The RPG Duelling League
Social Forums => Discussion => Topic started by: metroid composite on February 13, 2016, 09:46:39 AM
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So...a few things recently I found interesting.
First, the DNC chair on democratic superdelegates who don't represent any voters said this:
Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists. (http://truthinmedia.com/dnc-chair-superdelegates-protect-party-leaders-from-grassroots-competition/)
Um >_>
Meanwhile, this has been going on for months, but only really surfaced now--I was under the impression that Obama really hadn't done much on campaign finance reform...but it turns out that's not true; he did stop the Democrats from having a PAC for the democrat party:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dnc-allowing-donations-from-federal-lobbyists-and-pacs/2016/02/12/22b1c38c-d196-11e5-88cd-753e80cd29ad_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_dnc-1100am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Aaaand the DNC is already breaking Obama's reform before he even leaves office.
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There are a few reasons it works this way.
Before 1968 for the Democratic Party, not every state had a primary election, and other states' delegates were determined solely by party leaders in those states. This went catastrophically wrong in the 1968 convention, a clusterfuck that went so bad in so many ways the DNC is still barred from having the convention in Chicago. When the Dems reformed their nomination system after the 1968 Convention (and again to fine tune things), party leaders still wanted, ostensibly, a check on preventing demagogues and party radicals/outcasts (Think Trump and Cruz) from having a lock on the nomination based solely on populist appeal. A cynic would say they usually just end up as a tool of the establishment because A) this is why the '68 Convention ended up being so bad, and B) as you noticed, it can be used against genuine grass-roots candidates of good intentions as well, but B is fairly rare (and if you consider Bernie Sanders truly grassroots, I have a bridge I could sell you). On average, superdelegates do align with the primary winners, and even when they don't, candidates have prevailed over Superdelegate blocks as well. A candidate winning solely on superdelegates...
In all honesty, it's as much so party leaders can still feel like they're wearing big boy pants too, I'll grant. But politics~
The Republicans have them too, but they have much stricter rules on who they can cast their vote for in general (In both parties, the rules vary from state to state).
In theory I'm for them. Checks and balances and all. I'm sure the Republicans would love to have this sort of check on Trump and Cruz. But as with anything, they can be misused, to embarrassing effect. Can't throw the baby out with the bathwater though...
I've never been the biggest Hillary fan, but the Hillary/Bernie fight is starting to scare me. I'm leaning Bernie atm, but supporters are going at each other like it's a Republican primary, buying into Bernie's candidacy like it was American Idol and not a reasoned political discourse. We can't let that happen. If Sanders ends up losing, I have a real fear supporters would end up staying home on Election Day. Sort of unfounded, I grant, but I'm a worrier.
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Both parties are facing large populist rebellions at the moment. For the dems, if the youth vote sits at home on election day because of discontent with Hillary, that would hurt badly. That said both parties should be sweating about it. Ted Cruz is not electable, and yet he's doing the best by far of the non Trump nominees. It's possible Kaisch could sneak in and get the nomination, but he's underfunded and not well liked by the base. What a mess.
I'm voting for Gary Johnson myself unless Trump wins the nomination.
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I think if Sanders wins the Democratic nod then he'll win the election too. Republicans will tolerate an old white man on the Dem side over the jokes they have running. But if Hillary wins, it's going to be a real tossup.
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Both parties are facing large populist rebellions at the moment.
Yeah, the anti-establishment movement is quite interesting to me. At first I dismissed them as idiots...hearing about independents in New Hampshire who were interested in either Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders...but then I actually read something written by someone who jumped from being a Trump supporter to a Sanders supporter, and it weirdly made some sense.
Basically, on the R side, Trump is the only one not controlled by a Super PAC. He doesn't answer to the Koch brothers. He's spoken out against Citizens United. He openly mocks people for receiving money from the Koch brothers.
So this kind of independent just believes that politicians are horrible corrupt people, at which point Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both seem like ways of breaking the system.
Of course, Donald Trump is essentially a Neo-Nazi (http://www.getlittlebird.com/blog/data-62-of-the-people-donald-trump-rted-this-week-follow-multiple-white-supremacist-accounts), and lots of people even on the republican side will always vote against him in a general election because of this. So...it's going to be hard for the republicans to really use that anti-establishment energy without hitting an anti-Nazi brick wall.
If Sanders ends up losing, I have a real fear supporters would end up staying home on Election Day. Sort of unfounded, I grant, but I'm a worrier.
Not unfounded, given that a lot of sanders support is coming from people not affiliated with a party. (In New Hampshire, Bernie/Hillary was like...50-50 among democrats, and 75-25 among independents).
On the flip side, Hillary will definitely change her tune a bit in a general election. Right now, it benefits her to not energize the base--low voter turnouts are good for her in the primary. It's best for her not to get people too interested right now. If it gets to the general election, though, the roles are going to be reversed, and she will want to energize the base.
I think she beats unelectable people (Trump/Cruz). Last poll I saw had her getting spanked by Rubio (but this was before Rubio did a complete faceplant in the debates).
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The problem with analyzing Sanders as a viable general election candidate is that the negative ad machinery of the Republican party has barely targeted Bernie, and I'd like to be able to go to the future and see polls if that is the case. Also, Bernie just won like the third whitest state in the union in a party that is dominated by high-turnout minorities. Once/if Bernie makes significant inroads in minority communities, then we can have a more serious debate about him actually winning the nomination.
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If Bernie can pull respectable numbers in South Carolina (not necessarily win, but above 45% say) then maybe he's got a shot, but I'm not seeing it.
In general my sense before results started coming in was that the mood of the country was pretty done with old white dudes, and expected a Rubio vs Clinton general election. That doesn't seem to be set in stone, although Rubio pulling off an unforced error or three played a role, but I definitely still get that sense from most people in the age group below us.
Really though there's not a good solution: Sanders says lots of things I like, yeah, but I don't think the country is there for any sort of progressive agenda and probably won't be for a good 10 years. If Elizabeth Warren or someone else ran on a really similar platform in 2024 I think they'd run away with it, but as is a candidate like Bernie would never get a damn thing past congress and everyone kinda knows it. As as noted Old White Dude IS a bit of a liability I think, even if my gut overrated how much of one. Same time, Clinton's just a politician through and through and while that's better than a neo nazi or a sociopath, another 4-8 years of Obama with slightly more hawkishness does make me a bit sad. Her sheer baggage also makes me leery of her in the general election although generally I don't think it'll come up because the Republicans are basically melting down as a coherent party right now.
Still it's been... an interesting thing to follow I'll admit. I just expect disappointment no matter the outcome.
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The problem with analyzing Sanders as a viable general election candidate is that the negative ad machinery of the Republican party has barely targeted Bernie, and I'd like to be able to go to the future and see polls if that is the case.
Watch Republicans destroy Bernie Sanders with this attack ad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XsWkwakVlA
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http://www.kvia.com/news/breaking-surpreme-court-justice-scalia-dies-during-hunting-trip-in-marfa/37981652
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Well, that certainly will be an interesting nomination process.
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Not unfounded, given that a lot of sanders support is coming from people not affiliated with a party. (In New Hampshire, Bernie/Hillary was like...50-50 among democrats, and 75-25 among independents).
Well, to be honest, most political science research suggests most Independents are in name only. Studies of the GSS (General Social Survey) and NES (National Election Survey) over the long term have mostly found that people who identify as Independent tend to vote only for one party or the other. IIRC it was something like 40-50% of I's almost always vote Democrat, and 15-20% of I's almost always vote Republican, leaving a fairly small amount of real Independents. I forget what the age distribution was, I'd have to dig through and find my notes from my Political Statistics and Research Design classes. These kinds of studies were done mostly to try to explain why there's been a surge in people identifying as Independents. Seems like it's mostly cause it's the cool thing to do, or anti-label.
Which is kind of funny when apolitical people choose it, because Independents end up on BOTH party's call/mailing lists, and are usually badgered more often than party members.
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I'm guessing the key to Independents is that they turn out to vote at a lower percentage. There are more Democrats than Republicans. If there are notably more Democratic leaning Independents, then the key to Democrats winning is getting an inspirational candidate. Both Hillary and Bernie can fit that, but only Bernie can fit it for policy reasons.
As basically everyone here can tell from my facebook page, I'm 100% behind Bernie Sanders this election. I feel that if he manages to get the Democratic nomination, he will have beaten a far tougher foe than anyone the the Republican side has to offer. As such, winning the primary will show his electability. I think Hillary would have a harder time. Hillary's base is the Democrats who always vote. Bernie's vote is progressives and Independents (which generally need to be given reason to vote). She's spent the last month pissing progressives off and the right HATES her so much. Her supporters like to say that she's been attacked for 20 years and still standing, except her favorable numbers are pretty bad. Hillary Clinton will throw as much mud as Republicans, so facing her in the primary is a good way to get a taste of what Republicans will try (except that Hillary can attack from so many other angles than Republicans can). In the last month, Hillary's camp has tried:
--Sanders will take away your healthcare (Hillary herself, Chelsea herself, then Hillary again)
--Red-Baiting (Claire McCaskill, who effectively wrote Republican advertising. The RNCC used exactly what McCaskill said two weeks later)
-->As an aside, red-baiting would work a lot better if 1. Sanders was a Communist 2. The Republicans hadn't spent the last 8 years screaming about how Obama was a Socialist
--Sanders is racist (David Brock, who is worth discussing because yes, Hillary works with the man that smeared Anita Hill)
--Sanders has a gender issue (Madeleine Albright, Gloria Steinem)
--Whatever they can throw at the wall (Whenever Bill Clinton speaks. He's tried sexism, racism and a few other baffling things)
All of these have backfired badly, and have definitely helped Sanders more than anything else. Hillary's real strength is that she has more consolidated power and money than any other candidate on both sides of race. Considering how many institutional advantages she has, it is amazing that Sanders has as much chance as he does. If you asked me 6 months ago, I was for Sanders but thought he maybe had a 10-15% chance of winning the nomination. I would put that around 30-35% now.
I could write a litany on why Bernie over Hillary (I'll vote for her in the general though, barring her winning due to super delegates), but it basically boils down to this:
--She's shown no real commitment to fighting climate change, which is my number 1 issue. She spent her time as SOS pushing fracking onto countries that didn't want it and takes lots of money from the energy industry.
--She's devoted to a foreign policy strategy that has been failing the US for the last 60 years (since Iran in 1953). You would think that Iraq was a lesson, but it didn't stop Clinton from massive mistakes in Libya...Syria...Honduras...Colombia...Bulgaria.
--I believe that she's actually fully supportive of the TPP.
--I believe that she cares no more than Obama did to actually do something about Wall Street.
--She's either a horrible manager or completely incapable of learning (foreign policy implies the second). Internal emails showed that her campaign in 2008 was an absolute disaster. In 2008, she dipped into racism, sexism and bad overt attacks (If you don't know, Obama's camp believes that the birth certificate stuff started with Clinton). They all failed and basically guaranteed near the end that she wasn't going to win. Eight year later...she is trying literally the same exact tactics. As I noted above, she tried to make it seem like Bernie was going to take away healthcare and it backfired. Right after that, Chelsea tried the same thing and it backfired even worse. And yet...she just tried it again this week.
Any area where she has strengths, Bernie generally does too. I'm definitely not worried about "White Old Man" fatigue syndrome because Bernie will be filling a pretty major first as well: he'll be the first Jewish President. There's been a lot of indication that Bernie has gained a lot of support among Hispanics and Asians. I think he will keep Nevada competitive. He's now polling around 39% in aggregate averaged polls in SC, so 45% isn't too far off. Two months ago he was trailing Clinton by 40 in SC, now he's averaging 20.
On the R side, the only one that scares me at all is Kasich, and that's only because he knows how to hide how dangerous his plans are (He's Scott Walker who able to be nearly as toxic without drawing the heavy fire). The flip side is that Kasich is the one that will inspire the base the least.
A lot of Sanders policies aren't that far out because a lot of them are returning to what we had. I would note CK, that his policies tend to be very popular individually (as are most Democrat's policies). The problem Democrats has is packaging together cohesive strategies. If Democrats run to the right, they lose (Republicans beat fake-Republicans).
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I'm guessing the key to Independents is that they turn out to vote at a lower percentage. There are more Democrats than Republicans.
This is a very, VERY dangerous line of thought to have. If there are more Democrats than Republicans, why do the Republicans keep stomping us at the state level? Yes, polarization, gerrymandering natural & unnatural, lower voting rates in off-year election, etc. You can make plenty of excuses, but I'd honestly be more inclined to think that things are a lot more equal than you'd expect - which gets even worse when many constituencies that once were split now favor Republicans (e.g. reliably voting middle class old people, which used to be a Dem-leaning constituency). Heck, even in Dem "safe" states like Massachusetts, there was a Republican governor elected in 2014. Sure, over an unusually horrible Dem candidate, but it can happen.
I do agree that regardless of the split between Dems & Republicans, rallying the base is one key to victory. I am less sure that Bernie is the man to do this, though. I'd have to hold my nose to vote for him in the same way that many hard-left types have to grudgingly vote for more centrist candidates. Or, to put things another way, pretend that Cruz is the Republican nom. Do you see the entire Republican party getting super-fired up and happily rallying around him? No? If not, you can safely assume there are Dems like me who'd vote for Sanders but not particularly happily, same as the I-guess-Cruz Republicans who wouldn't be super-enthusiastic for that kind of nom.
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I've always figured the rough lines were actually 50% more-or-less republican, 40% more-or-less democrat, 10% genuine swing voters (people who figure that the White House and Capitol should always be under different parties, that the parties should alternate power, etc etc) or non-major party supporters, with about 5% of the 'party' voters being folks that usually vote that way but might go out of party for a candidate they strongly agree with here and there. The major caveat here being only ~30% of Americans vote, and the larger percentage of the folks that are generally republicans politically also have no fucks to give outside their immediate lives and thus make up much more of that 70% that don't vote.
Dhyer: not sure what you mean, unless it's a facebook comment I kinda remember making but not to who.
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I'm guessing the key to Independents is that they turn out to vote at a lower percentage. There are more Democrats than Republicans.
This is a very, VERY dangerous line of thought to have. If there are more Democrats than Republicans, why do the Republicans keep stomping us at the state level? Yes, polarization, gerrymandering natural & unnatural, lower voting rates in off-year election, etc. You can make plenty of excuses, but I'd honestly be more inclined to think that things are a lot more equal than you'd expect - which gets even worse when many constituencies that once were split now favor Republicans (e.g. reliably voting middle class old people, which used to be a Dem-leaning constituency). Heck, even in Dem "safe" states like Massachusetts, there was a Republican governor elected in 2014. Sure, over an unusually horrible Dem candidate, but it can happen.
I do agree that regardless of the split between Dems & Republicans, rallying the base is one key to victory. I am less sure that Bernie is the man to do this, though. I'd have to hold my nose to vote for him in the same way that many hard-left types have to grudgingly vote for more centrist candidates. Or, to put things another way, pretend that Cruz is the Republican nom. Do you see the entire Republican party getting super-fired up and happily rallying around him? No? If not, you can safely assume there are Dems like me who'd vote for Sanders but not particularly happily, same as the I-guess-Cruz Republicans who wouldn't be super-enthusiastic for that kind of nom.
There are more Democrats than Republicans (although I believe both are at an all time low). Google's stock answer: 39% Independent, 32% Democrat, 23% Republican. Now, if more Independents are in fact Democrat leaning, then turn out the base+inspire I's is a really potent combination on a state or nationwide level.
The enthusiasm gap between Bernie and Hillary is pretty large in one major metric (number of people donating money) and most anecdotal points seem to agree with this. There's no way that Hillary will have more crossover appeal than Bernie. Use NH as an example: The 50/50 Dem split and 75/25 Indie split was correct. I think that a much higher percentage of Hillary's 50% of Democrats would vote for Bernie than Bernie's 75% of Independents.
CK, I meant the part where you were talking about the country not being ready for the progressive agenda. While Democrats suffered a bloodbath in 2014, there were 4 states that passed minimum wage increases: South Dakota, Alaska, Arkansas and Nebraska. Four of the reddest states passed a key part of progressive agenda. $15 an hour is polling around 63%, Marijuana legalization is at 58%, and even criminal justice reform is supported by the Koch's. As I noted, Democrats issue is that they don't trend left enough and thereby appear Republican lite. Multiple election cycles went through in Kentucky and none of the major Democrats there could even say that Kynect (72% approval rating in Kentucky) and Obamacare were the same thing. They lost by running to the right. Science supports that liberals respond more to hope and conservatives respond more to fear and yet most Democrats never put out a platform that can really inspire much hope beyond the same social issues that we've been teasing along for decades (or centuries).
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Ah. Well, there's two main things.
1) The modern republican party isn't really conservatives, they're fucking crazy people. At some point they stopped resembling a political party and started resembling an MRA rally. While that doesn't represent the bulk of the base (orgodihopenotanyway), it does have the loudest voice in the party platform, and is the main reason I think we're seeing the utter meltdown Trump is causing over there.
which causes...
2) The bulk of the modern democratic party is not liberals, they're people who looked at the republicans and went "oh god". While the overall tenor of the nation is drifting in a more progressive direction, the majority of the actual voting base for the party is these folks, and they're not there yet on someone as up-front progressive as Bernie. So while there's some cause to fear that Clinton coming out on top would keep part of the base home, I suspect the same would be true for Sanders. And that's setting aside that an actual progressive on the other side could be a tool to actually mobilize the conservative base, although that's much, much harder to predict.
I do think it's telling that a candidate like Sanders is putting up an actual showing this primary. I think that is going to be a dominant force in politics in the foreseeable future. I just don't think it's going to happen right now, this minute.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/16/us/politics/left-leaning-economists-question-cost-of-bernie-sanderss-plans.html?smid=tw-share Paul Krugman isn't exactly Thomas Sowell. I've been seeing comments critical of Sanders plans from the left leaning economists I follow (Justin Wolfers in particular)
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Sanders' plans may not be economically feasible - in fact I'd guarantee they aren't - but I don't know that we need to make too much of that. They're aspirational, and because they're outside the American mainstream they haven't been honed and vetted. But all budget plans are like that, and the Republican pie-in-the-sky plans, universally giving the rich a tax break in order to supercharge the economy are equally fanciful, if not worse.
My issues with Sanders' plans is that a number of the taxes he targets require a scalpel rather than a meat cleaver (estate taxes in particular are legitimately delicate) but he wants meat cleaver numbers out of them.
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As someone who largely doesn't care which one wins (I'm rooting for the best person for the general election), I am a little alarmed by Bernie's tentative relationship with reality at times. He had a Twitter post in December about the outrage of it being like 65 in D.C. and how that was proof of climate change. There is a pretty large array of evidence proving that climate change exists, but any particular temperature anomaly really doesn't. These comments can be damaging because they cast doubt onto the hard science.
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Sometimes it feels like dishonesty to get the point across to the uneducated public is a necessary evil.
Republicans always seem to be able to pull the "It's cold outside climate change isn't happening" card and it is incredibly frustrating that this honestly works on a lot of people. Maybe fighting dirty is a required counter-strategy. Not sure what you'd do to counter SNOWBALLS IN THE SENATE though.
As far as Bernie vs. Hillary goes,
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/5/10923304/bernie-sanders-general-election
I want a democrat to win the presidency. Neither will get major policy victories through congress, so I'd prefer the candidate have no illusions about how the process will go (grinding battle with Republicans, using every available political instrument). Most of the reporting I have read indicates that Hillary Clinton will stand a much better chance in the general election than Bernie Sanders.
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Not unfounded, given that a lot of sanders support is coming from people not affiliated with a party. (In New Hampshire, Bernie/Hillary was like...50-50 among democrats, and 75-25 among independents).
Well, to be honest, most political science research suggests most Independents are in name only. Studies of the GSS (General Social Survey) and NES (National Election Survey) over the long term have mostly found that people who identify as Independent tend to vote only for one party or the other.
I'm interested to learn more about the nuances about "Independent in name only." I identify as an Independent, but voting laws refuse my ability to vote in the very important closed primaries as such. I'm required to vote either Democrat or Republican. You have to give up your status otherwise, or parties extend unaffiliated invites to you. Many states in the South operate that way, but I'm sure the enforceability of "closed primaries" among states vary per knowledgeable staff/voters/local & state locations.
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I actually half-agree with CK on this, which feels weird, but sure. Basically the US is a somewhat conservative country, so if it feels like the Republicans are the right and the Democrats are the center and the left is empty, it's not because Big Corporations have bribed the Democratic Party officials to stray from their voters, it's that this is the way too many voters actually feel. Bernie's candidacy is firing up the hard-left which is in many ways a good thing for America (move the Overton Window back a bit left, in the same way that the hardcore conservatives have been moving it right for the past decade), but I wouldn't overestimate the amount of Bernie-supporters in a general.
As I noted, Democrats issue is that they don't trend left enough and thereby appear Republican lite. Multiple election cycles went through in Kentucky and none of the major Democrats there could even say that Kynect (72% approval rating in Kentucky) and Obamacare were the same thing. They lost by running to the right.
Not sure if you meant in Kentucky specifically or in general, but I'm going to talk about Kentucky. If there were a horde of secret hard-left Kentuckians who would have rallied behind a True Leftist and felt that Conway was too centrist, where the heck have they been?! When have they ever showed up? You'd think that there'd at least be, you know, Green Party mayors in Kentucky's big cities or something. Or maybe an activist movement. As is, if they exist, they've left Kentucky with a disaster (from a liberal perspective) in Bevin, possibly a Kentucky version of Rick Snyder. If Kentucky was winnable this whole time for proper leftists but they just weren't inspired properly by hope to vote than I'm really annoyed at them.
Alternatively, the easier explanation is that Kentucky *really is* deeply conservative territory, and the Dems had to choose their method of execution: insincerely run to the right and be rightly suspected as not really being conservative, or run loud & proud liberal and lose a fair fight. It's tough, but the answer is probably "a mix of both" and hope for long-term changes in the Dem's favor. In other words, they lost because they were basically fated to lose short of a really horrific Republican nominee for governor, since it reflects the authentic slant of the Kentucky electorate. Yes, it's incredibly frustrating that this means yes, people who liked Kynect ALSO voted Republican, bizarre as it sounds, but voters aren't consistent, and those who are may have priorities that don't reflect others. Alas.
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I'm interested to learn more about the nuances about "Independent in name only." I identify as an Independent, but voting laws refuse my ability to vote in the very important closed primaries as such. I'm required to vote either Democrat or Republican. You have to give up your status otherwise, or parties extend unaffiliated invites to you. Many states in the South operate that way, but I'm sure the enforceability of "closed primaries" among states vary per knowledgeable staff/voters/local & state locations.
With the usual caveat of someone outside the US system looking in and not being super familiar, my understanding it is that is simply people that in the two party system will always vote one way, but for whatever reasons won't participate directly in the party system.
If you broaden out of such a rigid 2 party system I expect to see a greater shift in that kind of Independent becoming swing voters and also (with 0 supporting statistics) the dialogue around them to change. Down here you don't really have that idea, just Labour Voters. Your base that consistently votes for the party but don't actively participate. My expectation (again with no stats) is that down here we have less active participation in party activities with much higher (due to legal requirements) voting rates and as such the discourse and patterns are different.
Again case in point more locally is voting trends in Canada where three parties with clout really shakes up voter behaviours.
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Right, so I'm understanding that. I suppose my point, or where I'm directing questioning, is that "Independent in name only" erases the role that law plays in circumscribing "Independent in practice." I just googled Georgia and saw that their 2016 primary is open, but they most certainly have not always been that way. 13 states consistently have closed primaries; when people want to have a 1-person vote count locally, they're barred from it if they are Independent. Or, they vote democrat or republican for candidate nominations.
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Ahhhh you want much finer discussion thab I can have then (that outsider thing) since that is going to be a very state by state part by party thing. It's an interesting point as well.
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Not sure if you meant in Kentucky specifically or in general, but I'm going to talk about Kentucky. If there were a horde of secret hard-left Kentuckians who would have rallied behind a True Leftist and felt that Conway was too centrist, where the heck have they been?! When have they ever showed up? You'd think that there'd at least be, you know, Green Party mayors in Kentucky's big cities or something. Or maybe an activist movement. As is, if they exist, they've left Kentucky with a disaster (from a liberal perspective) in Bevin, possibly a Kentucky version of Rick Snyder. If Kentucky was winnable this whole time for proper leftists but they just weren't inspired properly by hope to vote than I'm really annoyed at them.
Alternatively, the easier explanation is that Kentucky *really is* deeply conservative territory, and the Dems had to choose their method of execution: insincerely run to the right and be rightly suspected as not really being conservative, or run loud & proud liberal and lose a fair fight. It's tough, but the answer is probably "a mix of both" and hope for long-term changes in the Dem's favor. In other words, they lost because they were basically fated to lose short of a really horrific Republican nominee for governor, since it reflects the authentic slant of the Kentucky electorate. Yes, it's incredibly frustrating that this means yes, people who liked Kynect ALSO voted Republican, bizarre as it sounds, but voters aren't consistent, and those who are may have priorities that don't reflect others. Alas.
While Kentucky goes red nationally, 2 of the last 3 Governors before this year were Democrats, so it's definitely not just Kentucky running to the right. I'm not sure what to expect in this particular instance with Kentucky, but it seems like a lot of Democrats or Democrats leaners just sat out completely. The turn out was 31%, and low turnout heavily favors Republicans. What we do know is that running to the right doesn't work for Democrats very well. Some may have been voting against their best interest, but I believe a lot of them didn't even know that ACA and Kynect were the same thing (because Democrats didn't just say it). Just running on that one leftward aspect could have made a dent.
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Right, so I'm understanding that. I suppose my point, or where I'm directing questioning, is that "Independent in name only" erases the role that law plays in circumscribing "Independent in practice." I just googled Georgia and saw that their 2016 primary is open, but they most certainly have not always been that way. 13 states consistently have closed primaries; when people want to have a 1-person vote count locally, they're barred from it if they are Independent. Or, they vote democrat or republican for candidate nominations.
I can confirm in Georgia I had to register with a party to vote in primaries. It was frustrating to me at the time. Not sure if it's totally open now, but it is here in south Carolina.
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Consider the following: In 2014 in Mississippi, Thad Cochran, incumbent Republican senator, explicitly encourages black Democrats to vote for him in his primary in order to fend off a tea party challenger. It works, and Cochran easily wins reelection. (http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/it-looks-like-african-americans-really-did-help-thad-cochran-win/) Now consider this: black Democratic voters in Georgia would like to elect some black politicians, and white voters who have no intention of voting for Democrats in the general election vote in the Democratic primary in order to keep black politicians off the ballot.
Are these the outcomes that we want? That are the most small-"D" democratic?
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That example perfectly illustrates what I saw as the hole in the system at the time. I registered "Republican" just so my vote would actually make a difference in my county, even though I certainly didn't fit the mold of the party. My votes didn't represent my beliefs, but an attempt to play the system. And in the upcoming primary, the only reason I'm even voting is to try and stuff the votes against the candidates I don't want in office, so in a sense it's the same thing. This whole system seems woefully out of date in the digital age to me.
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Right. 2015 was the first year that I didn't vote in Georgia. There were some serious pending fund allocations in Austin that I wanted to share part in. I remember that, before then, the real power for nominating was closed off. Jim brings up an interesting problem of placing votes. I've also found that voting in primaries is also riddled with logistical issues that leave me with nothing but sympathy for elderly and those who cannot easily pen in voting on their calender. I remember being frustrated and justifiably offended that: I show up to the poll registered as a democrat with my registration card, GA driver's license that I did not need to forfeit, and my UT ID. According to the poll worker, they would not accept this form of ID. They would only take a passport (random info after a 45 minute wait in line). I surprised myself by remembering that I carried an inactive one, because it is the quintessential form of ID that US citizens can use everywhere and voted. For me to have so many papers on hand is unusual. I am less concerned about the pathology of voting, even though it is important to discuss. With a heavy heart, I am disturbed by the gutting and circumscribing of the ability to vote with comfort and ease. I wish I could see this dialogue maintain its momentum, since folk around me seem to understand voting as important only in electing the president.
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Well, lol, as it turns out, in south Carolina you aren't required to register in a party, but you are only allowed to vote in one primary.
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As far as Bernie vs. Hillary goes,
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/5/10923304/bernie-sanders-general-election
I want a democrat to win the presidency. Neither will get major policy victories through congress, so I'd prefer the candidate have no illusions about how the process will go (grinding battle with Republicans, using every available political instrument). Most of the reporting I have read indicates that Hillary Clinton will stand a much better chance in the general election than Bernie Sanders.
To be fair, that's not what the polling shows:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_presidential_race.html
The polling shows "who would you vote for in a general election"--Clinton loses to most of the Republicans, and Sanders beats most of the republicans. (Many of these same polls had Clinton leading Sanders in the primary race--so it's not like these polls were biased towards Sanders. Just that he seems to match up much better against most of the republican opponents).
We can speculate all day as to why he matches up better, but at the moment this is what the statistics show.
As for what these political scientists have to say about "people feel loss more intensely than gain"--I mean, sure, that's a psychological concept I'm familiar with in game design. But it also doesn't match up with most election results I've seen in the US. We've seen americans vote for ballot initiatives to take away abortion rights, make gay marriage illegal in places where it was legal, vote overwhelmingly for presidents who campaign for "change" (both Obama and George W Bush), deliberately vote out anyone they see as a "washington insider" (especially on the right with the tea party movement, but there's anti-establishment sentiment growing on the left too). Hell, Obamacare--I benefit from Obamacare, because the preexisting condition thing used to bite me. And we've had Obamacare for years now. The right wing seems to rally the base most by calling to repeal Obamacare. The left seems to have lukewarm approval of Obamacare, and is open to other ideas. The electorate right now doesn't seem to be in the mood of "Nah, don't change things. The status quo is fine."
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The fact that those polls suggest that Kasich would beat Clinton by 7% shows exactly how seriously you should take them. In general any claim that a further-from-centre candidate should be favoured in a general election is something you should regard with extreme skepticism. In this particular case, one explanation is that the Republican media really hasn't done any attacking of Sanders yet, to my knowledge, since they don't think he's going to be their opponent in the general election. If it starts to look like he will be, that'll change. (There may be a similar effect for Kasich.)
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In fairness, while Republicans haven't been attacking Bernie, Hillary's team has been going at him for the last 1.5 months pretty hard.
And there's a reason that polls consistently show Bernie outperforming Hillary against Republicans: Hillary's popularity is pretty bad overall and it seems like a she has a high percentage of voters that don't feel heavily inspired by her. I honestly think that she would have trouble against Trump since he can capitalize on all her weaknesses (self funding vs constant appearance of corruption, a Republican who can still manage to attack her from the LEFT on Iraq/Syria/Libya, insurgent candidate in a broken political system vs. "inevitable" dynasty candidate, unpredictable debater versus someone is a bit poor at speaking off the cuff). I fear that the people Hillary will motivate to vote will be the opposition (because I don't think she'll have a lot of luck with young or very progressive voters on the whole). She's already drifting to the right on issues as well (Oil extraction on public lands in the last 2 days for example).
I feel like Hillary could be a prime example for the old motto about Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (I really hope that I would be wrong, but there's so much ammo to use against her). I really, really, really hope that the FBI investigations are just witchhunts; I think the email one is, but there's definitely some blurred lines in the Clinton Foundation investigation that could turn into something real.
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Sorta a moot point now, Clinton would have to be arrested to not win the nomination at this point. But what the hell.
Been musing more on Sanders as a thing. To a certain extent, he's benefiting from general anti-establishment sentiment, and spent most of his time in the senate as a nominal Independent (basically, he isn't technically a democrat but he backs them up on major party votes and they include him for consideration on committee seats.) But he's less anti-establishment and more has a mild contrarian streak; he's very much a politician and has been in the game a long time, just not often in the national spotlight. Now that votes are in, we can say with confidence what some noticed from the start, that it comes down to demographics.
That is, the Democratic Party, if you wanted roughly-equal sized factions, could be broken down thusly:
1) White Conservatives- basically the more centrist holdouts from the pre-Nixon Democratic party OR refugee Republicans from the post-Reagan GOP. Center-Right-to-Center overall.
2) White Liberals- Center-left-to-left, the sort of folks who envy European style socialist states.
3) People of Color- Blacks in particular, but Asian and Hispanic democrats tend to vote more similarly to them than the other two (they also tend to be less overwhelmingly Democratic because... well, the GOP didn't abandon them to the wolves in the late '60s.) Run the full Center-right-to-left Democratic zone, but thanks to The Goddamned Patriarchy have a distinct set of priorities from the other two groups.
And in simplest terms Bernie overwhelmingly wins 2, gets some token votes from 1, and utterly whiffs in 3. This seems mostly to be a particular strength of Hillary Clinton's; her political image is very no-nonsense, let's-get-shit-done. She's someone who can plausibly get her hands dirty and knock sense into people, also the sort of image black community leaders project. That they also tend strongly to be women doesn't hurt.
But we're more interested in why Bernie does so well with the white liberals. And sure, he's a much better ideological fit there than Clinton, but the devotion and "REVOLUTION" aspect of it feel off, even allowing that hey, some of these are kids that weren't voting age in 2008 and want a movement too.
So my best guess is actually pretty straightforward-
He's the first candidate that our White Liberals group has had within our (that is, typical DLer age, ~30-35) political lives, and possibly lifetimes.
Bill Clinton's particular Democratic style has been the basic for the ideologies of every major candidate since (his VP Al Gore, Hillary Clinton who doubtless was right there formulating the brand, and Barack Obama draws no small portion of his personal ideology from that school, and has governed even more heavily in Clinton's style). Being all of 10 when Bill Clinton took office I couldn't even tell you what his primary competitors were like, or earlier folks like Dukakis, but even if they were quite liberal, that gives us a nearly 25 year run of fairly conservative Democrats, and that's before remembering both Clinton and Obama faced extremely hostile congresses which pushed their successful legislation even further right than where it started.
While the liberals remain part of the Democratic coalition, there hasn't been much to hang their hats on. Basically the only major success in the Obama presidency from the progressive perspective was Obergefell vs Hodges. None of the more liberal Democrats have been party leaders in that time, so the more progressive end of the party hasn't even had their voice in the conversation in a meaningful way in a very long time. So Bernie Sanders basically represents the first time in 20-odd years that voting for Democrats has been meaningful for anything besides "beat the other guys" and "try to fix the unholy mess Reagan made of the Supreme Court" (which yes, is important and is a good reason to not protest vote. But holy shit it's disheartening.) So yeah, it's not surprising that people are getting way too into it and are downright eager to take down Clinton just as much as [whoever the Republican is].
That said there is a lot of work to do now because that bracket now has a 90% chance of reading "Donald Trump". And no, I don't care how corrupt you think the Clintons are or how much wall street bribe money they take, DONALD IS BASICALLY A FASCIST TRUMP.
And let's face it liberals, this is the US, the numbers are in, liberals only make up about 15-20% of the population. It's depressing as hell to not even be in the conversation, but we were never going to get THAT much even if we were.
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Sorta a moot point now, Clinton would have to be arrested to not win the nomination at this point. But what the hell.
I'm worried about something coming down after she gets the nomination (I always wanted Sanders, but I always expected Hillary).
I would say that Bernie is getting traction with young voters not because of race, but because of message. Obama captured the same voting group for the most part, but didn't pass the legislation that would drive them to keep voting (Obama governed like a Clinton, but he definitely didn't run like one). I think most people our age tend to realize that our system is completely broken and don't have as much at stake in keeping a broken system alive; it has less to do with the candidate's race (or any other demographic in that sense). I also wouldn't just put it down to age because older uber-progressives love Bernie (just people tend to drift away from uber progressivism as they get older). I personally know several dozen older progressives (70-80 age range) who are on fire for Bernie Sanders. Granted, he's also helped with the youth because we don't really care about red-scares (and all the older progressives I know would probably call themselves socialists anyways).
I'm still voting for whoever the Democrat is in November, but liberals tend to vote on hope and conservatives tend to vote on fear. Hillary is running a fear-based campaign now and will likely ramp that up in the general as she moves right. She'll get some liberals out of obligation, but a lot will stay home after she's been telling us that we have to pre-negotiate on everything. I think that Bernie would get almost all of the Hillary voters, but I think Hillary will lose a decent chunk of Bernie voters.
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Oh, sure, Bernie is getting people on ideological grounds. But where he's failing in the black community isn't because they don't like his politics, but because of cultural differences. Working behind the scenes of a broken system to get shit done is a way of life in a marginalized community, and someone with Hillary's image projects being able to do just that.
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In fairness, while Republicans haven't been attacking Bernie, Hillary's team has been going at him for the last 1.5 months pretty hard.
No offense but if you think this is the case you are seriously naive as to what you think the GOP would throw at him during the general election. You need only to tune into the debates and look at the tone difference and messages being thrown around between the respective parties to see the difference.
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Oh, I'm well aware that the attacks would come in nastier varities, but the same will hold true for Hillary Clinton (and I believe Bernie would be more competent in attacking Trump than Hillary or the rest of the field would be). That said, Hillary during a debate is very different than Hillary out of debates. "A special place in hell," Gloria Steinem, false stories about Bernie supporters chanting "English Only", implications that Bernie will take away all the healthcare, red-baiting...etc. Hillary plays a little bit nicer during the debates, but there have been plenty of underhanded attacks coming from close Clinton surrogates and Clinton herself. The Republicans would just try and make up more outlandish things.
New headline on Wapo: "Justice Dept. grants immunity to staffer who set up Clinton email server." Fuck. I can't imagine that immunity offers are generally needed unless something is in the works. I really wish that global warning wasn't going to be hideous catastrophe; then I could care a lot less about who wins this.
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Sorta a moot point now, Clinton would have to be arrested to not win the nomination at this point. But what the hell.
Not exactly. Clinton won big on Super Tuesday, but she was expected to. (Mostly southern very conservative states--these are her stronghold in the primary). Bernie actually picked up more states than were expected by wider margins than expected. And now most of the upcoming states are locations where Bernie is expected to be strong (northern and swing states).
But where he's failing in the black community isn't because they don't like his politics, but because of cultural differences. Working behind the scenes of a broken system to get shit done is a way of life in a marginalized community, and someone with Hillary's image projects being able to do just that.
I mean...I'm not black, not even American, and really don't feel comfortable ascribing emotions to said group. What I've seen of Hillary's record on African American issues is kind-of mixed, though. Like...yeah, she has a fairly good rating from the NAACP for her voting record in the senate, but on the other hand I've also read....
http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/24/417112956/hillary-clintons-three-word-gaffe-all-lives-matter
Though...none of this really matters in the end--whether or not she should get the African American vote, she is getting the African American vote. And, sure, yeah, if it comes to a general election she's still obviously better than a dude who keeps a book of Adolf Hitler speeches by his bed. Yes, really. (http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-ex-wife-once-said-he-kept-a-book-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bed-2015-8)
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I was looking at this:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/south-carolinas-black-democrats-are-powerful-but-what-do-they-want/
And had a bit of a lightbulb. Backed up by this:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2016/03/you-asked-us-why-do-black-voters-support-hillary-clinton
Certainly I could be generalizing too much from just one or two articles but it makes a lot of sense to me.
The trouble Bernie has, and why he's toast, is the margins: Hillary is blowing him out in most of her victories, while he can claim the same only in Vermont and New Hampshire, which just aren't as large (and thus valuable) of states as, say, Texas or Georgia. The primaries aren't winner take all, they're proportionate, so his just edging her out in Colorado means he gets one extra delegate basically. Most of his future victories will be similar because the states most friendly to him have already voted. Even the most pro-Sanders delegate count right now has Clinton up roughly 600 to 400, and Sanders doesn't have any areas where he can run up the score and catch up now.
He's certainly not mathematically eliminated, but in practice it's over.
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Oh, sure, Bernie is getting people on ideological grounds. But where he's failing in the black community isn't because they don't like his politics, but because of cultural differences. Working behind the scenes of a broken system to get shit done is a way of life in a marginalized community, and someone with Hillary's image projects being able to do just that.
I don't believe that. In general, they don't know him and are familiar with the Clinton brand. What he DID do in the South, no one recognized him.
I voted for Bernie in Austin out of ideals and against the principle of oligarchies. I will suck it up and vote for Hillary only if she is against Trump.
edit* also wary of monolithic group vote stats, yes half or a little under Blacks live in the South, but they have their own generational, educational and religious differences as the others in urban centers across the US
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On the topic of Bernie Sanders's lack of popularity with Black voters compared to HRC:
https://np.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/48kyzj/why_are_black_americans_voting_for_hillary/d0kv5pf?context=3
Warning: Reddit, so don't bother reading anything but the linked post. I found this to be a fairly enlightening perspective, though obviously I can't speak to the veracity of it personally.
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sigh
edit- respond later to that response still using black as a monolithic slave descended african american group, when the majority of the us black population increase comes from black diaspora immigration; and re no answer will suffice regardless of one's presumed ability to speak on behalf of a racial group or not; re going out on a ledge but black liberation as a baptist and methodist ideology is not conservative readings of the bible at all re fuck it said enough, i get crazy annoyed with the stupid binary world we keep carrying in discourses. dunie tapping out.
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Apologies. I can't find any numbers now because of course I can't, I wanted to, but there it's easy to look at some of Hillary's numbers in the Super Tuesday's primaries along demographics and speak as though it represents all of a demographic rather than a majority for simplicity. All the non-southern states that have voted have also been overwhelmingly white so we won't know how more urban black vote until... I think Michigan, this Tuesday.
Binary... is sorta a byproduct of how americans organized their political system. Actually though I've been pondering that. I'll give that another post though.
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Honestly, the reports I was hearing about the southern states was mostly extreme apathy from the voters, mostly very low voter turnout. There have been reports that a lot of voters don't know who Bernie Sanders is, or if they do, they might have only heard about him through Cable television (which has been very negative towards him) as opposed to the internet (which tends to report positively about him). Also worth noting that southern states have the lowest percentage of the population with internet access.
Yet more reasons why I don't like asserting motivations for an entire racial group based on non-policy factors.
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That also seems to imply basically "the only reason anyone could vote Clinton over Sanders is not knowing his platform" which I find suspect as well. I'm more looking at "Clinton does particularly well in some demographics, which of her advantages might be influencing that." I just don't think name recognition is the sole advantage.
(Mind I also find Clinton a very poorcandidate as well so I'm approaching the question as an outsider.)
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I think you can call internet users a demographic...
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I think you can call internet users a demographic...
I mean, yeah, you could, but it would be the largest demographic in the United States.
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Honestly, the reports I was hearing about the southern states was mostly extreme apathy from the voters, mostly very low voter turnout. There have been reports that a lot of voters don't know who Bernie Sanders is, or if they do, they might have only heard about him through Cable television (which has been very negative towards him) as opposed to the internet (which tends to report positively about him). Also worth noting that southern states have the lowest percentage of the population with internet access.
Yet more reasons why I don't like asserting motivations for an entire racial group based on non-policy factors.
This is numerically accurate. All the states that Hillary did really well in had really bad voter turn out compared to past primaries (Texas and South Carolina saw under half the primary voters that they did in 2008. Alabama had the best comparative turnout of the group because it was only down 26%). States that are somewhat even or states where Sanders did really well range from down a little to up a little (Maine was probably a historic turnout, but caucus make it hard to tell). That said, primary turnout doesn't necessarily have implications on general as an aggregate, but the pattern so far could be worrisome come the general.
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I think you can call internet users a demographic...
Problem with "The Internet" is that, despite being very loud and excitable, The Internet historically does not vote. Either at polling places or with their wallets. See the campaigns of Ron Paul, Snakes on a Plane movie, etc. etc.
You can look at the "All" category of Reddit right now and you will see dozens of topics about Bernie Sanders, maybe a few about Trump, nothing about the other candidates. But does that mean anything? Probably not.
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I think over time, as generations for whom the internet is either normalized or for whom the internet is simply an additional brainspace for their day to day lives come of age, that will change. And overall I think the Sanders campaign succeeding as much as it has is due in part to that generation gap having a meaningful fraction of the voting populace. As I said earlier in the topic, I think come 2024 a candidate running on a leftie platform like Sanders would stand a serious chance of winning.
So in a pollster-shattering outcome, Sanders in fact won today in Michigan. Double plus points to Dunie for being dead on in a decisive way too: while Clinton crushed Sanders among black voters, it was around a 70-30 split. Super Tuesday's southern primaries meanwhile had the SMALLEST margin as a 85-15 split among black voters, and in one state he managed just 6 percent among black voters. There are indeed pretty decisive differences here, and states like Illinois or Ohio will probably reflect these numbers more than their southern counterparts.
Of course the Democrats also polled today in Mississippi and Clinton crushed him like 85-15 or some shit. I think despite Michigan being worth a lot more delegates Clinton actually won more today overall, although Mississippi is basically the last southern state to vote so it's not implausible Sanders could close the gap some. On the other hand he's so far behind with just under half of states having voted that, as opined last week, it's more or less a moot point.
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So as promised, ponderings.
So pollsters and other such folks tend to regard the Democrats as a coalition of three broad demographic groups. Republicans meanwhile tend to be organized into four broad ideological camps.
1) 'Establishment Republicans'- Sorry, I don't have a pithy phrase for this one. Center-Right. Generally take the middle road of the three below and temper them into something fit for human consumption. Ish.
