ET Williams

The Doctor of Common Sense

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Clueless Democrats Want to Talk to Voters But Don’t Know How

House Democrats Want To Change The Way They Talk To Voters, But They’re Not Sure How

“I wish we could just print our message on a different color of paper and suddenly win, but I think it’s going to be harder than that.”

Dumbasses

BALTIMORE — House Democrats are walking away from a soul-searching retreat in Baltimore without having answered the question that has loomed over them since the election: Whether the party should be content with changing its communication strategy or whether the party needs to undergo deeper changes.

“We lost, so either our programs need to be retooled or our communication needs to be retooled. Now which do you think is easier for us to focus on?” California Rep. Brad Sherman said. “I wish we could just print our message on a different color of paper and suddenly win, but I think it’s going to be harder than that.”

Democrats have historically said their economic platform should be able to bridge rural and progressive voters, but the last three elections have shown that they’re still struggling. The party hasn’t held control of the House in six years and since Nancy Pelosi gave up her gavel, they’ve lost the Senate and the White House as well. Once again, members are thinking about how they can communicate more effectively, but they’re coming up with few answers.

The question was at the top of many members’ minds as more than 130 House Democrats, roughly two-third of their membership, came to Baltimore for a three-day “issues conference” this week, the theme of which was “Fighting For All Americans.”

But some Democrats say that while the party wants to fight for every American, they’re still not reaching a lot of them. Rural voters, in particular, are fleeing the party and tough losses in 2016 have some members urging the party to rethink its strategy.

“This is exactly why we lost,” one frustrated Democratic member told BuzzFeed News in a text message during a presentation at the retreat in which the member said people were clearly bored. “Trump thinks in visuals and what sells. We’re listening to an MIT prof give a dissertation with graphs on rumors that has no bearing in reality!”

Other Democrats challenge concerns over their 2016 losses by pointing out that they actually picked up six seats in the House. But their victories were far smaller than expected (some prognosticators had put control of the House in play) and the Senate and presidential races also showed deep flaws in the way the party has been reaching out to voters.

Rep. Tim Ryan said he worries that the party is focused too heavily on responding to the day-to-day curveballs President Donald Trump has been throwing their way, at the expense of providing a clear alternative message.

“That’s part of his M.O. is to cause a shit storm. And then get them Democrats all distracted on whatever that daily issue is, and it prevents us from sustaining a long-term brand and a long-term message,” Ryan said.

Ryan, who challenged Pelosi for minority leader late last year, has joined some other Democrats in saying the party should push for a “new brand” following the 2016 election.

“I think we’ve proven that we’re bad communicators,” Ryan said. “Look where we are. Clearly we’re not good at it, and we gotta fix it.”

Among his suggestions are making more appearances on conservative radio and television shows. Ryan said by focusing on issues like laying broadband, a smart grid and green energy, Democrats can lay out an alternative for voters while maintaining a sustained message.

Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham said that with the election over, now is the time for Democrats to change their strategy.

“I worry that we are ineffective communicators,” Lujan Grisham said. “When you’re telling a joke, and people don’t laugh, it’s either a bad joke, or you didn’t tell it right.”

Part of the problem in 2016 is that Democrats didn’t know just how poorly their message was connecting with voters, particularly those in rural areas. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, the new head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that a “polling reboot” is in the works in which pollsters will have to defend their methods before the party agrees to work with them for 2018. Luján said they want to make it clear that unreliable pollsters will not be invited back.

“Across the country, we saw that there was a challenge with reaching rural voters,” Luján said. “We know rural voters should not be treated monolithically. It’s almost as [though] these [polling] models treated people that they were going to vote the same, behave the same and that they thought the same. I think that that was a big mistake, and so that’s something that has to fundamentally change.”

Alongside the DCCC’s self-analysis, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney led a separate review of what went wrong in 2016, known as the Democrats’ “autopsy,” which he presented to members alongside Luján at the retreat this week.

“What he did was, he went through and said, these are some of our assumptions that proved to be wrong,” Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer told BuzzFeed News.

