.