2) Libertarians- Don't strictly fall on the usual left-right spectrum, but tend to vote Right to Center-Right. Mostly in favor of small government and deregulation in broad strokes. Libertarians have their own party, technically, but as a matter of pragmatism most actually just vote Republican, trading off supporting the odd right-wing social issue (in strictest terms an actual Libertarian has no business supporting, say, abortion bans, in practice the odd member of the Libertarian party that hits congress will and the ones that just vote republican do so as well) for support of more traditional Republicans backing their more radical deregulation schemes.
3) Evangelicals- Hard-Right to Right. People that use the bible as a textbook. Broadly generate most Republican stances on social issues, or rather most party lines on the matter are designed to placate them since a quarter of the coalition feels uncomfortable (though not militant) with liberal stances on those matters and another quarter are here tactically ANYWAY.
4) Tea Partiers- Here-there-be-dragons to hard-right. These are your terrifying racists, MRAs, and other people one hissy fit away from bunkering down in a trailer with enough small arms to be their own police force.
The ongoing Republican race is utterly fascinating in a slightly terrifying way. All the remaining candidates are basically bad (as they have to be, when you have Tea Partiers to court sane people jump ship) so nobody wants to knuckle down and consolidate the field. Unlike the Democrats, we can't just poll people to find out how old they are and their melanin tone, so there's not really math. But my best guess?
Trump is sweeping through group 4, with a sliver of groups 3 and 2 (the latter, I strongly suspect, are there because they want Trump to demonstrate the system is broken and leave them better able to sweep away the government afterwards).
Cruz is picking up the lion's share of group 3 and most of the rest of group 2.
Leaving Rubio and Kaish to fight over group 1 and stragglers from the others that think Cruz is too punchable.
And nobody seems to want to back down. Probably because Cruz's sheer punchability is so high. Also because he's a sociopath's sociopath, lacking not only the capacity for empathy but a willingness to DISGUISE his abject contempt for the rest of humanity.
But he's still better than Donald "Is Running Straight From the Nazi Playbook" Trump.
So at this point everyone seems to seriously be angling for a contested convention. There's an outside chance Rubio and Kaish drop and Cruz beats Trump head to head, and an even more outside chance Trump takes a clear majority due to snagging juuuust enough winner-take-all states, but it's looking doubtful.
So the thing is, the Republican coalition probably doesn't survive a contested convention.
There's a very, very real possibility that if Trump is blocked due to party shenanigans, he just runs on his own and takes about a third of the base with him. Even if he doesn't, the crazy runs deep and I think they bugger off on their own regardless.
Now, if Trump somehow wrangles the nomination out of that scenario (or wins outright), I also don't think the Republican party survives THAT. Donald 'Godwin's Law Personified' Trump is a death blow to the remaining shreds of credibility the party has among its more moderate members or the handful of genuine swing/undecided voters out there.
Trump accounts for about 35% of the Republican base, and while i don't think they'd all leave if shenanigans happen, the bulk do. Call it 25%. Now, that amounts to about 10-15% of the total voting base, but that basically puts the Republicans in a place where they can only pull about 35-45% in a general election.
Exceeeeeept.
No small amount of the Democratic base is basically people who saw the Southern Strategy, or Reagan, or more recently the Tea Party and went "Nope." With many of those elements buggering off, do they go back?
And realistically? the only thing that brought the modern Democratic coalition together at all was pure "fuck those guys". There's a pretty huge ideological range there.
Now, this sort of thing doesn't just resolve itself overnight, so there'd be an election cycle or possibly two of basically inertia causing sweeping Democratic victories.
After that... well, if the center-right splinter of the Republican party woos the more centrist part of the Democratic, you end up with something resembling basic parlimentary distribution: a right-winger group, a centrist coalition, and a gaggle of lefties. Neat, right? I mean, lots of people find the whole two party thing offends their sensibilities, I certainly do. Much more sensible system right?
Yeah. Except the US system doesn't really support three or more major parties. There's not proportionate representation here. Each seat is a discrete election with winner-take-all results. and over time that sort of system is just going to devolve to two-man races. One group or another will get fewer and fewer seats as the larger groups consolidate their positions through chicanery until they just lack the capital to compete on even terms in a meaningful number of places.
Still, I think we're definitely in interesting times here. Probably less interesting than I'm pondering here? But I think we're on definitely seeing that once-a-generation realignment happening here. I'm just sorta spitballing how it might take form.
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While I agree that it's unlikely the US will go the way of three parties, I'd be far more likely to peg that to the culture of the States than the system. Certainly up here in Canada we've been doing first past the post, winner take all for each riding in a pretty similar fashion to you guys (when it comes to Senate/HoR/Parliament elections, we're pretty similar. It's President/Prime Minister selection where we differ) and we've had three parties consistently doing well since the 60s. Heck, for most of my adult life, we've had four-five parties doing respectably on the federal level, with things just recently settling back down to three. And frankly, it's unlikely that we're about to go to two any time soon.
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On the other hand he's so far behind with just under half of states having voted that, as opined last week, it's more or less a moot point.
At the risk of pissing people off because I'm only half paying attention to the thread and kicking up shit that's already been argued to death (sorry about that, Dunie. My bad), is that taking into account that most of Clinton's lead are pledged-but-not-yet-voted superdelegates? Superdelegates that had similarly pledged to Clinton at the start of the 2008 primaries but then changed once Obama started picking up steam, if I'm reading into it right. Discounting those, Clinton's lead is only 200 delegates, with something like 2400 of them unclaimed. I'm pessimistically expecting Clinton to take the nomination anyway but saying Clinton's so far ahead that the primaries may as well be over is just not correct.
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The thing is that Clinton's 200 delegate lead is probably enough. No democratic primaries are winner-take-all so even if Sanders wins Clinton still gets some delegates, and there are plenty of states that favor her coming up. Sanders still needs to win more stages by huge margins to make up the deficit and it remains to be seen if he can pull that off.
Don't get me wrong, the Michigan win was a huge victory for Sanders, but Clinton is still the odds on favorite.
You're right that superdelegates are unpledged and people shouldn't put them in the Clinton column when doing delegate counts. But they're not going to switch unless Bernie has a clear delegate lead.
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True, you're right that the lead probably is enough that realistically Hillary will get the nomination, but I take umbrage with saying it's a "moot point" and acting like it's already been decided.
Is a Sanders nomination likely? Nah, probably not. Is it less likely now than it was a month ago? I don't think the answer to that question is yes.
EDIT: Words that change the entire meaning of the sentence.
EDIT2: Words that change the entire meaning of the sentence again. I should stop trying to be rhetorically fancy after popping sleeping meds.
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Hillary was pretty much always going to be the nominee, but the fact that it's as close as it is just proves that Sanders and his political message resonate with the democratic base, which is something the establishment really, really needs to keep in mind. Pushing Hildawg left was why he entered the race in the first place.
Then again up to Super Tuesday I was convinced Trump would never be the nominee so what do I know?
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It's fascinating and a bit humbling that the powers that be simply do not have a good handle on why people vote the way they do. Sanders' win in Michigan could be an indication of a sea change in the way the Democratic electorate views Sanders. Or maybe it's just a blip and the expectations of a Clinton landslide were based on bad polling methodology or a wonky sample of voters.
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It's fascinating and a bit humbling that the powers that be simply do not have a good handle on why people vote the way they do.
That's been the theme of this year. Oh Trump is running? That's amusing. He's got some support? Still not electable in any way. He's winning? I don't know what's happening anymore.
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Obligatory reminder that it's possible that Serious Commentators like me were right about everything on Trump having a tough road to the GOP nomination, and that Trump was the luckiest son of a bitch ever. Hey, even 1% chances happen sometimes, but they were still 1%. "Bet everything on 00" is still not good advice for the roulette table.
For a less crazy example, I remember standing up for McCain's chances to win the nom in '08, but objectively speaking, his campaign was in *real* trouble at one point, but he had literally everything go right for him with splitting of the vote in his favor, Romney making some tactical errors, etc. So yeah, weird stuff happens.
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It's fascinating and a bit humbling that the powers that be simply do not have a good handle on why people vote the way they do.
I definitely say it makes me feel confused and worried more than anything else.
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I think an underemphasized part of Trump's appeal is his knock on the benefits of free trade and offshoring and such. The GOP has been in favor of big business-supported trade deals, but this is a yuge split with their base. Ditto on foreign policy in general (trump has been openly antagonistic of the military adventurism that is dogma for elites but not so popular with the GOP base).
The GOP is in open revolt territory with Trump and Cruz. I guess when you tell people constantly to freak out because Nobama is going to destroy America they actually get frightened and do what frightened people do. Republican leaders wanted to use feat of Obama as a cudgel and now that cudgel,wielded by Trump or Cruz, is going to beat them senseless, Brooks v Sumner style.
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Funnily enough, this link crossed my path today:
https://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Pat-Caddell-ALG-TPP-Poll-Charts-3-10-16.pdf
Online polling (so I'm assuming self-selection, but it doesn't make it clear), but it shows Republicans having stronger negative feelings about voting for people who push the TPP. It looks like it was a joint project from a right-leaning group and an independent pollster.
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It's so weird to me to see "trade deals" lump summed together.
Cause like...NAFTA is amazing. TPP is a deal where everything that helps corporations is binding, and everything that protects workers is non-binding.
Side note, and this is more just thoughts about government policy in general and not so much about this election in particular, but I've been thinking recently about administrative efficiency.
Administrative efficiency is stuff like when Canada went from having a Provincial sales tax and a Federal sales tax collected by a dozen different entities...and decided to collapse this into one collection agency, significantly reducing the administrative costs (and thus effectively increasing tax revenue without actually raising taxes).
Administrative efficiency is ideas like replacing welfare and social security programs with a Basic Income (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income) given to everyone (even people who are employed). Not that the people with jobs need it, but when you don't need the government doing a whole lot of paperwork about whether or not someone qualifies for welfare etc then you end up saving a lot of money anyway.
Looping this back to the election a little bit, and speaking of the two serious candidates (Bernie and Hillary).
I feel like a lot of Bernie's proposals have a fair bit of Administrative efficiency. His free college plan--you don't need any administration taking fees and collecting all the related paperwork from students. Comparing to Hillary's plan (which some have argued is actually the more left-wing plan, for what it's worth) there's a lot of administrative overhead, where she needs to account for the income of the student's parents, check if the student is working 10 hours a week to see if they qualify for certain kinds of financial aid, etc. Similarly, his health care plan "Medicare for all" eliminates Medicaid, veteran's health care, and numberous administrative layers releating to insurance. Again seems to have some administrative efficiency.
I'm not sure if this applies to other policies of theirs, but I thought it was interesting. And just from a min-max perspective, low administrative costs seem ideal--put more total money directly back into the system, instead of into gatekeepers of the system.
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TPP is a deal where everything that helps corporations is binding, and everything that protects workers is non-binding.
TPP parsed as Twitch Plays Pokemon and that made this pretty great.
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NAFTA may be far more popular in Canada? In the US, it killed 700,000 jobs and it definitely changed Mexico's economic landscape in ways they weren't particularly happy with due to US farmers undercutting local Mexican farmers. It also didn't help our trade balance, which it was supposed to. There's a reason that both Hillary and Obama said they would renegotiate it during the 2008 primary.
Hillary's college plan is more progressive by the technical definition, but you've already hit on the problem: it may cost more to implement due to the costs associated with means testing, in which case the means testing is pointless. That said, I've tried looking it up before and I can't find any cut off points that she's proposing in terms of parental income/assets (I can't even find anything on what they will be looking at, which is a problem itself because there are vehicles that very rich people can use to avoid showing any income on personal income taxes). I have...serious issues with this. Hillary Clinton always says that Donald Trump's kids won't get anything, but she's picked the far end of hyperbole. Where is the exact line where people wouldn't get any benefit from her plan? I suspect it must be below a self proclaimed $10 billion (or whatever) in worth, but that's the only barometer she's given us (because almost no literature she put out even mentions this aspect).
And that brings us to the problem where Hillary's plan can actually get regressive: since it ties student benefit to parent worth, any student that is cut off from wealthy parents will get nothing. And I suspect that if you look at that demographic, LGBTQ youth will be highly, highly dis-proportionally represented. I know people who had to quit college due to coming out and being cut off, so this isn't just a 100% theoretical to me. I've asked Hillary supporters before, and the "best" answer I've gotten is that they could wait a year, no longer be considered a dependent on their parents next tax return, and then apply for the money on their own merits, but that's a horrible answer. But then, I always felt like the parental income (asset?) related part of her plan was to make it seem more populous.
On LGBTQ related matters, Hillary said this today: https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/708363242737766401 (https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/708363242737766401). Kind of at a loss for words on this one.
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One of my close friends was semi-cut off on tuition by his father but for reasons that have nothing to do with LGBT issues (his father divorced & remarried, and his stepmother preferred he spend his cash on kids he later had with her, not on his children with his first wife). I consider this a failure on the part of the parent, not the government... it's very difficult to phrase programs like this in a way that won't cause the equivalent of Donald Trump's kids to find a loophole to use the "child of a wealthy parent gets aid if they provide an affadavit that they're not getting money" (and then get the money quietly / under the table).
As for the trade comment, that was just in the NYTimes actually:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/us/politics/-trade-donald-trump-breaks-200-years-economic-orthodoxy-mercantilism.html?_r=0
In general I'm pretty hugely pro free trade being an Economist reader & all, and it always worries me how trade is so unpopular among the voting electorate when it's pretty obvious that most of the candidates would like to be as free-tradey as possible. (Donald & Bernie are both dragging free traders over to being protectionists.) As usual, it's very easy that if you look at the *bad* parts of free trade, and the good parts of protectionism, protectionism will look better. That isn't an accurate comparison, though. It's the same problem as corporate welfare, but reversed: in corporate welfare, there's a small group of big winners and a large group of people who lose a little. So it's hugely lucrative to lobby for it and nobody cares for any one instance, but it's death by a thousand cuts. Free trade has a small group of huge losers and a large group of people who benefit a bit. NAFTA surely killed *more* than 700K jobs, but how many more jobs did it create? How much did it raise overall wealth by lowering prices, making everybody's dollars go farther? Lots of the benefits of NAFTA were totally unforeseen at the time, too. Anyway, even *if* somehow free trade was bad for the US, what's so special about the US anyway? If we just take a raw analysis of "Bob the American lost his job to Juan the Mexican", it's not clear to me from a moral perspective why this is a problem. Good for Juan.
Anyway, don't get me wrong; I'm definitely a fan of very, very generous programs for retraining & support for workers who lose their jobs due to free trade (programs the Republicans always whine about). After all, if there isn't enough general societal gain to be able to fairly compensate the "losers" and more, then the trade deal really *was* bad. There are also some potential environmental / human rights issues that can make free trade a bad idea (e.g. a country willing to despoil its environment permanently for fast cash? Maybe not.) But even crappy free trade deals are actually probably a good idea (see: TPP). Get stuff more cheaply here, and have more markets to export to at the same time.
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In that specific case possibly maybe?
But to build a whole myth around boot straps personal motivation and power, then to have one of the things that helps push you upwards through social strata tied to your parents is a flaw in the concept of "The Dream tm".
Yes there is scholarships and the like, but those are limited and some don't pay your whole way and in many scenarios are very unforgiving on the student.
Which is why socialismfree tuition is the answer to the problem, not Free Market Education.
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On LGBTQ related matters, Hillary said this today: https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/708363242737766401 (https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/708363242737766401). Kind of at a loss for words on this one.
Hey that is a TOTALLY fair thing to say, just like how Jeffrey Dahmer started a national conversation on cannibalism.
(In all seriousness, no Hillary should really really not have said that, but I'm also kinda taken aback by the articles pointing the finger at Nancy in particular as the reason for the Reagan administration's poor response to AIDS. It seems to assume that Nancy's "just say no" anti-drug campaign explicitly caused the administration not to focus on AIDS, as if it were a zero sum game. That seems a stretch to me.)
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Anyway, even *if* somehow free trade was bad for the US, what's so special about the US anyway? If we just take a raw analysis of "Bob the American lost his job to Juan the Mexican", it's not clear to me from a moral perspective why this is a problem. Good for Juan.
While I'm generally pro-Free Trade as well, and pretty down with the sentiment "what's so special about the US," I think you're way off base when you apply that perspective to the US government. Given that the legitimacy of government comes from the social contract whereupon the submission to a common government is to provide a betterment of the conditions of the citizens of the nation than they would experience if they did not form that social contract, then the US has to be special to the US government. If it isn't, then it has no basis upon which to govern.
So, the US government benefiting Juan the Mexican, or Doug the Canadian over Bob the American against his will is as unethical as the Canadian government disfavouring Doug or the Mexican government disfavouring Juan.
Of course, it feels like you somewhat agree with this point later on when you state that if there isn't enough gain to offset the losses then it was a bad deal. Since benefiting Juan is not a problem so long as Bob's position can be improved. Or at least, so long as utility is increased across America or the American people voice their support of accepting a loss in exchange for the benefit to others.
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On LGBTQ related matters, Hillary said this today: https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/708363242737766401 (https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/708363242737766401). Kind of at a loss for words on this one.
Hey that is a TOTALLY fair thing to say, just like how Jeffrey Dahmer started a national conversation on cannibalism.
(In all seriousness, no Hillary should really really not have said that, but I'm also kinda taken aback by the articles pointing the finger at Nancy in particular as the reason for the Reagan administration's poor response to AIDS. It seems to assume that Nancy's "just say no" anti-drug campaign explicitly caused the administration not to focus on AIDS, as if it were a zero sum game. That seems a stretch to me.)
It got worse. Hillary tried to walk back what she said by claiming that she actually meant to talk about Nancy Reagan's advocacy for stem cell/Alheimzer's research, but there are a few problems with that:
1. She specifically was talking about the 80s, and for obvious reason, no Reagan was talking about Alheimzer's then
2. She specifically mentioned "quiet advocacy," but that made no sense in the context of Nancy's Alheimzer's research advocacy because there wasn't a large stigma
3. She specifically mentioned Ronald Reagan, who again for obvious reasons, was not the one talking about Alheimzer's
Which boils down to there is no way she could have been talking about those issues. And then...(sigh)
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...NBC allowed her to retape what she said and aired the new footage on the West Coast broadcast of Nancy Reagan's funeral and completely ignored what Hillary had said in the first taping. Any thin veneer of anti-bias credibility NBC had (for me at least) just got torpedoed. Will probably vote Jill Stein if Hillary is the candidate in the GE now, because blatant corporatism and oligarchy is what consistently gets us into messes.
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I hardly see how this is a "mess" at all. It's a gaffe? Pandering to relatively right-wing voters? I don't really know and I don't really care; it's hardly the end of the world either way. No offence but if this is the hill you'll die on and are willing to essentially help Trump (or Cruz) get elected
over it, I'm not too impressed.
Excal: Perhaps I should let Snowfire respond, but from my perspective, I completely agree with him. My government is supposed to represent my interests, and my interests include increasing happiness for other countries, too. There are big parallels for immigration and refugees here, of course. Like yeah, there's a chance that closing off your country to all refugees like Marine Le Pen wants is the absolute best thing for France, but it's still a bad thing for the world, and even if you're French you should be concerned about that. (And in general isolationism and thumbing your nose at the rest of the world is a bad long-term plan even for pure self-interest, but I'd still take issue with it even if it weren't. Countries who give no shits about anyone but themselves are pretty much the national equivalent of asshole hyper-libertarians, and both make the world a worse place for everyone.)
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I don't really know and I don't really care; it's hardly the end of the world either way.
I'm opting for the kindest way of saying this because I believe that this probably comes from not knowing the historical context (and I realize on reflection, there isn't really a reason for a lot of the DL to have context on this and I should have provided better context), but this sentence is very evident of straight-privilege. Her quote is incredibly insulting because Reagan's administration is well known for completely ignoring the AIDS crisis for years because it was a "gay disease." Reagan's silence was so famous that the defining gay/AIDS activist slogan of the time was "Silence=Death" or as ACT-UP unpacks it ‘silence about the oppression and annihilation of gay people, then and now, must be broken as a matter of our survival.’ The slogan was borne in 1987 and was specifically referring to the AIDS epidemic.
You write that it isn't the end of the world either way, but for nearly a whole generation of gay men, it actually was the end of their world (if they didn't die themselves, they saw many friends and partners die). Reagan took 6 years after the CDC recognized AIDS to even publicly utter the word "AIDS" and his press secretary consistently cracked jokes about AIDS when reporters asked him about it. If Reagan hadn't been silent for so long, not only would there have been many fewer deaths then, but it is also likely AIDS would have a much smaller footprint in America. It was serious then and it is serious now.
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Hillary has slipups like this. She also said "All Lives Matter" while giving a talk in a Black Church recently.
That said, her list of policies on LGBT issues is actually pretty comprehensive (and quite a bit longer than the equivalent page on Bernie's website). She specifically calls out that the end of DADT only applies to LGB and not LGBT, and that she wants to fix that, for example. That's the kind of thing that could slip through the cracks (and did slip through the cracks with Obama) so it's good to see it specified.
Was Hillary caught saying something bad? Yeah, but then again Bernie made a comment that didn't come off well about Ghettos recently.
Gaffs happen. Joe Biden is still the motherfucking king of them. I don't really feel like they're worth deciding a vote over.
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Excal: Perhaps I should let Snowfire respond, but from my perspective, I completely agree with him. My government is supposed to represent my interests, and my interests include increasing happiness for other countries, too. There are big parallels for immigration and refugees here, of course. Like yeah, there's a chance that closing off your country to all refugees like Marine Le Pen wants is the absolute best thing for France, but it's still a bad thing for the world, and even if you're French you should be concerned about that. (And in general isolationism and thumbing your nose at the rest of the world is a bad long-term plan even for pure self-interest, but I'd still take issue with it even if it weren't. Countries who give no shits about anyone but themselves are pretty much the national equivalent of asshole hyper-libertarians, and both make the world a worse place for everyone.)
Governments prioritizing the happiness and well-being of their own citizens over those of other nations doesn't necessitate having to be an asshole to other nations. Hell, by this standard, governments are necessarily pitted against each other unless they can find ways where both countries can mutually benefit their own people in a win-win agreement. Free-trade agreements and mutual defense pacts being great examples of agreements where a government can provide happiness for other nation's citizens while also benefiting their own. This is without getting into the trade-off of accepting minor harms or short term losses in exchange for greater gains in the long term.
However, unless there's a specific mandate from the citizenry to act against their interests, then if there is a case where pure isolationism does happen to be the correct answer to protect the happiness and prosperity of the people of the nation, then it would be immoral not to do so. Governments exist to serve their people, not the world.
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(Zenny, no prob about the black voter stuff; I had already said understanding the psychology of voters wasn't my cup of tea, but am totally annoyed by the US's near tropic use of black/white voters, black/white people, in nearly all conversations about what's wrong with the US -- cos', you know, more people here than just north american plantation blacks and stuff; also, I have this venom towards the overexplanation of things in generalities, so I ran into my own wall (:)
Warning #1: I'm chiming in without fresh knowledge about markets or economics, so, in essence, how I feel. Warning #2: I am super critical of globalism and global enterprise because of aggressive cultural imperialism, labor standards and the exploitation of women and children (TPP's totally notorious for this, money over human rights) under a system that does not benefit less powerful countries with the returns for places like the US.
So, a question: how free is the F in NAFTA? I hear Canada's lost control over its water resources through NAFTA, specifically with regard to its aquifers, and is required to, annually, send no less water to the US than it did the year prior. NAFTA wasn't designed, it seems, for other countries to control their domestic need. NAFTA has a bad rep in the US, esp. after Mexico's continued economic decline for farmers as crop subsidies crippled them. The USA is not unused to government subsidies stirring up a lot of imbalances with farming in the US. To the production of food crops, I still do not understand why the US needs to rely on external country assistance. It exacerbates the fact that our current system is self-serving to a finite few.
I'm totally in the camp of "Made in the USA" and community-supported agriculture, because we need to live on a smaller scale, where it seems completely unnatural to have cantaloupe or pineapples year-round! The US government should intercede when land and space, at home, can be used more efficiently. Sidebar: I just read an article about trinity homes in Pennsylvania and it sounds like such a brilliant idea that could be encouraged in many other forms of government-subsidized home building, rather than getting rid of it altogether as is the fashion statewide.
Countries having less bargaining power in NAFTA/TPP makes it to where the "mutual benefit" is entirely questionable, positive only through intangible ideals, and negative in lots of different moral issues (for example, I had read an article that said the US should not engage in trade with countries that are the godfathers of human trafficking, so that the economic penalizing encourages more humanism -- when you know, the US is great at that too) that I feel uncomfortable stepping in.
This is not necessary at all, but I'm going to stand behind Dhyerwolf's feelings about Hillary's pandering. Hillary's remarks go beyond gaffes, they're not inconsequential and their repetitive nature only certifies the ridiculously superficial nature of campaigning for elections. Silence on real issues, or displacing others in sake of focusing on easier targets (say, the Moynihan Report and US Dept of Labor's collusion w/ "black folk is messed up" image) is disgusting -- women's rights, LGBTQI, low class exploitation and venture capitalism in crumbling neighborhoods, and all. Although I will agree with mc that Hillary's ideas for progress encapsulate more than she enunciates, but I don't like the principle of picking between two lesser evils.
This connects to what seems to be a serious moralizing issue that follows a remark that Elf made in the context of allowing Trump or Cruz to win. The US voting system is what isn't impressive to me. Why must one's vote, like Dhyer's, be undermined by two lesser evils? This is totally out of keeping with the freedom to exercise one's vote. That I'm even deciding to vote for Hillary, whom I do not find suitable in any regard, is oppressive, and oppressive is the right word here. That my vote wouldn't, and historically has not, impacted GA or TX elections to sway their momentum in the electoral college as Republican states, yet it could yield such a strong response about accountability is……..
& those evil people, both Republic and Democrat, have done a great job at making it more difficult to vote in general.
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I'm willing to accept a certain degree of 'lesser of two evils'. In any situation a certain amount of political coalition is going to be required, because forming new parties and running candidates for each noteworthy ideology will generally mean everybody gets nothing until they consolidate back down. And while the US' particular case is pretty bad since we have basically a hard-right party and a center-right party, considering that the only functional part of the government is the Supreme Court ANYWAY I'm certainly willing to take a knock to keep them from getting pushed any further right.
The amount of people calling for everyone to "get in line" now, hell even as far back as January, in this primary disgusts me. If you wanna vote based on who might be a stronger candidate or who might be a more effective head of state rather than ideology, that's great, you do you. But we're still in the fucking primary. One of the main points of which is getting actual feedback on the current beliefs and priorities of the members of the coalition. Now if you want to debate the merits of the remaining candidates on said ideology, or argue that non-ideological aspects of the race are particularly important with these specific candidates, that's fair, reasonable discourse usually is. But telling me not to vote for ideology when I think the current party line is so badly out of whack in a primary where the consequences are so marginal? Fuck off, talk to me again in August.*
*this hasn't been a problem here. But I've seen a lot of it, so a lot of Sanders supporters that aren't raging assholes (which yeah there's a lot of them and it's one reason I temper expectations on his candidacy so hard, practices for yelling at THEM when we in fact aren't in the primary) are rather prickly about the matter.
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I mean, to clarify my opinion on NAFTA a bit, I wouldn't be working in the US right now if it wasn't for NAFTA. I'm on a working visa that exists because of NAFTA. (And Americans can get similar working visas to work in Canada). One place where I strongly, strongly disagree with Bernie Sanders is that he doesn't like this aspect of NAFTA: he wants to decrease the number of highly skilled non-US workers who get engineering or mathematics based Visas to work in the US. Like...Bernie's policies on undocumented immigrants from Mexico are fantastic and welcoming, that's cool, but for me personally I would be at much greater risk of being deported under a Bernie Sanders presidency than I would be under a Hillary Clinton presidency. (Although hopefully I'll have my green card by the time either of them are sworn in and then I won't need NAFTA visas anymore).
As for the effect of NAFTA on stuff like the Canadian economy--some Canadian companies went out of business--like Canadian trucking companies, which American trucking companies previously weren't allowed to compete with. The American trucking companies undercut prices on the Canadian trucking companies, and took over that business. But like...people still drive trucks, obviously. Canadians still drive trucks, obviously, they just work for a different company now.
The nature of lowering trade barriers is that it's usually good for everyone involved.
Why the TPP is different from NAFTA is that it's angled to benefit corporations. (Note: I'm going off of vague memory here, so I might be misremembering parts of it). It would undoubtedly have a big economic benefit to corporations, but everything in the bill that would set a standard of working conditions, set a standard of not using child labour, etc, is non-binding. So, for instance, American and Canadian workers would have to compete directly against child labour working 14 hours a day working in factories that would break environmental regulations in the Americas. (I invented this example, but this is the impression I get of the TPP). The TPP does have some labour provisions, but they are all non-binding, whereas all the provisions that benefit corporations are binding.
This is not necessary at all, but I'm going to stand behind Dhyerwolf's feelings about Hillary's pandering. Hillary's remarks go beyond gaffes, they're not inconsequential and their repetitive nature only certifies the ridiculously superficial nature of campaigning for elections. Silence on real issues, or displacing others in sake of focusing on easier targets (say, the Moynihan Report and US Dept of Labor's collusion w/ "black folk is messed up" image) is disgusting -- women's rights, LGBTQI, low class exploitation and venture capitalism in crumbling neighborhoods, and all. Although I will agree with mc that Hillary's ideas for progress encapsulate more than she enunciates, but I don't like the principle of picking between two lesser evils.
To be honest, I would assume that the very good and detailed plan that is on Hillary's website about LGBTQI rights was not written by her, but written by an adviser who specializes in this field.
And...that's ok. If Hillary is able to seek out very good advisers, picks them well, and listens to their advice, that's cool. It's certainly better than what she was doing in 2013 (when she was still claiming to oppose gay marriage).
Truth be told, I don't feel like LGBTQI issues (or race issues for that matter) are the primary issues that drive either Hillary or Bernie. Bernie is most strongly driven by economic issues, whether it's campaign finance reform, providing health care as a right, free college education, reducing the unreasonably large amount of poverty in the US. Hillary, I always get the feeling that she's driven partly by ambition, but I do honestly think women's issues also drive her. When she was Secretary of State she actually made empowering women in other countries one of the cornerstones of US foreign policy (there's a book called The Hillary Doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hillary_Doctrine) written about this).
The one thing I will say about Bernie vs Hillary is that Bernie doesn't waffle on issues that aren't his core economic issues. he was arguing for gay rights in 1970 (http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/bernie-sanders-was-full-gay-equality-40-years-ago), Hillary's support in this area was weak until relatively recently. He was arrested protesting segregation in the 1960s (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-arrested-protesting-segregation-video-photo_us_56c8a824e4b0ec6725e2d238), while Hillary (who admittedly was in high school at the time) saw herself as a Goldwater girl (here's a pretty interesting analysis of the parallels between Goldwater and Trump (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/the-republican-party-may-just-survive-trump-641001027891)). There's a pretty interesting article about how a lot of the worst mass incarceration laws came in under Bill Clinton and were championed by Hillary (http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/)--and two things I'll say about that--first, African American community leaders at the time were coming to politicians with concerns about high crime, wanting tougher crime laws; second, she's since changed her views on these laws. But ideally a politician would have foresight and not impose laws that would be judged poorly by history 10 years down the road. So...yeah, if you're looking for an unwaveringly consistent politician, it's definitely Bernie and not Hillary. But taking a snapshot of Hillary's positions right now, they're actually pretty damn good, way better than they were in 2008. Like...I only strongly disagree with her on the death penalty (she's for it) and the patriot act (she's for that too).
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Hillary has slipups like this. She also said "All Lives Matter" while giving a talk in a Black Church recently.
That said, her list of policies on LGBT issues is actually pretty comprehensive (and quite a bit longer than the equivalent page on Bernie's website). She specifically calls out that the end of DADT only applies to LGB and not LGBT, and that she wants to fix that, for example. That's the kind of thing that could slip through the cracks (and did slip through the cracks with Obama) so it's good to see it specified.
Was Hillary caught saying something bad? Yeah, but then again Bernie made a comment that didn't come off well about Ghettos recently.
Gaffs happen. Joe Biden is still the motherfucking king of them. I don't really feel like they're worth deciding a vote over.
I don't blame Dhyer for getting angry over this. It's more than a gaffe, it's completely misrepresenting what happened and the impact of the early AIDS crisis in America. (I don't blame Nancy Reagan for what happened, that would belong to her husband. But she did a lot of good in her life, why pick that one thing to focus on?) And it isn't like Hillary is amazing on issues re gay rights to start with.
THAT SAID I will likely have to vote for Hillary in the general election at this rate. Fucking kill me.
And I strongly agree with Excal re: a nation's responsibility to it's citizens.
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Dhyer: If it's not clear, my "not the end of the world" was referring to Hillary's gaffe, not the effects of Reagan's policies.
However, unless there's a specific mandate from the citizenry to act against their interests, then if there is a case where pure isolationism does happen to be the correct answer to protect the happiness and prosperity of the people of the nation, then it would be immoral not to do so. Governments exist to serve their people, not the world.
Governments exist to serve their people, but that doesn't mean approaching things from a point of view of "the maximum benefit to my country matters. Nothing else" is a moral way to do things. It isn't moral to do this as an individual, and it isn't moral to do this as a corporation (in fact, some would argue that one of the reasons we have governments is to prevent individuals and corporations from behaving this way). Why should it be moral for a government?
The argument you're making feels like it could be made to support a lot of isolationist, xenophobic nonsense similar to what European far-right parties support. It also can be used as argument against foreign aid (and I have seen it used as such). I don't have much respect for either. Consider: There probably wasn't much benefit to Canada/the US to send aid to Haiti following their major earthquake a few years ago (a poor country likely isn't going to be able to return the favour in case a disaster strikes us... there are other purely selfish benefits I can think of to us, but most of them are murky/questionable). Yet it was clearly still the right thing to do.
Like yeah obviously the Canadian government is gonna care much more about the average Canadian citizen than the average Haitian citizen, I do agree that that is their job. (Much like I care more about my friends and family members than strangers.) But that doesn't mean that no care at all should be given to the prospects of the rest of the world.
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Isolationism can happen on the right or the left.
On the right, as Elfboy describes, it's against foreign aid. And, at least for certian countries, against climate change legislation. (At least in the US, the expected downsides of climate change are much less severe than in many other countries).
On the left it's stuff like opposition to all war. (I was against the Iraq war from the start strictly on the basis that it would be expensive. Even if Sadam is the most evil guy on the planet, who cares? Not our problem).
Trade deal opposition shows up on both the left and the right (notably one of the few policies in common between Trump and Sanders). On the right because the right is partially about tradition and keeping things the same, which means maintaining the same jobs in the town where you grew up, and jobs moving overseas means your way of life changes. On the left because rah rah go proletariat, boo bourgeoisie!
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I'm willing to accept a certain degree of 'lesser of two evils'.
Well, yeah. I hear you. And for me, full acceptance is a stage of defeat. No, I will never find a candidate whom I wholeheartedly agree with, and I understand the mechanics behind coalition building, but the forcing seems unprincipled and with lame parameters. Since Trump will never be the first xenophobic and racist US president anyway, I wonder if post-election time is a moment of even more circumscribed voting or more enfranchising. During his keynote interview at SXSW, Obama, who ate at Torchy's btw, claimed ever-so-easily that some entrepreneur needs to develop a reliable online voting system, and therefore an argument is even stronger for the government to close the digital divide for internet access throughout the US. Sounds interesting, to say the least and unenthusiastically. My non-profit internet was just devoured by Sprint; the government'll have to do a lot with the Comcast, Time Warner, Sprint, ATT kerfuffle.
I saw that Michigan voted for Bernie. What were the numbers? (Google Moment) NYT reports that, of that win, Sanders had 30% of the black vote. I wonder what your thoughts are about that, since you seemed so curious about black voters in the South. Plus you're in Michigan, right? Do you think if the water crisis wasn't mainstreamed in media, Sanders would have the same stats? This is just a game of "Maybe/Maybe Not." I ask because Flint isn't the only place, there was DC, then Sebring, Jackson, Mississippi….
I mean, to clarify my opinion on NAFTA a bit, I wouldn't be working in the US right now if it wasn't for NAFTA. I'm on a working visa that exists because of NAFTA. (And Americans can get similar working visas to work in Canada). One place where I strongly, strongly disagree with Bernie Sanders is that he doesn't like this aspect of NAFTA: he wants to decrease the number of highly skilled non-US workers who get engineering or mathematics based Visas to work in the US. Like...Bernie's policies on undocumented immigrants from Mexico are fantastic and welcoming, that's cool, but for me personally I would be at much greater risk of being deported under a Bernie Sanders presidency than I would be under a Hillary Clinton presidency. (Although hopefully I'll have my green card by the time either of them are sworn in and then I won't need NAFTA visas anymore).
This piques my interest for a couple of reasons, because I have very limited knowledge about NAFTA/TPP. Presumably, your deportation wouldn't occur sporadically, and has legal backing compared to all illegal immigrants and their families, whose labor often slips conveniently under radars, pending feelings/market stability. You have stated, contractual details. Is this true? I have a few friends on work visas. I'm not sure if they're NAFTA-approved, but they cannot work at any other job due to their field, and the pressure of convincing another business to sponsor them. You've moved between jobs since you've been in the US with a NAFTA visa?
I ask because I think there's a false parallelism here: deportation by not observing contractual agreements versus deportation, because, well, -illegal-, from a mixed bag of nationalism, xenophobia, racism and more within a system that schizophrenically allows it. And I wouldn't imagine that there aren't elements of that with legal agreements too. I'm sure you're more familiar with these fields, but news has raised red flags over the last several years about a saturated tech market and many unemployed folk in sciences, non-creative tech industries. It must be a weird position to be placed. I'm thinking of Germany, Britain and France's foreign immigrant-work policies and really uneven, unfair and even exploitative (tax money going to German citizens and not the Turkish workforce, for example) applications.
And, after that slew of words, I don't mean to imply that you should rethink Sander's criticisms of NAFTA/TPP. I'm surprised, however, that there isn't more back-scratching between Canada and the US for foreign workers who've spent years in either country, serving in the max of their capacity as non-citizens, to have no option for naturalization or dual citizenship once a longer-term visa expires.
Why the TPP is different from NAFTA is that it's angled to benefit corporations.
During a moment of corporate personhood and Citizens United. I need to research more about the management of TPP. I remember Obama received flack for lightening up on Malaysia (human trafficking queen bee).
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I wonder what your thoughts are about that, since you seemed so curious about black voters in the South. Plus you're in Michigan, right? Do you think if the water crisis wasn't mainstreamed in media, Sanders would have the same stats? This is just a game of "Maybe/Maybe Not." I ask because Flint isn't the only place, there was DC, then Sebring, Jackson, Mississippi….
Nobody's particularly sure. The speculation I've read focuses on different community organization, but it could also be a few other things. I'm curious how other states in the area (Ohio, INdiana, Illinois) vote. That said, they actually held a debate in Flint a couple days before that, which... I don't really watch the debates but I got the impression both were pretty well received.
Most liberal slanted people I know locally were very much in favor of Sanders so I always thought that the polls were pretty off (most showed Clinton with a ~25 point lead) though him actually winning was still a bit surprising. I'd have figured she'd win with 5-10.
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Presumably, your deportation wouldn't occur sporadically, and has legal backing
Presumably. I've never broken the law, but yes, I know I have a couple of weeks to clear out or find a new job usually, and I've used that grace period for sure.
I have a few friends on work visas. I'm not sure if they're NAFTA-approved, but they cannot work at any other job due to their field, and the pressure of convincing another business to sponsor them. You've moved between jobs since you've been in the US with a NAFTA visa?
Depends on the visa. H1B is transferable. TN is not.
I ask because I think there's a false parallelism here: deportation by not observing contractual agreements versus deportation, because, well, -illegal-, from a mixed bag of nationalism, xenophobia, racism and more within a system that schizophrenically allows it.
To be clear, I'm not arguing that my life is somehow worse than an undocumented immigrant, just that Sander's proposed policies are much more humane than existing polcies towards undocumented immigrants, while simultaneously scaling down on high skilled temporary workers.
And yes, of course, I'm still plenty more privileged either way--even if I do get kicked out, I just go live in Canada. (I hear the prime minister cuddles pandas).
I'm sure you're more familiar with these fields, but news has raised red flags over the last several years about a saturated tech market and many unemployed folk in sciences, non-creative tech industries.
I'm not familiar with that. I know there's a lot more demand to bring in foreign technical workers than there are visas, in large part because the number of visas provided each year has not increased, so we now slam up against the visa limit very quickly. I doubt that would be an issue if there was a large local supply of talent.
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Nobody's particularly sure. The speculation I've read focuses on different community organization, but it could also be a few other things. I'm curious how other states in the area (Ohio, INdiana, Illinois) vote. That said, they actually held a debate in Flint a couple days before that, which... I don't really watch the debates but I got the impression both were pretty well received.
You remember Mephistopheles? He's in my living room as a Bernie hopeful and voted early for Ohio. He thinks Bernie may win out for Ohio. Who knows.
To be clear, I'm not arguing that my life is somehow worse than an undocumented immigrant, just that Sander's proposed policies are much more humane than existing polcies towards undocumented immigrants, while simultaneously scaling down on high skilled temporary workers.
And yes, of course, I'm still plenty more privileged either way--even if I do get kicked out, I just go live in Canada. (I hear the prime minister cuddles pandas).
Yeah, I didn't get that you argued that at all. But deportation and visas casts an entirely different lens is all, and I most definitely don't have firsthand experience like you.
I just googled your PM, and um, too cute, http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/canada-fears-photo-of-prime-minister-with-pandas-could-worsen-american-refugee-crisis
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So...the Washington Post sat down and spoke with Donald Trump for an hour, and then posted the unedited transcripts:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/21/a-transcript-of-donald-trumps-meeting-with-the-washington-post-editorial-board/
It starts out with Trump sounding actually kind of reasonable--suggesting building schools in inner cities rather than Iraq.
Then it gets rather ridiculous, as he claims he's not inciting violence when he offers to pay the legal fees of anyone who punches protesters at his rallies.
And he complains endlessly about "libel" that the Washington Post has printed without actually detailing what they've libeled. And he seems to have changed his mind a little bit on libel laws not being strong enough because Hulk Hogan won his lawsuit against Gawker.
(I normally wouldn't have read a Trump interview, but it came recommended by a Black Lives Matter organizer and feminist, and...yeah, this was...interesting at least).
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Bernie Sanders TYT interview--interesting for a few reasons.
Notably, he says that if he loses (looking likely now) he won't be throwing his endorsement and campaigning behind Hillary unless Hillary agrees to some of his policies like single payer health care:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggFitmOTSok&feature=share
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I've been a little sketchy on Sanders remaining in the race at this point. The level of vitriol towards Clinton from a lot of folks in the Sanders camp is unhealthy, especially in the circumstances. But since the race is basically over we're already seeing her head back rightward despite... everything, so I guess I was wrong and we need to hold on to the salt for a while.
Mind, Clinton being the sort of politician she is I think we mostly need to clean out the senate and get some more liberal democrats in there and we'll see a more lasting change. Of course there literally weren't any other primaries on my ballot here so dunno how much opportunity there is for that.
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Single payer is tricky, from a political perspective. Part of the totally unfair reason why Obamacare got a bad name was that the Republicans were unified in saying "this sucks" and the Democrats feuded amongst each other about detail X, Y, & Z. Most notably, the choice of some of the Blue Dogs in the Senate to make themselves look independent by pushing back on certain provisions probably backfired... it enhanced the narrative of "this is a far-leftist plot to take over health care that even some Democrats are queasy with." To Joe Average, the fact that the Democrats had this inter-party debate was successfully portrayed as Obamacare being "problematic" in some way.
What's the solution? Part of it is that the Democrats need to sing Obamacare's praises to the public and not drift off script about their favorite little fix they'd implement. Yes everybody has their own little enhancements, but when a program is on such patchy grounds of public support, sometimes you just gotta pound the table with "THIS IS AWESOME." If the Dem presidential candidate's message is "we agree that we screwed up with Obamacare, but trust us, we ivory tower leftists have a NEW plan to solve health care, you just need to place our government bureaucrats in charge of everything, give us another chance here," that's not gonna work.
There's something to be said for simultaneously hyping Obamacare as being great *and* propounding "improvements" that will make it even better, but that's gonna take real skill to execute & message correctly in a way that doesn't shoot Dems in the foot. My hopes aren't high considering past Dem failures on this note.
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The ACA burned all political goodwill and capital that is available for healthcare, even went into the hole. Nobody can make a real push towards it.
That's the problem with the ACA. You've set in stone any healthcare programs that could be done for the next 20 years, and it amounts to a tourniquet. Oh good, the economy isn't going to bleed out from these gaping healthcare costs. Pity everyone's too busy crowing about how awesome stopping that bleeding was to operate on the patient before the whole arm has to be removed.
So uh... yeah. Your plan sucks Snowfire. Because that's the point at which I'm pretty sure the lefties that are already on the fence really DO throw up their hands and vote for Jill Stein.
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I was speaking strictly in terms of political messaging there, not on the merits of any proposal. Painful experience has shown that policies that are literally driving the country into the ditch can continue if stopping the crazy policy is seen as some radical plot. I should add that I'm down for single-payer if we're talking strictly from a policy perspective! I do think that selling single-payer to the public is gonna be crazy tough.
I will say that if by some miracle the Democrats retake the House, I wouldn't be shocked if the ACA was pushed toward single-payer... at least barring Republican fillibusters (which there WILL be, considering the history of the ACA originally, and also why some of its softening provisions were made in the original effort to get 60 votes rather than 50). I'd just keep it a secret or something. Or file it under "expansion of Medicare" or some such.