Maloney pitched the autopsy as a way of assessing where the party needs to improve, ultimately pointing not to a deep flaw in the party’s mission, but in how Democrats sell it and try to get their message across.

“If we understand our challenges, we can keep winning in rural areas the way we have before, but we can also win in places we didn’t used to think we could,” Maloney said. “There’s nothing in the data that says we should sell our souls or change our values or stop believing in things like equality and civil rights and fairness, but we also need to explain to people how we’re going to grow this economy.”

Maloney’s office said that the final autopsy report will be finished in March.

Some members are calling for an even deeper change to speak to the base that has mobilized in marches, protests at congressional offices and clogged members’ phone lines since President Donald Trump took office. The problem isn’t just how the party sells its core mission to voters, they say, it’s about identifying what that mission actually is.

“It’s not about the messaging or communicating, it’s about having a vision that we’re going to stand for,” California Rep. Ro Khanna told BuzzFeed News. “I think it’s a lack of boldness, it’s a lack of inspiration, it’s a lack of clarity in exactly what is our economic priority.”

Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, is not the only progressive lawmaker who thinks there is more to the party’s problems than messaging.

“I think we’re in the process of repositioning the Democratic Party as the fighting progressive party for middle-class and working class America,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin. “Communications policy flows out of substantive policy decisions you make… I think that we have to be honest to recognize that we drifted from our roots in growing away from the working class, the multi-racial working class, including the white working class in states like Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin.”

The real test for Democrats would come when Republicans propose something that requires cooperation from the left. Pelosi has said that the party will be willing to work with Republicans where they can they find common ground, a suggestion that some members on the left have rejected. But while there are disagreements within the party of what direction to take, Democrats have so far managed to stay united. Trump has provided the party with plenty of opportunities to uniformly oppose him.

“So far we haven’t seen anything from the administration that would justify any kind of cooperation,” Pelosi said during the retreat, highlighting that Democrats should continue to provide a clear alternative to Republicans.

Meanwhile, the clock is already counting down to the next election, and Democrats know they need to reach out to the voters they have lost. Beyond appealing to the progressives who are actively protesting the Trump administration and keeping a watchful eye on Democrats, the party is well aware that it can’t lose focus on rural voters either.

“I think the next presidential nominee should be someone who’s gutted a deer or in some other way demonstrates to small-town America and rural America and hunters that they’re culturally attuned,” Sherman said. “And gutting a deer is one way to go.”

https://www.buzzfeed.com/lissandravilla/house-democrats-want-to-change-the-way-they-talk-t?utm_term=.rdxr6oG2o#.pm232yY0y

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ICE Captures 44 Criminals in Austin Texas

AUSTIN, Texas — Enforcement actions underway in Texas as part of the nationwide Operation Cross Check have landed 44 criminal aliens in federal detention this week.

Destroy your own country. There’s a new sheriff in town.

Following news about criminal aliens being arrested in Austin, Texas, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, Breitbart Texas reached out to the local ICE spokesperson to learn if the arrests were part of an ongoing operation. While the ICE spokesperson would not confirm or deny the operation, U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro confirmed the arrests underway in Austin and throughout South and Central Texas are part of Operation Crosscheck.

“I have been informed by ICE that the agency’s San Antonio field office has launched a targeted operation in South and Central Texas as part of Operation Cross Check,” Castro said in a written statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “I am asking ICE to clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous, violent threats to our communities, and not people who are here peacefully raising families and contributing to our state. I will continue to monitor this situation.”

ICE Spokesperson Adelina Pruneda would not release any details about the criminal aliens being arrested, or any possible operation in progress when contacted by Breitbart Texas.

She did confirm that one ICE officer was injured in Austin while attempting to take a criminal alien into custody. The alien’s family allegedly attempted to intervene in the arrest. The officer received minor injuries in the scuffle. He was transported to a local emergency clinic where he was treated and released.

The roundup of criminal aliens has sparked protests in the Capital City.