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Well, see, messaging is the problem. Well, not strictly. Hillary's history suggests that, from her perspective, the ACA is an unqualified success and exactly the sort of health care reform she wanted in place. Heading more strongly in that direction, from the liberal perspective, is her becoming even more conservative. My experience is that she's already 100% considered a Republican-except-not-racist/sexist, and intentionally selling that image harder could so, so easily be the breaking point. Seriously, as far as I can tell the only thing going for her is just how psychotically terrible either Trump or Cruz would be.
Actually, related. Here's a trouble I've been having; what are Clinton's priorities? I don't mean her policy positions. I mean, which ones is she personally invested in. Which ones are the issues she'll be chomping at the bit to tackle on January 21st 2017? I can't really seem to get a good sense of that from her supporters that I run into, and most interviews she prefers to contrast herself to other candidates or talk up her experience rather than her ideology.
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Seriously, as far as I can tell the only thing going for her is just how psychotically terrible either Trump or Cruz would be.
The worst thing that could happen to Hillary outside of being arrested (Which is certainly possible) is the Republicans having a brokered convention and getting Romney/someone else the nomination. Trump winning the nomination is about the only thing I could think of that would get progressives (And a lot of the Republican base for that matter) to stomach a vote for Hillary.
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Cruz would do it to a lesser extent.
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Mission complete.
(http://i.imgur.com/RkgIPXk.jpg)
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::)
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So we're seeing that the numbers in the primary suggest about 40% of the Democrats are vastly left of the current party line. Except I don't think that's true, because I've honestly yet to meet a Hillary voter who actually found her more agreeable ideologically. And some people cite various factors like "has actual foreign policy experience", "is better vetted and more seasoned against Republican negative ads", "no President will be able to get much done under the likely makeup of congress in 2017, and the symbolic victory of First Woman President is meaningful even if she can't accomplish legislative goals", which are good and factual reasons.
But on the whole I see people claim she's generically "more electable" which is what I've been thinking about. I'm going to ignore national polls because they don't function in way that effects actual election results, and just look at the theory here. Because as best as I can figure, there's three things people MIGHT mean by this:
1) Clinton will motivate more of the Democratic base to go out and vote.
2) Sanders will galvanize more of the Republican base to go out and vote.
3) Actual Swing Voters (tm) are more likely to swing Democratic for Hillary than Sanders.
So before going further (and also because I've gotta get moving), am I missing a substantial area where who the Democratic nominee is makes a difference?
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(3) is the one I'd put stock in. The political centre does exist, and while it may be smaller than it once was it still occupies a crucial place on the political spectrum and goes a long way to determining elections, and especially in a year where the Republicans might be nominating someone extremely unpalatable to centrists.
(1) is hard to say, because obviously both motivate very different parts of the base. On the whole I tend to agree that a more left-wing candidate would be a better motivator, but I'm not really certain. (2) is also hard to say. The Republican machine has been basically operating against Clinton for the past decade, so if you ran the election tomorrow I'd certainly agree, but a few months of scare-mongering about socialism could close this gap. Again, I'm unsure.
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I don't want to call US swing voters "centrist" because US politics is so damn out of whack. There are certainly voters that fall in the ideological overlap between Republicans and Democrats, but by almost any measure those people are very conservative. 'Centrists' are deep into Democrat territory. But that's me nitpicking and being bitter.
But certainly my sense is that people are focusing on the swing vote. And while a conservative Democrat might appeal to them more, if we're talking about tactical voting we need to look at likely outcomes. And I'm baffled at people seeing a need for tactical voting after the first few weeks of voting because it's clear the GOP is in full meltdown.
I mean I'm just being sorta bitchy here, but like... okay. There are two relevant outcomes for the Republican nomination now: Donald Trump or Anyone Else. If you get Trump, you're going to demotivate a huge chunk of the base because as psychotic as the Republican party line has gotten, Trump is still bad enough to be completely unpalatable to most of them. In case of not-Trump... more likely than not he runs anyway. And if he doesn't, the contest has gotten so FUBAR over there that even people who might not be for Trump in the abstract will sit the election out because of how many shenanigans were required to stop him.
Like, seriously, I don't think it MATTERS who the Democratic nominee is in terms of winning the election and nudging down-ticket candidates to victory. So people who say they vote tactically are just beyond frustrating to me this year. Support a candidate for whatever reason, but when there's so little at stake in terms of winning elections, why stick to the 'safe' choice? Who's that helping? klja;.
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Again, outsider so I might be totally wrong on this, but I disagree completely on your breakdown of the Republican reps.
Even without Trump on the cards you opened up with territory as broad as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio up against Ted Cruz and even had Rand Paul in there. There is an awful lot of diverse platforms that threw their hats in the ring there.
Sure I think like... all of them are pretty gross, but Ted Cruz is honestly still more terrifying to me than Trump. Rand Paul is the sleeper Libertarian Conservative candidate that the internet reactionaries that backed his dad when internet reactionaries were still pretending to be Brogressives.
Even in the split between Rubio and JBush for horrifying corporate puppets is at least a a slightly different coats of paint over the all consuming maw of crony capitalism.
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The thing to remember is that your Trumps and Cruzes are so far right that they don't actually HAVE counterparts in US politics on the left. I mean, there surely must be some sort of far-left reactionaries that legitimately advocate proletariat revolutions in the US, but they don't to my knowledge run for office. Hell, there was a video from Cracked last week making fun of people for saying "if Trump wins I'll just move to Canada" that included a comment along the lines of "Canada already had a Donald Trump, called Stephen Harper" and... noooooo, no. Harper was like... Canada's Bush. Harper may have wanted to strip-mine the entire arctic circle and nuke whales to turn their blubber into precious crude oil, but that's still not Trump-tier awful.
Unless Harper tried to convince his supporters to beat on his political opponents. I feel like that would have come up more if happened though.
Cruz is probably scarier than Trump on a pure policy level, but a) he still hasn't encouraged a crowd to beat up protesters and b) Ted Cruz is that asshole nobody likes in the Senate. And again, we're talking about the United States Senate. And they all fucking HATE Ted Cruz. The only reason he could actually win his party's nomination is because people realize Donald Trump is Literally a Fascist and will take ANYONE ELSE to try and salvage the party for future elections. And the only way he could win the national election after that is basically because Hillary Clinton was thrown in prison a week before the election and even then I have my doubts. But if he passes those two hurdles, he still has to deal with the fact that all of congress hates his guts and will laugh off any legislation he tries to spearhead. He probably gets some super gross anti-trans legislation through or something, but his efforts to recall the constitution and institute religious law are going to fall short.
Jeb Bush is a lot more conservative than he seemed. And Rubio was considerably more conservative than that. They're just not Texas Brand Religious Nutjobs like Ted Cruz (or at least that's how the man runs) and are capable of actually couching their arguments in socially acceptable language.
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Yeah that was mostly the point, not that there is equivalents in the Dems, but that even though all the Republican candidates are hyper conservative in one form or another, there was a lot of brands of conservatism there.
Aaaaaand to keep up the chain, I disagree on your parsing of the Cracked video. Harper wasn't close to Trump, but no matter what happens in the US, Canada is not some magical center left Socialist Democratic wonderland that you can move to and fix all your problems. It's a real place with real people and real politics. If moving there just because you want to was that easy I would just not have got on a flight home one year.
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http://www.vox.com/2016/4/25/11505126/poll-hillary-clinton-donald-trump
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/22/11472026/2016-democratic-primary-party-unity
Basically all the 'ugh Hillary is not pure' crap will disappear when it is her against the Republican party.
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I've honestly yet to meet a Hillary voter who actually found her more agreeable ideologically.
I find her more agreeable ideologically. I've said I'm to the left of her and to the right of Sanders, and I've chosen Clinton. That's not a decision based on tactical considerations, but rather based on my decision that the country will be better off with her as president. Happy?
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There are also some liberals/lefties who have are concerned about Sanders' tendency to overstate his policy promises. Case in point promising that single payer would deliver all or most cost savings via reduced overhead and such when there would have to be cuts to providers and some degree of rationing (We already have that in the US it is just by access to insurance and money).
Also the lack of nuance on climate change policy and the focus on the size of the big banks rather than the portfolio/shadow aspect of it. There was also that little spat with prominent liberal economists over the Sanders campaign defending an outside economist analysis who promised a whopping 5% growth over a prolonged time via Sanders' economic policy. Really kind of reminds me conservative claims of YUGE growth if you cut taxes. Not that it's bad policy actually (single payer is good!) but it isn't good to view your policies as silver bullets to everything (it slices, it dices, it solves economic stagnation!).
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Hillary is actually quite close to me ideologically, just I don't entirely trust her judgment on a number of issues, and she's a pragmatist which is in some ways a good thing and in some ways means you can't really tell what she'd be like in office. (TO BE CLEAR presidents who barge forward according to what their ideology says to do regardless of circumstances... well, we remember Mr. Bush, right?). That said, I'm still to the right of Bernie, so. The biggest worry is, weirdly enough for a Secretary of State, foreign policy; I think that "doveish POTUS, hawkish Sec State" is the right balance to strike. "Hawkish POTUS, hawkish Sec State" risks groupthink, so I'd definitely hope that Hilary doesn't screw up there and get the advice she wants to hear, not the advice she needs to hear.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/25/11505126/poll-hillary-clinton-donald-trump
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/22/11472026/2016-democratic-primary-party-unity
Basically all the 'ugh Hillary is not pure' crap will disappear when it is her against the Republican party.
This is a bit risky, though, because in first-past-the-post, even losing 2% of your voters to a splinter candidate is dangerous, as is another 2% of your voters being disaffected and staying home. It's oftentimes very hard to poll such people, especially the disaffected ones - polling any small subset accurately is tough.
I think 2000 both taught some of the far left a lesson, and also provided something for all leftists to rally around: hating on Bush. So there was a large degree of unity on the left for 2004 - 2008, and by and large, the left was pretty happy with Obama in 2012 - some of the left was disappointed, perhaps, but not in revolt. 2016 is uncharted territory. The good news for the Dems is that Trump or Cruz would both represent unusually soft competition where the difference between a 10-point rout and an 8-point rout is not decisive. But if something weird happens to make the race tighter, or we're talking 2020 when memories of Nader 2000 have faded further... who knows.
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So... NeverTrump sure worked.
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I get what you mean, but let's not be too morose: NeverTrump almost surely WILL work in the general, if not the primary. The Republicans losing even 5% of their votes from NeverTrump'ers staying home or voting Hill/Libertarian/Constitution is basically gg, and I wouldn't be shocked if the drop was more like 10%.
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I am specifically talking about the conservative movement that repudiated him in the primary that is now starting to reluctantly coalesce around him (and it's fascinating/pathetic to see who is going back to support him, even reluctantly). He will surely lose in the general, you cannot be as odious and unappealing to basically all women and minorities and win. For all the strategic wrangling, NeverTrump had no effect in the primaries and never made any real concerted effort to attack Trump, possibly due to the fear that he would run third party. The Dems have no compunctions and it is going to be hard for him to win the demographics that are set against him (and he's basically going to pivot towards sexism in the general).
I don't have any inclination to feel happy or smug about his chances. He's dangerous by his very presence and by his normalization of bigotry.
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Everybody is saying that Hillary had already won, but I wouldn't underestimate Trump's ability to do a 180 on subjects like women and latinos now that he's won the primary + just how short term the average voter's memory is. And he's anti establishment against establishment.
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What Fenrir said.
It makes all of the "oh MAN, he's so AUTHENTIC and SAYS IT LIKE IT IS" (you know says it like being a racist asshole bigot, which I guess is saying it like it is if you are one too) all the more headdesk inducing. But it will probably happen.
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Fenrir: Even if he does a 180 on some issues and pivots hard toward respectability... while simultaneously not losing any of his hardcore supporters... it's STILL an uphill climb for Trump. Put things another way, what's the fair bet on President Trump? 33% chance is still way too high IMHO. It's more like 2%. (Which, as a citizen, is still WAY TOO HIGH, I dun wanna be gambling on a 2% chance of the end of America.)
I don't have any inclination to feel happy or smug about his chances. He's dangerous by his very presence and by his normalization of bigotry.
This is the real problem, yes, and I'm certainly not pleased - I'd rather have had Cruz (BLECH) as far as respectable opposition that wouldn't ENTIRELY make the US and thereby liberal democracy look weak & discredited for a year or so.
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Speaking as someone who is definitely part of the Never Trump crew: The core of that group is not going to support Trump come hell or high water. The big money donators in the party are not going to back Trump either. That combined with the large majority of the intellectual conservative publications being against Trump... you have a recipe for a total goddamn revolt/beatdown in the general election.
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Some of the right will not vote for Trump but some of the left will vote for him, because he's anti establishment and the political spectrum is not a line that goes from far left to far right but a circle
Just saying that he probably shouldn't be underestimated. (Also people like underdog stories)
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Just going to point out, looking back at the odds betting sites gave on Trump winning the primary back when it started last year, he was sitting at 5%. He's already beat one set of long odds, which makes stating he's facing long odds again not especially comforting.
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Fenrir: Trump doesn't exactly line up with the vanilla political science textbook definition of US Right vs. Left. Which happens, it could be the sign of a realignment, but it's not like Trump is a moderate and only hardcore far-right Cruz supporters will sit on their hands.
Excal: Let's say I decide to crank up the bass of the stereo to 11, paint "LEGALIZE WEED" on my car in big green letters, then start cruising down the streets at 85 mph (140 kph?). I'm probably gonna get arrested, no? But fine, I somehow didn't get arrested. Winning the general is gonna be like going back out, except this time with an ambulance siren to go with the music and wearing a turban and going at 100 mph and having my biker gang follow me. The fact I got away with the above does make it more likely I'm gonna get away with this the second time (perhaps the police are on strike right now?), but it's still gonna be tough.
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Someone that votes for Trump (i.e. Old money crony capitalist) under the banner of Anti-Establishment is fucking terrible at what they are trying to do and isn't even really "left".
Even a vote for Libertarian is more in line with those values than Trump.
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Fenrir: Trump doesn't exactly line up with the vanilla political science textbook definition of US Right vs. Left. Which happens, it could be the sign of a realignment, but it's not like Trump is a moderate and only hardcore far-right Cruz supporters will sit on their hands.
Trump is actually pretty comparable to Marine Le Pen, so Fenrir's seen this shitshow in his own country. I'm just really hoping that Trump won't have the success Le Pen and the national front have had.
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Yeah in France we've seen a lot of far left voters switch to the far right. And Trump is definitely far right.
Honestly Super you're already worse off, Trump would probably be less of a disaster for his country than Le Pen (lol) but his speeches are more racist and he has more voting intention.
Someone that votes for Trump [...] is fucking terrible
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Trump pulled support from a minority of a minority (nationalist know-nothing republicans). He is hated by the party elite and Democrats despise him. He has no 'moderate' appeal for all that this is a small column that is more likely to heavily lean one party than a huge contigent of middle of the road folks.
If Trump had cross appeal it ended when he espoused conservative dogma on too many things. I don't think he can just lie his way out of various positions but who knows. US media.
Tldr check out Trump's nonwhiye and female support. That may not matter as much in a republican primary but it sure as hell matters in the general.
And Cruz is as bad as Trump. Wanted to raise taxes on the poor and cut them on thw rich. Cut taxes on the rich by like 8 to 10 TRILLION dollars over the course often years and raise military spending and somehow balance the budget. Wanted to do away entirely with Energy, labor, financial oversight, EPA... And that would not come CLOSE to paying for his tax cuts. Says climate change is not happening (or maybe he moved on to the next defense in depth strategy). Talks about machine guns like they were toys. Talked about carpet bombing cities. And is probably an honest to god monster going by the folks who have known and worked with him.
But seriously all the Republican proposals were insane. Donald Trump being uniquely headline grabbing does not change the fact that every Republican had devolved into chest beating cave men screaming "Government bad! Tax cut good!". Albeit they had nice suits. It is frustrating that the shear insanity of their collective policy proposals is lost in some personality war where everyone but Trump is 'acceptable'.
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I actually don't think he can walk that shit back (the build a wall narrative is pretty central to his core and a big talking point from his supporters... how do you take it back or talk around it?) and he simply cannot help himself from being insulting to women, even more recently when he is acting more "presidential." Regardless, he cannot be treated lightly.
And I'm afraid his support is going to have far reaching consequences beyond the election year. There's a significant segment of the population that is incredibly angry that has a xenophobic, nationalistic streak that he is giving voice to. It's possible that some future candidate will be able to harness this and have Trump-like views but in a more palatable package. I don't think that's going away. I recognize that it is not a large proportion of people but already it has been influential.
I think a fascinating hypothetical would be what would have happened if the GOP had decided to address the issues outlined by the autopsy after the 2012 loss (essentially rebrand as something other than rich, racist assholes, appeal to minorities, stop pushing anti gay marriage, etc). They might have been able to push someone like Rubio and been competitive. Instead they've really doubled down and this is sort of the natural end point of that. It'll be interesting to see what they do from here. I think maybe a lot of effort will go into attempts not to get their clock cleaned on down ballot elections but there are serious party brand ramifications here, especially as younger people associate the party with Trump.
I think the influence of conservative intellectuals has also waned and many seem to be without a party. The party is splintered and I'm unsure how they create a competitive coalition or if the well is just poisoned.
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Someone that votes for Trump (i.e. Old money crony capitalist) under the banner of Anti-Establishment is fucking terrible at what they are trying to do and isn't even really "left".
Even a vote for Libertarian is more in line with those values than Trump.
I think this is what you're trying to get at.
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/us2016.png)
Obviously not a perfect scientific tool or anything, but useful just as a visual guide.
As long as I'm breaking out the charts, though?
Here's the 2008 primary season
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/usprimaries_2008.png)
Here's the 2012 primary (plus Obama after one term)
(http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/us2012.png)
For some reason the Democratic machine has decided that you're either sexist or racist if you're didn't get in line behind Clinton before. But it's some small comfort that I'm not the only one that's thought about it this way: the office of President of the United States invariably pushes someone rightward. If you're starting off as conservative as Clinton is this year, that could end up very far right indeed.
It's been said; Clinton is very, very lucky that Donald Trump is the republican nominee. It's likely that he's the only one (except maybe Ted Cruz) the increasingly-left Democratic base would actually unite behind her to deny.
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What was your source for those? I'm curious on the methodology they used.
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I am going to do it again.
For some reason the Democratic machine has decided that you're either sexist or racist if you're didn't get in line behind Clinton before.
Is this like for real or is this rhetoric just one more of the tools that Clinton and her backers used to push and leverage her way into this position that she has been very clearly driving towards for over a decade now? I have 0 expectation that someone as driven and pragmatic as Clinton is based on her policies and approach to politics won't have it as just one more weapon in the arsenal.
Also consistent scale? Or we really do represent that Clinton got twice as authoritarian and nearly twice as far Right leaning in the last 8 years? Because even if we are using a comparative scale based on the competition if Hilary Clinton hasn't changed massively we are showing that like the 2016 ballot is LESS extreme than the 2008 ballot in general to which I say "fucking noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooope".
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What was your source for those? I'm curious on the methodology they used.
Those are the charts Political Compass uses. I couldn't tell you how they fill in the phantom surveys for candidates or whatever they do. Just useful as a visual guide.
we are showing that like the 2016 ballot is LESS extreme than the 2008 ballot in general
Huh? The 'moderate' Bush on the 2016 chart is at like (8, 8.5). The closest to him on the 2008 chart is Newt Gingrich who's still at (8, 7).
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Yeah so that is saying that Hilary has swung as Right wing as like Rudy Juliani, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee in 2008.
Fuck no. She is right of center for certain and she is traditionally slow on progressive issues, but you know she still at least stays in lock step with social conscience. It really feels like it's taking a thin slice on economic and foreign policy like just focusing on Tax and aggressive stance on hostile foreign interests.
She isn't holding steadfast on the DOMA any more or pushing against health care improvements. She may not be in favour of a $15 minimum wage but she did support an increase.
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For some reason the Democratic machine has decided that you're either sexist or racist if you're didn't get in line behind Clinton before.
Couldn't agree more. I am sick to death of straw man attacks that say I support my candidate because of craven triangulation rather than for legitimate policy reasons.
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Yeah so that is saying that Hilary has swung as Right wing as like Rudy Juliani, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee in 2008.
Fuck no. She is right of center for certain and she is traditionally slow on progressive issues, but you know she still at least stays in lock step with social conscience. It really feels like it's taking a thin slice on economic and foreign policy like just focusing on Tax and aggressive stance on hostile foreign interests.
She isn't holding steadfast on the DOMA any more or pushing against health care improvements. She may not be in favour of a $15 minimum wage but she did support an increase.
Ah. A few things.
- Obama took a huge rightward turn on civil liberties during his first term, in particular the 2012 Defense funding bill (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012) which officially enshrined Gitmo-style detention without hearings into law. To my knowledge Clinton hasn't said one way or the other about this in specific, but has been generally on board for Obama's current foreign policy outlines, drone raids, etc.
- This particular website considers free trade deals to be pretty right-wing economically, and Clinton's primary accomplishment as Secretary of State was orchestrating the TPP.
- Health Care reform is a bipartisan issue. Medicare is poised to completely swallow the rest of the federal budget and then some within the next 10-15 years because costs are escalating just that damn much. Forcing people to purchase private insurance (under penalty of tax) on the premise that reducing the number of uninsured will slow the growth of costs and offset the ongoing increases by reducing the number of people getting treatment then not paying for it is the right-wing approach to the problem. Republicans just noticed it was unpopular across the board (it's a tax AND it completely fails to address the root problem AND it's a roadblock for implementing a single-payer system, something for every political ideology to dislike) and figured they could score cheap points by opposing it... and also mask that their solution would be very similar and hope to score points for passing almost the same bill but with their names on it just because hey WE GOT RID OF OBAMACARE OMG11?!?!one.
- Clinton's support of a minwage increase is one of the issues she's actually gone left on since the start of the campaign and I don't believe that chart accounts for it.
Although yes
- The website I was looking at is British (I think), so it doesn't actually ask about gay rights, civil rights in general (although it does ask about nationalism and immigration stuff), or guns, the areas Democrats can properly claim to be left wing about. I'd have to look again to see if they talk about women's rights or abortion in particular, since being a stanch second-wave feminist is sorta at the core of Clinton's ideology and would distort the results if they don't.
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One specific thing I would give Obama a break on is Gitmo. He genuinely tried to close it just after he was elected, and was thoroughly rebuffed by craven Democratic legislators, who overwhelmingly sided with Republicans in not allowing Gitmo detainees to be transferred to US prisons. You can certainly take him to task on drones, transparency, whistleblowers, and surveillance (although he was pro-surveillance as a senator, even during the 2008 election season) but Gitmo he really tried on.
In any case, as suggested, any political leaning chart that doesn't capture attitudes with respect to race is missing the major faultline of American politics.
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Hmm. They credit a few people I'm aware of, one I've actually read (Adorno), for their methodology. The problem is they're not quite transparent with their process.
Adorno is probably most famous in political science circles for his F-Scale. It's a measurement on how authoritarian a leader is based on a similar survey. His methodology evolved as a circular of questions (similar to the one on their site) sent to experts on famous leaders, who would fill out the questionnaire and their responses would be weighed. Said experts would also generally point out any of the many biases in the questions/answers that can arise from such a survey, and Adorno would fix it in the next round. It's become a pretty standard rubric for political science research since his time, and with content analytics people have been writing programs to cull results from leaders' own writing and speeches.
That said, even Adorno's, done in the 70's, were generally like three times longer than the one on the site, and the site itself doesn't quite say who is filling out the survey for the names. I'm sure they DO have their own internal process for doing those, but lack of transparency into that process is a big red-flag. Kneejerk reaction is it seems they sort of bias everything right-wards. I don't mean that as a pejorative though, it just seems most political behaviors they assign a right-ward slant.
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One specific thing I would give Obama a break on is Gitmo. He genuinely tried to close it just after he was elected, and was thoroughly rebuffed by craven Democratic legislators, who overwhelmingly sided with Republicans in not allowing Gitmo detainees to be transferred to US prisons. You can certainly take him to task on drones, transparency, whistleblowers, and surveillance (although he was pro-surveillance as a senator, even during the 2008 election season) but Gitmo he really tried on.
Agreed, I wouldn't assign him blame for not closing the actual Gitmo. But a bill formalizing its existence into US law is still Not A Good Thing, even if motivated by the reality of not being able to get rid of the one they had. Civil liberties is an area where ideology needs to be given larger weight than political reality, because by nature it's the most fragile and easily abused area of governance.
In any case, as suggested, any political leaning chart that doesn't capture attitudes with respect to race is missing the major faultline of American politics.
I do think it's a useful bit of perspective though. The increased partisanship and hyperfocus on race, sexuality, etc of rhetoric in both parties has covered up just how much they've come to agree on since the 90s.
And if you wanted an explanation for how both parties have a massive ideological rebellion going on simultaneously, it's important to keep this in mind too.
Undoubtedly racism and sexism motivate many. It's the inescapable fact of America's foundation. It underwrites all things.
But the degree to which both parties engage in the same behaviors and follow the same broad policy goals, while easy to miss between the megaphones and dogwhistles, is something people are intuitively aware of, and reaction against it is inevitable.
And, if we'd like to prevent predictable economic collapses and a version of Trump that WON'T faceplant in the general election, necessary.
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https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/728297587418247168
I take it back guys, Trump has already won over Hispanic voters.
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This is almost as good as when he said Clinton's "off the reservation" comment was offensive to "the Indians."
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I like how it is in lock step with the way you see racist fucks on the internet go "white people white people white people" "the blacks" and don't even realize what they are doing.
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So no less a Republican than Paul Ryan has held off on endorsing Donald Trump.
Is this a show to give him plausible deniability when Trump blows up in their face before he half-heartedly endorses him at the convention or the like? Probably.
But this has to have set some less visible members of the party thinking. So I wonder; think any of them will take the ballsy move and actually endorse Gary Johnson or (gasp) Hillary Clinton? I mean, it wouldn't be that shocking relative to the rest of this campaign.
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Endorsing Hillary would be pretty shocking, considering she's the Republican Anti-Christ. I..guess it's possible they endorse Gary Johnson but more likely they'll just sit it out and let Trump wither on the vine. I doubt their support would make a difference anyway.
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There's no way any of them endorse Gary Johnson. This would involve admitting that there is a right wing alternative to the Republican party. A bad candidate this year will probably lose them some seats for one election. But a strong Libertarian party would cause them serious long-term problems.
Endorsing Hillary Clinton is very possible, though. The Koch brothers have gone on record as saying she's a better candidate than Trump, and they may be giving her money. And the Koch brothers damn near dictate the positions of a good chunk of the republican party.
There's also already a decent number of moderately high profile republicans (like McCain campaign strategists) saying they will vote Hillary; that's different from an elected official, though:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/05/03/3775104/never-trump-has-failed-republican-party/
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The thing is I don't see how endorsing Hillary is a win for anybody. If Hillary wins it's not going to be because a GOP person endorsed her, and you've just given any would-be primary opponents a golden opportunity to paint you as an out of touch RINO. If Hillary loses then you've just pissed off the new leader of your party for no gain. Note your link has the only person with an elected position to defend declaring neutrality, which seems like the best of a bad set of choices.
I could see non-elected conservatives going for Hillary, I guess, but that could still come back to haunt them later.
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Endorsing Hillary Clinton is very possible, though. The Koch brothers have gone on record as saying she's a better candidate than Trump, and they may be giving her money. And the Koch brothers damn near dictate the positions of a good chunk of the republican party.
The Koch Brothers thing is really pretty weird, because if you look at policy, Trump's unpredictable, but Clinton is predictably - consistently - far to the left of what they want. (Their big issue is deregulation. Clinton is nothing if not a believer in the power of government and the appropriateness of government using that power.)
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I dunno, it makes sense to me. Clinton is to the left of what they want, sure, but Trump represents a clear danger to the American economy and therefore their interests as well. Supporting Clinton makes sense if in truth they hate both, and their real goal is to get a "true", Koch-friendly Republican in office in 2020. On paper it should be easier to defeat Clinton in 2020 (after all, no party has won the White House four times in a row since WW2) than to successfully take down a sitting president Trump in the primaries and hold off a Democratic challenger in the same year.
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More than that Clinton hasn't shown much desire to increase regulation, so it may well be they think she'll be open to careful, measured reduction of regulations if they open a dialog. And if not, she's unlikely to really undo any of the gains they have made until they can get a more suitable Republican candidate.
Granted they're... not going to get one in the foreseeable future. We're just going to keep getting more fascistic demagogues until one wins or until we clean up the conditions that make people vote for them, and in all likelihood they're going to follow the path laid out by Trump. Like, this time around, the Republicans probably could have stopped Trump, had they acted faster. In four years? I don't think that'll be true even though they'll be ready for one.
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Even a measured approach from Clinton regarding regulation would result in a sea change in the Koch's power because she (or Sanders, obviously) would appoint a Supreme Court justice that would decisively swing the court liberal. That is a huge, huge deal where regulations are concerned, and far more permanent than anything else a president can accomplish alone.
Or to put it another way: the difference between what regulations Obama wanted and what Obama got - entirely due to utter bullshit politically motivated 5-4 Supreme Court decisions - is huge. Clinton, I think it is fair to say, is probably about even with Obama in terms of how aggressively we can expect her to push regulation. That's what the Koch brothers are suggesting is preferable to Trump, and that's crazy.
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Trump is on record saying something like he would have let AiG go under in 2008. Which appeals to the Republican base, yes (and probably the democrat base as well TBH), but to people who actually understand economics (like the Koch brothers) that is terrifying. AiG goes under, and then it's something like T-bills stop returning on investment, and when people can't buy US treasury bills at a stable interest rate, suddenly there is no safe haven in the stock market, and you get massive increased volatility. Possibly massive inflation, and devaluation of the US currency. (And when stocks are traded on the US dollar, that causes problems too).
Bear in mind, intelligent market analysts are predicting another stock market collapse (this time starting in Europe) and most of the banks that were "too big to fail" last time are larger now than they were back then (with something like four US banks having more leverage than the GDP of the entire world). If there is another crash, then there needs to be another bailout for the same reason there needed to be a bailout in 2008--people with safe investments like US T-bills (which a lot of retirement accounts use worldwide) are relying on at least some modicum of market stability.
Trump saying "nah, fuck it, let the big banks go bankrupt. I've gone bankrupt four times--it's fine! It's a legitimate business strategy." is...pretty terrifying to someone like the Koch brothers who have lots of money, and want that money to actually hold its value.
There's also just the factor for some right wingers I know where...they try to imagine Trump, for example, negotiating with Russia without starting war...and they can't. Now, to be fair, the persona that Trump puts on for the election, and how he behaves behind closed doors is reportedly pretty different. He's an actor, and he's good at reading an audience and figuring out how to act to appeal to them. But on the flip side, his knowledge of general governing and politics has been shockingly thin. And stuff that he's said in the primary would already affect foreign affairs--I can't imagine relationships with Mexico would be good under president Trump, even if he pulls a 180 on the building a Wall shit once he's in office.
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Actually, out of interest, do you have any particular examples of that in mind? A few minutes of searching turned up this (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/courts-action-on-climate-threatens-obamas-legacy-219088) one about setting new carbon emissions standards, which certainly unto itself would be a Big Fucking Deal for the Kochs, but I'm getting the impression there's a pattern of this sort of thing but I'm not sure where to look to find that.
But it's possible they might be doing the hard calculus the bulk of the Republican party is not. The trumps of the future are likely to rise from the Republican party. It may be they no longer think they can just write the party rules as they had done there, and instead will deal with seasoned politicians as a preferable alternative to a parade of demagogues.
fake-edit: to build on metroid's point, the Bankruptcy thing is so bad it's possible that Trump looking good in polls, even if he ultimately loses, it may well cause massive market instability. So a third possibility is that the Kochs back Clinton just to prevent massive blowups in the immediate future regardless of what it means for their future prospects.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435418/koch-brothers-campaign-activity-slows?utm_source=NR&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=May16 Really good article talking about the how and why the Koch brothers are sitting out the federal elections. (Short version: some but not all of it can be blamed on Trump). The Republicans are so screwed.
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Actually, out of interest, do you have any particular examples of that in mind? A few minutes of searching turned up this (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/courts-action-on-climate-threatens-obamas-legacy-219088) one about setting new carbon emissions standards, which certainly unto itself would be a Big Fucking Deal for the Kochs, but I'm getting the impression there's a pattern of this sort of thing but I'm not sure where to look to find that.
That was the big one I had in mind.
Also: dammit super, I wanted to live my life without ever having to admit I learned something from NR.
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I wrote a thing. Not sure everything I wrote is as perfect as it could be, but I had been collecting thoughts on this for a while.
http://kaitlyn-burnell.tumblr.com/post/144793699593/politics
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Interesting piece. The two lenses you use feel, at times a touch too restrictive, but I suspect that's more places where their concerns dismiss things that I see as important (the military being the big one here.)
The one thing where I think I need to disagree is your description of Hillary as charismatic. Granted, I haven't looked too closely at her, but what I've seen and heard generally agree around the idea that she's less charismatic and more simply adept at interpersonal skills. To use a 3E analogy, her Cha modifier isn't terribly strong, but the Politician class allows access to the social skills, and she's maxed them all out. And with all her experience over the decades, she's leveled up enough to make that formidable.
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I disagree completely with this.
Florida would be way better off underwater.
Also you missed to option of burning Wall Steet to the ground.
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Also you missed to option of burning Wall Steet to the ground.
"Ban all derivatives" is pretty close to that. I mean, I probably oversimplified when I called derivatives in general bad. This technically include Forwards, Futures, Mortgage backed securities, Options, Swaps, Hedging.... Like...Hedging as a way of adding market stability to a wheat farmer is fine--if the price of wheat goes down, the wheat farmer gets some money from the hedge and doesn't go bankrupt.
It's when you start getting into derivatives on derivatives on derivatives where there's a pretty big problem.
The one thing where I think I need to disagree is your description of Hillary as charismatic. Granted, I haven't looked too closely at her, but what I've seen and heard generally agree around the idea that she's less charismatic and more simply adept at interpersonal skills. To use a 3E analogy, her Cha modifier isn't terribly strong, but the Politician class allows access to the social skills, and she's maxed them all out. And with all her experience over the decades, she's leveled up enough to make that formidable.
I'm almost tempted to edit this in as a factual correction >_>
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I disagree completely with this.
Florida would be way better off underwater.
Also you missed to option of burning Wall Steet to the ground.
Hey bro why u gotta do me like that bro. Bro...
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I'm not sure your statement about college students playing more video games is valid. I suspect it's rather that "people aged 18-23 from the socio-economic backgrounds that typically go to college play a lot of games". That said, I suppose that giving such people more money/time by paying for their school would likely cause them to play more video games, so the end result of your argument is likely correct.
It's when you start getting into derivatives on derivatives on derivatives where there's a pretty big problem.
Well yeah, there's a reason we call these jerks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerk_%28physics%29).
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Just want to stick up for Breyer, who was the Democratically-appointed dissenter in Brown v. EMA. So there are two dissents, one by Breyer and one by Thomas, and if you've only ever heard about the Thomas one, that's because it's insane, and Breyer's is not. Breyer agrees with the majority that video games are a protected First Amendment form of expression, and must be treated as such (except to the extent they have physical conduct components) meaning any law regulating them must be narrowly tailored to meet a substantial government interest. Where Breyer breaks from the majority is he says this law passes the test, by applying the settled Constitutional rule that minors have reduced First Amendment rights to speech aimed at minors rather than solely at speech performed by minors. Hence upholding a civil fine for sales of GTAV to 10-year-olds. This is debatable but not crazy. Thomas...haha, Thomas just goes out and says that speech performed by minors and speech aimed at minors has no First Amendment protection whatsoever, meaning it can be banned and regulated however the state pleases. This is crazy.
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Terry Mcaulliffe being investigated is slightly less surprising than the sun rising in the east. Oh boy, two straight governors who could end up in jail!
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Virginia is for graft lovers
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Notice that so far there isn’t a political party here. LGBT rights are more often supported by democrats, but Dick Cheny was the first VP to support gay marriage. Democrat Bill Clinton passed the largest modern anti-gay legislation in DOMA and DADT. So we really need to look at the individual politician, not the party.
Not really. This is like pointing to some Republican who raised taxes and a Democrat who cut taxes to prove that taxation isn't really about party. But it obviously is; the Democrats are, in general, a lot more likely to raise taxes and the Republicans to cut them. And often the "Exceptions" are cases where there was an overwhelming bipartisan consensus that this was a good idea or really necessary, aka cases where politics doesn't come into play too much. If there's a budget crisis, even a Republican might raise taxes. If there's a regressive stupid tax on the poor, the Dems will cut it.
It may be hard to remember now, but DOMA was a noncontroversial, hugely bipartisan bill in Congress. Absolutely nobody of that era wanted Hawaii imposing radical gay marriage craziness on every other state, and DOMA was narrowly tailored enough to "solve" this pressing concern. It was, however, largely a conservative directed moral panic, just one that, in that era, the liberal side had little cause to dispute. There were other problems to fight and there wasn't a moral case in favor of gay marriage yet. So blame the Dems of that era if you want, but it seems unlikely that had there been an overwhelming Dem majority in Congress that they'd have cared enough to pass it.
DADT I think you're being very unfair on. As a reminder, before DADT, the standard was that homosexuality was grounds for dismissal from the armed services. Clinton actually looked into abolishing this in 1992, which caused a backlash freak-out, and the threat of Congressional override which would make the situation *worse* (the old bad practice codified into law). What Clinton did was quite an ingenious compromise that was broadly popular in the era: he left the fig leaf of homosexuality still being grounds for dismissal, but removed the ability to actually investigate it. It doesn't take a genius to guess what would happen 10-15 years later after more gay officers had risen through the ranks and had the ability to have their private life be secret go away. So in short, DADT was progressive-for-the-era, and also nearly guaranteed its own eventual repeal.
Government control can mean government tyranny. Now, normally in a democracy, tyranny won’t hurt the majority population.
This is a side nitpick, but answer is "it depends a lot." Apartheid South Africa was a democracy that wasn't particularly friendly to its majority population. Any time you have a democracy where the majority for whatever reason doesn't vote / can't vote / has less political power, you can see this.
Short Selling is banned in lots of countries–why is it legal in the US?
It actually is highly regulated & restricted, possibly too much so! So devil's advocate:
1) I propose "bubbles" are generally bad. If the "fair" price of cheese is 10 dollars, and there's a rush on cheese with people buying cheese at 15 dollars and hoping to sell at 20 dollars, followed by a crash to 8 dollars, this is pointless churn. Replace "cheese" with "housing / real estate" and you have 2003-2007.
2) Short selling allows canny investors to "pop" bubbles early, and be rewarded for doing so, so that they don't get TOO big and have even worse consequences later. Why should only positivity be allowed? There should be ways to bet the price of something will drop. This is a valuable signal the market needs.
From what I can tell, ban derivatives, high frequency trading, and all forms of speculation. No candidate has even proposed this. But this seems like common sense legislation
How is it even possible to ban speculation? How would you do this? Not sure how you distinguish "I'm buying these 5 homes in Florida because I might become a landlord" and "I'm buying them to speculate." And what about the case where I genuinely want to be a landlord, but I run into liquidity troubles, and now need to sell? Am I a retroactive speculator?
Same problem with currencies. Countries have occasionally tried to ban speculation that a currency will drop, say, because the government is maintaining an expensive peg. This is basically impossible to enforce even if you think it's a good idea. What exactly can stop you from trading your dollars for swiss francs for Egyptian pounds? And is this even a bad thing to begin with? Maybe the government shouldn't have been pouring money into currency nonsense to begin with if you didn't want other people to come in and participate as well.
If the Axis had won in WW2…honestly, Videogames would probably still exist, perhaps a little censored.
I realize you're being a tad flip / humorous with all the "solely with respect to the video game industry" comments, but you underestimate how horrible the Nazis were. Speaking *solely* from the perspective of the closest equivalent to video games of the time, art & literature, the Nazis:
* Looted everything, including museums, and shot you if you got in the way
* Censored more than "a little", and this includes in 1932-38, so not something that goes away after wartime
* Enforced an art style that was somehow worse than Socialist Realism. Like the commies, they hated anything abstract and imaginative, and preferred "classical" style paintings.
* The same with poetry: it was horrible, horrible chest-pounding doggerel about how awesome your nation is. Musolinni even wrote some IIRC.
* You might have heard about some unpleasantness involving the Jews. Well... Jews were/are major players in the entertainment industry (most famously Hollywood) which has some cross-connection with videogames, and there'd be a lot fewer of them.
Well here’s Trump saying he would negotiate for Chinese factories to have the same environmental regulations as US factories.
I wish President Trump good luck with this, it'll happen right after President Sanders defeats the invading spider-people. Pretty sure other countries are sovereign entities; there's a huge amount of whining even within the EU about cross-national regulations. Until the US is agreeable to complying by other countries regulations (hahahaha), I don't think we'll have much success convincing them to submit to ours.
China was willing to bail out the US debt in 2008
People way overplay this meme. China was buying tons of US debt before 2008 and they bought tons of treasuries afterward. As do many world governments & corporations seeking a safe haven for money. It just happened there was more debt for sale in 2008-09 then usual. I doubt there was much "political" motive behind it as merely seeing treasuries as a solid & safe investment in a world economy that was in trouble.
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Home sick, Snow has some very good points which I should address. (I suspect he's right and I'm wrong on a number of these points). Going to start with miki tho, and then if I don't fall asleep from being sick I'll get to Snow next.
Just want to stick up for Breyer, who was the Democratically-appointed dissenter in Brown v. EMA. So there are two dissents, one by Breyer and one by Thomas, and if you've only ever heard about the Thomas one, that's because it's insane, and Breyer's is not. Breyer agrees with the majority that video games are a protected First Amendment form of expression, and must be treated as such (except to the extent they have physical conduct components) meaning any law regulating them must be narrowly tailored to meet a substantial government interest. Where Breyer breaks from the majority is he says this law passes the test, by applying the settled Constitutional rule that minors have reduced First Amendment rights to speech aimed at minors rather than solely at speech performed by minors. Hence upholding a civil fine for sales of GTAV to 10-year-olds. This is debatable but not crazy. Thomas...haha, Thomas just goes out and says that speech performed by minors and speech aimed at minors has no First Amendment protection whatsoever, meaning it can be banned and regulated however the state pleases. This is crazy.
The bipartisanship of anti videogame rhetoric extended outside of the supreme court, to be fair. Jack Thompson was a republican vying for a seat in...the house or the senate I believe. (I think he lost the election). But Hillary Clinton picked up the torch for him and argued against videogames in the senate.
I thought about including these two as examples, but with Hillary being a candidate, and with her opinion on whether videogames are speech being rendered rather irrelevant by Brown vs EMA, I figured this would be too much of a red herring. Does Hillary still think videogames should not be protected under the first amendment? Probably not, that was 10 years ago. But even if she does, she can't do anything about it.
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Honestly didn't even survey politicians' opinions because there was never anything they could do about it. Brown v. EMA was an obvious decision based on recent Supreme Court precedent.
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https://twitter.com/chrstphr_woody/status/737034448122880000
I'm unsure if I understand Libertarianism.
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It's all about Freedom, Duck. I thought you of all people would understand given your cultural heritage
(http://www.disneyclips.com/imagesnewb/images/clipdonstamp.gif)
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If only Hunter S. Thompson were alive...
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/gary_johnson_needs_to_leave_the_libertarian_party_behind.html
Polling fourth, one slot behind McAfee, was a fellow named Darryl W. Perry, who accepts campaign donations only in the form of precious metals and cryptocurrency and who opted to have his nominating speech delivered by an “erotic services provider” who goes by the moniker “Starchild.” Perry’s most animated moment in the debate came when he slammed his fist against his lectern, forehead veins a-popping, as he insisted that 5-year-old children should have the legal right to inject heroin without adult supervision.
Actually maybe the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson is haunting the convention site?
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I'm unsure if I understand Libertarianism.
As near as I can tell, Libertarians are just Republicans with an irrational fear of police.
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If you dress and act like those dudes and dudettes...your fear of the police is plenty rational.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/the-problem-with-calling-out-judges-for-their-race/485732/
Posted mostly for the unholy beat-down administered to the chief counsel of Judicial Watch. Anyway think it's safe to say Trump's attorneys are not going to go there.
p.s. do yourself a favor and don't read Alberto Gonzales' WaPo op-ed that is referenced in the article. If you know nothing about the Judicial Code of Conduct and the concept of "appearance of impropriety," well, if you read that article you'll know even less than you do now.
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I'm unsure if I understand Libertarianism.
As near as I can tell, Libertarians are just Republicans with an irrational fear of police.
Mmm...in theory libertarians are more in favour of social freedoms. Like...long before it was legalized, they didn't think the government should make a distinction between gay marriage and straight marriage as this was """regulation""". Although they do tend to get off-message sometimes.
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I have to wonder how much the philosophical underpinnings of the sane ones prevent them from being able to squash the ones that really shouldn't be speaking out loud.
Speaking of crazy people, tomorrow is the last set of primary contests. So, my own personal bet is that Sanders will lose New Jersey handily, and will probably lose California by a few points. At which point he will promptly declare the process and Hillary illegitimate, call on the superdelegates to flip to him, and vow to carry the fight to the convention despite it being mathematically impossible for him to win.
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If he *wins* California, maybe (for all that there is no way he can win California by *enough* votes without divine intervention to win the pledged delegate count), he can argue that he won the late states which proves the early states just made an error and would have voted his way had they known how awesome he is or something. If he loses, no way. If he wants to argue the process is illegitimate so it should illegitimately support him over who the voters picked, he'll just announce a 3rd party candidacy. Which I really doubt.
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I mean, him staying in gives him leverage to push Hillary further to the left, and gives him media focus on his message, which I think are the goals right now. He's not going to publicly say these are the goals (since he wants his base to get out and vote), but realistically I think that's been the plan for a while.
Only way he gets the nomination is if Hillary gets arrested for the email stuff (which...the FBI seems to actually be hinting at happening) AND the electorate reacts negatively to this news (that remains to be seen. Certainly a poll I saw not too long ago had a majority of democrats and even 35% of Republicans saying that Hillary should stay in the race even if Indicted). Even if this happens, and the democrat party is swayed into thinking they can't run her, there's rumors that the establishment might have Hillary's delegates and the superdelegates band together and bring in Joe Biden. So mmm...either way it's probably not going to be Bernie on the ticket in November.
A third party run seems unlikey. Jill Stein is definitely trying to court him onto the Green Party ticket, but Bernie has also very clearly stated that he would much rather have Hillary in office than Trump.
Speaking of Trump...most of the recent polls are pretty grim (after closing on Hillary for months, he's been tieing and often beating her lately, particularly in swing states. Trends can change, of course, but if trends continue as is then Trump is now the clear statistical favourite.)
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I wouldn't put any stock in that. Candidates get a bump after the primaries. Trump's ended, Clinton's hasn't.
The DNC running Biden if Clinton were forced to drop would be monumentally stupid though. When probably the biggest wedge between conservative and progressive Democrats has been the perception of rigged elections, handing the nomination over to someone that didn't run would cause a pretty damned big splinter.
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Well hey, at least this is a rare occasion when voters in California actually have an impact on something. Usually the races are decided by the time the west coast closes its polls.
But yeah I agree that if Bernie loses California he will probably throw in the towel. If he wins we get to see how ballsy the superdelegates are.
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hahaha ok so this is just the best
people are sharing this infographic on facebook in support of bernie sanders
http://imgur.com/ugoBrWN
and nobody's mentioning how it says he needs 855 out of 714 delegates to win
guys
guys thats not how math works
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Wow, the horrible thing of that infographic isn't the 855 out of 714, since the point is that neither candidate can clinch it today. It's that Hillary's numbers are possible (if unrealistic). Also, that they make the entirely hilarious and unrealistic assumption that the superdelegates are entirely fluid as to who they can and will vote for. Because the mechanic to push for party candidates to win will decide to abandon the party candidate who has a lead in both popular support and pledged delegates en mass.
As for the point that California matters. I'm not entirely sure about that. In practical terms, California matters less than BC in a Federal election. At least we can effect the final numbers of seat, even if we will never decide who's running the country. However, it is possible that it may lend some weight to Sander's antics. But I'm not sure it will add enough heft that anybody who actually understands how things work will be willing to listen unless he can pull off some kind of 60-40 blowout. Which means that the import of the California primary is being overblown by Sanders, where it's part of his narrative, and by the press, because it attracts attention and makes them cash.
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I'm curious: why does California pretty much go last? I've heard it said that smaller states should go earlier because that allows candidates who don't have a lot of money to gain traction, and that makes sense. Is that it, or is there something else going on here?
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To my knowledge, each state sets its own primary election date. For whatever reason California has theirs late in the season. This, combined with being in a west coast timeslot during the regular election, makes their relevancy disproportionate to their population.
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California artificially inflating its own importance? Neeeeveeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrr.
#iceburn
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Except it is doing the exact opposite?
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You're not my dad.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/wow-she-s-right
lolgop
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Just close your eyes and repeat "there's no place like home". When you open them the scary election season will be gone.
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For the record, I'm *pleased* that the GOP has no reference to Trump on their home page. This is a good thing, right? Right? Some sane people are left over there?
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-doesnt-have-a-national-campaign-so-the-gop-is-trying-to-run-one-for-him/2016/06/09/a9e1f488-2df0-11e6-9b37-42985f6a265c_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_trump-rnc-625a-lede%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
I'm not sure, if you're sane, why you're trying to elect Trump even halfheartedly? A senator, forget who, in supporting Trump said, basically, "don't worry, if he turns out to be an autocrat, Congress will stop him!" Really.
Anyway, all that dovetails with this: Trump is relying almost entirely on the GOP to supply a ground game.
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Bernie Sanders fans seem to have gone off the deep end, it's hilarious. everyone cheated everything, my god
ET TU, LIZ?
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Kinda crazy considering Bernie was reportedly very happy with Obama for not endorsing Clinton til now (and how he's butthurt that Sherrod Brown endorsed her earlier).
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That's the danger of playing yourself up as the only hope for change, being the sole ray of light fighting a corrupt order, and so on. It creates a sense of righteous anger that demands heads and demonizes the very people that should allies. Even though the Dem primary has been shockingly non-negative the narrative Sanders sold is inherently going to make people see Clinton as evil, corrupt, and insufficient to effect the changes that need to be made for our survival and so on and so forth.
I doubt Bernie Sanders can even get his young supporters hyped for Clinton now. I can't see this ending very well.
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I'm sure they'll love President Trump
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Sometimes ya gotta let the purifying flames run wild in order to build something better from the ashes. So Bern, baby, Bern.
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If Bernie is conciliatory and endorses Hillary, will some of his own followers see that as a moral failing and assume he's a sellout? Or will they become disillusioned with his messaging and abandon the political process? There are already a handful who say they'll vote for Trump or Gary Johnson, although the proportion of people who would actually do so probably isn't that high (it can be hard to have a sense of proportionality sometimes with internet echo chambers).
It'll be interesting to see what happens, but I think this kind of ideological purity test thinking is dangerous.
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It makes a twisted sort of sense. Warren was already considered a bit of a traitor for not endorsing Bernie when it counted (after all, the most progressive member of the senate lost in Massachusetts), so her going all the way and actually endorsing Clinton confirms that earlier sense of betrayal for the conspiratorially minded.
The last month-ish has been frustrating for everyone Democrat-affiliated of course. The calls for Bernie to drop out went from "persistent" to "genuinely angry", which only dumped fuel on the conspiracy theory fire because that's how conspiracy thinking works. The epic snarkfest would probably have been hilarious for anyone on the R side of the fence if they weren't all busy putting guns in their mouths.
What's frustrating is I get it to some extent, even from a pragmatic point of view. Like, the argument looks a bit like this.
(Disclaimer: it's entirely possible there's the simple explanation of "Bernie bought his own hype", and presumably it's a 'little from column A, little from column B' scenario, but you know me, I love the long form arguments.)
- Bernie's main goal is (and perhaps always was) to influence the party platform in a more progressive direction.
- His ability to do so increases as he gains more voters in the primary.
- THEREFOR he needs to run the primary to the end as gain as many votes as possible.
- THEREFOR he needs to keep potential supporters willing to vote, ie he needs to have a chance to win.
- The perception of fighting for every single vote and calling to question every instance of potential shenanigans presents a candidate as more viable than the pure numbers suggest.
- THEREFOR call out all instances where the DNC or state parties seem to take actions that could potentially favor Clinton over Sanders.
and after a while that turns from "the system is kinda fucked up" to "CONSPIRACY", although Sanders seemed to play more to the latter than the former a lot of times anyway (*sigh*). But in principle it's an effective option, but it's also playing with fire. Because once people are in CONSPIRACY mode, it's very hard to deescalate from it. People were pissed off when he didn't suspend/concede on Tuesday night and I kinda went "well duh he's not going to concede, giving up in the face of CORRUPT CONSPIRACY will just make the base bugger off into awfulville".
I mean, we may indeed be at the point where nothing is going to work, but at a minimum he needs to be able to enumerate all the gains he's made and show very clearly that he was able to sway the party to his views (or strongly in that direction) despite not actually winning the nomination. Shows the system can be corrected and that working within it is a viable path, which is one of the main sticking points for his holdouts.
Shit, not gonna lie. I have a lot of reservations about sticking with the Democrats after November myself. If things don't change quite a bit we're gonna run out the clock on climate change or some other fascistic demagogue actually winning, and if this primary hasn't been a wakeup call for the Democrats then they're just not going to do it until the generational shift in ~20 years and we'll have to find some other, faster means of effecting change.
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It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. The PUMAs in the last democratic primary were also fairly adamant that they would not vote for Obama and they ended up doing so, in a primary that was much more negative than this one. One of the narratives from data driven sites is that we should expect the something similar here, especially given the endorsements from a popular sitting president, VP, and with people like Elizabeth Warren. As things move to the general election, people might throw more of their support behind Clinton? The messaging of this campaign based on stoking conspiracies and corruption might change things, but I think a large proportion will back Hillary, especially as the prospect of Trump looms large.
It's true that there might be some die hards but I don't know how many there actually are. The disaffected from both sides might run to third parties candidates like Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, and actually the libertarian party is getting a decent amount of support.
The best thing for Trump would be to make this campaign really nasty and disgusting such that people will disengage, keeping turnout low. The other is if the polls don't look particularly close and people get complacent, kind of like what people theorized happened in Michigan. It seems like there's enough fear and vitriol stoked against Trump so that won't likely happen, though.
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Poll results (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/10/sanders-supporters-prefer-clinton-to-trump-exclusive-poll) I could quickly Google suggest that an overwhelming majority more (6:1 if you don't wanna click through, method being asking to pick from Trump, Sanders, Clinton and Johnson, then same question swapping Sanders for Stein).
Single poll point and of course lols polls, but it suggests the pattern you really do expect to see. A lot of people supporting Sanders agree with what he is saying, but the majority is not really the militant Bernie Bros of the Internet.
CK when you want that faster more effective means of effecting change let me know and we can talk about my boy Vladimir Lenin.
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Ooh, can you put Vladmir Lenin in charge of the US? Pretty please?
The whole "bernie bros" thing is a bit of a myth as far as I can tell. As someone who's been on twitter, and said negative stuff about both Bernie and Hillary, I want to say I've gotten weirder shit from the Hillary supporters.
Of course, were they really Hillary supporters? Mighta been the fine folks from 4chan
http://boingboing.net/2016/06/02/lets-troll-bernie-and-hi.html
Or it might have been one of the hired online trolls from that Super PAC
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/21/1518537/-Clinton-SuperPac-Admits-to-Paying-Internet-Trolls
But either way, that's been my experience.
What is true statistically, and we have primary results to back this up, is that Bernie does much better than Hillary when primaries are open, which is to say when Republicans and Independents can vote in the Democrat primary. Someone who is a life-long Republican, and reacts with revulsion to the name Clinton, tends to be more open to Bernie who spent most of his political career as an independent. Independents, obviously, like Bernie for being an independent. Independents don't like people with strong party attachments. (Incidentally, a poll recently from Fox News that broke down percentages by party affiliation, had the Independents breaking down as follows: Trump: 32%, Gary Johnson: 23%, Clinton: 22%. Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2016/06/09/fox-news-poll-national-releas-6-16/ ).
So...while yes, in general, Bernie supporters are on average the furthest left voting block, he did seem to bring in independents and a few republicans who probably have never set foot in a Democrat primary before, and may never set foot in one again. Hillary's unlikely to hold on to these voters.
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Bernie Bros are definitely a thing, but they are a minority in there own little microcosm that is Reddit.
Edit - Lenin for Skeleton President of the United States of America 2020 lets do this.
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Bernie Bros are definitely a thing, but they are a minority in there own little microcosm that is Reddit.
Reddit mixes racist, sexist dudebros with any subject matter, though. Want to see MRA Hillary supporters? You can find 'em on Reddit!
(Although admittedly, the Hillary Clinton subreddit is much smaller than Trump's (the largest) or Bernie's (the next largest) so...she has fewer such supporters, I suppose?)
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What is true statistically, and we have primary results to back this up, is that Bernie does much better than Hillary when primaries are open,
Not technically correct. What is correct is that Bernie does better, but there's a strong case (http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-system-isnt-rigged-against-sanders/) that if every state was an open primary that Clinton would be doing roughly as well as she is now, if not potentially better. It's also worth noting that of the 11 most populous states, 10 of them went Clinton. It seems to be a pattern that when you have more people voting, and when you make it easier to vote, Clinton gains more than Sanders does.
It's unknown whether Trump will show a similar weakness to Clinton.
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It's worth correcting there: what they say is that switching to open primaries would significantly close the popular vote gap, but at the expense of increasing Clinton's lead in the pledged delegate count; Bernie was able to run up the score a little in some of the caucus states (because caucuses are horrible things that take hours, and thus how dedicated your voters are matters a lot more than how many people support you), such that he'd likely still win those states but by smaller margins in such a scenario.
FiveThirtyEight in general has taken some pains to explain, at length, at any opportunity that the Democratic primary correlated much more closely with racial demographics than any other factor. Which is the long form of saying the same thing I said way back on page three or whatever: Bernie lost this primary in South Carolina. To an extent he gambled and lost (one of his most frequent talking points was about protectionist policies aimed at reinvigorating American manufacturing, which is a big deal to wide swathes of formerly-middle-class white people and fairly meaningless to not-white people), and to an extent other stuff that we talked about back then, and also frankly fear. But so goes. There's only one matter left.
President Clinton: Don't fuck it up. Don't be timid, don't cry about the republicans and their obstructionism, don't pretend trifles are major victories. I'd quite like to not face down Trump 2.0 or evacuate the west coast. Get it the fuck done.
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What is true statistically, and we have primary results to back this up, is that Bernie does much better than Hillary when primaries are open,
Not technically correct. What is correct is that Bernie does better, but there's a strong case (http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-system-isnt-rigged-against-sanders/) that if every state was an open primary that Clinton would be doing roughly as well as she is now, if not potentially better. It's also worth noting that of the 11 most populous states, 10 of them went Clinton. It seems to be a pattern that when you have more people voting, and when you make it easier to vote, Clinton gains more than Sanders does.
It's unknown whether Trump will show a similar weakness to Clinton.
I was speaking specifically about the popularity among independents (which that link confirms, incidentally). Specifically, exit polling for primaries I looked at usually had Clinton winning among registered democrats, and Sanders winning among independents.
Yes, I agree, Clinton benefits a lot from having primaries instead of caucuses. (And in general she is very well-positioned to win a democrat primary since it is mostly democrats voting--her strongest voting block). I'm not talking about her primary strength (which is strong) I'm speculating about her general election strength. In a general election, republicans and independents become a much larger percentage of the voting base.
On which subject, the structure of US general elections historically is that there's a large voting block of democrats who almost always vote democrat, a large block of republicans who almost always vote republican. And then 10%-20% of the population is a swing vote. Usually elections are won by winning the swing vote. (Although sometimes elections are won by just having a more energized base). And right now getting the swing vote looks hard for Hillary.
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Actually, it's worth pointing out that while going from closed primaries to open primaries benefits Sanders relatively, Clinton still won a majority of the states with open primaries, and as Excal noted, does better in open primaries than she does in caucuses (though closed primaries are better still for her, of course), see e.g. Washington.
I'd also be a little bit leery about classifying all "independents" as a monolithic bloc, and assuming that the same bloc shows up to primaries and especially caucuses as it does to the general. The "independent" who is fed up with the political system and/or feels the Democrats are too right-wing probably prefers Sanders, while the "independent" who is a centrist lying between the Democrats and Republicans probably prefers Clinton. And of course there are other independents like hardcore conservatives who think the Republicans are a pack of cowardly weasels (whom Trump has sewn up).
Still, it's all water under the bridge now.
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I'd also be a little bit leery about classifying all "independents" as a monolithic bloc, and assuming that the same bloc shows up to primaries and especially caucuses as it does to the general. The "independent" who is fed up with the political system and/or feels the Democrats are too right-wing probably prefers Sanders, while the "independent" who is a centrist lying between the Democrats and Republicans probably prefers Clinton. And of course there are other independents like hardcore conservatives who think the Republicans are a pack of cowardly weasels (whom Trump has sewn up).
Of course; it's very possible that the independents who vote in democrat primaries are different than those who vote in general elections. Which is why I also included recent polling of independents.
(And while yes, there are definitely independents who are too far left for the democrats, or too far right for the republicans--those will probably vote for their appropriate left/right wing candidate. Ones who are only independent because they're half way between the left/right spectrum...I dunno how those will go. That said, the "fed up with the political system" type independents, which aren't easily classifiable as left/right, and anecdotally seem to be a significant percentage of independents, prefer the candidates billed as political outsiders (Trump, Sanders, Carson, to some extent Cruz). This is a group that Trump seems likely to pick up, and anecdotally the group seems large enough that he currently seems likely to have a majority of the independent vote).
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If you want to be simplistic, you can go with 5 general shades of independents. There's the traditional folks who are to the left of the Dems, right of the Reps, and in between, but also the folks who share space with those two parties that don't like them enough to identify with them. Perhaps they don't like some of the core doctrines? Perhaps they think they're far more independent than they actually are.
Regardless, Sanders does well with independents who Democrats in all but name, whereas he falters once you get outside of that. Which makes sense, folks who balk at the Democratic party as a whole because it's too left leaning for them won't suddenly look at Bernie Sanders and think, that's right, let's go even further left! Whereas a bunch of people who feel the Democratic party should be their home but who are anti-establishment for whatever reason will look at Sanders favourably.
((EDIT: Incidentally, I am amused that in this topic on the US election, on a site filled mostly with Americans, the last 9/10 posts are from Commonwealthers.))
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Well, remember: Only about 10% of americans actually don't have a reliable party affiliation (http://cookpolitical.com/story/6608). We're not talking about a large number of people who'd be 'center' between the american parties. edit: that also ignores the about 2% of people that are likely affiliated with the non-major US parties, so 'center' is likely about 7-8% of voters by this metric.
Which makes sense because there's a lot more room left of prominent Democrats than there is between (previous) prominent members of the two parties. Of course, a lot of people are 'independent' because they registered to vote young but were wary of affiliating with a party (since what the fuck does that mean? You sure as shit don't know at 18) and just never had a pressing need to change their affiliation afterwards. Like, I have no party affiliation, but Michigan is an open primary so even when I found that I might want to affiliate so as to participate in primaries, I didn't have to. So I wouldn't read too much into that.
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CK & Elf are right on this one. Most "independents" aren't mushy centrists who listen to newspaper endorsements, though such voters do exist and exercise disproportionate power for their small size because converting an enemy vote is worth twice as much as convincing one ambivalent supporter to actually show up and vote.
This cuts both ways for Sanders: it implies that a rally-the-base, screw the center strategy can work in the general, but also means that polling among "independents" is super-misleading and not a good test of Sanders' real strength. Put things another way, the kind of politically active "independent" who bothers to show up to vote in the Democratic primary is a tailor-made pro-Sanders group. Primary turnout is way less than General turnout, so we're talking about independents who really care about politics but don't want to associate themselves as Democrats. Sounds pretty Sanders-friendly. (Incidentally, this is fine by me... Obama won out among high-information voters in 2008 and in caucuses, which is good, reduces the impact of money / fame.)
That said, the "fed up with the political system" type independents, which aren't easily classifiable as left/right, and anecdotally seem to be a significant percentage of independents, prefer the candidates billed as political outsiders (Trump, Sanders, Carson, to some extent Cruz). This is a group that Trump seems likely to pick up, and anecdotally the group seems large enough that he currently seems likely to have a majority of the independent vote).
I don't think it's THAT significant a percentage. Per above, these "outsider" voters are usually partisans of one stripe or another. They might have a favored outsider in the primary, but will they really cross over to the other side? (Side note: I saw some Bernie supporters somewhere (FB?) deeply offended that Clinton's campaign manager had said the Bernie voters would come around to Clinton in the general. How is this offensive?! I'd certainly grit my teeth and vote Bernie over any Republican in a second... doesn't seem controversial.) Seems doubtful. Or, put another way.. the liberal news media said in 1994 there was an "anti-incumbent" wave sweeping the country. Then no Republican incumbents lost, but tons of Democratic incumbents lost. If there really was a "throw the bums out, put in new outsider candidates" movement, that was the time it allegedly existed, and it was the media crying wolf. At absolute worst, cynical leftist independents repulsed by Clinton's villainous... emails... will stay home, rather than vote Trump. Rightist independents are voting Trump anyway, and rare centrist independents will do what the newspapers & society tell them, which is going to be "stop Trump at all costs."
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Or, put another way.. the liberal news media said in 1994 there was an "anti-incumbent" wave sweeping the country. Then no Republican incumbents lost, but tons of Democratic incumbents lost. If there really was a "throw the bums out, put in new outsider candidates" movement, that was the time it allegedly existed, and it was the media crying wolf.
But there definitely is an anti-insider movement. It's why the Republican primary came down to Cruz vs Trump. (With Rubio, who was seen as a Tea Party darling 4 years ago, being seen as too corrupted by Washington thanks to the...4 years he spent there). Polling has shown that the sentiment is stronger on the right than on the left, but it's still noteworthy that Sanders would have been instantly squashed in the primary in...pretty much any primary prior to this year.
Like most recent political trends, this isn't isolated to the United States, with similar attitudes echoed in Europe. The relatively stable democracy of Austria had a wave of anti-establishment voting in its 2016 presidential race, where the normal political parties couldn't even get a candidate through to the runoff stage, and the voting ended up being between a hyper-nationalist, and a green party candidate:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_presidential_election,_2016
Nor is this something that just started in 2016--the Tea Party has been ousting establishment Republicans in the House and Senate, and replacing them with Tea Party Republicans.
I don't think 1994 is going to be a good data point, because the internet wasn't a major force in politics in 1994. The internet seems to have the effect of making people more extreme in their political beliefs, as they gather large numbers of friends with similar political views. This happened on the right before it happened on the left (conservative bloggers were the ones who pushed for Sarah Palin as the VP pick in 2008). But it seems to be happening on the left as well now (with The Young Turks surpassing CNN for online viewership; And TYT doesn't even try to be subtle in their biases).
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Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
Brexit won.
Every single constituency in Scotland voted Remain; Scotland is already pushing for independence.
Northern Ireland also voted Remain. Northern Ireland is now in talks about reunification with Southern Ireland.
England and Wales voted for the exit.
The pound sterling has been plummeting and has reached a 30 year low.
All the asian markets are dropping. Japan actually halted trading on the Nikkei for a while.
Alright, so as a Canadian I actually have some amount of experience with this shit thanks to Quebec. Montreal used to be the economic capital of Canada. When scares of Quebec leaving were happening, all those businesses moved their headquarters to Toronto, which is now the economic capital of Canada.
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I wrote more things on brexit:
http://kaitlyn-burnell.tumblr.com/post/146394230263/brexit-won-what-now
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(http://www.audiencenet.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Voting-intention-age.png)
JRPGs were right: young people are better
This is also worrying re: Trump vs Clinton, because irrational nationalism just won against the struggling status quo, and this is just the beginning. Austria nearly elected a far right president against a green party candidate.
"Our lives have already become a lot worse in the past XX years, so why not take a leap of faith and change? Things can't get much worse now" (spoilers: yes they can)
I hope England crashes and burns spectacularly as a warning
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First things first, the Prime Minister could declare that 52% is not a mandate. The Canadian Prime Minister did something similar in the 90s, when yet another referendum happened.
Reading through your stuff, general disagreement, but not quite done yet, let alone coming up with acceptable counter-arguments. But had to comment on this.
This would not work.
It is debatable that it would have worked when Cretien pulled it back in 95 since Bouchard basically said they didn't recognise that claim. But let's say it was a perfect solution that would have stopped a 51% leave vote cold. It still doesn't apply here.
First: Cretien said that before the referendum was done. Cameron would have to say it after the results are in here. Claims like this have no force if they look like a desperate ass-pull to explain why the other side didn't really win.
Second: Cretien and Bouchard were separate levels of government, each with a separate mandate and a separate party backing them. Here, Cameron's party is the party that was pushing the Brexit. If he does not honour the results, then his party will fracture and his government will lose confidence and fall. At this point, you have a general election. Assuming their politics are like ours, having the government fall over this issue means that the next election will be a single issue election, a second referendum on leaving the EU. This time, the winning party will rightfully claim they have the support to deal with the EU as they see fit.
If Cameron puts on the breaks, then the only safe bet is that Cameron is toast. Aside from that, Britain may stay in, it may sever even more forcefully from the EU, hell, this is the scenario where you might wind up with a UKIP majority.
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Ok...
First off, Quebec is a bad analogy for this. It's not a great one for Scotland, since that at least was a real country in the past and had viable plans for the future, but it generally fits there since they're both provinces of a federation wanting to become sovereign nations. Here, you have a sovereign nation withdrawing from a strong common market and bureaucracy. And one which has historically had some pretty noticable differences from the rest of them.
But, to go point by point. We've already covered why Cameron can't just go "Nope, doesn't count." Heck, let's toss in a third one. PArt of his mandate for this term was that he would run this referendum. To ignore the results would, again, undermine his credibility. Something else that Cretien didn't have against him, since he was pretty generally of the opinion that the Quebec Referendum was low on credibility to start with, but he'd humour them and win anyways.
Some businesses are going to up and move, but mostly just the Europe focused ones. Anything focused specifically on England and anywhere not Europe will want to stay in England. Also, the reason for leaving Quebec wasn't just the instability. You have to remember, the reason Montreal used to be The City in Canada was because when we got our first real hit of settlers, Montreal, Halifax, and Quebec City were the only real places to go. Halifax was too far out of the way, and Quebec City was too French, so Montreal. This meant that a lot of the business there wasn't French. The reason it moved to Toronto was because Toronto was rising as competition to Montreal, and because the nationalist movement in Quebec was Francophone in nature, and thus anti-Anglophone. Basically, they left because the political climate was poisoned and would get much worse if Quebec did separate. English business, based in England, which left the EU in order to promote English causes, will find their situation to be the exact opposite of Anglophone business in Quebec.
Hmm, Scotland. Yeah, probably will leave. Dunno about Ireland, will be interesting to watch. Not expecting huge waves of immigration though. That feels like the BS claims that we should expect waves of immigration whenever a Republican wins the White House and yet they never materialize. The mention of the United Empire Loyalists is interesting, but not really applicable. First off, I really doubt many people feel that much loyalty to the EU. Secondly, a lot of the UELs were refugees. Seriously, as far as the Revolutionary War went, it was effectively a civil war, and a lot of the UELs were having homes burnt down, tarred and feathered, shit like that. So, yeah. I'll believe in major population shifts when I see it and not a moment before.
As for the stock exchange. I imagine Germany or the Netherlands probably will try and use this as an excuse to make their own. If the EU remains powerful enough in the long run, it may one day supplant the LSE. But that won't happen overnight either.
As for the monarchy leaving. They weren't driven out by the blitz, they're sure as hell not going to leave because Britain left the EU. MC, this one is straight up "I hope they suffer for doing something I think was dumb" wishful thinking on your part.
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(http://www.audiencenet.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Voting-intention-age.png)
JRPGs were right: young people are better
This is also worrying re: Trump vs Clinton, because irrational nationalism just won against the struggling status quo, and this is just the beginning. Austria nearly elected a far right president against a green party candidate.
"Our lives have already become a lot worse in the past XX years, so why not take a leap of faith and change? Things can't get much worse now" (spoilers: yes they can)
I hope England crashes and burns spectacularly as a warning
Yeah, and I could never think of nationalism as logical even though it has a certain logic. It takes about two hours here to take a class and become legally-allowed to register voters. I plan on doing that once I move. Crazy voter laws that undermine people's opportunities or just non-voting certainly doesn't help the turnout we need and definitely gives Trump voters more steam.
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It says awful things for direct democracy when it can deliver a razor result against the common sense views espoused by the overwhelming majority of those with a high level of education (university-educated folks supported Remain by almost 3:1) across the political spectrum (e.g. literally every current and former PM of any party). The 48% are going to really suffer for the, frankly, idiotic whims of the 52%. I'm still processing how I feel about this but I'm obviously angry and unhappy. I feel like we've seen some bad near-misses with idiotic referendums before (Quebec for one, yes) and I think there really has to be a better way than 50/50 coinflips on "do we blow things up y/n" since the consequences are so dire. But I don't really know.
Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
Brexit won.
Every single constituency in Scotland voted Remain; Scotland is already pushing for independence.
Northern Ireland also voted Remain. Northern Ireland is now in talks about reunification with Southern Ireland.
England and Wales voted for the exit.
The pound sterling has been plummeting and has reached a 30 year low.
All the asian markets are dropping. Japan actually halted trading on the Nikkei for a while.
Alright, so as a Canadian I actually have some amount of experience with this shit thanks to Quebec. Montreal used to be the economic capital of Canada. When scares of Quebec leaving were happening, all those businesses moved their headquarters to Toronto, which is now the economic capital of Canada.
It's oversimplfying things to say "England voted X, Northern Ireland voted Y". This isn't a US presidential election and there's no winner-take-all effect on a consituency level. Northern Ireland was fairly close to a tie (which is a pretty big surprise incidentally), Wales even closer. Even Scotland wasn't as one-sided as many (including Snowfire and myself) expected, although one-sided enough to possibly galvanise the population in a second Scottish referendum.
And yes, you bet this will scare some international businesses out of London. They certainly won't leave for Scotland, though. Do note that even if Scotland does secede over this (itself far from a given), it will not automatically be part of the EU, and in fact Spain will likely try to fight them becoming part of the EU in order to make things tougher on Catalonia, its own separatist sub-division. So... a business leaving England due to reasons of its now unstable relationship with the EU will instead move to... a country which is definitely inside the EU.
Agreed with Excal that the UK referendum doesn't really look much like the Quebec ones to me. Both due to the different scale, but also the different result. (The Scottish one being like Quebec, sure. There are obvious parallels there.) The only common theme is what Fenrir said, that it was pretty much a contest between irrational nationalism and struggling* status quo.
*The status quo isn't even struggling in historical terms you idiots, this is literally the best time to be alive in history if you live in any first-world country, and even in much of the rest of the world. Stop gambling our future to feed your stupid sense of entitlement and alarmism, you fucking morons. Ahem.
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Not expecting huge waves of immigration though. That feels like the BS claims that we should expect waves of immigration whenever a Republican wins the White House and yet they never materialize.
I mean...no, because the legal situation is different.
Most of the people yelling that they will move to Canada don't necessarily have the means to move to Canada. Canada has immigration barriers that want you to have a masters degree or be in a technical field where you can be expected to make over $100k per year.
By comparison, if it looks like Scotland is going to leave the UK with the plan of re-joining the EU, and you want to keep your EU citizenship...right now there is free movement between England and Scotland, so people can freely move to Scotland. And keeping a passport that would allow them to work anywhere in the EU is actually a large legal incentive to do so. (Whereas there was never really a legal benefit or economic benefit to moving to Canada--it wouldn't give you access to a larger job market, etc).
As for the monarchy leaving. They weren't driven out by the blitz, they're sure as hell not going to leave because Britain left the EU. MC, this one is straight up "I hope they suffer for doing something I think was dumb" wishful thinking on your part.
Yeah, that part is probably BS--I was just brainstorming.
so Montreal. This meant that a lot of the business there wasn't French.
And a lot of the business there still isn't French. I lived there for two years in 2002-2004; it's still about half and half.
English business, based in England, which left the EU in order to promote English causes, will find their situation to be the exact opposite of Anglophone business in Quebec.
Sure. On the flip side, the opposite is already happening to academic research--much of which got EU funding. The opposite is already happening to videogame development, with developers looking to move out of England.
I will admit that I know jack shit about English businesses promoting English causes, however.
But, to go point by point. We've already covered why Cameron can't just go "Nope, doesn't count." Heck, let's toss in a third one. PArt of his mandate for this term was that he would run this referendum. To ignore the results would, again, undermine his credibility. Something else that Cretien didn't have against him, since he was pretty generally of the opinion that the Quebec Referendum was low on credibility to start with, but he'd humour them and win anyways.
Mmm...well, David Cameron already resigned, so that's kind-of a moot point. BUT the referendum was technically non-binding (unlike the previous referendum held in the UK which was binding). Theoretically the UK should now take a vote in parliament about whether to leave the EU--although even that isn't technically binding (but if a vote was held, it would likely pass at this point--enough members of parliament support it).
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And yes, you bet this will scare some international businesses out of London. They certainly won't leave for Scotland, though. Do note that even if Scotland does secede over this (itself far from a given), it will not automatically be part of the EU, and in fact Spain will likely try to fight them becoming part of the EU in order to make things tougher on Catalonia, its own separatist sub-division. So... a business leaving England due to reasons of its now unstable relationship with the EU will instead move to... a country which is definitely inside the EU.
OK, so Southern Ireland then. Or possibly just the United States.
At least in game development, there's going to be a number of English speaking game developers who would rather live in an English speaking country. All of the sudden the EU is pretty short on those. Some developers will stay in the England, of course, but remember freedom of movement is pretty important for game developers (I've had to move across state and country lines four times for my various jobs--if I was in the England right now, I'd be angling for any way to have access to the EU market in the future).
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Well, the London banks are going to be in some serious fucking trouble.
The EU can't afford to make this easy on the UK, lest some of the other loosely-bound nations decide, hey, if they can do it, why can't I leave? London banking was already on thin ice. It was allowed to trade in Euro despite not running it as a currency because it was the capital of an EU nation. Now that it isn't a member state, well... Chances are London financial is going to move to Brussels or Frankfurt or Paris.
Scotland voted 62% in favor of remaining, and pre-Brexit polls showed a 6% swing toward independence should Brexit pass. I doubt it will happen immediately (though they're already pressing for a new referendum) but I'd be surprised if it didn't happen in the next 5 years.
Cameron resigning means iffy things for the rest of British politics in the coming months. I mean, it was hardly surprising (no more surprising than the result, anyway), but still.
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*The status quo isn't even struggling in historical terms you idiots, this is literally the best time to be alive in history if you live in any first-world country, and even in much of the rest of the world. Stop gambling our future to feed your stupid sense of entitlement and alarmism, you fucking morons. Ahem.
Part of the reason I tend not to post in this thread is the suspicion that any post I might make carries a high probability of devolving into exactly this statement.
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Well, the London banks are going to be in some serious fucking trouble.
Good thing no one relies on LIBOR being a steady predictor of global risk.
Actually I just googled LIBOR and apparently there's no articles explaining what will happen to it post-Brexit? So maybe I'm off base? Kinda think this is going to be a big deal though.
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A lot depends on who replaces Cameron.
A solution I would propose is the idea of a three tier solution scale. If you cannot get a majority, then referendum fail, don't go forward with it. If you get a supermajority of, say, 66%, then referendum win, go nuts with it you crazy kids. But if you get between 50 and 66%, then you cannot accept the status quo and need to make solid movements towards the pro-side, whatever it is, without actually going all the way. This only works for plebiscites where there is a grey area you can fit into, but perhaps it can work. Hmm, it's also lacking a fail condition so perhaps it would need to have a follow up of some sort built in if you hit the middle condition.
As for the idea that it's terrible that the educated can be overruled by the masses. Sorry, but no. I'm not a fan of direct democracy all the time either, but if you want to claim that your nation is democratic, then your legitimacy ultimately has to come from direct democracy. It's just a question of what warrants it, and how often you have to do it. If you want the educated to have their opinions on how things to work to count for more, then admit that you don't want democracy, you want a system where an elite rules and everyone outside that elite is disenfranchised. At that point, it's just a matter of which elite you think should be running things.
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yesterday is a good example of why we don't put abolishing the IRS up for popular vote.
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Literally ONE DAY after a banker admits to rigging Libor, we get Brexit.
Honestly worse things have happened. The hedging was pretty low on the Brexit side (seriously, something like 25% risk of Brexit was the estimate?) but bankers still had months to prepare for the vote. Eurodollar futures are going to look weird for the next month or so, and there isn't nearly as much wiggle room for shenanigans as there was in 2008 (rates were 5.something% in 2008 versus 0.3something% now) but bankers have learned a lot in the past 8 years about how to ride out global economic storms.
Lots of the financial sector has been saying the anti-Brexit recession rhetoric is overblown scaremongering. The short-term panic over cash is likely just that: short-term. But the cash futures market is going to have to make some bets in the next month, and it's based on a really limited picture of what all this even means...
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*The status quo isn't even struggling in historical terms you idiots, this is literally the best time to be alive in history if you live in any first-world country, and even in much of the rest of the world. Stop gambling our future to feed your stupid sense of entitlement and alarmism, you fucking morons. Ahem.
Part of the reason I tend not to post in this thread is the suspicion that any post I might make carries a high probability of devolving into exactly this statement.
Gonna say this is the hardest I've ever agreed with Elfboy, so clearly he needs to curse more.
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The funny part about Brexit is now the Conservatives/UKIPers who were pushing it have won the battle and...
Now what?
There were a lot of economic discussions about whether the EU was good for the UK or not but almost every economist says "Hell yes". The "pro-Leave" people made up numbers about how much money they would be able to save and turn around andspend on England's NHS. That can't happen because it was always a fantasy. They are promising stricter border controls once out of the EU. But how do they make this happen? It would be years before they can start changing that around, and they are already promising not to deport people. This just isn't going to go as they want, and the passion they have whipped up about hordes of immigrants drowning the UK isn't going to go away.
This is the equivalent of the US Conservatives whipping up frenzy for years about how Obama was evil and destroying America and so on and so forth, all so they could get lower tax rates. They whipped up the frenzy but had no way to control it once they got what they wanted (since 'solving' the problem was never the goal) and so the club they used against Democrats was picked up by Cruz/Trump and used to bludgeon them into submission. There are no reasonable ways to assuage unrealistic and extreme anger being whipped up. It can only go down, down, down baby.
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My favourite bit I have seen floating around is on /r/badeconomics
1: I intend to get very drunk.
2: I don't understand.
3: The result is not what the economy needed, we being good economists are trying to stimulate the economy by consuming goods such as alcohol.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/morgan-stanley-brexit-eu-referendum-jobs-dublin-frankfurt-a7100911.html
But Morgan Stanley is denying it, so who knows.
Meanwhile, in car manufactureres:
http://www.autoblog.com/2016/06/24/uk-brexit-automakers-breaking/
There apparently used to be a 10% tariff on cars exported from the UK to the EU, and several companies currently have manufacturing plants in the UK. NPR was reporting rumors of layoffs there.
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What the fuck are you doing, Dr Jill Stein? (Calls Brexit a good thing o_O)
http://www.jill2016.com/stein_calls_britain_vote_a_wake_up_call
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I'm not super surprised. The EU is a big, corrupt institution with zero accountability that mostly functions as an enforcer of harsh neo-liberal economic norms. It'd be hard to design an institution more opposed to the Green platform.
Mind you she also notes that the leftist argument for Leave was drown out overwhelmingly by the fascist argument, and has the good taste to condemn this at least. Still not really a canny move if we're trying to position the Greens as a viable party for the future.
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The EU is the worst possible paneuropean institution except for all the other possible ones
Brexit is definitely not a win for Green any way you look at it, the EU imposes very strict anti carbon emissions laws and now the Uk is free to do whatever the fuck they want about them.
Plus environmental issues and especially climate need to be tackled on a worldwide scale, and the less divisions between countries the better
Stein is probably just clapping at the failure of traditional left and right political parties there
Tl;dr brexit is a disaster for green policies
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Agreed, but the US Green Party are also ridiculous ideologues who shoot themselves in the foot as a matter of ritual. So a stand against the status quo, even one that with a modicum of thought leads to having less ability to affect reform, is still appealing to them.
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What the fuck are you doing, Dr Jill Stein? (Calls Brexit a good thing o_O)
http://www.jill2016.com/stein_calls_britain_vote_a_wake_up_call
Stein is pretty nonsensical (See: Her AMA that strayed into anti vaxxer territory) so that's not surprising.
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http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/hillary-clinton-2016-transgender-rights-passport-policy-state-department-lgbt-equality-214007
Fascinating article on Clinton's role in advancing transgender rights, and the political calculations around that.
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http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/hillary-clinton-2016-transgender-rights-passport-policy-state-department-lgbt-equality-214007
Fascinating article on Clinton's role in advancing transgender rights, and the political calculations around that.
This is actually news to me. (Although I have noticed on twitter that transgender people I follow seem to mostly like Clinton, and gay people are typically more angry about not officially endorsing gay marriage till 2013, and the Reagan comments. It's not uncommon for the LGBT community to disagree between the various letters, though--in fact that's a pretty normal state of affairs).
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http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/hillary-clinton-2016-transgender-rights-passport-policy-state-department-lgbt-equality-214007
Fascinating article on Clinton's role in advancing transgender rights, and the political calculations around that.
Rare is the mainstream acknowledgment of microchange.
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/07/our_political_culture_doesn_t_know_what_to_do_with_trump_s_explicit_prejudice.html
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/05/politics/donald-trump-saddam-hussein-iraq-terrorism/
although it's shown that this kind of thing does hurt him in the polls, I feel that in some ways that this should be a blowout of historic proportions. Hillary is so disliked that it's only a significant lead. Hillary has also had some unforced errors here (Bill meeting with Lynch, the FBI thing) but Trump goes right back and takes the news cycle back by doing something heinous. He posted the Star of David thing on the same day Elie Wiesel passed, by the way.
The normalization of Trump and enabling of alt-right assholes is really dangerous and that isn't going away.
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http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/06/us/baton-rouge-shooting-alton-sterling/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/us/falcon-heights-shooting-minnesota/
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/08/us/dallas-police-shooting-live-updates/index.html
So this country is on fire
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We desperately need police reform.
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We desperately need everything reform.
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So...the Republican Party passed the most anti-LGBT platform in its 162 year history, way more anti-LGBT any stance Trump has taken. Including stuff like support for conversion therapy (which is basically torture kids until they say they're not gay) opposition to gay adoption (not new), opposition to gay marriage (also not new), all sorts of stuff about bathrooms. The log cabin republicans (gay republican group) is pretty upset and revoking their endorsement.
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/log_cabin_republicans_shocked_gop_passes_most_anti_lgbt_platform_in_history
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Bizarre. You'd think the party brass would have figured out by now that in 2016 this sort of thing is no longer a vote-winner. Though the inmates do appear to be running the asylum for the Republicans these days...
EDIT: This isn't even getting into my moral outrage at them taking these stances, but that should go without saying.
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Absolute tinfoil hat talking out of my arsehole this isn't it its actually in fact just stock rampant bigotry.
But what if its pushing a platform to sabotage the candidate they didn't want to endorse.
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Nah, absolute tinfoil hat would be that the parties are colluding and making the Republicans more supervillainous is a move to terrify voters who might otherwise try to break the two party system into voting for the "lesser evil".
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The platform is a special kind of bad because no one with any real clout or sanity is having anything to do with Trump this election.
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It says Coal is a clean source of energy. Um.
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If Newt has any part of it, then the real agenda will involve his moon colony idea.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/kris-kobach-party-convention-platform
apparently it is the fever dream of one Kris Kobach
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How is "gay republican group" a thing when libertarianism exists?
Is it just about hating muslims?
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Libertarians aren't really known in the US mainstream.
That's probably changing this election.
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(http://i.imgur.com/7drHiqr.gif)
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ISIS attacks France (again). I really have nothing to say, other than I've been advised not to watch the video, so I haven't.
More stuff from gay republicans involved in the process:
http://time.com/4405261/gay-republicans-convention-rachel-hoff-platform/
http://time.com/4405018/gop-platform-lgbt-issues/?xid=time_socialflow_twitter
Another story today is about Donald Trump's running mate, Mike Pence. I mean...no surprise, he's shitty:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/mike-pence-gay-marriage-religious-freedom
https://www.romper.com/p/mike-pences-hiv-scandal-must-not-be-forgotten-14348
But what's interesting is that he's not at all a popular pick on Reddit, even among Trump supporters. (To the point that those that know Pence well say that they might well vote for Hillary now). In Indiana, in an unopposed primary he had 25% of Republicans voting "none of the above". He was facing a tough reelection in an extremely red state. He's very much in the pocket of the donors; some have said the Koch brothers, others have said he got donations from for-profit prisons, and then upped the punishment for Marijuana. (This is contrary to one of Trump's primary appeals, that he's not bought by anyone, because who the fuck would pay for that message?)
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It's crazy how people are not freaking out over here compared to last november. Seems like we're getting used to the whole thing.
Dude might actually not be related to ISIS
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The UK sinking deeper
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/15/shocking-plain-stupid-theresa-may-shuts-climate-change-office
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Say what you will about Cameron's losing gamble landing Britain in this mess (and it did), but I did respect that he was a right-of-centre type who actually seemed to care about sane policy (e.g. acknowledging that climate change is a thing). Between this announcement and Foreign Minister Boris Johnson it's already looking much worse for what the UK conservatives have to offer, and the opposition is a clusterfuck so who knows how long it will last or how much worse it will get.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z1nNwsgYDc
About halfway through this they get to the topic of Trump vs The Press, and each reporter seems to agree that every successive president in their working lives (so back to probably the mid-90s) has been increasingly hostile to the press regardless, and it's probably bad times on that front no matter who wins (though obviously Trump is a particularly nuclear outcome). Anecdotal, but it jumped out at me that they all took it as a given.
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Sure. If you're Hillary Clinton, surveying your entire political career, what has the press ever done but amplify and enable political attacks against you?
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Which does little to explain the Obama administration being more hostile to the press than the Bush administration. Not that the modern press is worth a shit, but getting it from both ends is not making the problem better.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/obama-kenya_n_6970314
Article from December 2015. Gets labelled with Birthers Birtherism Obama Birthers
I wonder why he might be hostile to media outlets.