More than 2,000 criminal aliens were rounded up during Operation Crosscheck in 2015. 1,000 of the captured criminal aliens were targeted because they had felony convictions. Those range from voluntary manslaughter, child pornography, robbery, kidnapping and rape. Fifty-eight of those captured were known gang members, while eighty-nine were convicted sex offenders.

President Donald Trump stated, during his campaign for president, that he would prioritize the arrest and deportation of criminal aliens. However, ICE roundup operations of this nature are regularly scheduled during the first part of the year.

The Mexican consul general in San Antonio claimed that Operation Crosscheck is underway in six different states, the Austin American-Statesman reported. ICE agents have arrested 44 criminal aliens in the past two days.

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/02/11/ice-rounds-44-criminal-aliens-texas-capital/

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Trump Tells Putin Time to Abandon Obama’s Nuclear Arms Control Treaty

Report: Trump Denounces Nuclear Arms Control Treaty to Putin

Divvying up the world

President Donald Trump in his first phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced a treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads, according to a report.

Trump told Putin that the treaty, known as New START, was one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration, according to a report by Reuters.

Unnamed sources said that Trump did not know what the treaty was, and had paused to ask his aides in an aside what it was, according to the report. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on Thursday that Trump understood the topic, but had wanted an opinion from an aide.

“It wasn’t like he didn’t know what was being said. He wanted an opinion on something,” Spicer said.

The treaty requires Russia and the United States to lower the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 or less by 2018. It also limits deployed land- and submarine-based missiles, and nuclear-capable bombers.

In the phone call, Putin suggested extending New START, which is set to expire in 2021, the sources told Reuters.

Trump had criticized the treaty during a 2016 presidential debate, saying Russia had “outsmarted” the U.S. with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Critics view the agreement as one-sided, requiring deep cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal and abandoning missile defense in Europe.

Trump had also tweeted, as president-elect, “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

Supporters of the treaty argue that the end of the treaty could lead to a new arms race.

“New START has unquestionably made our country safer, an opinion widely shared by national security experts on both sides of the aisle,” Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (NH) said in a statement.

A mutual agreement can extend the treaty’s provisions for another five years.

The original agreement, known as START, was renewed in 2010 by then-President Obama, and went into effect in 2011, according to CNN.

It aims to cut the number of nuclear weapons that the U.S. and Russia could deploy by about one-third. It would limit a maximum of 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and bombers, and a total of 1,500 warheads.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/02/11/report-trump-putin-call/

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Old Perv Spooges in OJ During Burglary

Elderly Perv Cops Plea For Vile Juice Act

Ohioan, 72, gets 100 days behind bars

FEBRUARY 7–A 72-year-old landscaper is serving 100 days in jail after pleading guilty to entering the home of a female client and masturbating into a bottle of orange juice that he then returned to a shelf in the victim’s refrigerator.

Disgusting old perv needs to be pistol whooped

 

In a plea deal with Ohio prosecutors, Willis Gene Burdette copped to felony burglary and attempted felonious assault charges in connection with the repulsive incident last August.

In addition to the jail term, Burdette, seen above, was sentenced last month to three years probation and 200 hours of community service, and he was directed to complete a mental health assessment. Burdette is also barred from employment that would involve him gaining access to private homes.

According to police, Burdette’s victim paid him to perform yard work at her residence in Massillon, a city outside Canton. Before Burdette’s sentencing, the 61-year-old woman told the court that she was haunted by the “gross, disgusting act,” adding that she suspected that Burdette had similarly targeted other female clients.

The woman contacted police after her home security system recorded Burdette entering the residence one afternoon. Burdette, a criminal complaint noted, got into the home by “using a key located inside of her shed.” Once inside, the married septuagenarian “began to masturbate inside a small tool room near the garage.”

Burdette then “removed a bottle of orange juice from the refrigerator and cum inside the bottle of orange juice,” a Jackson Township Police Department detective reported. He then proceeded to “shake the bottle” before returning it to the refrigerator.

The tainted orange juice was not consumed by the homeowner.