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https://www.facebook.com/notes/ray-everett/dan-savages-epic-rant-about-third-party-candidates/10154315640699808
Podcast:
https://overcast.fm/+GeYZTxTEE/20:31
Tinier text transcription here:
CALLER: Hi my name is Pheasant and I live in Kansas. My question is, why — you guys talk a lot about politics — I would love to hear you guys talk about third party politics: Independent Party, the Green Party, and the Libertarian Party.
I’m a huge Green Party supporter; I’m voting for Jill Stein. And I realize that people say that if you vote for these, it’s just a wasted vote, it’s a vote for Republicans.
But I also feel we need to start sending a message to Washington and to our political leaders that we’re sick and tired of this two party system and candidates who are controlled by corporations and special interest groups. And they can’t piss off their donors, you know, because they buy the votes.
So I’m just wondering why you guys never talk about it because I think Jill Stein — she’s a member of the Green Party — she’s amazing. And for the people that bitch and moan about… Hillary didn’t always support gay rights, and Bernie didn’t always support this… I agree with you Dan, I think it's ridiculous how — that people can change. That’s what we want, we try to get people — hey, stop being a homophobic asshole, hey stop being a racist prick. But you know the Green Party has never changed. They’ve always supported gay rights, equality for all, the environment…
DAN SAVAGE: Alright, blah blah blah. Sorry I had to stop you. Yeah, let’s talk about the Green Party for just a moment, or third parties, getting a third party movement off the ground here in this country. Because we are sick of the two party system!
Here’s how you fucking do that: you run people not just for fucking president every four fucking years.
I have a problem with the Greens, I have a problem with the Libertarians. I have a problem with these fake, attention seeking, grandstanding Green/Libertarian party candidates who pop up every four years, like mushrooms in shit, saying that they're building a third party. And those of us who don't have a home in the Republican Party, don't have a home in the Democratic Party, can't get behind every Democratic position or Republican position, should gravitate toward these third parties. And help build a third party movement by every four fucking years voting for one of these assholes like Jill fucking Stein, who I'm sure is a lovely person, she's only an asshole in this aspect.
If you're interested in building a third party, a viable third party, you don’t start with president. You don't start by running someone for fucking president.
Where are the Green Party candidates for city councils? For county councils? For state legislatures? For state assessor? For state insurance commissioner? For governor? For fucking dogcatcher? I would be SO willing to vote for Green Party candidates who are starting at the bottom, grassroots, bottom up, building a third party, a viable third party.
You don't do that by trotting out the reanimated corpse of Ralph fucking Nader every four fucking years. Or his doppelgänger, whoever it is now, Jill Stein and some asshole-to-be-named four years from now.
You start by running grassroots, local campaigns. And there've been — and I'm sure we're going hear from lots of people out there listening — there have been a couple of Green Party candidates who’ve run in other races here and there across the country. But no sustained effort to build a Green Party nationally. Just this griping, bullshitty, grandstanding, fault-finding, purity-testing, holier than thou-ing, that we are all subjected to every four fucking years by the Green Party candidate.
And the folks, including you caller — and I love you and I respect you and we’re having this debate and I'm not treating you with kid gloves because I respect you — who are fooled by them, who are sucked into this bullshit, who are tricked by these grandstanding, attention-seeking, bullshit-spewing charlatans, into wasting your vote.
Which is what you are going to do, I'm sorry to say, to circle back to the top of your call. You are essentially, if you're voting for Jill Stein, helping to potentially elect Donald J. Trump president of these United States.
Which would be a catastrophe. Which is what some people say that they want.
People supported Ralph Nader in 2000 and said there was no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush, therefore we could all afford to throw our votes away, protest-style, on Ralph Nader, who had no hope of getting elected, because there was no difference between Bush and Gore.
These same people, at the same time, said that George Bush was so manifestly obviously terrible that he would bring the revolution if he got himself elected somehow. They didn’t say this about Gore, he wouldn’t bring the revolution. They’re exactly the same, exactly as awful, but one would bring the revolution and one wouldn’t. Which means they weren't exactly the same and they weren't equally awful.
And we're hearing the same thing now about Hillary and Donald. That they’re both equally awful. They're both equally terrible, corrupt two party system, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. Fuck them both, fuck both their houses! Vote for Jill Stein!
And if Donald should get elected, oh he’s so terrible, so much worse than the equally awful Hillary Clinton, that his election will bring the revolution.
It's bullshit.
The revolution did not come in 2000 when George W. Bush got close enough to winning to steal the White House. It will not come if Donald J. Trump gets his ass elected.
Disaster will come. And the people who’ll suffer are not going to be the pasty white Green Party supporters — pasty white Jill Stein and her pasty white supporters. The people who’ll suffer are going to be people of color. People of minority faiths. Queer people. Women.
Don’t do it. Don't throw your vote away on Jill Stein/vote for, bankshot-style, Donald Trump.
And if you want to build a viable third party, more power to you. I could see myself voting for a Green Party candidate for president in 25 years, after I've seen Green Party candidates getting elected to state legislatures, getting elected to governorships, getting elected to Congress. Then you can run some legitimate motherfucker for president.
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Nice rant.
One aspect of that that he didn't get into: Bernie Sanders. Ran as non-Democrat for political office until this year, then joined the party in order to get his message out, borrowing the apparatus he had not theretofore supported in order to use it as a mouthpiece. Pretty obvious he couldn't have gotten attention as a third-party candidate - being up on stage in a Democratic field nearly emptied by Clinton's early dominance was what he needed. Is that a model worth copying?
Been thinking about this recently, one consequence of this election could be that the Democratic party becomes more conservative - simply by adding more conservative and centrist candidates repelled by today's GOP. Seems to me if that happens it's MORE important for liberals to exert influence from within the party rather than attack it from outside.
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I hadn't thought of that until you mentioned it, so to piggyback: perhaps simultaneous internal and external pressure is safer? So while there is an ideological battle inside the Democratic Party, figures who may or may not be green/lib/ind can finally get their choochoo trains running with more steam. I think Bernie wouldn't have been a successful invader had he not a particularly lazier younger generation overloaded on baby boomer drama. I'm still waiting to meet my elders who were in the mix that actually felt the bern.
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I'm still waiting to meet my elders who were in the mix that actually felt the bern.
My mother certainly fits the bill - very enthusiastic Bernie supporter.
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Is that a model worth copying?
Nope.
It was worth trying once, but the lesson I took from all this is that the rank-and-file of the Democratic party are extremely hostile to outsiders on the left. Any question of their stance is naive, childish, and to be dismissed out of hand.
It's telling what areas the platform was willing to "move" left on and which they insisted on remaining in the "center". The party is ideologically rigid, and will remain so until the baby boomers are all dead. And probably a little bit past that, since-
Been thinking about this recently, one consequence of this election could be that the Democratic party becomes more conservative - simply by adding more conservative and centrist candidates repelled by today's GOP. Seems to me if that happens it's MORE important for liberals to exert influence from within the party rather than attack it from outside.
But since there's no place in the party for liberals for a certain persuasion, what'll realistically happen is refugee conservatives extend the lifespan of the existing party. It's vital to create a more liberal counterpart, especially as Democrats entrench themselves in the center and the remaining 30% or so of voters with the Republicans run fascist after fascist.
Which circles us back around to the rant there. He's not wrong in the conclusions, but the anger there is misplaced. Because yeah, fuck the Green Party; they've had 20 years to pull their heads out of their asses and try to actually form a viable liberal alternative, but they'd rather support homeopathic remedies and tease with anti-vaxers. But here's the thing: we don't have 25 years to build a new liberal party, and we don't have 25 years for generational turnover to drift the Democrats far enough left to support shit like universal healthcare, properly funding primary education, and basic income. The fuckin' barbarians are at the gates, and they're only going to get stronger over time. Being angry at people for trying to break the paradigm by the only means available to them (reminder: in large chunks of the country, local politicians run unopposed because there aren't enough politically-minded people to even run both major parties) is stupid.
Then again, in my state we re-elected a dude who poisoned a mid-sized city then didn't remove him from office after he got caught. Maybe I'm just in an unusually awful place and it's biasing my impression of all this.
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My response to that rant is an eyeroll you can see from space. One of the few effective ways third parties have to reach the general public is presidental elections, why shouldn't they push it there? It's some kind of start.
And a triple fuck him for saying voting third party is throwing your vote away. I think both Hillary and Trump are terrible and I'm not voting for either( barring hell freezing over and Trump looking like he has a prayer of winning the general). There is nothing wrong with flipping them both the bird and voting for whatever third party pick you want.
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Addendum: one issue with third parties is that elections and how they're tabulated in the US are about 75 years past it's expiration date. The entire system favors local politics and attempts to put more power in their hands, and that's not how people live anymore. States can no longer function as semi-independent nations with a mutual defense pact, they're completely incapable of competing economically if they do, but election laws assume that's what they're doing. Cities are structured like they have to go weeks or months without outside input, rather than, y'know, seconds.
The net effect is that the law assumes people organize themselves by locality; that their community is their neighbors. The need for self-sufficiency ended in the early 50s with mass communication reaching the visual stage, and once that happened where you lived began in irreversible and accelerating trend away from that organization. So now, you have say 5% or so of people that are with the Green party, except there's no place in the country that 5% translates into an ability to win an elected office. 16 million people with no outlet because they're a non-physical community. So as much as the Green party are kinda worthless and refuse to actually try to be more than a protest party, at some level I'm not sure what the fuck else they're supposed to do.
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Do the greens really have no representation in local government or are they also just throwing your vote away ridiculous platforms that "no one" would support? We have a massive independent representation here in Aus during elections and that is still the excuses used here.
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From wikipedia:
In 2014, Mayor Gayle McLaughlin was the most notable Green elected official in the United States. McLaughlin was serving her second term as mayor of Richmond, California at the time. McLaughlin defeated two Democrats in 2006 to become mayor,[83] and was reelected in 2010 before stepping down in 2014.[84] Richmond, with a population of over 100,000 people, was the largest city in the country with a Green mayor.
They actually aren't even on the ballot in all 50 states, and never have been. I suspect it's related to their self-imposed ban on accepting campaign donations over certain amounts. Another layer to them running presidential candidates and not a lot else: if you get over a certain amount of the vote (I think 5%), you're entitled to a share of the federal campaign fund. Since they won't take any other money, it's their best option to get the funding to even be a viable party.
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Yet again, more instance where that whole echelon of politics seems like a competitive gamer complaining that the metagame doesn't allow them to win the way they want to win.
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Pretty much. Tellingly, the Libertarians, while still much more ideological than either major party, do actually play the game, and make a conscious effort to woo sympathetic donors, make use of established leaders (mostly defectors like Ron Paul or Gary Johnson) to get the message out, and so on, and lo and behold they're poised to actually launch onto the national stage this year. Jill Stein meanwhile gets on talk shows once in a while and comes off as a fucking nutjob, and while to some extent yeah she is, it's also because she has no sense for how to fucking message because she has no real political training.
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I don't think you need representation in all 50 states at all levels of government to be a "legitimate" party or presence.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
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It's at this point that I have to wonder how much funding do you need to run for dogcatcher?
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I don't think you need representation in all 50 states at all levels of government to be a "legitimate" party or presence.
If half the electorate doesn't even have the option to vote for you, in what way are you remotely influencing anything except as a spoiler?
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You are representing in the part of the electorates that you can represent. A seat is a seat. You actually have the ability to put forward legislation, you have a much stronger voice than someone with none.
Like to use a local example this fucking guy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Katter) has influenced so much more legislation than one person ever should in their lifetime. He has been in the game for a long time. Dropped the majour parties at some point. Has been politically relevant for over 20 years easily.
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Eh, I didn't support the rant 100% but loved his emphasis on local elections. That's partly the problem for Georgia Green, who filed a lawsuit about the 1% voter signature ballot restriction only for the 2012 US presidency, only using the inability to elect statewide officials as an example. They've appealed since dismissal, but they do need to think more creatively or openly about fundraising for these petition costs that doesn't mean lying in bed with a corporation.
Edit* Excal, supposedly it's $2 per signature on a 1% total voters still registered from the previous election. At least in GA. When they would need 50,000 voters, for example, the GP here's said that, "due to filing difficulties like write in-errors, courts contesting notaries.... bureaucracy, etc.," they estimate for 78,000 signatures. So $156k just for your name, excluding labor, time... I have no way to compare this with any other group.
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I mean, the "never vote for an independent, they'll never be relevant" line kind-of ignores 1992, where Ross Perot was literally leading in opinion polls in June with 39% of voters saying they would vote for him. I mean, yes, his poll numbers tanked later...quoting Wikipedia directly here...
"Perot severely damaged his credibility by dropping out of the presidential contest in July and remaining out of the race for several weeks before re-entering. He compounded this damage by eventually claiming, without evidence, that his withdrawal was due to Republican operatives attempting to disrupt his daughter's wedding."
So that's a thing that happened.
Saying you need representatives on the local level first...yeah, no, you see there's a system where that's the case. It's called the Parliamentary system; countries like Canada and Australia have it. The US does not. Hypothetically Jill Stein could win the election without a single green candidate in the house or senate. I agree that's shitty--she has no experience running a government, and would gridlock with the house/senate instantly. Don't like it? Get the system changed; adopt the parliamentary system. Until then quit whining about parties "not doing it right"--by the rules of your system what they're doing is perfectly fine, actually.
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I wouldn't read much into Ross Perot myself; unlike Donald Trump, he was an actual billionaire, and in the days before Citizens United that meant his ability to personally fund a campaign was actually competitive with the major parties. Which is the issue with the Greens in particular; they won't fund themselves, and if you're not doing that you can't run at the national level in a meaningful way. See also: not on the ballot in every state. So having smaller offices and building a base for the party over time is the alternative if you're not going to actually have money to run with.
Although actually there's a quirk here. Perot formed a political party (the Reform Party) in '95 to capitalize on his success in '92. Jesse Ventura (who later went on to be Governor of Minnesota in '98 on the Reform Party ticket) was mayor of a mid-sized Minnesota town in 1992. So essentially there was a base for his platform here and there even if they weren't organized into a political party at the time.
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Even then, Ross Perot is still probably the most relevant factor in that race. Bill Clinton didn't have much of a chance without Perot siphoning such a significant amount of votes off Bush.
I think you're taking the word Need too literally, mc. Sure, you're right in the abstract that the way they're doing things is perfectly fine and acceptable in that it's legal, not immoral or unethical, etc. But the question, as you pointed out, becomes efficacy. If they run the party the way they do, there is a very high unlikelihood they will succeed in their goals. Does it mean it's impossible? No, but very unlikely. It's self-defeating, or maybe a self-fulfilling prophecy, to say that your party can never get ahead and establish itself in the American mainstream when you hamstring yourself like that.
Most policy that actually affects Americans' everyday lives happens at the local and state assembly level. This is where they need to get in to start real change. That's not to say they can't also run for President too. But to build a genuinely effective third party alternative, you need to run and get elected candidates in ALL levels of government before you can actually say with any legitimacy that you're viable, even if you don't win the Presidency. Especially if you don't win the Presidency. It's probably going to be the best way to start showing people your policies can work for them. Especially now that people are looking so hard for alternatives that even Jill Stein and Gary Johnson seem appealing to them. I'm in full agreement with Grefter that just getting to the table anywhere can make a huge difference on influencing policy.
They CAN play the game however they want. But if they want to win, then they have to realize being a Johnny in American politics isn't necessarily giving them the best (or any) chance at victory. Sometimes you gotta be a Spike.
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Saying you need representatives on the local level first...yeah, no, you see there's a system where that's the case. It's called the Parliamentary system; countries like Canada and Australia have it. The US does not. Hypothetically Jill Stein could win the election without a single green candidate in the house or senate. I agree that's shitty--she has no experience running a government, and would gridlock with the house/senate instantly. Don't like it? Get the system changed; adopt the parliamentary system. Until then quit whining about parties "not doing it right"--by the rules of your system what they're doing is perfectly fine, actually.
You do need representatives on the local level here, for the routine everyday laws that pass with a swiftness. Texas didn't get away with its strict legislation on women because it desires the approval of Congress. East coast states aren't passing anti-LGBT laws that are first vetted by Washington. Behind all that Soppy says.
Honestly, condemning a system is easy and idealistic. If your response is anyway linked to mine, in no way am I arguing to keep things the same, but we have many instances of people who succeed in overhauling legislation, & the morals attached to them, by starting at the local level. While this oligarchy continues to protect its monetary and political interests tooth and nail by influencing decisions, that is how citizens can still affect their immediate realities. That is more important, or rather seems more feasible to me, than asking citizens who don't even know their state reps names to demand a different political apparatus.
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So Ted Cruz's line about voting your conscience was in the prepared version of his speech disseminated to the press prior to him saying it. In other words, the RNC and Trump people knew ahead of time that's what he would say and they didn't stop him. So that's weird?
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It is pretty much this. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zJdw-FCkhs)
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Honestly this whole convention has been confounding from the perspective of Trump's dominance politics. Trump's media-hacking attention moves have always come from a position of power: I transgress and no one calls me on it, or if they do I stick around and they seem week, or if I have to change course I just lie and force them to react. I do. They react. Doesn't matter what I do, as long as I'm the doer and they have to react. They talk about me. Cruz's speech doesn't fit into that. Cruz did. Trump had to sit there and take it, in real time.
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The Second Amendment is the most important part of the constitution and needs to be defended at all costs. The actions of one lone gunman do not change the importance of this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A)
Oh wait that was the wrong link, I meant to say this one. (http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/07/rnc-black-open-carry-protesters/)
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I'm not disputing the anti-black history of gun control, but in this instance I think the claim is a little off base - a number of white protest groups had already announced their intentions to show up and open carry and make sure nothing goes wrong nudge nudge wink wink. I think the article goes a little too far pointing to cause and effect here.
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https://newrepublic.com/minutes/135216/cops-just-love-open-carry-clowns
A little anecdotal evidence. Cops really don't like for ANYONE who is not a cop to be carrying.
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Good lord the leaked e-mails from the DNC embarrassing. This election is a race to the bottom.
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Several news points--Vladmir Putin appears to be supporting Donald Trump in several ways:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing
So...last week there were stories about some of Trump's campaign aides having appearances on state sponsored TV. And Paul Manifort having connections to Viktor Yanukovych. Well, reporters have been doing some digging and found out that there were rather a lot of connections between Russian Oligarchs and the Trump family. (Most likely because of Trump's multiple bankruptcies, which mean that US banks are now unwilling to lend him money, so he's going overseas for money).
There's two points to make with this linking to recent campaign news.
1. Know how Trump has recently started indicated that he won't stand by NATO allies? Russia is already occupying the Ukraine, and is showing signs of being interested in taking over other eastern European countries that used to be part of the USSR and who are...currently NATO allies.
2. Know those leaked DNC emails? And how inconvenient it is that they leaked now, right before the Convention? Well...know who hacked the DNC a little over a month ago? Russian government hackers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html
Putin does seem to be supporting Trump, and seems to be getting political favours in return.
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Next up, Tim Kaine (Clinton's VP pick). Strategicaly, his value is obvious--highly liked in a swing state, and speaks Spanish. Probably delivers Virginia and Florida. He gave his first speech, he's a great speaker. He's in a seat where he'll be replaced by a democrat, unlike many other VP shortlist candidates.
People call him a "centrist", but that could mean anything (people call Clinton a "centrist" too). So...what are his positions?
Economically he's quite far right. Like...this is a real headline Tim Kaine, Clinton’s VP pick, is a Democrat Wall Street can like (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tim-kaine-clinton-rumored-vp-000000899.html). The socialist end of the Bernie camp already flagged Tim Kaine as someone they didn't like when he was being discussed as a VP option weeks ago TYT report on that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0tZoFk_I-k) (note, TYT tends to be very Bernie slanted). On the flip side, Republicans do like him--he's had a number of Republican senators speak up about what a great guy he is. It pretty much cements Clinton/Kaine as an economically right-wing ticket.
On social issues, he hits some social issues out of the park, but misses on others. Like...he worked for decades as a civil rights lawyer suing for housing discrimination, attends a predominantly African American church. Endorsed Obama for president very early in the primary. Good shit there.
His LGBT record is a bit shakier. Openly opposed Gay Adoption while governor. I mean he changed his position in 2011, so I guess we can let that slide, let's look at something more recent. Here's a tweet I saw about how great he is right now on LGBT issues (https://twitter.com/paulboy/status/756628848997982208), notice anything strange? "No American should risk being banned from a jury, evicted, fired, or denied public accomodations because of who they love." Hm, the way he worded that seems to forget that there is a T in LGBT. Well, minor slipup, not a big deal, I'm sure Clinton's people will bring him up to speed. Oh wait no, he did it again in his first speech as VP. I mean, to be clear, he IS co-sponsoring the Equality Act, and co-sponsored ENDA before that; so legislatively he seems...fine at the moment?
He focuses a lot on early childhood education--this is an area where relatively small investments can lead to big wins--scientifically early childhood education is found to have a bigger impact than any individual year later down the road; so sure, thumbs up. Also lines up well with Clinton, here, whose advocacy focuses signficantly on kids.
He's good on guns (probably because the Virginia Tech massacre happened on his watch).
He says he opposes the death penalty, but as Governor he oversaw 11 executions, commuting only one (on the grounds of mental incompetence). Like...near as I can tell his opponents ran an attack ad saying "he won't execute people", so he responded "no no, I will because it's the law of the land" and executed people.
I've seen him billed as only nominally against abortion the same way Joe Biden is nominally against abortion. Spiritually, but doesn't think the government should be involved. But...he actually does seem to want some government restrictions--he supports parental consent laws, a ban on "partial birth abortions" (which is not a medical term), and "informed concent provision" (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/07/kaine-keep-roe.html). The "partial birth abortion"--well here's some feminists expaining WTF that means (https://bitchmedia.org/article/dear-hillary-please-dont-pick-tim-kaine-your-vp). It's pretty rare, and often done in response to a miscarriage, so the impact of banning it is kinda small. Informed consent is also whatever; you have to hand people pamphlets on adoption, ok fine, NBD. But the first one, parental consent laws, are incredibly shitty. Kids under 18 who get abortions very frequently also face domestic abuse at home. I've known some pro-life types who thought parental consent laws were a bad idea. Literally the morning before Kaine got selected as VP, I saw a news article about the ACLU of Alaska winning a court case against parental consent laws, declaring them unconstitutional. Tim Kaine Campaigned on these issues (https://web.archive.org/web/20051016194037/http://www.kaine2005.org/issues/abortion.php), and stuck with them throughout his Governorship. (Also Abstinence Only education, but I won't hold that against him because he repealed it in 2007 when he found out it doesn't work).
Speaking of the ACLU, his score from them last year was 76%. I mean, the ACLU is non-partisan, sometimes they side with democrats, sometimes they side with Republicans--TBH they are constitutional lawyers who side with the constitution. But like...Bernie got 100% from them that year; Warren was also 100%. Booker was 100%. My local senator 84%. (Highest republican I saw in the senate that year was 69%. Cruz 38%. Rubio 0%.)
Overall, strategically he's a smart pick. But politically I like him quite a bit less than Hillary right now.
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Yeah, the Trump/Putin connection has drawn a lot of fire from the nevertrump portion of the right in the past several months. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Putin was playing those games, but it doesn't change just how dumb those emails were. Seriously guys, never put anything incriminating on record, didn't people learn anything from Nixon?
I don't mind Tim Kaine (I'm not taking his change of policy on TPP/free trade seriously at all) politically for the most part, but that is not going to be a comfort to the progressives.
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As noted earlier, the lesson from all this is there's no room in the Democratic Party for progressives, and any motions towards them are a ruse. While Trump is a sufficient threat to vote against my interests, it's pretty clearly time to make an alternative that'll be ready before 2020.
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I suppose when Clinton changed the transgender passport rules to little or no fanfare, that was a ruse, too? Back in the early nineties, when Clinton spearheaded healthcare reform, for which she was demonized as unrealistic, that was a ruse? Dodd-Frank? Ruse? CFPB? Ruse? Sotomayor on the Supreme Court? Ruse? Obama's attempt (unjustly thwarted by the supreme court) to pass the strictest air regulations in history, and end coal power plants? Ruse? I'm not saying the Democratic party is unflinchingly liberal: TPP (kinda), drones, transparency, surveillance, all illiberal. But it drives me nuts you have the gall to ignore all the genuine liberal accomplishments of the Democratic party.
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I also don't buy this "Democratic party is biased against progressives" line of reasoning either, at least beyond the point where it would hurt their electoral self-interest (e.g. nomming the American equivalent of Jeremy Corbyn to the presidential race would be electoral suicide). I'll buy that the DNC is biased against Sanders, sure... but since Sanders isn't a Democrat and hasn't had a record of supporting them this doesn't really surprise me? This is pure speculation but I don't think they'd have tried as hard to keep, say, Elizabeth Warren from winning.
The simple truth of the matter is that the vast majority of the country, and more pertinently a majority of the left-leaning-half of the country (i.e. the Democratic party, roughly speaking), is to the right of you, so that's why they keep throwing their support behind candidates who don't meet your standards for progressiveness.
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Clinton is just economically liberal going in hand with a somewhat socially liberal bent as well.
I can understand not wanting to support people that think capitalism and "the free market" are great.
That said Kaine sounds not so super great and kind of included to try and woo conservative leaning swing voters.
Why you no Biden 8 more years ???????
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Because Biden is on record as not wanting the job.
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Jim:
Trans Passport Rules- I dunno, metroid didn't seem aware of it, and stories about it didn't get published until... May, when Hillary was in a rough patch in the primary. Seems to me it was snuck out there where nobody who would benefit from it would see it unless they were business folk. It's possible her office put it on there and Clinton herself has some TERF-y tendencies and doesn't want to acknowledge it? Equally possible, it was a hedge to give her some bonafides later? But sure, it helped some people, even if it seems calculated to help the minimum number of people required to get credit.
90s Health Care Reform- The democrats have gotten more conservative over time and refuse to go back. That's the problem. Nevermind that Clinton was there fighting for the ACA which threw most of the key reforms in the trash and actively harms about half the 30 million people it was targetted at. Options for people in the Medicaid Gap: Pay 1% of your income in tax penalty or 5% of your income in insurance that doesn't do much unless you've spent 25% of your income on health costs. Yeah that'll solve the pesky "medical debts have spiraled into inescapable poverty" problem.
Dodd-Frank/Consumer Finance Protection Bureau- The law whose recommendations can't be enforced and the new agency it created that hasn't been funded. Yeah sounds like a ruse to me.
Satomayor/Supreme Court- Nom one fiscally liberal judge, then nom two fiscally conservative ones in Kagan and Garland. Yeah sounds like a ruse to me.
Obama vs Big Coal- I never could find more info on that. I'll take your word for it.
So... two partial credit, one win, two ruses by my count. So... an average of... zero.
That's what I'm getting at here. The Democrats are a centrist party. Considering the republicans are a hard-right-come-outrightfuckingFascist party, center is a stop gap, not a path forward. Yes the Democrats are better than the gaping abyss, but they're not a counterweight. We need those voices out there, and the Democrats are not doing that job and don't seem to want to. The Green Party is not capable of doing that job, and I'll vote Democrat over Green because of it (also the anti-vaxxer thing. That is a fuckin' deal breaker for me). And yeah, probably the office of president will have to be locked up for the Dems for the foreseeable future. But we need a platform for new voices to actually break though because what we're doing now isn't cutting it.
Elf:
1. Sanders is a gadfly to be sure, but he also caucuses with and fundraises for Democrats. His (I) is very much because that's how he ran originally because Vermont likes that sort of thing. So they don't like him because he annoys them, not because he's some sort of perpetual political enemy.
As well, I think you (and many others) are dead wrong about Sanders' electability. Yesss, up against, say, Mitt Romney, someone calling himself a socialist would be a liability. Against the 17 yahoos this year? He's not nearly as far left as they are right and the 'center' isn't going to run screaming to a fascist or someone calling for a 5th crusade to wipe the holy land clean of the Muslims because of that word.
2. Dude I try and convince people we should have Basic Income. I know how far left I am. I'm not asking people I vote for to be that far left.
I'm asking for them to BE left, economically as well as socially.
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A: I'm no defender of Obama (Like seriously) but if you think Kagan is conservative on most anything I am going to have to roll my eyes. Come on now.
B: Basic Income has a lot of push from certain libertarian leaning right thinktanks of late. (Think AEI). That's a really weird issue though, it's as much about cutting down on overlapping government agenties and spending as it is about fixing our social safety net.
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1. Sanders is a gadfly to be sure, but he also caucuses with and fundraises for Democrats. His (I) is very much because that's how he ran originally because Vermont likes that sort of thing. So they don't like him because he annoys them, not because he's some sort of perpetual political enemy.
As well, I think you (and many others) are dead wrong about Sanders' electability. Yesss, up against, say, Mitt Romney, someone calling himself a socialist would be a liability. Against the 17 yahoos this year? He's not nearly as far left as they are right and the 'center' isn't going to run screaming to a fascist or someone calling for a 5th crusade to wipe the holy land clean of the Muslims because of that word.
Oh, for what it's worth I think that Sanders might have had a reasonable shot at this election? Hard to say. That said it isn't really your or my opinion that is relevant here. The DNC does have an interest in making sure candidates it deems unelectable don't win the nomination. (I wasn't referring to Sanders with the line about someone unelectable, but a hypothetical person even further left.)
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Corbyn is frequently compared to Sanders so I read that in there without noticing you didn't actually name him is all.
e: Super- a lot of the silicon valley techie types are in love with it too. It's just a potential solution to multiple problems from multiple angles. "Y'know what, we can't get rid of these government programs, let's save money but just giving people the money." "A lot of our products are putting people out of jobs and slowing down the economy, we need to make sure there are markets for us to sell to!" "Why the fuck are we putting up with people living in poverty in 2016, let's solve the problem directly by giving people enough money to live on." "Stagnant wages are killing economic growth and innovation, let's expand the safety net so people can move jobs without fear of falling into abject poverty." So on.
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I dunno, after watching the convention speeches this afternoon I was really shocked by a couple of the big progressive concessions the Sanders camp was able to get added onto the platform, particularly the anti-TPP and pro-Public Option stances adopted.
If the Democratic party has been previously anti-progressive (and I would agree that they have), it has been because before the Sanders' campaign there has been no vocal, grassroots push for a truly progressive agenda that would make the idea of fielding a progressive candidate seem tenable. The Sanders campaign is the first campaign in my adult lifetime that I've actually supported wholeheartedly, and I'm two steps away from being a fuckin' communist (admittedly, I did fully support Obama at the time though in hindsight he's been a lot more conservative than I'd like). I think if nothing else the visible support for progressive ideas just hasn't been there before in a form that could be taken seriously until now, so of course many of the progressive stances made by the Democratic party have been "ruses", in your words.
Hell, as I said before, supporting a public option is now part of the party's platform, because there was now concrete evidence that a large portion of Americans would support such a thing. And not just blog posts and circlejerks on the internet, hard-fought, hard-won, concrete vote totals that showed that supporting these policies would actually win votes from people who aren't green party nutjobs.
EDIT: And that just makes the whole "Bernie or Bust" crowd and the cult of personality that's grown up around him that much more infuriating. GUYS, we may not have gotten our candidate into the general election, but the concessions made in the DNC's platform is a goddamn victory. You cannot tell me that the Democratic party platform would be supporting the Public Option now without the Sanders' Campaign. Because they fucking didn't 6 years ago when they had the power to do so.
And you're gonna throw it all away by voting for Jill Stein because our guy didn't win, and we didn't get 100% of the policies we wanted officially supported.
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They hadn't supported it as recently as three weeks ago. I do need to sit down and look at the final platform since pessimism was based on those earlier reports and the specific areas no movement was made in.
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http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/news-features/a-rape-victim-in-texas-was-jailed-after-breaking-down-midtestimony-against-her-rapist-20160724-gqcugg.html
Unrelated to the trainwreck that is the 2016 election, but this is just really terrible. I'm not sure how they can get away with something like this.
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Passport Rules- I dunno, metroid didn't seem aware of it,
You do know that I'm Canadian, right?
TBH, with both Clinton and Kaine, my impression is that that they have social causes that they care about. Kaine with African American housing discrimination, for instance. Hell, Clinton did good stuff and solid positions as first lady, before she had to fundraise as a Senator.
The argument is that being forced to spend 20-30 hours a week personally fundraising corrupts you, makes you vote with the big banks, etc. This tends to push people to the right for certain well-funded corporate interests; drug companies, wall-street, etc. This doesn't stop them from caring about social issues. Although they might pretend to be against social issues to appear more moderate (how many people really believe that both Obama and Hillary were against gay marriage in 2008?)
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Passport Rules- I dunno, metroid didn't seem aware of it,
You do know that I'm Canadian, right?
TBH, with both Clinton and Kaine, my impression is that that they have social causes that they care about. Kaine with African American housing discrimination, for instance. Hell, Clinton did good stuff and solid positions as first lady, before she had to fundraise as a Senator.
The argument is that being forced to spend 20-30 hours a week personally fundraising corrupts you, makes you vote with the big banks, etc. This tends to push people to the right for certain well-funded corporate interests; drug companies, wall-street, etc. This doesn't stop them from caring about social issues. Although they might pretend to be against social issues to appear more moderate (how many people really believe that both Obama and Hillary were against gay marriage in 2008?)
*raises hand* Gay marriage is an issue where people changed because of massive, widespread social pressure. That doesn't bother me per say, homosexuality in general is one that has changed profoundly in a way that we haven't really seen in the US in... ever? E: If you you are going to tell me that Hillary 'DOMA' Clinton changed because of anything other than strongarming, we're just going to have to disagree. I think her own track record earlier there speaks for itself.
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As usual, I will note that when it comes to things like stances on gay rights, it doesn't matter what a politician believes in private, and it certainly doesn't matter what they believed a decade or two ago. What matters is how they will act on the issue if elected (from the policies they enact to the justices they appoint to the speeches they may give on the subject, etc.).
I don't really know exactly what Obama and Clinton thought privately of gay marriage in the 90's/00's. It's difficult to tell because as politicians they would have been very cautious about what they said about the issue. I also don't really care. (And I don't know Hillary's specific connection to DOMA if one exists, but my understanding is that Bill signed it begrudingly after it had obtained a veto-proof majority from congress, so that seems an odd thing to hold against him.)
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As usual, I will note that when it comes to things like stances on gay rights, it doesn't matter what a politician believes in private
Well, I would argue it does, since there's a lot of legal protections that LGBT people are missing which don't really make the news cycle. Like...you can be evicted by your landlord for being Gay in many states. You can be fired for being gay in roughly half the states. If someone uses violence against you because you are gay, it's not considered a hate crime in many states.
For whatever reason these usually don't make the news cycle. (The news cycle is like...DOMA, Marriage, and that one bakery that was forced to bake a cake). If you are concerned about your image, want to help LGBT people but don't want to be seen as "pro-gay", you can still get a lot of good stuff done that won't reach the news cycle. Conversely, if you are concerned about your image, and want to be seen as "pro-gay" but don't actually want most of these reforms, you can get away with opposing a lot of them. LGBT groups will know, and might protest outside of your office (I have friends who protested outside the office of Nanci Pelosi) but this won't make the mainstream news.
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The concrete acts Obama did when in office mostly consisted of using the Justice Department to advance the cause of gay rights (most flashily by refusing to defend DOMA).
Gay marriage and LGBT rights has had a number of real oddities in terms of perception and reality. For example, when Arizona passed a mini-RFRA it was widely reported - even among news outlets that should know better - that it would allow businesses to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Somehow the news cycle and the business community objecting to it and the proponents of the bill all missed that Arizona ALREADY had no protections for sexual orientation, so the immediate effect of the law on the legal rights of gays and lesbians would be...bupkis. (What it would mean is that in the future if, say, Phoenix passed anti-discrimination laws then they would be subordinate to the state religious freedom law. But no such laws existed at the time, and that wasn't how it was being argued in the media.)
So you can and certainly should criticize Arizona and the rest of 'em for their intent, but actual effect? Not so much.
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So Rolling Stone did an interview with Jane Sanders (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/jane-sanders-why-bernie-voters-shouldnt-get-over-it-w431428). The interesting bit is her answer to the last question.
I was in Birmingham, Alabama, and Bernie and I had a closed-door meeting. We had a lot of those before rallies, where we had just people in the community and listened to them, not in front of the press because we wanted them to talk about things that affect their lives. And in Birmingham, a police officer can go up and give them a fine if one shade was high and one shade was low on the building. Oh, you're not taking care of your [property] — $75 fine. And these things would build up, and people would be arrested because they didn't have money to pay the fines, and they'd have a record. "Have you ever been arrested?" [on job applications]. All of these things — the new Jim Crow laws.
McDowell County, West Virginia: seeing that they had a life expectancy in the area 18 years lower than people two hours away in Fairfax, Virginia, because there are no jobs, there's a lot of stress. And these people are smart and interested in controlling their own lives, and nobody is doing anything. They knew 20 years ago that the coal would be depleted in 2017, and they didn't understand that the country would move away from coal [even sooner]. Where was the leadership? How is it that — forgetting the environmental insanity — they knew that coal was going to be depleted, and no one bothered to invest in a new economy in the area?
It's a good thing to keep in mind. I mean... for me that's kinda... yeah, that's what local governance looks like, y'know?
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This is why I like pork. Sure you play favorites, sure you pick and choose based on political considerations. But injecting that sweet federal funding into a poor community for some construction project of marginal value creates some fucking jobs. If there's a defense of the senate as currently constructed (there isn't really but bear with me here) take how fucked West Virginia is now, and compare it to how fucked it would be without 2 senators. Scary thought.
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/07/29/fourth_circuit_strikes_down_north_carolina_voting_restrictions.html
A timely reminder that the GOP was fucking awful before Trump, and will likely remain fucking awful after him.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/carter-page-trump-russia
this fucking election
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Skimmed article. Or when they invest, it is in "creative class" revitalization. I'm thinking of Braddock PA right now, or Bessemer or the bagillion other beat down towns with dying poisoned lower class families who have spoken about the harsh realities of deindustrialization for decades. If the premise is Bernie fans not actually getting over their old white savior, I don't buy it. It's like getting people to talk about systemic racism through the mouthpiece of one person. Let's just nix years worth of information, resistance, protest, capitulation by ignoring the actual community members. Skimmed it obv.
edit just saw jims articles. lawd.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/kansas-republican-primary-brownback
https://twitter.com/hillhulse/status/760668631923499008/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Someone's enjoying forced retirement.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/ To say the right is not having a good time with this election would be understating it. W hen the headline on the national review is about how the sitting president from the democratic party is right to denounce the Republican nominee as unfit... welp. And that's ignoring headlines like them trashing how bad conservative media is (They're correct here too.).
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I like to imagine whoever at NR keeps up with Fox and other outlets just spends his days these past few months sitting as his desk, foaming at the mouth, occasionally screaming things like "SHORT SIGHTED FOOLS", "TRAITORS", "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH EVERYONE" and of course "IA IA TRUMPTHULHU F'TAGHN"
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It's time to play the game. You know which one. "Real headline or Onion article"
"Former KKK leader David Duke is polling better with black voters than Donald Trump"
http://www.businessinsider.com/kkk-leader-david-duke-polls-better-with-black-voters-than-donald-trump-2016-8?r=UK&IR=T
"The Only Woman Donald Trump Can Think to Put in His Cabinet is Ivanka"
http://fortune.com/2016/08/05/donald-trump-cabinet-ivanka/
"Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has revealed his newly formed economic council. All 15 members are men, six are called Steve, one is a hotdog vendor and two are actual economists."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/05/donald-trump-economic-advisers
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http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21703381-taxing-problem-foreign-buyers-home-bias?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/homebias CC Ciato/Elf/the other Vancouverites. Thoughts on this?
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Good policy. Vancouver had a problem where buyers in Asia considered Vancouver property a good investment, so often would buy a house without ever living in the country, hold on to it for a year or two, and re-sell it. This did indeed drive up prices.
In other news, Trump called for the assassination of Clinton...or possibly just her supreme court appointees--it's not clear which from the context. (Not that this is so unexpected, but a few newsrooms did note that they didn't expect him to call for assassinations until like...October).
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http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-hands-kellyanne-conway-steve-bannon-new-roles-campaign-n632471
Trump is now actively on board with Breitbart folks! The pivot begins!
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On the one hand, this means the country is more likely to explode. On the other hand, this also means Clinton is more likely to win. 2016, man.
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Strikes me as irrelevant. Trump has already melted down, the poll numbers look pretty close to unsalvagble.
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I'd like to believe that. In the absence of some catastrophic event I DO believe that. But catastrophes happen, sometimes.
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I'd believe Gary Johnson has more of a chance than Trump at this point. Trump has past the point of being damaged goods, he is actually pushing a sizable portion of the Republican base (Who loathes Hillary) into supporting her. At this point HIllary could be arrested and she'd still likely win the general.
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John "Torture Memos" Yoo just said he'd rather concede the Supreme Court than let Trump become president.
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http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-why-clinton-doesnt-have-this-race-locked-up/
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John "Torture Memos" Yoo just said he'd rather concede the Supreme Court than let Trump become president.
Outside of a couple of high profile defectors (Cheney offhand?) everyone involved in either Bush admin loathes Trump and wants nothing to do with him in office. Trump doesn't have the old guard in the party supporting him, on top of his catastrophically bad polling numbers with women/minorities/etc. He is toast. On a related note, so is everyone in the RNC/party who supported him, as there is going to be some much overdue purges done in wake of what should be an absolute landslide victory for Hillary.
Hillary getting a landslide victory with her serious baggage is as damning a statement you could make of the Republican party as anything else. I have no doubt that Mitt Romney would be winning at this point if he had ran and won the nomination.
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https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/trump-rally-tweets-jared-yates-sexton/
Just in case Breitbart's takeover of Trump's campaign wasn't something you were worried about.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-n-police-kill-unarmed-deaf-mute-man-sign-language-article-1.2760714?cid=bitly
Hello.
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Outside of a couple of high profile defectors (Cheney offhand?) everyone involved in either Bush admin loathes Trump and wants nothing to do with him in office. Trump doesn't have the old guard in the party supporting him
This was also true when he was ahead in the polls after the Republican Convention, though. To his supporters, this is part of his "anti-establishment" appeal. (Besides, the Bush family is close friends with the Clinton family behind the scenes). Those close to Bushes probably also liked Jeb (exclamation point), and Trump probably ended Jeb's career. I'd guess the Bush inner circle is still sour about that. Whereas the general public never really cared about Jeb (exclamation point).
I'd believe Gary Johnson has more of a chance than Trump at this point.
I don't buy this. Even if Johnson surges ahead of Trump in the polls, Trump is going to split the vote on the right. It would be like if Bernie Sanders entered the race as an independent; even if he was well behind Hillary in the polls, he'd probably pick up 10% or something thanks to diehard supporters. Trump also has diehard supporters who will not vote for anyone else if he's on the ballot. I just don't see Johnson uniting the right while Trump is still on the ballot.
Whereas the reverse is not true. Johnson could drop to negligible % of the vote total if Trump surges.
So while I can totally believe a scenario where Johnson ends the race with more votes, I think the likelihood of a Trump presidency is higher than a Johnson presidency.
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Agree about Johnson's chances vs. Trump's chances, but...
(Besides, the Bush family is close friends with the Clinton family behind the scenes).
What actually happened here: Bill, the Bushes, & Carter happen to be to be the only ex-Presidents out there. And it's traditional for ex-presidents to duck somewhat out of politics, at least when it isn't an election season (where they'll usually endorse their party's candidate, speak at a convention, etc.). The result is that there's a certain camraderie between among the only people who can relate to your former job while doing non-partisan charity fundraising events. And honestly, it's great that they get along there, they can make America look Good and Respectable to the rest of the world that way. That said, it's very much a personal "friendship" at most, and attempting to cash it in for some sort of political favor seems unlikely.
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That said, it's very much a personal "friendship" at most, and attempting to cash it in for some sort of political favor seems unlikely.
Oh sure. Same way I've worked in Georgia, and was personal friends with some Libertarians and Republicans.
That said, there's still a certain level of political alignment needed to have such a personal friendship. I can't see such a friendship forming between me and an "I hate gays" republican. To be friends and enjoy each other's company, you can't be ideologically divided on quite that level.
And Clinton and Bush are not too ideologically divided. There are "agree to disagree" level differences there, to be sure, but not like "I can't be friends with you if you keep saying stuff like that" level differences.
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I don't really agree with that? People can put aside politics enough to have friends who are quite strongly ideologically different from them; it usually means they agree to not talk politics with each other, unless they're both the type of people who can have heated political discussions and hold no grudges over it. I could bring up personal examples but really you've seen them in the DL! I imagine you've seen them in San Francisco too, because if you're a conservative there you have little choice, just like if you're a liberal in Oklahoma (ask Ciato). And rather famously they do exist in politics too (I remember reading how Obama was good friends with a super-conservative senator from Oklahoma who joined the senate at the same time), even without the obvious excuse of "this person is one of about five people in the world who truly understands the shit that the president of the US goes through" which I think would make one willing to look past rather a lot ideologically.
The "I hate gays" example I understand and I totally see where you're coming from on that, but homophobia and racism are, in their ugliest forms, directed towards specific people and thus very hard to forgive (and even then, they might enter "agree to disagree" territory if the other person isn't gay, black, etc., and they agree to never talk about it... depends on the person). Most other ideological views, even rather extreme ones (e.g. "everyone should pay a flat tax" or "minimum wage should be $20 nationally") are things that most people can forgive in others, even if they strongly disagree.
For the record: I'm not arguing about how close or far apart that the Bush and Clinton families are ideologically, more that you can't really use "but they're friends" to prove how close they are, since there are plenty of examples of people further apart than them who are friends.
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That dynamic is probably different for people who have served in office (your politics is really on show) and even more so if you have been President obviously.
Not that this disagrees with you even.
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"Frenemies" is a legit thing; we all cash in on our social networks at some point and in some capacity.
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dunie, the point is which capacity. If Bill Clinton asked the Bushes if they can attend a charity gala for AIDS in Africa, and (unspokenly) to conduct the event in a non-political, non-headline grabbing manner, the answer is probably yes. If Clinton were to ask the Bushes to endorse Obama's jobs plan, or the Bushes had asked for a job/internship for a relative in the State Department back when Hillary ran it, the answer would be a shocked look then no. When people toss around these "oh the Bushes and Clintons are totally friends" line, they're usually heavily implying the 2nd version, which is pretty nonsensical.
mc, I pretty much agree with Elf. There are a few people I know who I'm on perfectly cordial terms with whose politics are diametrically opposed to mine - think "have Rush Limbaugh books lying around the house."
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For the record, I wouldn't stand behind the 2nd version, and I agree overall with Elf.
But I would, indeed, cut off who I call a "friend" personally if there were some serious rifts in ideologies (tax, maybe not...abortion, yes) that meant we could only socialize around one thing. They'd just be an associate. Hence why I tossed in the "frenemies" element, which I've always understood as a relationship where you know there will be friction, but you need for whatever reason (to be a better self, access, political maturity, etc.) My point is that beyond this Bush/Clinton pair ya'll are speaking on, I would never put it passed someone to epitomize the idea of a friend superficially.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/24/french-police-make-woman-remove-burkini-on-nice-beach
This is utterly infuriating to me. It is bullshit to tell women how they should dress on a public beach because of strange devotion to secular principles / fear of terrorism (?)
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She was very brave.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/burkini-ban-french-france-court-suspends-rule-law-forbidding-swimwear-worn-muslim-women-seriously-a7211396.html a positive follow up here, saw this also on fb
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France has a lot of soul searching to do here. Wish I could say I were more optimistic about it - but the international outrage is comforting.
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why did i read the comments on that thread
save me
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why did i read the comments on that thread
save me
On the issue of people on the internet who are awful, I've been distraught over the abuse Leslie Jones has been absorbing, particularly that in the year two thousand and sixteen a major presidential candidate has, like, two degrees of separation from the racist, sexist shits who hacked her website. Trump => Breitbart/Bannon => Milo Yalikefuckimgonnawastebraincellsrememberingyourname => the shits. Ok maybe 2.5 degrees? Anyway, close. Very close.
So I was heartened to hear that Clinton was going to address this particular strain of human waste with her speech yesterday. And I read it, and it soothed my soul, a little. And I would recommend you do the same.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/transcript-of-hillary-s-reno-speech
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I think this is the most accurate headline of the election.
Donald Trump Doesn't Have an Immigration Policy. He Has Adjectives and Adverbs. (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/08/donald_trump_doesn_t_have_an_immigration_policy.html)
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http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2016-08-30/story/northeast-florida-voters-kick-controversial-state-attorney-angela-corey
Good fucking riddance.
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http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2016-08-30/story/northeast-florida-voters-kick-controversial-state-attorney-angela-corey
Good fucking riddance.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/05/campaign_manager_for_angela_corey_helped_close_fla_state_attorney_election/
This is after Corey's campaign used dirty tricks to prevent Democrats from voting against her.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/08/31/angela_corey_fired_voters_kick_florida_prosecutor_out.html
Some background on why she is The Worst.
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http://www.vox.com/2016/9/2/12761756/clinton-foundation-passport-north-korea
This, frankly, infuriating. Journalistic malpractice. There have been a lot of "there's smoke so there must be fire" articles regarding the Clinton Foundation, despite the fact that, y'know, we have 30,000 of her personal emails, so if there's fire we should know by now. But the NY Times piece at issue is the worst I've seen.
So Bill Clinton, ex-president, made an emergency trip to North Korea, to negotiate the release of two US journalists, and his Clinton Foundation aides who were accompanying him asked the State Department for help. According to the New York Times this raises "new questions about whether people tied to the Clinton Foundation received special access at the department."
And this is scandalous why? They're on an unofficial diplomatic mission for the United States to rescue United States citizens from North Korea, for God's sake! If the State department ISN'T bending over backwards for them, something is deeply wrong.
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Hey, this is almost as bad as that time Shillary was on the Board of Directors for a company that is making deals with ISIS!
Detractors would like you to think that it matters that she was last on the board back in 1992, and ISIS probably didn't exist in any form we care about until 2014, but her reptillian overlords/handlers would clearly have known how that would work out because it's all a part of their masterplan!!!
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I've actually encountered those people in their serious form, except it's Saddam Hussein rather than ISIS.
The timeline is more that the company worked with the CIA during the Iran-Iraq War in the late-80's, then stopped in the 90's once Hussein heel-turned.
Either way, THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW!!!!!! Except, you know, the whole thing is on her Wikipedia page.
COVERUP!
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http://www.vox.com/2016/9/2/12761756/clinton-foundation-passport-north-korea
This, frankly, infuriating. Journalistic malpractice. There have been a lot of "there's smoke so there must be fire" articles regarding the Clinton Foundation, despite the fact that, y'know, we have 30,000 of her personal emails, so if there's fire we should know by now. But the NY Times piece at issue is the worst I've seen.
So Bill Clinton, ex-president, made an emergency trip to North Korea, to negotiate the release of two US journalists, and his Clinton Foundation aides who were accompanying him asked the State Department for help. According to the New York Times this raises "new questions about whether people tied to the Clinton Foundation received special access at the department."
And this is scandalous why? They're on an unofficial diplomatic mission for the United States to rescue United States citizens from North Korea, for God's sake! If the State department ISN'T bending over backwards for them, something is deeply wrong.
If I recall this story correctly, the state department said "no" anyway. So like...hypothetically if they had said yes, there could be some argument for impropriety, or whether it was worth-it to save hostages. But they didn't.
I mean, it's not even like Hillary is spotless. The FBI was quite critical of how she handled emails, and said that while they weren't pressing criminal charges, if she still worked at the state department she might face less clearance or a sanction like that. The speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs would have been illegal if she had announced her bid for President, but she conveniently only "decided to run" several months later.
Like...if you want to critique Hillary, there's certainly some substance there. Which makes the attacks on the Clinton Foundation very strange. You mean the foundation that provides AIDS medicine to kids in Africa, and which has never paid money to Bill or Hillary? A completely transparent charity? A charity with one of the highest ratings in terms of how much of its donation money goes directly to aid? That Clinton Foundation? Donald Trump's favourite charity (or at least his largest charitable donation ever)? That Clinton Foundation?
Really?
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I mean, it's not even like Hillary is spotless. The FBI was quite critical of how she handled emails, and said that while they weren't pressing criminal charges, if she still worked at the state department she might face less clearance or a sanction like that. The speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs would have been illegal if she had announced her bid for President, but she conveniently only "decided to run" several months later.
I can't say either of those facts particularly concerns me - it's laughable that Clinton would have her clearance reduced, James Comey's star turn notwithstanding - she was a political appointee. People can get upset about how cabinet heads get special treatment JUST because the president specifically appoints them but the thinkpieces comparing them to low-level career diplomats and say they would have been treated the same are specious. And when you say "if the facts had been different then what she did would have been criminal" I mean...the facts AREN'T different. I doubt you will find a single political candidate that has not timed their official campaign announcement for election law oversight purposes. That practice is ubiquitous, bipartisan, and the FEC has not done a thing about it.
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I mean, the FEC also didn't do anything about Trump soliciting campaign contributions in the UK, so they're sure as hell not going to nail anybody for a spirit-of-the-law violation.
It's another way this whole garbage fire reminds me of Rob Ford - Trump can blatantly break whatever laws he finds inconvenient and it's just the wacky candidate being wacky.
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Not to mention that this is only questionably against the spirit of the law! If young Dick or Jane wants to run for President from age 8, are they never allowed to do anything forbidden in election season their entire life, because hey, everyone knows they really intend to run for political office eventually? I say no, these restrictions are time-limited for a reason, and if anything candidates declare way SOONER than "expected" to by the law these days. It isn't like these activities are immoral no matter when they occur.
More generally, I still don't think the speeches at Goldman Sachs were a big deal to begin with. *If* it was actually a bribe, then yes, it's bad. But it wasn't a bribe, it was just that celebrity speakers get ludicrous appearance fees that make normal people squirm. Been linked before, but see:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/6/11/1537582/-The-most-thorough-profound-and-moving-defense-of-Hillary-Clinton-I-have-ever-seen
Enertainers & the like get paid ludicrous amounts for speaking fees, too. But it doesn't seem clear what kind of nefarious purpose they're getting bribed for, so it seems reasonable to assume that celebrity politicans are getting a similar deal. It really is just for "prestige" purposes where executives can brag about having met high muckety-mucks. Which is frustrating since I can imagine way better purposes to put money like that too, but isn't corrupt, just stupid (for the payers, not the payees).
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It's another way this whole garbage fire reminds me of Rob Ford - Trump can blatantly break whatever laws he finds inconvenient and it's just the wacky candidate being wacky.
I didn't mention it yesterday because I should probably keep a cap on the number of posts I make complaining about how the press covers Clinton as opposed to Trump, but this (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/01/trump-pays-irs-a-penalty-for-his-foundation-violating-rules-with-gift-to-florida-attorney-general/) really had me tearing out my hair. So Trump's foundation made a political contribution to Florida's AG in what seems to be a blatant quid pro quo to induce her to drop a lawsuit against Trump University - which she did - then actively covered it up, got caught, and got fined by the IRS for it. Why the fuck isn't this headline news? It doesn't even seem to have made the front page on the New York Times, despite the fact that the press seemingly loves duality - talking about Trump's Foundations' problems after a news cycle on the Clinton Foundation is a gimme. A meatball down the middle of the plate.
But it doesn't seem clear what kind of nefarious purpose they're getting bribed for, so it seems reasonable to assume that celebrity politicans are getting a similar deal. It really is just for "prestige" purposes where executives can brag about having met high muckety-mucks. Which is frustrating since I can imagine way better purposes to put money like that too, but isn't corrupt, just stupid (for the payers, not the payees).
Yeah people have this weird idea that rich people are smart, and especially that rich people are smart about money. Despite all evidence to the contrary. Conspicuous consumption is a thing, and it expresses itself in speaking fees as well as yachts. Relatedly, I used to work for a science organization that gave out fancy certificates to members who paid a small additional fee. The certificates didn't mean anything, other than to signify membership in a pay-to-join organization. Certain rich people just love to collect fancy certificates to put on the wall, though, so in my half a year there I ended up processing certificates for a few people whose names I knew from the news.
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https://www.facebook.com/democracynow/videos/10154446432358279/?pnref=story
Why the fuck are we still talking about Donald Trump's visit to Mexico and his oh so predictable heel face turn upon returning when shit like this is happening?
I wish I knew what to do other than share the video and sit at my computer writing but I fucking don't. This is a goddamn disgrace.
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I have seen a little coverage on media sites but not a ton. Re second point: because news media is terrible and is about ratings rather than actually what matters.
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Yeah. All the big new entities are based on the coasts. Injustices in flyover country might as well be in a foreign nation.
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Also, watching Sean Hannity melt down in embarrassing fashion and repeatedly get owned by Jonah Goldberg is great.
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https://www.facebook.com/democracynow/videos/10154446432358279/?pnref=story
Why the fuck are we still talking about Donald Trump's visit to Mexico and his oh so predictable heel face turn upon returning when shit like this is happening?
I wish I knew what to do other than share the video and sit at my computer writing but I fucking don't. This is a goddamn disgrace.
I don't mean to be callous, but you could sit at the computer and figure out a way? See what your nearby ACLU has going on in relation to it. E-mail them or call, they're pretty quick to respond? Call your local representative and local news stations? Ring the alarm with other people on social media? Figure out the nearest environmental/social justice group near you? Crowdsource? Keep telling your friends like it seems you have been? Check in to what protesters did for the Keystone Pipeline? Read the fine print of donors to protest groups? Thanks for putting that news in this thread!
edit* not sure why I keep getting 405 error code
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I mean, President Obama has now called a halt to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. So the protests and news about dog attacks seemed to have had an effect.
I'm still kinda miffed that out of the four presidential candidates, the only presidential candidate who visited the DAP protests was Jill Stein. (Of course, her goal was to get arrested, so she was spray painting the equipment :S). I get that Johnson is probably for the pipeline cause his whole platform is anti-regulation. And it's not like I expected Trump to have any principles whatsoever. But it would've be nice if Hillary had taken notice....
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Hillary Clinton has pneumonia. All Trump supporters just got boners.
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I'm not sure why they think this would matter. Whose vote would this move, aside from people whose preference ranking of the candidates goes Clinton > Trump > Kaine? (i.e. virtually no one)
I guess it could influence debate performance or something but eh.
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I've seen somebody speculate that she's going to have to drop off the ticket entirely now, because I guess we're still looking for a cure for pneumonia? Morons.
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Well, remember: right-wing media has spent the past month telling themselves that Hillary has brain damage/Parkinson's/god knows what. There's a whole industry of conspiracy theories going over footage 'proving' she's medically unfit for office. So basically for those already conspiratorially initiated this is just the final nail in the coffin.
Meanwhile this popped up on my twitter feed: https://twitter.com/Chris_Doucette/status/775055244699074560
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I like to imagine whoever at NR keeps up with Fox and other outlets just spends his days these past few months sitting as his desk, foaming at the mouth, occasionally screaming things like "SHORT SIGHTED FOOLS", "TRAITORS", "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH EVERYONE" and of course "IA IA TRUMPTHULHU F'TAGHN"
This is pretty much true. Sean Hannity and the rest of the Trump idiot brigade keeps picking fights with the National Review and it's writers (and losing badly). Hannity got tanked at a Rascal Flatts concert last night, tried trolling Rich Lowry and blaming him if (When) Hillary wins, and got owned so bad that he had to resort to 'I HAVE A BIGGER FOLLOWER COUNT THAN YOU, FOOL' argument. Among other things, he accused them of all voting for HRC and trying to support her by tearing down Trump.
And yes, this was as pathetic/funny as you'd expect it to be.
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So about as funny as a David Strassman show?
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Hillary Clinton has pneumonia. All Trump supporters just got boners.
Man, the antibiotics for walking pneumonia are just awful. Hopefullyshe dials it back a bit for more than a few days, since she really needs her lungs to speak at the debates.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/they-are-all-breitbart-now/499511/
Journalism.
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So about as funny as a David Strassman show?
It's as funny as anything in this shitshow of an election.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/52p1yb/north_dakota_wants_to_arrest_democracy_nows_amy/
Take that Messengers! Fuck you whistle blowers! The worst! Snitches get stitches.
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mc linked me this and it's too good to not share: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ1HYmfNzcE
Also how about that H.W. Bush voting for Clinton
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Unsurprising. The old school GOP loathes Trump beyond belief.
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Doesn't seem like the old school GOP exerts very much influence right now though.
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It looks like there WAS a group of people on the fringe stealing their country away from them.
http://cow.org/csi/
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(https://i.reddituploads.com/883520105f114067bcb5a5b1d23286a7?fit=max&h=1536&w=1536&s=d2b396f43b63a6a9dabe9319fbf2a465)
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This debate is like watching someone who just stepped in the room and is trying to pick up on context clues arguing with a snarky teenager who just finished Intro to Poli Sci.
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Remember when Sarah Palin was the scariest person in politics
You know, I didn't want her anywhere near the white house, but there's a part of me that kind-of liked Sarah Palin. She was a hockey mom with a Canadian accent. And somehow this appealed to hard-line southern Republicans?
Don't get me wrong, she was incompetent, corrupt, not liked in her own state. But like...the negative news stories about her were like...her hunting wolves from a helicopter. Her not reading newspapers. Her seeing Russia from her house.
I mean, fuck, Ted Cruz cooked bacon by wrapping it around a machine gun (http://"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaZGaJrd3x8"). That's totally a Sara Palinism if I ever saw one. And like...it's fine. Doesn't appeal to the voter in me at all, mostly I roll my eyes and think it's hilarious, but I don't look at that and think "that's morally reprehensible and dangerous to America". (Cruz is shitty for other reasons).
I look at trump, promoting the alt right, and yeah, that's morally reprehensible and dangerous to America.
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Don't get me wrong, she was incompetent, corrupt, not liked in her own state.
...
I mean, fuck, Ted Cruz cooked bacon by wrapping it around a machine gun (http://"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaZGaJrd3x8"). ... And like...it's fine. Doesn't appeal to the voter in me at all, mostly I roll my eyes and think it's hilarious, but I don't look at that and think "that's morally reprehensible and dangerous to America".
You really have gone native over the last decade.
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http://www.npr.org/2016/09/26/495115346/fact-check-first-presidential-debate
Transcript with annotated fact checking by NPR.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQrKH03UKP0
This is eerily like the noises in my head. Except they use less profanity.
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Can we pause for a moment to unpack the iconography that NPR has on that page
(http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/09/26/factcheckillustration-13-new-13_wide-4d0bd05f229d4fbe226fb3cd193527984694a76b-s700-c85.png)
Not sure if its a dig or if is just accidental thing, but note how Hilary has multiple shades used on her that fleshes out her silhouette to give it texture.
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You see texture, I see an incomplete image. There's no way anyone could have resisted highlighting Trump's hair.
As for the iconography, the podiums are very weird and the chat bubbles .... are... empty, symbolizing just how underserved we were by the entire discussion. "UNDER LEVERAGED."
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That might have actually been the most revealing presidential debate of the modern era. Among Trump's big flaws as a candidate - inasmuch as he is not just one massive flaw - are his thin skin and quick temper, which the Clinton camp has argued at length make him easy for adversaries to manipulate. Last night proved them unquestionably right. In a controlled environment, facing predictable questions and minor needling from his opponent, he lost his shit inside the first half hour. He'd be a fucking disaster in any pressure situation, which isn't exactly a shock if you've been paying attention but should be way harder to deny now. Not that I'm optimistic about that, but it should be.
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But it's cool, he opened a night club in one of the most prestigious areas in the world, and people are praising him for its inclusiveness.
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I think it was a country club, not a night club. As in, a golf course.
Anyway that was one of the most hilarious things I've watched in a while. In so much that watching Colbert and Noah's takes on it were kinda redundant since you can't make that sheer level of complete craziness funnier by joking about it.
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You are correct, it is a country club.
Which makes this answer even more out of touch. You wanna comment about inclusiveness when addressing racial tension by citing your exclusive, members-only country club? Way to completely miss the goddamned boat on what the problem actually is.
I saw someone say it somewhere else, but Trump seems to think that owning a property somewhere is his way of saying "oh yeah, I know that place and those people."
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I think it was a country club, not a night club. As in, a golf course.
way harder to keep black dudes out of a night club amirite
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgM3r8xKfGE
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I think it was a country club, not a night club. As in, a golf course.
way harder to keep black dudes out of a night club amirite
Just enforce a "dress code."
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQrKH03UKP0
This is eerily like the noises in my head. Except they use less profanity.
The whole idea of "getting Trump into the office will be good for the left, because it will incite revolution" just...does not have history backing it.
For a recent example, Bush got in in 2000. Did a shit job, and by 2004 it was known to be shit, that there were no WMDs. Not only was there no political revolution, he won his re-election.
For a more chilling example...quoting directly from Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_fascism
German Communists continued to deny any essential difference between Nazism and Social Democracy even after elections in 1933. The KPD, under the leadership of Ernst Thälmann, coined the slogan "After Hitler, our turn!" – strongly believing that united front against Nazis wasn't needed, and that the workers would change their opinion and recognize that Nazism, unlike Communism, didn't offer a true way out of Germany's difficulties.
"If the Germans screw up and elect Hitler, their mistake will be super obvious to the public and they will come running to the left in the next election". Hm, I wonder how that worked out for them? Oh right
After Adolf Hitler's Nazis came to power in Germany, the KPD was outlawed and thousands of its members, including Thälmann, were arrested.
This whole "electing nutcases is good because people will realize their mistake" doesn't work when the nutcases control propaganda. This happened with W Bush. I'm positive it would happen with Trump.
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Even aside from the propaganda they control or ability to silence their enemies, being in power normalizes them. By nature all opposition starts comparing themselves to them, and their successors will adopt similar views to try to recapture their success (e.g. Ronald Reagan essentially gave the Republicans three presidential terms in a row for the only time in their history -> the next generation of Republicans seeks to emulate him). If Trump wins the election, he becomes a valid model for electoral victory in the future, even if he is seen as a bad president.
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Obviously. That's uh... a very very small part of the video there? And is pretty quickly shut down as a stupid way to think?
It's more "Trump getting into office will kill thousands, if not millions." "The system is broken and we're out of time to take the necessary steps to avert environmental or electoral disaster." It's a loop with no clear way to break it. Another 8 years at the rate of progress we have now will quite likely put us beyond the point of no return environmentally, assuming we're not already past it. The resentment that's fueling Trumpism shows no signs of abating, and I question if the will required to beat it back will be there in 8 years, even assuming that Clinton improves enough in her first term to get reelected. There's no existing alternatives that can viably be formed into a truly progressive party, the required split in the Republican party looks more unlikely by the day, and the Democrats are unlikely to even honor the platform they have, let alone continue the push left.
On and on like that in my head.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/congress-now-blaming-obama-for-embarrassing-override-of-his-veto_us_57edacd1e4b082aad9ba8595
tl;dr Override veto 97-1, blame Obama when they have buyer's remorse for failing to communicate the consequences of this after ragging onto him about how much he tried to prevent this from getting passed back in April.
i don't even know anymore
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The Senate passed a version, thinking the House wouldn't take it up until after the election. Because apparently they've never heard of the House, or something. Anyway, the House did take it up, because they are crazy, and so that put the Senate in the position of doing the obvious right thing, or doing something that looks good to the public but is obviously wrong. Hmmmmmmmm.
But yeah, did not expect the GOP to start attacking the White House for failing to adequately communicate the dangers of legislation that it had vetoed. This is an amazing innovation in craven politics. This is digging a hole so you can set the bar beneath ground level. How could we legislators be expected to comprehend the exceptionally straightforward International Law 101 consequences of our bills?
Hats off to Harry Reid and LITERALLY NO OTHER DEMOCRATIC SENATOR for putting on his big boy pants and voting against the override.
tl;dr Thanks Obama
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i had to check the topic title to see if i clicked on idiot of the day or the politics topic, because wow holy shit
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I get and don't get the parallel to German Nazism. One, the one hand you have a so-called Western country that's supposedly progressive and forward-thinking, yet a hateful anti-humanist leader rose to power. On the other hand, he wasn't elected but given chancellorship after a capitulating (and old) presi Hindenburg who had himself perpetuated hateful antisemitic sentiments. And this all occurred in some vague idea of rationalism. I just don't see that fitting well, at all really, with the current situation in the US except for the general first part. Then you had the radio which was a super big thing to new audiences, but here generations accustomed to positive or negative ideologies on TV. I mean, there's several articles out there that put out some solid BEWARE OF HITLER x2 narratives, but the world has already had many more hateful rulers that we could also invoke. I feel like we have more of a ridiculous spaghetti western unraveling here, without any love of rules or investment in logic.
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Peiple draw paralells between Hitler and Trump for a few reasons:
The narcissistic self aggrandizing lying. Trump lies constantly and in ways that make him look good. He does this to such a degree that it breaks many of the 'norms' of a candidate.... You don't lie brazenly when there is evidence of the contrary and if you do it should hurt you. This is a big deal because it allows someone in power to create their own alternate versions of events, which gives freedom to do things that would be too scandalous or beyond the pale for a normal offfice holder.
Trump plays to irrational fears of a minority and demonizes them to try and take power. Seriously he opened his campaign with the idea that mexicans were rapists and murderers and leeches that had to be kicked the hell out of the country. This encourages violence and dehumanization against a group of human beings for the circumstances of their birth. Let me be very clear that this is some seriously dark shit. This comes from the fever swamps of the internet (breitbart Drudge Stormfront) where there be dragons. Trump is normalizing actual racist supremacists. He made the head of Breitbart his campaign lead. He had a group of people on his convention stage who lost family members to 'illegal immigrants' (Mexicans). Can you stop and imagine if he had a bunch of white people who lost family members to black people (btw his campaign managers site actually does that kind of shit)? The message is clear 'kick these people out or kill them'. This is dark shit and that gets lost amidst a lot of the horse race.
Trump has seriously honest to god incited violence. Talking about roughing up protestors and talk of Hillary being assasinated. This violates norms that should get someone shumned out of politics. This is dark and scary shit.
Trump is vindictive and spiteful. witness his (wholly unnecessary) feuds with everyone from Rosie Odonnel to the Khans. Or hell even a fire marshal who won't let him fill up a venue past capacity.Give him the spying, law enforcement, pardoning, and even assasination power of the presidency and picture how he could 'counterpunch' critics.
Trump wants to curtail the media from saying things he doesn't like. Witness his talk of how much he hates the media and wants to 'open up' libel laws.
Trump praises brutal foreign dictators for their... Brutality. He calls it 'strength'. He talked admiringly about how Putin and even KIM JONG UN took control of their countries. Or about how Saddam 'was so good at killing terrorists' THIS IS A MAJOR GOD DAMN RED FLAG.
So yeah Trump is scary. Hang out at the right wing fever swamps to get a feel for why.
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That all falls in the first generalism to me, which I would never say isn't a problem or parallel. Don't get me wrong. But I also don't see those "strategies" as unique to Hitler. Hillary Clinton would never elect Trump for anything and our party system is not alike. I think I would get even more nervous once the elections are over, all prayers to him losing, but a new party pops up with those ideals and gains super steam while republicans are scurrying around. I am trying to remain hopeful, and americans yelling appeals to hitler and the holocaust is sort of too.... much, for lack of better word. It would also be interesting to see the legislative kickback to a party founded very announcedly (fake word, bedtime) on hate crimes. I defer to jim
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and americans yelling appeals to hitler and the holocaust is sort of too.... much, for lack of better word.
To be fair, I'm not really comfortable comparing him to hitler myself. I don't feel comfortable drawing those kinds of parallels. I was mostly comparing the "Bernie or Bust" crowd to the KPD.
That said, if a 90 year old Jew who was nearly killed in the holocaust were to make the comparison to hitler, then I can't really make the "you're just a dumb 20-year-old american who doesn't understand what it was like in 1939" complaint. Speaking of which...enter Anne Frank's stepsister:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/27/politics/anne-frank-donald-trump-adolf-hitler/
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Yeah, and she's not the only survivor to say so; to clarify, I wouldn't disqualify anyone's comparison. That's not my intention with my posts. Pyro's elaboration on similar character traits is spot on. I understand the need to politically vilify him by association. I question the parallels that enabled rise & success. So I get and don't get the parallels to German Nazism.
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Also he kept a copy of Mein Kampf next to his bedstand for years. He's taken some pains to court Neo Nazis. Comparisons to Hitler specifically rather than the lesser demagogues (insofar as any of them are fascists rather than military dictators or the like) since is something he's cultivated.
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http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb1612292#t=article
Ahahahahahahahaha.
Oh come on Trump, just fucking make something up. You've been doing it for how the fuck long already? Clearly, just like your secret anti-ISIL plan, your healthcare plan DOES NOT FUCKING EXIST.
Christ, any goddamn healthcare professional that still supports Trump after he blatantly ignores one of the most important issues of the entire field and allied professions should be stripped of their license and then subjected to a swarm of the largest dildos in existence in every orifice on their body.
And yet, I know people who still support him. In the medical field. What the fuck.
I've never been into politics, but this year...ugh.
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Christ, any goddamn healthcare professional that still supports Trump after he blatantly ignores one of the most important issues of the entire field and allied professions should be stripped ... and then subjected to a swarm of the largest dildos in existence in every orifice on their body.
Look man I can respect your kinks and our disagreements on politics, but I don't think your platform is going to win most of the population over to supporting Trump. Just because you like it doesn't mean it works for everyone.
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In all my years of practice, there is nothing I've found that a swarm of dildos couldn't fix.
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Yeah but it takes years of practice to handle as much as you do.
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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-taxes-50-percent-Americans-dont-pay
Remains to be seen what the fallout from Trump's tax return will be, but here's the best place for the Dems to start.
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I'm all for trashing Trump as an immoral failure and hammering him for not releasing the taxes, but I more consider it a commentary on the system rather than Trump that he paid as little taxes as possible. That just seems like human nature.
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Minimizing your tax burden is smart.
Minimizing your tax burden by carrying massive business losses while running on a platform of business success, gloating that smart people don't pay taxes, that we need to get rid of freeloaders (not just the welfare class, he's literally discussing the arrangements we have with foreign governments and their not paying), and saying that he's going to "fix the system" without any nod to the loopholes he's used to escape paying any tax... not so smart.
But then, that's why he hasn't released anything, isn't it?
I think it's especially damning that he's come out about this leak by saying the leak was illegal, not that the forms themselves were in any way erroneous.
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The critical question that the returns don't answer is: how did he amass the $915m in losses? If he did it entirely by losing money he had personally invested, or by taking depreciation on assets he had bought, that's above board. Raise your hand if you believe that was what happened. Ok everyone who raised their hands, I've got a great real estate proposition for you - a can't-miss investment located between Manhattan and Brooklyn that is guaranteed to make you rich! Anyway. There is a very good chance that the tax structuring he did to amass those losses is not legitimate.
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A second, more critical-er question is for the people who think it qualifies him to fix the tax code.
Do you really think, given the kind of person he's shown himself to be, he'll in any way fix the tax code in a way that won't also massively benefit himself? This is assuming he even does anything resembling tax reform.
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I'm all for trashing Trump as an immoral failure and hammering him for not releasing the taxes, but I more consider it a commentary on the system rather than Trump that he paid as little taxes as possible. That just seems like human nature.
I do on the other hand. I think if you are running for office as an elected official in any capacity then having an active disdain for the spirit of the system that is going to pay you then I don't trust you with that money. Tax iexists for a goddamned reason. Those loopholes people abuse are also there to try and reduce the burden on investors and "job creators" so that when things don't go well their livelyhood isn't completely destroyed.
Aggressive abuse of that is entirely something I am going to judge your character on. If it is human nature it is a disgusting part of human nature.
Not paying tax (when you financially are capable of course, if you have no taxable income, you paid the tax you owed)and then complaining about the system is significantly worse than not voting and complaining.
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http://abovethelaw.com/2016/10/judge-posner-benchslaps-governor-mike-pence-on-syrian-refugee-opposition/
So this is fun, three of the most prominent conservative jurists in the country just told Mike Pence where he can stick it. Posner and Easterbrook are unquestionably the two most influential and respected jurists not on the Supreme Court, and Sykes is on Trump's short list as a Supreme Court appointee. Yikes.
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What a fun title.
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What a fun title.
Yeaaaaaah this kinda sums up Above The Law and the big firm legal culture it stands at the heart of: outwardly, admirably liberal - frequently taking biglaw to task for not being diverse enough - but with a side of microaggressions because the writers are a product of the biglaw bros culture they criticize. Very New York.
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I go on vacation for TWO FUCKING DAYS...
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Ha.
Hah.
Hahahahaha.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
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Ha.
Hah.
Hahahahaha.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
me irl right now
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So being out of the loop I had to look it up.
Seriously, that is what set it all off? Confirmation of blatantly obvious behaviour? Okay America.
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He's said heinous shit about all kinds of minorities and has been for years. Then he enabled a bunch of white nationalists/the alt right. It's a bit telling that this is the line. That's not to say this is not a big deal, but I'm not sure this is the worst thing he's said this week .
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And a special burn in hell to the media, which played along with Trump in the primaries and gave him wall to wall coverage even though shit like this was known.
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2016 Election shaping up like a cautionary tale with an ending so blunt and forced you have to roll your eyes. Oh a taped comment admitting to sexual assault, in EXACTLY the manner in which he had already been accused - in court no less - of sexual assault. 2016 needs a competent editor to tone this shit down.
tl;dr (http://squid314.livejournal.com/275614.html)
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It's funny because it's true.
I think it's so damn funny that this is what seems to be tipping things. It shouldn't have taken this long, but I think there were a lot of people just trying to justify the situation as best they could. Particularly why he was picked as the Republican nominee over the, what, 11 other actually not totally abysmal candidates?
"Oh, he's a business man first, of course he would use the tax breaks. That's not bad, he clearly knows where the tax loopholes are. That's a good thing!"
"He's not a career politician, he's different. So he says things as he thinks of them, no filter. He's got a different platform - this means we'll get some changes!"
I think this was the first thing that really couldn't be defended, since that's why Trump himself apologized for the first time...at least in this campaign, but probably in his goddamned life. Not any good way to spin this - "oohhh...Bill Clinton is a man whore look at him instead" doesn't really work. I mean, we knew this for a while (and anyone who took half a second to look would have figured it out earlier - this is the era of the internet, people, not that hard to find stuff). It's really frustrating that it got this far.
Agreed about the media - this election (and previous elections have been building up to this one) is way too focused on sensationalism - it's so hard to find non-idiotic media coverage. How about we talk a bit more about policies and the like? There's a reason the founding fathers (was it Adams? I can't remember for sure) said that we should have multiple parties, not a 1-2 party system, which leas to situations like this.
Really hoping Johnson makes a big impact here. And that the Republican party gets a hell of a reform.
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"Oh, he's a business man first, of course he would use the tax breaks. That's not bad, he clearly knows where the tax loopholes are. That's a good thing!"
As a professional in the business of tax breaks, I can't condemn him for this IF his tax breaks were proper under the tax code. But we don't have anywhere near enough information to evaluate that. If he amassed $915m in losses the hard way, fine. His properties in the late 80s were hemorrhaging money, so we know it's at least partially legit. On the other hand, was he trying to get tax breaks he did not deserve, using the complexity of his returns to try and pull one over on the IRS? The most compelling theory is that the $915m is composed in large part of losses from his S-Corp that were intended to have been written off, but which a mistake in drafting of the tax code meant he could "legitimately" claim. So a tax loophole in the truest sense.
So that's about all I have to say about that. Maybe Trump's a cheat but we don't have enough inforOBJECTION! (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/unraveling-the-mystery-of-how-trump-landed-himself-a-middle-class-tax-break)
Of course. Of course! This is Trump we're talking about, and so any argument even marginally in his favor had to be undermined in the stupidest way possible. And here it is: Trump definitively cheated on his New York state property taxes, in order to reap a $6,000 benefit. So there you go, decisive evidence he's a tax cheat! An unimaginably petty tax cheat.
p.s. I've heard a lot of outlets assert that he got $915m in losses in a single year. That's not true. Those $915m include carried losses from previous years. This also lends SOME credibility to the number - presumably parts of it are from returns that had already been audited.
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I think this was the first thing that really couldn't be defended, since that's why Trump himself apologized for the first time...at least in this campaign, but probably in his goddamned life. Not any good way to spin this - "oohhh...Bill Clinton is a man whore look at him instead" doesn't really work. I mean, we knew this for a while (and anyone who took half a second to look would have figured it out earlier - this is the era of the internet, people, not that hard to find stuff). It's really frustrating that it got this far.
Yeah except the apology (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-apology-statement.html) had NO U right there as well.
I’ve said some foolish things, but there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people. Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days. See you at the debate on Sunday.
"Actually" abused women.
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Clinton's appeal to fact-checking is exhausting; she literally sounds like a lecturing oldie. I doubt anyone behind Trump would reverse their opinion if they discovered he wasn't a man of his words. She's getting better pants suits than she had while campaigning, kudos. Her e-mail apology is overly-practiced and as believable in integrity as Donald Trump's locker room talk. She does a better job, however, not defending a practice as legitimate. I don't care about her e-mails; still, I sometimes wonder if her response to "I've been cleared," doesn't make the situation seem any less tenuous. Cooper was impatient with Trump, cool. I vibed with it; his shortness did seem like a vendetta to repair the first debate. Kinda lame, but reminds me off the tempo of conversations between myself and men who sicken me. Single status no dependents professional me doesn't care 2 pennies about Clinton's "think of the children" rhetoric. I've always valued the saying that you can tell a country's value and demeanor by how they treat the dead and the insertion of Khan into the conversation teetered from the gross with Clinton and the offensive with Trump. That's where I went to bed; just read the transcript - still not happy with a lot of Hillary (2 pts for reminding folk that MA was Muslim, albeit the poisonous black nationalist machismo version for some time). But hey, that's a complaint not worth developing anymore. It's 2015 and talks about race always displace the diversity of asians to some so-called periphery. And when they talk about black folk, it's always a monolithic slave-descended African-American group, which is just not true at all, and no one wants to talk about living costs to any serious extent in this debate when "gentrification" rolls off every tongue like clockwork. Most interesting thing said that night was reversing Citizens United & refugees. We have more than enough space but not enough people in power willing to think creatively beyond vetting.
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Clinton's appeal to fact-checking is exhausting; she literally sounds like a lecturing oldie. I doubt anyone behind Trump would reverse their opinion if they discovered he wasn't a man of his words.
So what exactly do you propose she do?
Obama got a lot of crap for the first debate in 2012 for being way too passive against Romney and just ignoring Romney's attacks. Flip side, if Clinton responds to everything Trump claims, she allows Trump to dictate what the debate will be about, and the rare undecided voter watching is the type who will assume the truth is somewhere in-between the disputed positions, which is bad if Trump says "Clinton eats babies" and Clinton is saying "I don't eat babies" (conclusion: Clinton eats babies occasionally). A blanket denial with "check my website for details on why that's all wrong" is about her best option IMO that both counters Trump but doesn't eat all her time, but maybe you have a different suggestion...?
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/glenn-beck-hillary-clinton_us_57fc695be4b0e655eab74351
This fucking election.
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Clinton's appeal to fact-checking is exhausting; she literally sounds like a lecturing oldie. I doubt anyone behind Trump would reverse their opinion if they discovered he wasn't a man of his words.
So what exactly do you propose she do?
Obama got a lot of crap for the first debate in 2012 for being way too passive against Romney and just ignoring Romney's attacks. Flip side, if Clinton responds to everything Trump claims, she allows Trump to dictate what the debate will be about, and the rare undecided voter watching is the type who will assume the truth is somewhere in-between the disputed positions, which is bad if Trump says "Clinton eats babies" and Clinton is saying "I don't eat babies" (conclusion: Clinton eats babies occasionally). A blanket denial with "check my website for details on why that's all wrong" is about her best option IMO that both counters Trump but doesn't eat all her time, but maybe you have a different suggestion...?
Unlike Obama, Clinton got flack for being too prepared and rebutting, but honestly, I find little value in waxing poetic as if I'm a debate specialist. Her not-now diversion is just not effective to silence Trump's active lying during the debate. The low-hanging fruit for character digs by her is juicy, sure, but she should keep up how she has actually slighted his misinformation at the beginning of her responses.
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http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/october-web-only/speak-truth-to-trump.html
"Enthusiasm for a candidate like Trump gives our neighbors ample reason to doubt that we believe Jesus is Lord. They see that some of us are so self-interested, and so self-protective, that we will ally ourselves with someone who violates all that is sacred to us—in hope, almost certainly a vain hope given his mendacity and record of betrayal, that his rule will save us."
It's nice to see someone go for the throat on this issue. I've definitely concluded that evangelicals are largely hypocrites on this issue throughout the past few months.
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Well one positive thing came out of this election. Texas, a state with normally horrendous voter participation, has registered a record 15 million voters. Hopefully if most of them registered to defeat Trump they'll also vote out some of the other crummy Republicans we have.
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Generally speaking, the category of potential voters with the worst registration and participation rate in Texas are Hispanics. So that seems pretty likely.
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Encountered some bona fide white supremacists protesting Jews and international banking outside the federal reserve in Boston yesterday. Told them they're racist shits and to get the fuck out of Boston (they said they're from Connecticut) to which one replied that I'm "obviously a Jew" if I object to them.
It really rattled me, honestly. This fucking election cannot be over soon enough.
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Fuck yeah CK!
What the -fuck- Jim? Sorry you experienced that but had the steel to say something.
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Never seen anything like that here. Naturally it was on the same day Trump gave a speech about how Hillary is in cahoots with "international bankers" wink wink to steal our country from us. Absolutely disgusting.
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I wanted to post something here, like, a long discussion.
But fuck that noise. All I'll say is that Trump's scorched earth policy is the strategy of a goddamned 4 year old.
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I take offense, my two year old niece is much more mature.
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Encountered some bona fide white supremacists protesting Jews and international banking outside the federal reserve in Boston yesterday. Told them they're racist shits and to get the fuck out of Boston (they said they're from Connecticut) to which one replied that I'm "obviously a Jew" if I object to them.
It really rattled me, honestly. This fucking election cannot be over soon enough.
This kind of thing doesn't end with the election.
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It doesn't, but I'm optimistic that in mid-November, with a president Clinton, a furious but impotent Trump, and cold weather, that they'll head back to their subreddits to hibernate. This shit doesn't go away, but it needs a center of gravity. And a loser can't be a center of gravity.
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And a loser can't be a center of gravity.
Tell that to Sarah Palin.
If Fox News and related Conservative media are smart, they'll pretend Trump doesn't exist after the election. If they invite him on for interviews and as a guest correspondant, they give him legitimacy. In order for Republicans to get their party back on track they need to ignore the crazy people for a while.
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Oooh yeah, Palin. Well, hopefully the same logic doesn't apply to the top of the ticket. McCain certainly hasn't retained any potency.
Also women are mostly comfortable being alone in a room with Palin, so there's that.
As for Fox...earlier they were worried Trump would spin the election into a competing cable news channel, with one Roger Ailes in tow. They've already got demographic problems and women problems. I'm gonna guess they steer clear of Trump.
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This makes things better:
http://mashable.com/2016/10/14/billboard-overwatch-donald-trump.amp
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Yeah, it does.
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Let's talk policy--Hillary Clinton in the debates kept talking about how Trump would in some cases raise taxes on the middle class. I hadn't seen numbers on that. Here's some:
http://www.vox.com/2016/9/26/12991790/donald-trump-tax-hike-middle-class
The first tax plan kept the bottom income tax rate at 10 percent, the same as under current law. But Trump then changed it to make the bottom rate 12 percent. That raises taxes on everyone with a positive tax burden, all else being equal. This is offset — and then some — for rich families by lower rates higher up the income scale (like a 33 percent top bracket, down from 39.6), but it's hardly offset at all for many middle-class families.
Trump's initial plan also saw a dramatic increase in the standard deduction, from $12,600 to $50,000 for married couples. Trump would've kept the personal exemption, an additional deduction that all taxpayers can claim for themselves and their family, at its current level of $4,050. But his updated plan not only cut the standard deduction to $30,000 for married couples, it eliminated personal exemptions entirely. So a family of five claiming a personal exemption for each would actually be worse off under Trump’s changes, as five times $4,050 plus $12,600 is greater than $30,000.
Trump’s initial plan left head-of-household filing status, which effectively lowers taxes for unmarried individuals caring for an adult or child dependent, untouched. His new plan eliminates it. That puts middle-class single parents, and single adults caring for a parent or relative, in a bind.
Batchelder provides several examples of families that would see their taxes go up under Trump’s plan. The biggest hikes number in the thousands of dollars, and are concentrated among single parents:
- A single parent with $75,000 in earnings, two children in school, and no child care costs (because the kids are in school) would pay $2,440 more.
- A single parent with $50,000 in earnings, three children in school, and child care costs of less than $6,000 would pay $1,188 more.
- A married couple with $50,000 in earnings, two kids in school, and no child care costs would pay $150 more because of the bottom bracket's increase from 10 to 12 percent.
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http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/10/17/john-mccain-foreshadows-supreme-court-confirmation-fights-ahead/
Just a reminder that a deadlocked vote is functionally the same as a No result. Deadlocks supports the status quo.
Also that this is literally what we elect people for and pay them to do.
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Yeah but we don't pay nearly as good as Koch Industries so we don't get the final say.
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For what it is worth, I suppose another SCJ might die or quit. So instead we just get a higher concentration of power rather than a breakdown of built in checks and balances.
(http://images.uncyc.org/commons/b/be/Partybowie.gif)
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Tee hee.
(http://i.imgur.com/jFeqA97.jpg)
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conspiracy: hillary wont release her remaining emails because it will reveal that she has been in the pockets of big pimpin all along
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Goddamnit Zenny I snorted my bourbon into my goddamn nose thanks to that.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441319/donald-trump-alt-right-internet-abuse-never-trump-movement
Everyone responsible for the rise of Trump- the media who gave him a ton of free coverage because it was ratings to the Republican voters to journalists who didn't even bother to do a cursory background investigation on Trump to the parasites in right wing media who helped fuel this insanity- deserves blame for this garbage.
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:(
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Tee hee.
(http://i.imgur.com/jFeqA97.jpg)
I see your death row records, and raise you one american flag
(http://i.imgur.com/NLw8d75.jpg)
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(https://media.giphy.com/media/enV31H2rMWXOE/giphy.gif)
tee hee
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I don't know how you all manage to not completely lose your mind
I feel so terrible about this and I've never even lived in America
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Trump is basically Le Pen so yeah you've been through this particular hell before. It sucks.