Burdette was indicted for contaminating a substance for human consumption by knowingly mingling “a biological substance and/or harmful substance, to wit: semen, with a drink, when he knew or had reason to believe that the drink may be ingested or used by another person.” That count was plea bargained down to attempted assault, a lesser felony.

Burdette is locked up in the Stark County jail, where next month he will celebrate his 73rd birthday.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/revolting/elderly-perv-cops-to-vile-juice-act-638920

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Old Dude Shoots Bride in the Ass Because She Wouldn’t Screw Him

Man, 76, Shot Wife In Butt Over Lack of Sex

Cops: Perp angry over failure to consummate recent marriage

FEBRUARY 9–Angered that he had yet to consummate his six-month-old marriage, a 76-year-old Florida man allegedly shot his new bride in the buttocks, according to police who arrested the septuagenarian for felony domestic violence.

 

Donald Royce, pictured at right, was arrested Saturday night after firing a pair of shots at his 62-year-old spouse in the bedroom of the couple’s Lehigh Acres residence. He is being held in the Lee County jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Royce “explained that they have been married since August and together they have not consummated their marriage,” according to a probable cause statement prepared by a police detective. “Donald became violently angry tonight due to his requesting sex with his wife and her refusing.”

During questioning by cops, Royce said that he had been arguing with his wife about their sleeping arrangements when he decided to fire into the bed to scare her. But Royce said he missed the mattress, instead striking the victim in the hip and buttocks.

“Donald then stated he only wanted to shoot the mattress but was upset when he realized he had shot his wife,” an investigator noted. When sheriff’s deputies first arrived at his home, Royce declared, “I shot her and the gun is in my room.”

Royce’s wife was transported to Lee Memorial Hospital, where she was treated and later released. A judge has ordered Royce to have no contact with his spouse.

Royce and his wife–who had been together for six years–were wed in August 2016 at the county clerk’s office in Fort Myers.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/florida/pistolero-pensioner-194073

 

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Fat Ass Michael Moore Says US Shits on People More Than Any Other Country

Left-wing documentary filmmaker Michael Moore says the Trump administration’s efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare is proof that no nation on earth “sh*ts on its own” people the way the U.S. does.

Disgusting piece of shit Michael Moore

“Civilized countries that have universal healthcare – no country, no group of people, no tribe sh*ts on their own to the extent and the level that we do to each other; it’s the most embarrassing and humiliating thing about this great country,” Moore said on a conference call Thursday held by the Progressive Democrats of America.

“Humans anyplace else, what they don’t do is sh*t on their own,” Moore said. “They need their own for their own defense. They need their own for their own survival – they need their own. They need to protect their children, not say to the child, ‘sorry, no, we got rid of Obamacare. We won’t help you. You’re sick? Tough.’”

Moore predicted that Trump would work with Congress to “retain as much or most, even all” of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2010 and commonly called Obamacare, because at the end of the day Trump “likes being popular.”

“[Trump is] trying to find a way to have his cake and eat it too, basically. He likes being popular. He likes his ratings. He does not want to be seen – and he said this during the campaign – as the guy who is throwing 20 million people out on the curb. He said that because he wouldn’t be very popular then,” Moore explained.

“He will look for a way to retain as much or most, even all, and I think he’s learned that the worst thing about Obamacare to his supporters is the fact that it’s called Obamacare,” Moore continued. “And I think he’s just going to change the name, you know, the man is all about branding.”

On Wednesday, conservative lawmakers called on Trump to work with Republican leaders in Congress to completely repeal the health care law.

But Moore says Trump will likely keep much of Obamacare intact, and move merely to change the law’s name and make adjustments.

The Oscar-winner went on to praise the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for its 3-0 ruling upholding a lower court’s order halting President Trump’s temporary travel-restriction executive order.

“The more we can discombobulate him, the better,” Moore said of the ruling.

Moore also told Progressive Democrats of America members that the liberal left is “doomed” if Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) doesn’t win his race to become the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2017/02/10/michael-moore-u-s-government-shits-people-country/