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No this is worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_presidential_election,_2002
Jacques Chirac Rally for the Republic (Rassemblement pour la République) 25,537,956 82.21%
Jean-Marie Le Pen National Front (Front national) FN 5,525,032 17.79%
A crazy candidate getting past the primary occasionally due to good luck, cosmic rays, split vote, aliens, whatever is fine. They just need to lose, and lose *big*, in the general. Even if Clinton squeaks through, this will be entirely too close to call when one candidate is manifestly unfit for office even if you 100% agreed with him on every policy position he takes.
Granted, the French example isn't perfect, since that was a right-wing candidate & a far right-wing candidate, which would be the equivalent of a general election between Mitt Romney & Ted Cruz with no 3rd party candidates allowed, which would probably be a pretty easy win. (Same with, uh, Clinton vs. Sanders in the general election somehow.)
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I agree but
Chirac was helped by the lack of time between the first and second turn of the elections, nobody expected Le Pen to go to the second round so he couldn't develop a strategy and make himself look like a real solid choice like Trump did
And that was ages, things have changed
I really don't think the French are superior to Americans (or Brits) , I am pretty sure almost all of Europe could do something as dumb as electing Trump / choosing Brexit
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I'm not debating the relative good/bad of the people involved, just that you've been there when one of the crazies gets free run of things and gets to run for national office.
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Anyone want to come to my house Tuesday? Having an "End of America" party. Cyanide-laced sangria for all!
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Oooh ooh I will, I will get to meet your wife and tell her all kinds of stories about you! (I need some kind of entertainment, this election is going to be fucking AWFUL)
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There is nothing you can tell her that will illicit any kind of response Super. Anyone that has shared a bed work OK that long knows enough.
And for what it is worth Fen, I think the DL is a relatively ok place for getting it isn't about Euro vs Americans superiority pissing contest like a lot of the internet.
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I don't know how you all manage to not completely lose your mind
Who says we haven't? I am actually in therapy now and this miserable shitstorm is at the least a significant contributing factor. It's sucked all the joy out of living for a year now and I don't know whether I can cope with another four like it.
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And for what it is worth Fen, I think the DL is a relatively ok place for getting it isn't about Euro vs Americans superiority pissing contest like a lot of the internet.
Fuck you, you fucking baby-stealing dingo Aussie!
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Anyway, at risk of a Godwin violation, I'm just gonna leave this here:
http://fusion.net/story/363002/hannah-arendt-donald-trump-origins-of-totalitarianism/
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I don't know how you all manage to not completely lose your mind
Who says we haven't? I am actually in therapy now and this miserable shitstorm is at the least a significant contributing factor. It's sucked all the joy out of living for a year now and I don't know whether I can cope with another four like it.
I am interjecting because that is laced with a hint of harm. You are not alone in this, we can help you cope.
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Classically, the evidence says you should turn to drinking.
I hear heroin is popular too.
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Sorry to hear that Cid. Stay strong.
It's kind of a miracle that we seem to pretty much all agree about Trump, considering the DL is a forum of mostly white males with a lot of anime avatars
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The DL is 95% left of center to left, no surprise that it isn't a huge fan of Trump. Trump supporters tend to be less educated on the whole (DL averages out to around a 4 year college degree or slightly more than that on average),. Trump supporters also tend to skew older than the DL. We're mostly a bad demographic match.
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Fenrir's got a good point, though: there is a certain strain of young(ish) white male Trump supporter that you'll see in various other places of the internet: alt-right, antisocial types who would typically describe themselves by such labels as "anti-SJW" and spout conspiracy theories. However, the DL has always seemed to specifically reject that type, even moreso than our general left-wing bias would suggest (our more right-wing posters don't fit that description at all, e.g. Hal, Dune, ID).
Have I ever mentioned how grateful I am for that? Keep on keeping on, DL.
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Fivethirtyeight tells me Clinton has a 71.6% chance of winning
FFT players know this doesn't look good
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Quick reminder that the reason why the 538 model has Trump higher that like every other model is that it gives significantly greater weight to the idea that literally all the polls are wrong in the same direction. Which is possible, but other studies have looked at the possibility of a "hidden" base of bashful Trump voters and basically come up empty.
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Well, the problem is, as 538 will tell you, is that all the polls have been wrong in the same direction before. Repeatedly. (The happy side of this is that it's also possible there's still the Clinton landslide we need.)
Say I told you exactly how each ethnic group (perhaps further subdivided by age & gender) will vote by state - whites will be 56% Trump, blacks will be 97% Clinton, Hispanics will be 70% Clinton, whatever. You still have to guess the turnout-by-group, which is notoriously way harder to poll than how any particular group feels. That's a case where response bias is huge and crippling because the kind of people who respond to polls and the kind of people who are marginal voters who might show up, might not don't have much overlap.
That said, the interesting thing for me is...
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-election-update-theres-a-wide-range-of-outcomes-and-most-of-them-come-up-clinton/
FINAL NATIONAL POLLING AVERAGE
YEAR DEM CANDIDATE GOP CANDIDATE UNDECIDED/OTHER
2000 Gore 43.6% Bush 46.8% Undecided/other 9.6%
2004 Kerry 47.4 Bush 48.9 Undecided/other 3.7
2008 Obama 52.1 McCain 44.5 Undecided/other 3.4
2012 Obama 48.8 Romney 48.1 Undecided/other 3.1
2016 Clinton 45.7 Trump 41.8 Undecided/other 12.5
WTF at 12.5% of voters being undecided (which is really why 538 threw their hands up in the air and said "I dunno"). How can you possibly still be undecided this late? My personal *hope* is that "undecided" is code for "I don't like either candidate, and I have a preferred candidate, but I don't want to say I'm a supporter of them." Or alternatively "I'm not really voting." If that's the case, it's unlikely undecideds will hugely break for Trump, which is part of why the model is unsure about what is going on.
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I'm in Japan land and at work so it's difficult to check news outlets. But the DL works. Sure.
Do we have a new president yet?
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Not yet, but Trump is winning handily.
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What? Really? You trolling me because I can't check real news sites?
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I wish I was. This is sheer lunacy. Cue Bill Murray speech about cats and dogs living together.
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Sorry, Djinn. Looking pretty likely Trump's gonna be sitting in the White House when the dust clears.
Guess you'll be wanting to stay in Japan for the next four years.
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I've spent all summer and fall bitching to Dhyer in PM that I was worried that Hillary would find a way to fuck this up. What a horror show.
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Da' fuck.
Florida for Trump.
He's ahead.
Where the fuck is my vodka...
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I have Tequila here and I'm seriously considering getting drunk in spite of having work in 8 hours.
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I have to drive to work in 5 hours or so - and I am seriously tempted to drink heavily and call off work tomorrow.
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Well see you lot in 4 years.
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Easy for you to say, Grefter. You've got an ocean to buffer you.
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WHAT THE FUCK PENNSYLVANIA!?!?!?!?!?
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You are in Canada Excal, I might still visit there.
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Well see you lot in 4 years.
Grefbro channeling my inner thoughts. Are you my twin?!
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Fenrir's got a good point, though: there is a certain strain of young(ish) white male Trump supporter that you'll see in various other places of the internet: alt-right, antisocial types who would typically describe themselves by such labels as "anti-SJW" and spout conspiracy theories. However, the DL has always seemed to specifically reject that type, even moreso than our general left-wing bias would suggest (our more right-wing posters don't fit that description at all, e.g. Hal, Dune, ID).
Have I ever mentioned how grateful I am for that? Keep on keeping on, DL.
you know i have to agree with this
despite all the shit i talk about you guys I never get unreasonably angry at y'all's opinions {edit: lol, I realized it as soon as I posted it)
all things said and done, members of the DL have a pretty good track record for basing their opinions on the facts as they understand them.
anyway I am just listening to this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-48u_uWMHY) on repeat right now b/c i need a voice not my own echoing that back at me while I play minecraft for the first time in five years and pretend that things don't exist.
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:(
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In fairness, while Republicans haven't been attacking Bernie, Hillary's team has been going at him for the last 1.5 months pretty hard.
And there's a reason that polls consistently show Bernie outperforming Hillary against Republicans: Hillary's popularity is pretty bad overall and it seems like a she has a high percentage of voters that don't feel heavily inspired by her. I honestly think that she would have trouble against Trump since he can capitalize on all her weaknesses (self funding vs constant appearance of corruption, a Republican who can still manage to attack her from the LEFT on Iraq/Syria/Libya, insurgent candidate in a broken political system vs. "inevitable" dynasty candidate, unpredictable debater versus someone is a bit poor at speaking off the cuff). I fear that the people Hillary will motivate to vote will be the opposition (because I don't think she'll have a lot of luck with young or very progressive voters on the whole). She's already drifting to the right on issues as well (Oil extraction on public lands in the last 2 days for example).
I feel like Hillary could be a prime example for the old motto about Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (I really hope that I would be wrong, but there's so much ammo to use against her). I really, really, really hope that the FBI investigations are just witchhunts; I think the email one is, but there's definitely some blurred lines in the Clinton Foundation investigation that could turn into something real.
Yeah about that...
Hillary's weaknesses both personally and politically is well known at this point; not going to repeat it myself. I am sickened that Trump won the White House, but democratic leadership should be absolutely held accountable for this shitshow.
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Haha, okay guys you got me! You can stop trolling now.
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I know the temptation is there to play the blame game, but I'm not really sure what magical Dem candidate would have done significantly better. Trump very clearly tapped into something; preliminary numbers look like turnout rose considerably from 2012 (had turnout gone the other direction, I'd be much more on board with hating on the Democratic party right now). It's not hard to imagine that the same populist sentiments would have felled most other establishment candidates. (And if you cross-check the Dem primary results with the general election results, there's literally no way Sanders could have won, even if he miraculously managed to convince the general electorate that socialism wasn't a dirty word.) Maybe some hypothetical candidate with all of Clinton's strengths but none of her weaknesses could have closed the gaps and won, but that scans more like wishful thinking to me at the moment.
I do blame the Clinton campaign / the media for not relentlessly focusing on the issues and forcing Trump to be more substantive about his policies, but I'm not sure how much to blame each. It's very embarrassing that this wasn't more of a focus; instead we lurched from Clinton scandal to Trump scandal ad nauseum. I don't think it's a surprise that Clinton did best polling-wise after the debates which were one of the few times anything substantial policy-wise was covered by the media, at least from this outsider's perspective.
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Despite most of our state being Red, there were a lot of Bernie supporters. A decent lot of them jumped to Trump when he was knocked out of the nomination.
In swing states where Trump won by grabbing votes from rural counties, I think Bernie could have got quite a few of those votes over Clinton especially among working white voters. 210,000 votes is what separated Trump/Clinton in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wyoming. Would Bernie get enough of those votes to swing those states blue? Maybe, but then again it would mean it come down to Florida and fuck Florida.
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I know the temptation is there to play the blame game, but I'm not really sure what magical Dem candidate would have done significantly better. Trump very clearly tapped into something; preliminary numbers look like turnout rose considerably from 2012 (had turnout gone the other direction, I'd be much more on board with hating on the Democratic party right now).
Turnout ended up being down some 12 million from 2012, and the lowest overall for a presidential election since 2000. So commence the hating.
(That said, I suspect that in a battle between two smash-the-system outsiders, America would still have gone for the racist one over the self-declared socialist.)
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They have the House, they have the Senate, so they have Congress. They don't have 2/3rd majority for constitutional amendments, but now they have Trump who can shoot out executive orders. I hope the rift between Republican constituencies does not mend.
Make sure to track your state legislation.
Make sure to take as much care of yourself as possible.
Don't leave the playground to the bully - relocation is always a momentary salve, unless you're actually trying to become Canadian. Friends in other countries like Germany are proud to be there, but Germany's political future is uncertain too. Vienna's. Etc.
Figuring out a way to keep Planned Parenthood afloat. It is a necessary fixture, and no, not for its 3% budget for abortion care.
Re: Shale's comment
yes, turnout was also particularly horrendous for Georgia
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Make sure to take as much care of yourself as possible.
This. It's about to get very dangerous for anyone that is "different". Looking at what happened in the UK after Brexit
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/07/hate-surged-after-eu-referendum-police-figures-show
and this will probably be worse. The bigots are empowered now. I have a transgender grandchild, and I'm very worried for her.
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Because I take comfort in other people's words, here are some select quotes - some of which I have shared on social media, some of which I haven't - that sum up my feelings, especially with regards to the discomfort I feel at the people who are like "lol, whatever, they both sucked":
A lot of my friends are scared of Trump’s America, in other words, and they should be. As Maya Angelou once said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Donald Trump has shown us over and over again who he is; the worst of his supporters — the ones who will now feel like they have free rein to indulge their various bigotries — have shown us who they are, too. And while not every Trump voter is among the worst of people, they share the responsibility of having made anyone who isn’t straight, and white, and male, and well-off, less secure, less safe, and more frightened. That’s what they bought for us when they pulled the lever for Trump.
source: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/11/09/early-morning-thoughts-on-the-day-after/
What I learned on #ElectionNight: Being a racist, bigoted, prejudice, lying sexual predator is still more acceptable than being a woman.
source: https://twitter.com/Allen_Clifton/status/796249121158004736
Strange that the best case scenario at this point is that Trump has been lying about his views and plans the entire time.
source: https://twitter.com/levie/status/796265923397107712
Vimes had once discussed the Ephebian idea of ‘democracy’ with Carrot, and had been rather interested in the idea that everyone had a vote until he found out that while he, Vimes, would have a vote, there was no way in the rules that anyone could prevent Nobby Nobbs from having one as well. Vimes could see the flaw there straight away.
Britain - "Brexit is the stupidest, most self-destructive act a country could undertake!"
America - "Hold my beer."
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So, not only Trump wins, Prop 61 didn't pass in CA because people here think it is still okay to let the Pharmaceutical company doing whatever they want with drug prices.
While Prop 59 passed, it means nothing when GOP controls both houses of Congress...
I so want to go back to Taiwan now...
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I don't blame you. My boss (a gay immigrant journalist, so the Trumpites will just love him) is probably moving back to England when practicable, and given the state of England that's saying something.
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To think Britian was the stupidest country a while ago... and we are now topping them by a huge margin.
Speaking of which, are the British regretting their votes yet?
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There's a lot to be said right now, but I've mostly said it in private conversations elsewhere.
I just can't help but draw one specific parallel, though: out of a field of unpalatable candidates, we chose the worst exemplar of humanity among the lot.
We are Vault 11.
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Wrote this on my (not officially but may as well be) brother-in-law's facebook post. He lead off with "I am ashamed of my country." It's the only response I can muster that's not angry swearing or telling people off for murdering PoC or LGBT (especially T, I... I really hope every trans person in the country had someone with them last night because otherwise they may already be a body count).
"I was pretty ashamed of my neighbors, countrymen, and indeed family when the polls came back saying that the half of Republicans who didn't vote for Trump in the primary let party loyalty cloud their better judgement. That even more people said to themselves "this is fine" and joined in after that is galling.
Mostly though I'm angry at one man. There is a moment you can point to where the Republican party stopped being a conservative opposition to the rising Democrat coalition and started being the outlet of fear-mongering and obstruction that bred the Trump movement. A moment where the Republican party stopped trying to bring ideas to the table and work to create laws that served the entire nation. And yes, a man who created a 25 year long witch hunt against a women who, while flawed and corrupted, was still an able and effective administrator who could have been swayed through political pressures to try and steer the ship in a better direction.
Fuck YOU, Newt Gingrich. Even more than the incompetent imbecile we just named President Elect, I hope you don't see the fruits of the victory you've swindled from the American People."
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To think Britian was the stupidest country a while ago... and we are now topping them by a huge margin.
Speaking of which, are the British regretting their votes yet?
No. This is a popular Remain meme that all the pro-Brexit voters all went a-twitter at the collapsing pound & stock market and said "Oh woe, what have I done?" That might have been true for like 3 people but that's it.
It's possible some will change their minds in 2 years after the fallout, then lie and claimed they saw it all coming, or voted Remain, or it was the fault of the politicians for bollocksing it up. But no, they haven't changed their minds yet.
Meanwhile if I was a Remainer in the UK I would be going just as crazy as Brexiteers were before. It used to be both parties were officially pro-Remain. Now the Tories have gone pro-Brexit, and Labour is both insane and half-heartedly no-position on Brexit. Who is there even to vote for?
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Yeah Brexiters will tell you that any economic issue like the rise of prices is the cause of greedy corporations using Brexit as an excuse
We are mainly dealing with mean dumb spiteful people that will never learn, sorry (oh shit we are not supposed to look down on them)
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(https://i.redd.it/rzgq3lndwmwx.jpg)
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No thx.
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There's a part of me that wonders how much
sheep people who hated the candidate but still voted Republican impacted the outcome. Then I remember that I'm happier focusing my energy on things I have control over.
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Given the margins, I feel safe saying "enough that they the election would have gone the other way if they stayed the fuck home".
(it's something like 15-20% from what I remember, but that was just "seen in passing scrolling twitter", not something I looked up.)
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http://www.snopes.com/2016/11/09/kkk-of-north-carolina-announces-donald-trump-victory-parade
Remember this.
https://www.google.com.au/amp/fox6now.com/2016/11/09/wisconsin-election-turnout-near-20-year-low/amp/
Remember this.
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UGH!
I'm pasting my rant in chat today, because I don't ever want to think about saying it again.
Warning, Trump supporter rant:
[7:13am] <dunsters>
So, it is too much in my attention a rising string of violence, emboldened or otherwise, that invoke Trump's name.
1. Trump supports cannot wash themselves clean of this association, and should not allow for these acts of their neighbors, friends, citizens, violence stand uncontested.
2. If Trump supporters dearly disagree with charges of racism, sexism, xenophobia and white nationalism in their group, they need to commit with allying themselves across party lines to achieve justice.
Write letters to Congress saying that you don't, in fact, want a wall; that you want to de-escalate violence of LGBTQ, that you don't want to keep gunning for Planned Parenthood, that you don't want to break up Muslim families by ignoring a worldwide crisis.
If you are SO "Trump doesn't represent this, we don't represent this," prove it.
Just like folk today have been trying to disempower stereotypes that they are hateful white cis males, that they are violent black people, that they are thrify asian folk, that they are salacious gay folk, that they are bra burning women.
re: Cid pointing to Grefter's links above
<dunsters>
This shit should be met with equal dissent by Trump supporters. A lot of me is thinking their laziness or distinterest in acting is probably the conclusion here, which itself enables and they cannot at all remove any responsibility of that. So be okay with being hated then.
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http://billypenn.com/2016/11/11/n-er-lynching-group-text-shocks-penn-freshmen/
Remember this
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a50598/russian-talked-to-trump-campaign/
Remember this
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/11/peter-thiel-joins-donald-trump-transition-team
Remember this
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Are the rosters of colleges public info or is this a hacking thing?
*or perhaps the most likely answer, a racist staff member at Penn gave out the info to someone out of state so he wouldn't get caught doing it himself
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Really need to come up with a stronger phrase that expresses my confusion and exasperation better than "what the fuck"
What the butt fucking Christ nuggets?
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I expect the conservative base to be all testoaterone filled and talk about "Put protestors down HARD!" "Dominate them!". One would not expect it from people floated as homeland security chiefs.
Although with the campaign I guess that isn't really surprising.
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http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fivethirtyeight-gave-trump-a-better-chance-than-almost-anyone-else/
Nate Silver trying not to be a smug bastard.
"Tuesday’s results were similar. We strongly disagree with the idea that there was a massive polling error. Instead, there was a modest polling error, well in line with historical polling errors, but even a modest error was enough to provide for plenty of paths to victory for Trump. We think people should have been better prepared for it. There was widespread complacency about Clinton’s chances in a way that wasn’t justified by a careful analysis of the data and the uncertainties surrounding it."
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I remember going to a movie with my lefty former coworker Sunday, and one of the things we talked most about was the election. I pulled up the 538 estimates on that day so we could look at the map and summarized "Clinton is ahead in JUST ENOUGH places to win, but if anything goes wrong it goes Trump." It indeed turned out that every X-factor (slightly elevated non-major party vote, somewhat lower vote totals, minor hit from Bernie-bros that followed through, almost all last-minute voters breaking for Trump) went against Clinton. It's a huge data point in my ongoing Demiourgos theory.
Unrelated, but saved for "shaming the family" purposes- a substitute teacher decided to tell his primarily-hispanic students all their parents were going to be deported: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/busted-teacher-caught-taunting-students-their-parents-will-be-deported-now-that-trump-is-president/
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Just saw a montage video of Michelle's awesomeness. Almost cried. Gonna miss having her as FLOTUS.
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All of Trump's White House staff decisions are nightmarish.
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This day in "self proclaimed liberals yell at people (mostly millenials)":
https://www.facebook.com/viralthread/videos/598130190359668/
I realize this guy is a satirist but this is mostly a useful video to watch for it's rhetoric: He proved that yelling and insulting people to change their minds doesn't work by yelling and insulting people, and I didn't change my mind. If that was on purpose it's actually quite brilliant. However, given that it seems like the rest of his work is the same damn shit, I'm pretty sure that was by accident.
Drawing attention to what is actually being said, this guy is an enormous fucking tosser. No, sorry, all opinions are NOT valid, and while he is right that yelling at people won't change their minds, L O fucking L at changing assholes like Mike Pence's minds about shit like gay conversion therapy.
Heck, discussion barely got people on this forum to agree on the results of fictional character fights. Then a few rambling sentences later he tells people to "fuck off to their safe spaces" and lost all credibility. Also turns out he works for RT, which normally doesn't factor into my opinions but he has so much else going against him that it's like a shit-flavored icing on a bollocks cake. NEXT!
https://www.facebook.com/notes/christopher-planeaux/open-letter-to-democrats-and-anyone-else-who-considers-themselves-leftists-or-le/10154804973263083
This one's actually a fairly solid article, and would have been a lot better without the condescension toward millenials that makes him come off as a crusty old fuck from the era of politics where liberals actually couldn't get anything done (post-CRA) and begs the question of "Why should we listen to him?" He also falls into the trap that most people trying to tell themselves everything will be OK do: saying "we've been here before, the Republic will survive." Fuck off, mate. Sure, the nation survived Reagan. The hundreds of thousands of AIDS victims did not. I think that's what bugs me most about this article, and most others like it (all, I'll note, from old white men): Politics does not happen in a vacuum, and the results of this and every election have real impacts on marginalized peoples and ...
no actually don't read that article, the more I talk about it the more garbage it becomes. I probably should have put these two articles in IotD.
Glenn Greenwald made the same point but better:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/11/glenn-greenwald-trump-will-have-vast-powers-he-can-thank-democrats-for-them/
Less to say on this because it didn't make me want to punch a Boomer. It is a good thing for us to keep in mind the next time the presidency flips, whenever that happens, and we're all guilty of it. Conservatives are guilty of letting it happen during the Bush years, and us liberals are guilty for letting it continue under Obama.
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One of my biggest beefs with Obama was his about face on that issue re executive power. I would love to see it reigned in regardless of who is in office, but good luck putting the genie back in the bottle now.
E: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/14/politics/unprecedented-chris-christie-donald-trump/index.html Fuck off forever, Chris Christie.
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http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2016/11/16/a-bill-to-restrict-the-wearing-of-muslim-burqa-and-veil-in-georgia/
Remember this.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/16/gop-senator-to-propose-bill-criminalizing-illegal-/
Remember this.
http://jezebel.com/trump-surrogate-cites-japanese-internment-camps-as-prec-1789074483
Remember this.
https://www.facebook.com/ASUCDadvocacy/posts/1431356550215780
Remember this.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-ford-motor-idUSKBN13D08J
I would say "Remember this." but this really deserves an actual bit of swearing.
Fuck Reuters. This shit is fucking disgusting horrible journalism. You should be stringing Trump up for this bullshit nonsense, not publishing a headline like Ford tells Trump no Lincoln SUV production going to Mexico when your headline should be
Trump lies again about Ford factories, claims he stopped Lincoln SUV production going to Mexico
Over half the story is about how Trump's claims do not line up to Ford's plans for their domestic US plants.
But Ford has repeatedly said it has no plans to close any U.S. plants and likely could not do so under the terms of the current United Auto Workers contract that expires in 2019.
You either have a story of "NOTHING IS FUCKING HAPPENING" or you have a story of Trump claiming shit that didn't fucking happen. When that is your two choices it is dishonest to publish it in the way that is giving Trump any fucking credit here.
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There hasn't been good journalism in the US in... god. 10 years? 15?
No small connection between that and the Twilight of Western Civilization we find ourselves in now.
e: another archived link for myself http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/11/donald-trump-white-male-fragility/
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-ford-motor-idUSKBN13D08J
I would say "Remember this." but this really deserves an actual bit of swearing.
Fuck Reuters. This shit is fucking disgusting horrible journalism. You should be stringing Trump up for this bullshit nonsense, not publishing a headline like Ford tells Trump no Lincoln SUV production going to Mexico when your headline should be
Trump lies again about Ford factories, claims he stopped Lincoln SUV production going to Mexico
Over half the story is about how Trump's claims do not line up to Ford's plans for their domestic US plants.
But Ford has repeatedly said it has no plans to close any U.S. plants and likely could not do so under the terms of the current United Auto Workers contract that expires in 2019.
You either have a story of "NOTHING IS FUCKING HAPPENING" or you have a story of Trump claiming shit that didn't fucking happen. When that is your two choices it is dishonest to publish it in the way that is giving Trump any fucking credit here.
Reuters, yeah. Thought we could trust them, right? It's interesting, because that point is in fact objective. They're choosing, however, a safe line to shield themselves from any Trump blacklisting.
I say stick to Alternet & The Real News for better quality, and for news-news, Washington Post. Those are just my few cents.
This is a headline you'd find hope in from WaPo:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/17/trump-just-took-credit-for-stopping-ford-from-moving-a-plant-to-mexico-but-it-was-planning-to/
Trump just took credit for stopping Ford from moving a plant to Mexico. But it wasn’t planning to.
edit* I want to add that my WaPo nod is post-Bezos, and that this is useful too: http://fair.org
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/marine-le-pen-poll-election-odds-latest-french-presidential-lead-sarkozy-a7428126.html
>:( :'( ???
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This is not as bad as it sounds because
1) Sarkozy was a populist douche who talked about immigration more than Le Pen in the last years. Think typical Tea Party jerk.
2) He's already out of the presidential race because he got third place in the right's primaries on the first round. He can't be a candidate anymore, France really doesn't want him (or Hollande) back.
3) le pen will most definitely win the first round, only the second counts. And people who didn't vote for her on the first are not likely to vote for her on the second.
What is bad is that the most likely winner of the right's primaries and most likely to go to the second round of the election vs le pen is a right wing Thatcher lover who will be seen as the establishment. The left is in shambles. And we got hit by way more terrorist attacks recently.
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http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2016/11/20/state-says-literacy-right-detroit/94193032/
Michigan attempts to stay competitive in the race to the bottom.
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3) le pen will most definitely win the first round, only the second counts. And people who didn't vote for her on the first are not likely to vote for her on the second.
Yeah we said that about Trump also.
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Nah, the US election only has one round
And I was one of the people who said we shouldn't underestimate Trump early in this thread!
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Your rounds sound like our primaries. You just described Trump (Le Pen) defeating Cruz (Sarkozy).
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system
To be honest I needed all look it up for how it worked myself. Open voting for that first round and then second round if no one has a majority. Works a bit like the two party preferred system here in Aus but your third party vote isn't automatically tied to another rep based on the party who got your primary vote.
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Sarkozy didn't even get to round 2 of the UMP/Republican *primary*, so how he'd run against Le Pen isn't too relevant, he isn't even getting to round 1. (What, did he shoot a dog or something? OTOH, people clearly reacted way worse to Clinton being "establishment" than expected, so maybe best not to use a former Prez.)
But yeah, I almost hope the Repubs beat the Socialists in France, since they seem like they'd match up better to Le Pen. (I'd certainly vote for, like, Marco Rubio over Trump if somehow the US election came down to those two.)
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Yep.
There are a lot of candidates who still have a chance:
There's Le Pen, the winner of the right primary who's going to be either Fillon (Thatcher v2) or Juppe (a moderate), then Melanchon (Sanders-like, but more of a douche) and Macron (young liberal moderate progressive, somewhat Obama-like)
Socialists are pretty much already screwed.
Marine Le Pen also cut all ties to her horrible father and is trying to be generally nicer, unlike Trump who stayed fucking awful all the way. So she's like Brexit level bad news more than Trump level bad news IMO
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Do you think Valls(/someone else) might have a chance if Hollande steps down or is forced out?
Your rounds sound like our primaries. You just described Trump (Le Pen) defeating Cruz (Sarkozy).
The difference is that primaries are party-specific, and therefore have a very different electorate. The first round of the French election is just that, the first round of a national election. The second round is between whoever the top two finishers are in the first round (and France has more than two parties, so this is actually relevant unlike what a similar mechanic would be in the US).
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Valls would probably have even less chances, he's the one on the government who tries the most to appeal to the right by being anti immigration / pro CEOs.
But he's still on the left so anyone who liked this will vote for someone else, and the left isn't inspired by him.
I don't see anyone else stepping in and carrying the torch right now.
The two rounds thing matters because
https://mobile.twitter.com/Snowden/status/789574275518828544
And Le Pen always gets really good scores on the first round (she'll be first this time) but hits a glass ceiling on the second round.
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Valls would probably have even less chances, he's the one on the government who tries the most to appeal to the right by being anti immigration / pro CEOs.
But he's still on the left
#notmyleft
And Le Pen always gets really good scores on the first round (she'll be first this time) but hits a glass ceiling on the second round.
Not sure if choice of words with Glass Ceiling is deliberate with how much that works? But not going to say I would be super happy overall if La Pen breaking the glass ceiling is what gets women as Prime Minister (though there is still some social value from it)
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I will be pleasantly surprised if France does not come out on the end of hate, frustration and class anger as the US and Britain. It'll be a model for folk to look at, especially given some major hiccups (hijab removal) that's occurred there and in other places. GA just tried to pass a hijab ban, conveniently after Muslim refugees became farmers market vendors around sanctuary spaces here. Pft.
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On second thought, I'm less sanguine about the French election, at least unless Juppe provides some surprise upset in round 2 of the UMP primary:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/world/europe/francois-fillon-france-election.html?_r=0
Apparently Fillon went from 3rd to 1st in the primaries by promising to be Le Pen lite - he'll defend French cultural values, whatever that means, by bashing immigrants & gays, but won't Frexit the EU and supports free trade. I guess this is mildly better than Le Pen, but not by a lot.
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Mr. Juppé’s more moderate agenda — fewer cuts in the Civil Service and public spending, less accommodation of Russia, friendlier to gay couples — attracted left-leaning voters, which in turn disturbed the right’s traditional electorate.
“It bothered me that so many people on the left voted for him,” Michel Carron, a rural official who attended the rally here, said of Mr. Juppé.
I find comments like these deeply troubling. People who lean to the other side of the political centre are not a breed of space alien bent on destroying the country, whose approval is something to be actively avoided. If your candidate can appeal to more people with his or her non-partisan positive qualities, doesn't that say good things about him or her? Especially true in this case when you will need the support of those voters to defeat the FN.
See also Ashley's post in Misc Links a few days ago.
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I find comments like these deeply troubling. People who lean to the other side of the political centre are not a breed of space alien bent on destroying the country, whose approval is something to be actively avoided. If your candidate can appeal to more people with his or her non-partisan positive qualities, doesn't that say good things about him or her? Especially true in this case when you will need the support of those voters to defeat the FN.
The problem lately, at least in this country, has been that ideological purity has become the most important aspect of candidacy on the non-moderate left and right. Any compromise to that is anathema to their legitimacy. Reaching out to the other side? Courting voters whom you may not agree with? Doing anything less than strict ideological policy? Sell-out.
Polarization. Dag yo.
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Fillon is not as bad as Sarkozy, I'd say... He's not as anti-immigration and he tries to unite more than divide. He doesn't want to cancel gay marriage even though this met a lot of opposition.
He's not a petulant angry asshole like Trump or Sarkozy who'd spout inanities to appeal to everybody's base instincts, more of a calm and collected Thatcher worshiping motherfucker. Still bad IMO but yeah.
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So more of an Obama in american terms.
I find comments like these deeply troubling. People who lean to the other side of the political centre are not a breed of space alien bent on destroying the country, whose approval is something to be actively avoided. If your candidate can appeal to more people with his or her non-partisan positive qualities, doesn't that say good things about him or her? Especially true in this case when you will need the support of those voters to defeat the FN.
See also Ashley's post in Misc Links a few days ago.
*Looks at Trump's cabinet and their deep affiliation with literal fucking Nazis*
*Looks at Trump's treating the office of president as leverage to enhance his businesses*
*Looks at Trump's calling meetings with reporters specifically to dress them down*
*Looks at Ryan finally arranging all his dominoes to destroy public health care once and for all*
So Trump's already managed to start a web of businesses to support his regime, put people actively trying to reverse civil rights gains in high office, turn the 1st Amendment into dead paper, and put millions of lives in jeopardy without taking office. If he wants to go full dictator, executive power has expanded far enough that there's no actual way to stop him outside his party or the military removing him from office, which is just not in the american political DNA.
I'm sure that's not what some segment of those that voted for him were voting FOR, but they absolutely voted for a creature with no concept of human empathy who is almost certainly going to destroy the country. And it's not really just him: Trump is the logical conclusion of the modern Republican party, not an outlier. The moderate conservative in american parlance is a Democrat, with those remaining moderates within the Republican party largely abandoning those stances and putting their weight behind the crazy. Check McCain's record since 2008 for example.
Though of course this is from an american perspective where the main policy difference between our two parties is that one wants to roll back civil rights and privatize EVERYTHING while the other wants to advance civil rights and privatize SOME things.
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You quoted me but I'm not sure how what you said contradicts what I said! I agree that Trump and pretty much the entire rest of the current Republican party are garbage. My comment was in reference to the general voting public. I certainly don't accept that ~45-50% of the American electorate is beyond hope.
"I don't trust Juppé because some left-wing people voted for him" is an awful thing to say. So is "I don't trust Clinton because some right-wing people support her". Attitudes like this which celebrate a lack of compromise are incredibly damaging and frankly the Tea Party and Donald Trump are their logical end result.
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I think mostly it's the whole cultural gravity the US has; in our politics there's about a 90% chance that agreeing with a right wing politician really is doing something unconscionably evil, and that aspect of our culture has turned compromise into a dirtier word in other places in the world through pop culture osmosis. I mean, could be overrating how much all the US's cultural exports impacts things like politics in other places of course, but looking at it from over here it seems pretty plausible.
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and that aspect of our culture has turned compromise into a dirtier word in other places in the world through pop culture osmosis.
I think the thing that screams this to me is Captain America's "No, you move" speech in Civil War. Out of context, it reaaaaally screams justifying being an asshole. And people have used it as such.
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So most of you have probably heard already, but the president-elect of the United States is claiming that 3 million illegal votes were cast in this election (without evidence, of course). Even by his standards this is extremely alarming.
The best-case scenario is that he is both (a) an egomaniac, because he can't handle the fact he lost the purely symbolic vote, and (b) stupid enough to actually believe AND repeat this sort of claim. I'll take "traits I don't want in a president for $200", Alex.
The worst-case scenario is that he is deliberately trying to sow distrust in the American electoral process for future elections. And that is truly terrifying.
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And yet in other news will say that calls for recounts are a scam.
Wake me up in 4 years. If it happens again just drop me into the ocean.
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Berlusconi stayed in power a pretty long while in Italy sorry
Also http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/ayatollah-zika-100-things-media-has-compared-trump-2016-ranked
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Yeah that was my comparison early in the primaries. Now I just like hold out hope that Trump's control over the media is less because of not directly owning it? But I don't expect Murdoch to not love Trump.
Maybe new media will save us???? Oh wait I have seen the internet's response to Trump.
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Here were the headlines about it from two major papers, FWIW.
WaPo:
"Trump makes baseless claim that millions voted illegally for Clinton"
NYT:
"Trump Claims ‘Millions’ Voted Illegally, Citing No Evidence"
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So...let's talk about this Carrier air conditioning thing, cause I think a lot of places are missing the forest for the trees.
The deal provides 7M in tax breaks over 10 years (so 700k per year) in exchange for 800 jobs (fairly well-paying factory work jobs; let's just estimate $15/hr because $15 is a popular number; some news reports claim salaries went up to $26 per hour). I've seen people on the left criticizing the deal for one reason or another, but far too many people seem to be missing how this is...way too good to be true.
Like...seriously...this is $875 per job per year. A typical calendar year has 261 working days, so $3.35 per day, $0.42 cents per hour.
This is such a good deal that it's actively suspicious. The difference between paying $15/hr in the US, and paying $4/hr in Mexico is much higher than $0.42 cents per hour; what's Carrier's angle here? 700k per year is so low that it literally makes the government money--income taxes on $15/hr alone will probably get those $0.42 cents back. If it doesn't, there's still sales tax, and the fact that the government doesn't need to provide food stamps or welfare or unemployment insurance to unemployed people.
Like...if the public information we've seen is really all there is to this deal, then Carrier got taken to the cleaners. There was probably something more going on here.
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So...let's talk about this Carrier air conditioning thing, cause I think a lot of places are missing the forest for the trees.
The deal provides 7M in tax breaks over 10 years (so 700k per year) in exchange for 800 jobs (fairly well-paying factory work jobs; let's just estimate $15/hr because $15 is a popular number; some news reports claim salaries went up to $26 per hour). I've seen people on the left criticizing the deal for one reason or another, but far too many people seem to be missing how this is...way too good to be true.
Like...seriously...this is $875 per job per year. A typical calendar year has 261 working days, so $3.35 per day, $0.42 cents per hour.
This is such a good deal that it's actively suspicious. The difference between paying $15/hr in the US, and paying $4/hr in Mexico is much higher than $0.42 cents per hour; what's Carrier's angle here? 700k per year is so low that it literally makes the government money--income taxes on $15/hr alone will probably get those $0.42 cents back. If it doesn't, there's still sales tax, and the fact that the government doesn't need to provide food stamps or welfare or unemployment insurance to unemployed people.
Like...if the public information we've seen is really all there is to this deal, then Carrier got taken to the cleaners. There was probably something more going on here.
The speculation is along the lines of: Carrier is owned by a company that has extensive DoD contracts. It's possible those contracts were threatened to get them to deal. But it also is worth noting that they didn't save all the jobs at the factory.
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Here were the headlines about it from two major papers, FWIW.
WaPo:
"Trump makes baseless claim that millions voted illegally for Clinton"
NYT:
"Trump Claims ‘Millions’ Voted Illegally, Citing No Evidence"
Kellyanne Conway gets a little tripped up when directly asked, "Simple question Kellyanne: Is that statement by President-elect Trump true?" (http://abcnews.go.com/video/embed?id=43923783)
[go to ~5:40]
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The way to interpret the Carrier deal: corporations already have to spend a fair amount of money on lobbying, both directly and indirectly (indirectly via paying dues to industry organizations & the like). Even if Carrier lost money on the deal, they basically earned a happy President rather than a pissed one at fairly trivial cost as far as Carrier's parent organization is concerned. Call those losses the world's most efficient lobbying or something.
Better yet, it sets up a precedent (that is TERRIBLE for rule-of-law based capitalism, but great for you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours Chinese-style crony capitalism). What happens when Carrier says "uh oh we gotta move those workers" again two years later? Trump can't very well admit that his original policy failed, no? They can get another payoff then. And if Trump hangs around or changes the general tone of how capitalism works, it can happen again in 5 years, in 8... prepare for capitalism that rewards begging for a handout from the government.
Also screw you Sanders for even suggesting this perverted form of capitalism is a good thing. This is corporatism, the worst parts of capitalism & socialism combined, and look at, say, Mexico 1930-1990 for an example of what happens to your economy when you do this.
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Better yet, it sets up a precedent (that is TERRIBLE for rule-of-law based capitalism, but great for you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours Chinese-style crony capitalism). What happens when Carrier says "uh oh we gotta move those workers" again two years later? Trump can't very well admit that his original policy failed, no? They can get another payoff then. And if Trump hangs around or changes the general tone of how capitalism works, it can happen again in 5 years, in 8... prepare for capitalism that rewards begging for a handout from the government.
I had wondered about this. If the incentives are a 10-year contractual plan between the state and Carrier, I'd imagine they couldn't easily leverage. But then I wonder.
Also screw you Sanders for even suggesting this perverted form of capitalism is a good thing. This is corporatism, the worst parts of capitalism & socialism combined, and look at, say, Mexico 1930-1990 for an example of what happens to your economy when you do this.
I fielded chat about this point. Where did you find Sanders saying this? I may be confusing the point with his more recent WaPo article condemning this specific deal.
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This honest to God feels like having Homer Simpson in office. Winging it doesn't even begin to cover what a horror show this already is. This is one of many reasons why I'm hoping Romney gets Sec State; he is at least a functional adult who can hopefully prevent the worst of Trump's excesses on the national stage. Though..
http://www.wbaltv.com/article/giuliani-romney-no-longer-top-contenders-for-secretary-of-state-sources-say/8462296
Huntsman would fine too. I just want someone in Sec State who can do the fucking job. Petraeus is unacceptable.
Of all the things I didn't expect from this election, walking away with nothing but respect for Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush was high on the list. Also jfc tinyhands, you got owned by Sarah Palin yesterday. *Vomit*
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I'd assumed the offer was mode to Romney in order to neutralize him as a critic (because yes, Romney's stand against Trump was about the only respectable thing any Republican did during this entire shitshow of an election). I've been torn about this--like you, I'd accept his appointment because it would give us a token sane guy in this terrible and terrifying administration, but on the other hand, accepting the position would probably require him to acquiesce in all of Trump's past and inevitably future shadiness, which, based on the creepily subservient air Romney adopted in his public enthusiasm for the appointment, is indeed a prerequisite for anyone who wants a role in the new government. And based on this latest news, I now think it's a strong possibility that the offer was only ever made in order to publicly discredit Romney's former (and potentially future) criticism of Trump, and he took the bait. Trump is a world-class ignoramus, but he does have a terrible talent for using people. There are no friends or allies in his world, only competitors to be crushed or shamed, and sycophants and women to be exploited. He induced a significant opponent to abandon his moral position by offering him power; now that the charge of hypocrisy is prepared should Romney ever criticize him again, why bother honoring the offer?
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Agreed that the Sec State appointment is huge, perhaps more than any other. Having someone competent as America's diplomatic face would go a long way to assuring me that Trump isn't going to screw up the politics of the world over the next four years. Most of the other damage Trump might do can hopefully be fixed by a future administration; permanently diminishing America's status in the world and heightening international tensions may not be, and Trump has already shown himself capable of the latter.
So yeah, hope we get someone like Romney or Huntsman, although I do worry that El Cid is correct and this was just a calculated political move. Romney said bad things about Trump once, so he's not worthy of office the way Steve Bannon is, clearly.
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so is now a good time to point out the "it isn't about sexism" like literally doesn't work when Twump turns around and appoints someone who committed the EXACT SAME CRIME HRC's entire email shit was about TO THE EXACT JOB SHE HAD WHILE SHE WAS ACCUSED OF COMMITTING THE CRIME
anyone who refuses to admit that sexism played a large role during the election season now has a cartoonishly straightforward mallet to get beaten over the head with
EDIT: Good news, at least.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watch/construction-of-dakota-access-pipeline-will-stop-824491587812
forgive the MSNBC link I've seen it on other sites as well and just can't be arsed to find them atm
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Well it does depend which of the three major narratives was most prominent.
1) Mostly Sexism: A large cohort of normally-Democrat voters stayed home because they didn't 'Trust' Clinton AND a large segment of normally-Republican voters otherwise turned off by Trump voted for "anyone but Clinton".
2) Mostly Racism: A large segment of normally-non-voting electorate came out to support Trump.
3) Mostly the abject failure of the media: Large segments of Democrat voters stayed home because of Clinton's projected 99.99999999% chance to win AND/OR large segments of Republican voters went out for Trump because they genuinely believe Clinton would persecute Christians, take away their guns, let tens of millions of terrorists into the country, etc etc
(To be clear, I think ALL of those things are true, we can just quibble about which one had the greatest impact. I would toss 4) Republicans have managed to disenfranchise millions of voters in critical states (Wisconsin, North Carolina) that just barely tipped them the election on the pile as well.)
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oh yeah obviously it's not the only cause, but it certainly *is* a cause
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If only there were a reasonable chance in hell that the recounts would change things
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The president elect insists there were millions of fraudulent votes cast. Clearly we need to mulligan the whole damn thing.
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EDIT: Good news, at least.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watch/construction-of-dakota-access-pipeline-will-stop-824491587812
forgive the MSNBC link I've seen it on other sites as well and just can't be arsed to find them atm
Yes! And let's do more than hope that these articles about Trump's interest in privatizing reservation territories are malarky.
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Today's nominees...
Heading up EPA: Scott Pruitt, attorney general of Oklahoma, has sued EPA over almost every major rule released since 2012 (when he took office), says climate change "is not settled science" and has never actually worked at an environment department in his life.
Heading the Small Business Administration: Linda McMahon, co-founder of WWF/WWE with her husband Vince (such a bastion of worker protections there) and the second-biggest donor to the Trump Foundation behind the Trump family as a whole. Meaning the McMahons put more money into that foundation than Donald Trump the individual, and have now been rewarded with a Cabinet seat.
Kill me.
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Well at least you have this to look forward too in the future.
(http://cdn.niketalk.com/0/0e/0e8c5fde_meallalong.jpeg).
Also having in your head that there is "Settled science" should automatically disqualify you from touching anything to do with science until you have proven to at least have an 8th grade understanding of Scientific Method.
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Today's nominees...
Heading up EPA: Scott Pruitt, attorney general of Oklahoma, has sued EPA over almost every major rule released since 2012 (when he took office), says climate change "is not settled science" and has never actually worked at an environment department in his life.
Heading the Small Business Administration: Linda McMahon, co-founder of WWF/WWE with her husband Vince (such a bastion of worker protections there) and the second-biggest donor to the Trump Foundation behind the Trump family as a whole. Meaning the McMahons put more money into that foundation than Donald Trump the individual, and have now been rewarded with a Cabinet seat.
Kill me.
"Here we have a beautiful swamp, the best swamp. A swamp like you've never seen. You won't believe how great this swamp will be."
The Secretary of Labor is also a Carl's Jr CEO who hates the minimum wage. This bodes well.
I am somehow surprised that every single pick that is being made for this cabinet seems tailor made to make me angry.
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I don't know if I'm getting angrier - I find myself laughing more and more each bit of news that gets released. It's just almost unbelievable how much of a goddamned step backwards things are taking.
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http://www.npr.org/2016/12/07/504486620/reporters-notebook-what-a-muslim-on-the-campaign-trail-in-2016
Remember this.
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http://www.npr.org/2016/12/07/504486620/reporters-notebook-what-a-muslim-on-the-campaign-trail-in-2016
Remember this.
I've been following her coverage this entire campaign, she is pretty excellent and was always very professional with her stories and coverage, despite all of the abuse she was getting going around the country.
oh yeah there's also this
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_russiahack-745p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.6bdd0174e676
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/09/trump-transition-team-for-energy-department-seeks-names-of-employees-involved-in-climate-meetings/
Yeah...
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You've probably seen this already, but if not, enjoy:
http://imgur.com/Gk7eEmD
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http://www.vladtv.com/article/224080/trump-administration-deletes-spanish-language-lgbt-whitehouse-webpages
Rememeber this.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/refugees-detained-at-us-airports-prompting-legal-challenges-to-trumps-immigration-order.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-top-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
This is fucking disgusting.
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Absolutely awful.
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*Kicks the Doomsday Clock an additional 30 seconds closer to midnight*
We have an international medical exchange program with Oman. Technically, they're ok, but who knows what might happen in the next 2 weeks...
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-immigration-ban-is-illegal.html
Some questions about the legality of it, which makes me ask what you even can do about it even if it is.
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If you're CAIR or the ACLU, you can sue the fuck out of them, apparently. And then the Trump administration can say "fuck you, still gonna hold them."
So here we are. Full-fledged constitutional crisis on the second weekend of the administration. I know it's selfish, but my biggest worry right now is that my livelihood depends on the existence of a free press and a functioning federal government.
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While I am sure your skills are fully transferable to Minitruth I don't really think that is super selfish.
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I believe the proper term is, "alternate facts"
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Paging Jim because I want an informed opinion regarding Trump's Muslim ban and the still vacant SCOTUS seat:
So this is obviously going to the SCOTUS. Is the fact that Trump tried to do something that was so obviously going to get challenged in court while Scalia's seat still remains vacant a potential asset at all? Like, to ensure that his nominee will vote to uphold the executive order? Or... something?
I ask mostly because it seems like such an incompetent amateur hour move that I'm forced to conclude that they're either actually that incompetent or there is some tinfoil hat level conspiracy theory shit going on and I need some facts to ground me.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/refugees-detained-at-us-airports-prompting-legal-challenges-to-trumps-immigration-order.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-top-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
This is fucking disgusting.
It gets worse when you realize that the order doesn't do anything and is smoke and mirrors at best: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/25/14383316/trump-muslim-ban-immigration-visas-terrorism-executive-order
I think I am having a crisis of faith in humanity right now. Like, how does this even accomplish anything other than ostracizing Muslims and give reasons for them to become extremists? Imagine if you were on the other side of the fence and the place your flying into for work/vacation just detained you because of a religion or place you are from. Except now imagine that you live there and you are barred from seeing your family. What the actual fuck. I don't know much about politics, but this is shit that you don't need to have a particular stance to see that it's completely messed up.
So here we are. Full-fledged constitutional crisis on the second weekend of the administration. I know it's selfish, but my biggest worry right now is that my livelihood depends on the existence of a free press and a functioning federal government.
I think we all knew that Armageddon was coming shortly after the 20th. As for worrying about your own livelihood, I think that's pretty natural. If it wasn't for work, I'd be very tempted to go a protest tomorrow. There's apparently one taking place in TO. That's sort of the problem I find - the people who are most able to complain are those that don't have other commitments and yet the internet will shit on these people for doing something that is morally just. Fuck.
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It gets worse when you realize that the order doesn't do anything and is smoke and mirrors at best: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/25/14383316/trump-muslim-ban-immigration-visas-terrorism-executive-order
I think I am having a crisis of faith in humanity right now. Like, how does this even accomplish anything other than ostracizing Muslims and give reasons for them to become extremists.
That's exactly what it's supposed to do. That and be a stab against liberals and a general sowing of chaos in the government. Part of Steve "Nazi in the Fucking White House" Bannon's plan to topple the government and replace it with a 1000 year white supremacist Reich.
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On the plus side, there was a protest sign that said "Fuck White Supremacy" that received airtime on the news for like, a full minute, so that was neat...
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Paging Jim because I want an informed opinion regarding Trump's Muslim ban and the still vacant SCOTUS seat:
So this is obviously going to the SCOTUS. Is the fact that Trump tried to do something that was so obviously going to get challenged in court while Scalia's seat still remains vacant a potential asset at all? Like, to ensure that his nominee will vote to uphold the executive order? Or... something?
I ask mostly because it seems like such an incompetent amateur hour move that I'm forced to conclude that they're either actually that incompetent or there is some tinfoil hat level conspiracy theory shit going on and I need some facts to ground me.
I'm sure it will come up in Senate questioning. And Trump's alleged short list is mostly normal, more in the vein of Scalia than Alito. Serious judges, albeit repugnantly right-wing.
There is no grand plan here on the legal side; this is all about optics and communicating directly with the base.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/01/who-hell-running-things-white-house
There are basically two possibilities of what happened here. Either the Trump administration made a premeditated judgment to hit current green card holders and detain immigrants at the airport, or they stumbled into it then ran with it. I'd bet on the former...but if that were the case, why not write a clearer executive order? Still, 8 days into Trump's presidency, it's unwise to bet against cruelty for cruelty's sake. These are evil people, and they get boners from this kind of thing. Bannon is probably jerking off to the 12-year-old separated from her parents right now.
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So I just looked at YouTube and learned that A) The White House now has an official Youtube account and 2) Trump's address to the American People from the 28th is at this time of writing #4 in their Trending algorithm.
So we have propaganda from Cheeto Big Brother at the behest of his LITERAL NAZI SHADOW ADVISOR streamed directly into our homes. Because all the media that doesn't come directly from Trump is fake. Trump will keep you safe. Trump's got this.
Like. I think my biggest crisis is the realization of just how on the nose it all is. Are they going to make the Secret Service wear fucking iron crosses on their goddamn uniforms?
This isn't reality, this is the goddamn plot of Captain America 2. FUCK Captain America 2.
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I remember in middle school, it was during the Bush/Gore election, we had just learned about the great depression. Someone in my class asked, "what's stopping something like that from ever happening again?" My social studies teacher, whose name I have forgotten, responded: "Well, we learned from our mistakes. We have protections in place to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Then Bush V. Gore came down to several significant figures worth of votes and we had something historically unprecedented to discuss in history class. I guess that's why this one teacher stands out in particular*. That, and how completely wrong she was. Graduating college and entering the workforce around 2009 was fun.
We never learned our lessons. Our grandparents did, the hard way, and we all got complacent. We had been brought up with Nazis as these shorthand-for-evil baddies that Indiana Jones punched because they were bad and forgot the sheer terror the Nazis/Alt-Right/White Supremacist movements wrecked upon the world. Prince Charles dressed as a goddamn nazi for a joke. We even have a Godwin'd term for how gauchely we throw the around term Nazi around, like it's some weak defeated relic of the past. I spent an embarrassingly large amount of my early 20s with "edgy" humor (read: tons of holocaust jokes because WHO COULD ACTUALLY BE A NAZI AM I RIGHT?). I was /pol/'s goddamn target audience for part of my life. And now a literal Nazi sits in on the meetings where they tell the soldiers what to do. (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38787241) They're doing literal Nazi moves by publishing a report of all the supposed crimes committed by the scapegoat du jour, and blatantly attempting to persecute people based on their religion.
The ACLU are goddamn heroes. I hope this can stay civil and that the battles will be fought by lawyers, but I think I may have a moral obligation to go punch a Nazi if it comes to that.
*EDIT: Fun story, the only other thing I remember about that class is that she made us write new lyrics to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire with recent events and I got in trouble for making a joke about Columbine. Ah, youth.
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Rather topical in another spectrum of the fascist apparatus building movement: https://twitter.com/jess4_rk/status/825358392575266816
Also worth noting Trump has filed for reelection almost instantly after taking the president seat, which also has consequences on dealing with his actions in the legal veneer. History spins its wheels and has a keen sense of irony.
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shoutout to ACLU receiving 24mil, which is apparently 6x their annual donations
shoutout to the marchers/protesters/people doing things re:tide, is this in response to Trump or the shooting in Canada? either way, don't knock yourself. folk are well aware that just cos' someone aint there don't mean they ain't aware.
fight the fuckery, watch out for gerrymandering and new voter laws lest we want another lopside electoral college superplay.
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All the electoral college fuckery in the world doesn't matter if Clinton doesn't completely blow off key midwest states in the election. of all the things to be angry about in the past few months, that is not one of them.
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Flipside, all the campaigning in the world won't keep Wisconsin from flipping if a couple hundred thousand of your base's votes can't pass the voter ID laws.
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You can assign blame to Comey or voter ID laws or third party voters or whatever else, but pretending that it was anything but Hillary's own weaknesses as a campaigner and candidate that ultimately cost her the election is missing the point.
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There were many factors at play in the election result, rather than just one, and pretending otherwise is foolish. Clinton made some mistakes for sure (though your "I told you so" attitude isn't impressing anyone; I didn't see you saying she should have been campaigning more in those states before the election results came in) but that doesn't mean we can't take issue with those other factors.
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There are lots of factors, but the candidate is the one who bears the brunt of the blame. She got hammered badly on the Clinton legacy (NAFTA in particular and to a lesser extent the 94 crime bill, a really bad piece of legislation) by both the left and right. And no, I didn't think even a complacent democratic party could fuck this up. I was wrong and I wish I wasn't.
I get that the electoral college is frustrating, but the system wasn't a surprise on either side. Unless there is solid proof that Russia actually tampered with votes, the results are valid. I hate the implication otherwise (Because it undermines our political process) and because it avoids addressing the pretty serious issues within the democratic party. They need to be better than they have been; I don't have much faith in them as an opposition party and feel pretty justified in that reaction.
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(though your "I told you so" attitude isn't impressing anyone
Yeah that. Take your own advice, Super. Right now is not the fucking time.
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All the electoral college fuckery in the world doesn't matter if Clinton doesn't completely blow off key midwest states in the election. of all the things to be angry about in the past few months, that is not one of them.
If anything, the argument might be that Clinton spent TOO MUCH time in the likes of Iowa & Ohio, where she lost far more badly than expected. As for Wisconsin and Michigan... well... maybe, but you can't say Clinton didn't campaign in Pennsylvania. She spent a crapton of time & resources there, and still lost. IOW, even if Wisconsin & Michigan had been flipped - perhaps Obama goes to campaign in Wisconsin more and North Carolina less - Clinton *still loses* unless she can get Pennsylvania too.
Basically if there's anything this election taught us, it's that campaign infrastructure and advertising dollars are even weaker than people thought. Clinton had a gigantic infrastructure and money lead and it didn't matter. I've said before that money only moves the needle a tiny bit - mostly to far-left types who think that MONEY BUYS EVERYTHING - but it seems said tiny bit is even tinier. So... it didn't matter that much *where* Clinton campaigned. It was the message + Comey that fell apart. Because apparently OH MY GOD TRUMP IS EVIL AND INCOMPETENT AND SHOULD NOT BE TRUSTED FOR ANYTHING MORE IMPORTANT THAN DOGCATCHER apparently isn't convincing enough even when it's 10000% true.
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(though your "I told you so" attitude isn't impressing anyone
Yeah that. Take your own advice, Super. Right now is not the fucking time.
(https://www.fab-ent.com/media/04_Hot_Cold/11-1025.jpg) Here, hope this helps.
But seriously it isn't Hilary Clinton's fucking fault that someone can run a campaign on racist hard right politics, lose the preferential vote by a couple of million votes, still end up winning because of the electoral college skews the fuck out of the representation part of your representative democratic republic and then makes good on racist and fascist campaign promises.
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Oh dear, my post obviously touched a nerve.
I'll say this: reading my short comment about the electoral college in the same vein as a lamentation of Clinton and complete blame on a system means you've taken a piece and ran a mile.
I don't think I need to keep restating how important it is to vote locally, vote in the primary, and watch how state laws affect these two things? or that the electoral college has been fuckery for decades regardless of some progressive ideal candidate winning?
That's my last on that given my numerous posts in poli threads, etc. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that we are in extra stressful times and perhaps you've misaligned my one comment with recent liberal critiques of the EC that happen every presidency.
btw to lighten things: i was hashtag feel the bern sad face emoji when my last option was clinton (sure that's in here when I shat on her debates) edit edit edit figuring out what to make of bannon and nsc. like, if trump is doing things w/o precedent, imma just call to see what career dems understand resistance can be then go from there
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shoutout to the marchers/protesters/people doing things re:tide, is this in response to Trump or the shooting in Canada? either way, don't knock yourself. folk are well aware that just cos' someone aint there don't mean they ain't aware.
I meant in general. Like you can go see a picture or video of people lining up donating blood and some fucker will post some comment in their to shit on those people trying to help those in need. You didn't see it as much before, but I guess Trump just brings out the worst in everyone. When did it become a crime to stop awful things or to fight awful things from happening?
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On the scale from George Washington to Emperor Nero, last night just blew past Nixon's second term. The Republican caucus still DGAF. Fuck this is terrifying.
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I'm almost afraid to ask - what happened last night? I saw some stuff regarding how the acting AG was terminated and replaced with someone that would validate Trump's claim, which is pretty terrifying in and of itself based on all that has been happening behind the scenes.
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That's it in a nutshell. The acting AG, Sally Lynch -- who was originally appointed to DOJ George W. Bush, declared that she would not defend the immigration order because she believed it to be unlawful. Trump fired her in a memo that reads like it was put together by an especially petulant seventh-grader (http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/politics/white-house-statement-attorney-general/index.html). The last time a president fired an attorney general for disagreeing with him on the law was Nixon in his last-ditch bid to stop the Watergate investigation, known as the "Saturday Night Massacre." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Massacre)
Bonus points: here's Jeff Sessions, Trump's AG nominee and one of his biggest cheerleaders, pressing Yates at her confirmation hearing on whether she would stand up to the president if he ordered her to do something illegal. (http://www.businessinsider.com/sally-yates-jeff-sessions-video-2015-confirmation-hearing-2017-1)
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So what are the chances of a constitutional crisis occurring? Seems more and more to me that the law isn't really doing much to stop this lunacy. As I mentioned in chat to Jim, based on their inaction, I am doubting that any chance of a peaceful resolution (such as impeachment) will be happening.
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It's a constitutional crisis right now. If you mean an incident that historians will be able to point at and say "that's where the U.S. stopped being a constitutional republic," (assuming Trump & co. win the ensuing confrontation) I'd say it's all but certain if Trump and Bannon are still in power a month from now.
(Edit: I expect them to openly refuse to follow court rulings telling them "stop this, it's illegal" by that point. Something else might happen sooner.)
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Sup nerds. You called your congressfolk yet today?
I'm basically going to be bugging the shit out of mine about Steve Bannon because THERE IS A NAZI SITTING IN ON NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL MEETINGS OVER THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF.
I wrote out what I wanted to say beforehand*, and frankly it just made the whole process easier for me. Less stuttering, less terrified emotional fear babble, and as a bonus I refrained from referring to Bannon as a doughy Goebbels fanboy even once!
If Steve Bannon terrifies you too and you want a script to use, by all means, feel free to use this however you see fit.
"Hello, my name is X from Y, and my zip code is 00000. I was calling to ask if Senator/Representative Z has released an official position on President Trump's decision to have his chief strategist and of former Breitbart News editor Steve Bannon to sit in on National Security Council meetings instead of the director of the joint chiefs of staff."
(Upon being asked for my opinion so it could be documented): "Steve Bannon terrifies me, and his appointment to the NSC should terrify all of us. The man is a dangerous white supremacist who must not be allowed to dictate the future actions of the Armed Services. I believe we have not only a political obligation, but a moral obligation to do everything possible to prevent this appointment, and would appreciate if Senator/Representative Z would take this into account. Thank you for your time, have a good day."
This isn't a partisan issue. I don't give a shit what you think about Trump, and I don't give a shit about what you think about Hillary Clinton. This isn't about either of them. This isn't about the election. This is a fucking NAZI sitting in on the meetings that decide what the THE UNITED GODDAMN STATES MILITARY is going to do. And he was given this power QUIETLY while Trump kept us occupied with his dumbass poorly planned executive order.
Steve Bannon is an actual existential threat. If something isn't done, US Citizens WILL die.
I haven't really slept in two days. That is all.
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Sup nerds. You called your congressfolk yet today?
I'm basically going to be bugging the shit out of mine about Steve Bannon because THERE IS A NAZI SITTING IN ON NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL MEETINGS OVER THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF.
I wrote out what I wanted to say beforehand*, and frankly it just made the whole process easier for me. Less stuttering, less terrified emotional fear babble, and as a bonus I refrained from referring to Bannon as a doughy Goebbels fanboy even once!
If Steve Bannon terrifies you too and you want a script to use, by all means, feel free to use this however you see fit.
"Hello, my name is X from Y, and my zip code is 00000. I was calling to ask if Senator/Representative Z has released an official position on President Trump's decision to have his chief strategist and of former Breitbart News editor Steve Bannon to sit in on National Security Council meetings instead of the director of the joint chiefs of staff."
(Upon being asked for my opinion so it could be documented): "Steve Bannon terrifies me, and his appointment to the NSC should terrify all of us. The man is a dangerous white supremacist who must not be allowed to dictate the future actions of the Armed Services. I believe we have not only a political obligation, but a moral obligation to do everything possible to prevent this appointment, and would appreciate if Senator/Representative Z would take this into account. Thank you for your time, have a good day."
This isn't a partisan issue. I don't give a shit what you think about Trump, and I don't give a shit about what you think about Hillary Clinton. This isn't about either of them. This isn't about the election. This is a fucking NAZI sitting in on the meetings that decide what the THE UNITED GODDAMN STATES MILITARY is going to do. And he was given this power QUIETLY while Trump kept us occupied with his dumbass poorly planned executive order.
Steve Bannon is an actual existential threat. If something isn't done, US Citizens WILL die.
I haven't really slept in two days. That is all.
I would but unfortunately I don't live in the states :(. Totally agree on the bottom part - this isn't about Trump/Hilary/the election. I'm in the same boat in that I haven't slept well in the past two days either.
PS: I like how you managed to also avoid mentioning wanting to kick Bannon in the nuts.
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Re: my "one month" prediction, In my defense I thought they'd go through the whole appeal process and only move on to civil war when the final ruling came down against them. (https://twitter.com/CharESilver/status/826447357105491968)
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PS: I like how you managed to also avoid mentioning wanting to kick Bannon in the nuts.
For those keeping score at home, we have reached the point of crisis where *Zenny* is actively trying to choose his words wisely.
So that's kinda where we're at as a nation right now
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we have reached the point of crisis where *Zenny* is actively trying to choose his words wisely
can confirm, actually asked me to affirm that he should not post something completely stupid
The political climate is fucking terrifying right now. I don't have anything to add that hasn't already been addressed. A call to action like what Zenny is suggesting is absolutely the best and most productive outlet you can do to try to make a difference, especially if you live in an area with GOP congressmen.
Without pressure from the constituents in power (i.e. the Republican party which controls all branches of government at the moment) that is the avenue needed to try to force any sort of change.
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PS: I like how you managed to also avoid mentioning wanting to kick Bannon in the nuts.
For those keeping score at home, we have reached the point of crisis where *Zenny* is actively trying to choose his words wisely.
So that's kinda where we're at as a nation right now
Because this threat to liberty and freedom is worth taking seriously; I'm with you 100% on this. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3dPlDKXUAAkvBf.jpg:large The pressure the public is putting on is impacting congresscritters already; and this is less than two weeks in. E: I come of as a little snide but I've been ranting about the dangers of Trump sfor the past year and a half and everyone in the media and his political opponents didn't take it seriously. There's so much blame to go around that at this point it almost doesn't matter, what matters is getting him and his fascist buddies dealt with.
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Dude Super you come off as snide because:
1) You were like "SITTING OUT OF THIS ELECTION THE ONLY THING TO GET ME TO VOTE IS IF TRUMP WINS THE PRIMARY I HATE EVERYONE" (you implicitly said you would ONLY vote in Virginia if Trump won the primary, which he did, and then you backpedaled on this later)
2) When Trump DID win the primary you went "there's no fucking way he's going to win he's going to lose in a colossal landslide"
3) When Trump won the election you went "oh man only Hillary could have fucked up this hard".
It's in your post history, dude. You can look up them up in the old politics thread, I ain't paraphrasing what you said much.
I don't want to turn this into pointing fingers but you need to own up to what you said before and your own mistaken perceptions just like everyone else. The ha ha only that Clinton woman could sink us is downright eyeroll-worthy when you were just as convinced as anyone else in the leadup that she was going to win.
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Well yeah I thought he was going to lose in a landslide; I had no idea Hillary was going to be as hurt as badly as she was on free trade (An issue I support her on to boot). If it's Elizabeth Warren or Sanders or Time Kaine, I think Trump loses pretty badly and I hold to that.
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That is another discussion and certainly one up for analysis and debate, but that is not the issue; the snideness is that you nonstop ragged on Hillary so hard like you were prescient and HOW COULD SHE SCREW THIS UP when you yourself were convinced she wasn't going to lose. It is in bad form to give someone shit over losing something and losing sight of her supposed flaws (then armchair advice giving like you could've run the campaign better) which you repeatedly brought up in the aftermath as opposed to saying "wow, okay, I was wrong too" at a bare minimum admission. Criticism is fine when you aren't standing on a high horse you have no right to be on.
For the record her campaign team saw the warning signs in the final week before the election and were quite nervous, so they were not completely ignorant in that regard. I am pretty sure Hillary was less certain of her assured victory than many of her supporters TBH.
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https://medium.com/@jakefuentes/the-immigration-ban-is-a-headfake-and-were-falling-for-it-b8910e78f0c5
Fairly good read of the coverage/protests of what's happened this week and, frankly, the million dollar question of what's really going on.
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One thing I definitely want to stress is that the view that Trump was a weak candidate who could only lose to Incompetent Hillary is not a productive view at all. We can debate if a generic Democrat would have won (I'm personally skeptical, but that's not the point), but let's face facts: Trump won because he effectively got his message out and convinced people - a lot of people - to vote for him, and managed to garner comparable support to Romney despite losing some NeverTrump Republicans. This is deeply concerning and absolutely needs to be part of the dialog of how to make the US (and other nations) less susceptible to Trumpian snake oil in the future.
This is especially important because Trump is not an isolated case. Orban, Duterte, Le Pen (potentially), etc., have had success on rather Trump-like platforms and strategies. You can throw Brexit in there if you want; there are certainly parallels. All were underesimated. If nothing else good comes from these terrible events, I just hope that at least we will stop underestimating these people in the future.
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That's a fantastic read, Laggy.
So...since Friday, this has been insane. A few examples:
1) The international exchange we do? Cock-blocked, as even though Oman is not a banned country, they take students in the health sciences from multiple countries that are banned! So that's been a disaster.
2) A colleague of my wife is now stuck in Iran as deported. She was on the way home from seeing her family in Iran, and got to the airport after the ban was passed (while she was flying home). She was informed that she can either be deported back to Iran, or surrender her green card. Her attorney was fighting to let them make her stay until the courts decided on the green card issue, but she was forced to go back to Iran...2 hours more, and she would have been fine!
She's a goddamned trauma surgeon. Cause those aren't important to have on-hand.
An extension - does anyone realize 10% of our resident physicians (the slaves primary workforce of medical practice) are from the Middle East? I mean, it's not going to be a massive number of people affected, but we have a huge physician shortage, primarily in underserved areas, and this does not help. Match Day is coming up - and if things aren't solidified by then, we may have a significant problem with staffing hospitals and even clinics.
3) Hey, that hiring freeze for government officials? Apparently affects public health medical professionals. I have multiple students I'm trying to work with who had jobs confirmed or in process that are now fucked. Everything is frozen. I'm not sure if everything was thought through appropriately...dur.
When I was thinking about Trump way back when, I didn't take him seriously until I started seeing people drop out of the Republican race for the president nomination. When he got the nomination, I was a little afraid, but didn't seriously think he could win (faith in the average person to see through the lies and fakeness). I didn't think people would make such a mistake. Then I thought, "hey, the electoral college is supposed to be there as a safety net in case the country makes an uninformed, stupid decision, they'll surely fix this" but nope, doesn't happen. As Elf said, he found a way to speak a message that resonated. And it's going to look like he's doing it (but seriously, you're not bringing back manual labour manufacturing jobs...come on), even though it'll be a goddamned magic show. Not something to forget, and it is remarkable he succeeded.
Frankly, I am so concerned about his cabinet and appointees (among other things). I think Chao and Mattis are the only reasonable people I can think of so far (Mattis has spoken out against Trump already, and I hope he continues, although I haven't seen him weigh in on the travel ban or national security addition of Bannon yet, so...). Other than that...I think McCain is a reasonable Republican, but I'm running out of people to complement. Steve Bannon is a disaster, and him being on the security council is awful. I've been listening to NPR for my drive to and from work every day (3 hours of it in total...yay) since October. They had an interview today with someone talking about how Bannon is a great idea to have on the committee...no. No no no no no no no. I'm calling my rep this week. That's a good script, Zenny.
I've also been reading multiple sources with multiple leanings (CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, Breitbart, NPR, NYT) just to see every side of the spectrum. While there is a...rare writing in the right-leaning stuff that is actually rational (such as this: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/01/31/juan-williams-democrats-neil-gorsuch-and-trump-get-ready-for-toxic-combination-america.html), the majority is insane. IN-FUCKING-SANE. I have trouble imagining how people can actually believe some of this shit. Kudos to Sally Yates for doing what an attorney general should do, and what the hell to her being fired for following the law and justice. All the right-leaning media is demonizing her and saying that position should follow the president? No. No. Checks and motherfucking balances.
Yeah, I don't think I've actually been terrified of the way this country is going...ever. At least most of the media outlets that matter realized what happened, and they are doing their best to show the truth....but I'm not sure that's enough. I am truly hoping for an impeachment of Trump.
Then Pence.
Then Paul Ryan.
President Orin Hatch sounds fantastic right now.
(Yes, I realize that doesn't really fix anything. Let me hope)
Just...needed to say something. This is truly something that cannot be ignored.
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I don't want to turn this into pointing fingers
Fuck that noise, I absolutely dude.
(http://i61.tinypic.com/2wn43ti.jpg)
Looking gooooooooooooooood.
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https://twitter.com/CharESilver/status/826447357105491968
I've tried to mostly avoid posting in here for several reasons, mostly not wanting to be seen as a crazy doomsayer, or spout now-pointless I-told-you-sos. I guess I should at least once, though. So here we go.
Trump's (and when I say Trump, I mean that as a shorthand for his entire regime, including Bannon etc) behavior has never been mysterious. It has been and remains crystal clear. His quote about doing whatever he wants and grabbing people by the pussy is neither a joke nor an exaggeration. This is hard conservative abusive power play 101. He is not going to stop. He is going to go all the way. Deadly serious. While I hoped to escape that world and not have to talk about it very much here, it's depressing and baffling to see people still - STILL! NOW! - not taking him seriously and saying things like "there's no way this will hold up in court!" and "keep it up, our congressmen say they're swamped with complaints!"
None of that is going to do anything, because enforcement has sided with Trump. The rule of law is already dead and gone.
Not to say that calling your congresscritters is a bad idea or you shouldn't do it; I did, and you probably should. It can't hurt... much. Probably. But we are far past the point where that could effect any meaningful change.
It no longer matters what the courts say. It no longer matters what Congress says. The power of enforcement is gone; people at the airports have no choice but to do what the men with guns tell them to do, and that's all there is to it. Very simple.
Impeaching Trump is also useless, this late in the game. You want to know what happens if Congress votes to impeach him tomorrow? Everyone voting in favor is arrested and replaced. The impeachment is declared null, invoking some procedural loophole, or making one up if necessary. Or the vote fails in the first place, because too many congressmen are afraid for their lives, bribed, or make a decision to stay in office where they can try to accomplish some small things instead of throwing their career away in opposition. Trump supporters throw a victory parade about removing "the threat to America." Non-Trump supporters maybe finally get up and riot, and are duly shot.
The only remaining realistic hope of stopping Trump is a military coup, and even that is looking less realistic by the hour. These court orders, these congressional acts - someone's going to have to stand up and enforce them, with emphasis on the "force" part. The Marshals are, apparently, already declining to do so, despite that being their job. So the prospects for people who even *can* do this are getting mighty slim, and many of them seem more inclined to side with Trump than against him.
That's really all there is to it, in the present. People do what the men with the guns tell them to do.
If you want to look into the past, sure, blame everywhere, lots of warning signs. Warning for extreme personal take here forward. The Patriot Act and establishment of the DHS laid the groundwork of a takeover, and the failure to repeal or meaningfully challenge them cemented its inevitability.
The last remaining olive branch of popular accountability in the system, the one thing people could point to and go "you need this or it won't fly" was the presidential election. Not just now, but 17 years ago, after Congress' first attempt to impeach a modern-era president failed. That affirmed to the public that 'President > Congress' in terms of authority. Regardless of what the law actually says the President's powers are, what people believe is that an Executive Order from the President is the highest level of authority in the United States, and it's belief that matters here. Particularly, the belief of a majority of law enforcement and armed forces. The Democratic Party to date has completely and utterly failed to understand this, or, more charitably, refused to believe it, placing their faith instead in the rule of law. But that, unfortunately, is not what the electorate at large actually wanted or expected.
Obama ran on a platform of Change and grand campaign promises, won resoundingly, and then failed to make good on his promises. Didn't close Guantanamo. Didn't make a grandstanding pullout in Iraq. Didn't establish universal healthcare. Lost against Congressional terrorist tactics and budget shutdowns. Failed to even quell the most ridiculous rumors about him being a secret Muslim Kenyan. Sure, he did a lot of other great things, but nobody cares. To the fickle and unengaged general public, he was a weak failure of a president who promised change and action and failed to deliver it, instead wasting his entire stock of eight years of political capital on a half finished, less than half funded healthcare system that took the next president just a couple of days to completely dismantle.
Then the Democrats come and run Hillary, on the same platform or lack thereof that lost to Obama eight years prior, except there isn't even a Dubya and an unpopular war providing easy targets anymore. Despite enthusiasm and momentum on the side of Bernie Sanders (another candidate promising to enact radical change, even compared to Obama), Hillary gets the nom, and faces yet another candidate promising radical change.
And now here we are, with Trump having passed the last test he needed to pass. He gets to do what he wants now. There's no one left to tell him no, and he has no qualms about using his power to gain more power.
Anyway, county sheriff Sally Hernandez is making something of a stand here in Austin, and it even looks like the police departments might be with her. Abbott will probably try and have her removed within a month; if that goes down and I stop showing up here, you can assume that's where I'll be.
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None of what you guys said (u too laggy sorry :() since I finally passed out 12 hours ago is helpful (neb and grefter get passes for being unable to anything directly, but Grefter not the fucking time)
Enough theorizing, people. If you don't have some CONCRETE ACTION that's going to come from talking about whether the protests are playing right into Trump's hands, whether we're all doomed, or who is to blame, then what you're talking about is meaningless.
The house is on fire and everyone is going to sit around squaking and not doing anything because nobody's yelling, YOU, IN THE RED STATE, YELL AT YOUR SENATOR.
It's hard. Coming up with any steps to do SOMETHING is hard. There's a reason why Occupy Wall Street didn't get anything done. There's a reason it took 2 months after Trump's election for all the political posting to be theorhetical "everything gonna suck bro :(" to "OKAY HERE'S A BULLET POINT LIST OF WHAT TO DO".
And believe me, there's nothing more that I am inclined to do than sit around watching youtube feeling like everything is too big but EXCUSE ME THERE IS A NAZI SITTING IN ON THE MEETINGS WHERE THEY TELL WHICH BROWN PEOPLE TO DRONE STRIKE.
Not the time. Call your reps if you haven't.
Scared of Bannon?
Are these all old institutions that haven't produced any meaningful change in our lifetimes and we don't know what the effects are going to EXCUSE ME
FUCKING NAZI
ARMY DUDES
GRAB THE BUCKET AND DOUSE THE FIRE
If you can write a big long post about why we're fucked you can go write an investigative piece of journalism on the Trump cabinet member scares you most and then try to get the word out to people who don't know. No, don't post the article on GamerGhazi they already woke, but consider this: even my ultra liberal literally-living-in-a-commune-in-the-mountains parents don't understand the current existential threat because Bannon made sure nobody knows who he is unless they spent way too much time staring into the canary in the coal mine that was GamerGate. He is that fucking devious.
We need to educate. Go get writing usefully or please just do something.
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Yeah, I already have made plans to attend my rep's next town hall, I fully intend to rake him over the coals on this.
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DLers have marched, are calling, have written letters, are going to their capitols, so don't get the sense that everyone's just sitting on their ass sniffing the flowers. But, it would be great were the percentage to increase, I don't doubt that. So, thanks for the vote of encouragement Zenny!
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You're absolutely right. I'm just trying to keep people on task.
I just had an idea.
It's time to make some propaganda.
The idea, I'm going to print out a bunch of fliers with Steve Bannon's face, below which will be the question "Who is Steve Bannon?" and a QR code that will link to the website. Kind of like a viral marketing campaign, because if marketing is going to work on people we may as well use it for good. Anyway, take these fliers and post them all over college campuses, malls, etc. Places where people who don't spend every waking hour on the internet will go.
The website itself will be plain, with concrete, public domain facts framed in such a way that even white folk who passionately endorse Trump will be afraid of him after reading it.
It's just an idea that popped into my head and feedback to make it better would be nice, but while I can write I can't code at all and any flier I make is gonna be fugly. I'll do the abyss gazing and gather the facts, but I'm going to need help in both those arenas.
This is all assuming he isn't just drone-bombing fuckers left and right in a couple days, ofc
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If anybody needs a spirit-booster, two GOP senators, Murkowski and Collins, are now on record opposing Betsy DeVos to head the education department. Contra Alex, I do think it's possible (though highly unlikely) that existing institutions can block Trump's power grabs if a few Republicans will see the light, and this would be a very good precedent.
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You're absolutely right. I'm just trying to keep people on task.
I just had an idea.
It's time to make some propaganda.
The idea, I'm going to print out a bunch of fliers with Steve Bannon's face, below which will be the question "Who is Steve Bannon?" and a QR code that will link to the website. Kind of like a viral marketing campaign, because if marketing is going to work on people we may as well use it for good. Anyway, take these fliers and post them all over college campuses, malls, etc. Places where people who don't spend every waking hour on the internet will go.
The website itself will be plain, with concrete, public domain facts framed in such a way that even white folk who passionately endorse Trump will be afraid of him after reading it.
It's just an idea that popped into my head and feedback to make it better would be nice, but while I can write I can't code at all and any flier I make is gonna be fugly. I'll do the abyss gazing and gather the facts, but I'm going to need help in both those arenas.
This is all assuming he isn't just drone-bombing fuckers left and right in a couple days, ofc
Also, register Twitter, Facebook, or something with...I don't know. @TheREALStevenBannon or whatever (this may be illegal/not allowed). Tweet facts and updates daily. Tweet at big names and retweet it. Most of the country gets their news in microstories now from social media, so that's a place that has to be targeted.
Plan to call my representative and both state senators tomorrow when I have a free bit in the afternoon, for all the good I doubt that will do.
Good to hear about DeVos opposition. That's...top 3 worst appointments, easily. There are some GOPs that I think do see the light. I think a lot of them are blinded by UNLIMITED POWER with the set-up we have now (complete GOP control! let's do shit we couldn't before!), and sacrificing their moral obligation a bit.
Now...I'm really interested in seeing the supreme court fight that's coming. This will be extremely...interesting.
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The nice thing about the Supreme Court fight is that Gorusch really is a solid pick for the GOP to make. He's very right-wing, but he's not off in crazypants land that I've seen – any Republican justice is going to be anti-abortion, for instance. That part sucks, but it sucks predictably. And he's better on criminal justice than a lot of other people Trump considered for the job (including the other “finalist”). His one big quirk is that he opposes so-called Chevron deference, where courts will in many cases let agencies apply any “reasonable” interpretation of an unclear law, instead of enforcing what they consider to be the single best interpretation. That's been a conservative position for years, but under Trump the actual effect would be to give his appointees less power to do whatever the hell they want, so sure, let's go with the guy who hates Chevron.
That said, I do think the Democrats need to fight tooth and nail over the fact that it should be Merrick Garland sitting in that chair, because if you normalize straight-up refusal to confirm any Democratic nominee then no Democratic nominee will ever be confirmed again.....although that presumes the continuation of constitutional democracy and thus puts the cart before the horse.
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Good idea, I forget that twitter exists. I have no idea how to use it or to get a tweet out to tons of people but fuck I guess it's time to learn.
go follow it and retweet it (http://www.twitter.com/whoisbannon) or... however this works. (fuck i got old at some point and learning unfamiliar technology is a chore)
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Does anyone want the password so they can post from it? PM me. I need to take a break and go exercise before I lose it.
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THIS IS HAPPENING.
Friends,
I have returned from Standing Rock with my mind blown, my heart broken and my spirit troubled with foreboding of a deepening tragedy. Volunteering as a legal observer with the Water Protector Legal Collective I witnessed several confrontations between Water Protectors (WP) and law enforcement: national guard, sheriffs and private security (LE).
On 1/18/17 - 1/19/17 I observed WP with their hands in the air chanting “hands up don’t shoot” being fired upon at a range of 10 to 15 feet. Tear gas canisters and rubber bullets ( rubber bullets are regular bullets covered in rubber) were used against unarmed WP who had been singing and praying. I observed national guard chasing WP off the Backwater bridge, firing at people running away. I heard people choking and gagging from tear gas. I saw access to the WP medic vehicles being blocked. I spoke with medics and WP who described bullets penetrating flesh and causing terrible injuries, including to one media person who nearly lost his finger when his camera was targeted.
I talked with a media person and was told of 4 media people on the bridge that night, 3 had their recording devices shot and the 4th, his hand. I saw a photo of a sheriff aiming a rifle directly at a media woman who was standing apart from the crowd. I heard testimony of the back of the medic pickup truck being awash in blood after evacuating wounded.
I watched, and then, inadvertently became a part of, WP being forced off the bridge by national guard who were hiding behind WP vehicles parked along the road and firing rubber bullets at fleeing people. Many people were shot in the back, the neck, the head. When LE fired at people at close range, many were shot in the genitals or in the face. I received information about DAPL security breaching the short wave radio channels of the WP with taunts such as ”come out and fight like men you faggots or we will come to Camp and fuck your women.”
There are some young warriors, who, without the support of their elders, many who want the camps cleared to mitigate the economic and social damage being suffered by the local community in having the bridge closed, have vowed to not leave the camps or to let the last section of pipeline be built.
Driving away from the area on Monday I saw a convoy of construction vehicles heading to the drill pad. Last night an indigenous website live streamed reports of drilling and construction noises coming from the drill pad.
Without the eyes of a free press these attacks and trespasses continue, with the human rights and sovereignty of indigenous peoples denied. The UN Committee on Transnational Corporations and Human Right Abuses was in Standing Rock this week to take testimony of the many transgressions against people: crop dusters spraying poison pesticides and fertilizers on the camps; hair samples indicating the presence of these chemicals; people who have been injured, beat up, arrested, strip searched; media and medics being targeted by snipers; (one medic told me he stopped wearing his Red Cross vest due to medics being targeted); praying people being attacked and the refusal of DAPL and our government to abide by the Rule of Law.
The vets who came in Dec to stand down against these crimes need to be on the ground there now, right now. We need to stand up for our brothers and our sisters, for their way of life and, I believe, for our social contract as a democracy which is now threatened.
Please share this so word gets out what is happening, thank you.
Deborah MacKay
its already happening
Standing Rock is the first battleground.
This doesn't not end in violence.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/dbernstein/status/826861210473811976
Some hope there
Keep fighting
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You're absolutely right. I'm just trying to keep people on task.
I just had an idea.
It's time to make some propaganda.
The idea, I'm going to print out a bunch of fliers with Steve Bannon's face, below which will be the question "Who is Steve Bannon?" and a QR code that will link to the website. Kind of like a viral marketing campaign, because if marketing is going to work on people we may as well use it for good. Anyway, take these fliers and post them all over college campuses, malls, etc. Places where people who don't spend every waking hour on the internet will go.
The website itself will be plain, with concrete, public domain facts framed in such a way that even white folk who passionately endorse Trump will be afraid of him after reading it.
It's just an idea that popped into my head and feedback to make it better would be nice, but while I can write I can't code at all and any flier I make is gonna be fugly. I'll do the abyss gazing and gather the facts, but I'm going to need help in both those arenas.
This is all assuming he isn't just drone-bombing fuckers left and right in a couple days, ofc
Do this and upload the template so others can print them out and scatter them around too. Bay area cali is left as all hell but that doesn't mean the majority of people are INFORMED about people like Bannon and what they're trying to do, so I'd happily print out a bunch and hang them up in places as well. Been meaning to take a day trip into the city proper to do some shopping anyway.
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If there's anything I have taken away it is that we don't have much direct power but you can protest and scream at politicians and make yourself heard. This form of protest does work and can push opinion, especially since I don't think a number of these Congressmen ever hear from their own constituencies.
Give to organizations like the ACLU, give your time to protests, give your time and consideration to those who are hurt or who are going to hurt by this horseshit. There are things we can do. It's hard in a majority red state like mine but I've started going to local meetings and worked to pressure my senators, who basically live on my walk to work. There isn't much of an organizational structure yet but I hope that is coming.
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Good idea, I forget that twitter exists. I have no idea how to use it or to get a tweet out to tons of people but fuck I guess it's time to learn.
go follow it and retweet it (http://www.twitter.com/whoisbannon) or... however this works. (fuck i got old at some point and learning unfamiliar technology is a chore)
I've already been re-tweeting stuff that I see regarding what's going on recently. Most of my twitter feed is silent (kind of scary since a lot of them live in the states) but I've been getting a lot of notices from Liam O'Brien's twitter. Which just kind of reminds me, even if you're not famous or anything, you should still make your voice heard. Don't let people oppress you from saying something - "Freedom isn't something you are given; it's something you fight for"
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let's be real we all knew that already it's just now we're terrified enough to do something
abject terror can be a pretty dang swell motivator
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https://twitter.com/AugstMcLaughlin/status/827228377845100544
Call about Steve Bannon on NSC
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Just called, left a message
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https://traviscountystrong.wixsite.com/tc-strongertogether
Crowdfunding for Travis County law enforcement programs (and all their social programs and subsidiaries) to continue functioning, since Gov. Abbott followed through on his threats to pull all state funds. If y'all want to do something actually effective, here you go, actual law enforcement resisting the executive orders and campaigning for sanity and the rule of law.
A bill to empower the governor to unilaterally remove and replace any elected official that he deems noncompliant with Trump's executive orders made it out of committee today. Kind of surreal that Austin is in fact becoming ground zero, but here we are.
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yes alex
yes duck
reiterate: [21:53] (+dunsters) fyi, dhs is taking calls abt bannon's appt according to splc. 2022244751
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https://traviscountystrong.wixsite.com/tc-strongertogether
Crowdfunding for Travis County law enforcement programs (and all their social programs and subsidiaries) to continue functioning, since Gov. Abbott followed through on his threats to pull all state funds. If y'all want to do something actually effective, here you go, actual law enforcement resisting the executive orders and campaigning for sanity and the rule of law.
A bill to empower the governor to unilaterally remove and replace any elected official that he deems noncompliant with Trump's executive orders made it out of committee today. Kind of surreal that Austin is in fact becoming ground zero, but here we are.
Thanks! Passed along to the people still listening to me
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Let's see if I can be a little less braindead in resummarizing what's going on here.
- This is about Trump's first set of executive orders on immigration. Not the one closing the borders and trapping people in airports, the earlier one about "cracking down on sanctuary cities" that I think most media glossed over.
- What Trump & co. say they want to do is make all levels of law enforcement have to answer to Immigration (and Homeland Security). Anyone who happens to be arrested for any reason or charged with any crime (not convicted!) can be held indefinitely, outside of the normal due process, if Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes a request to hold them and "investigate their immigration status." In practice this is the same thing the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio did during his tenure in Arizona: racial profiling runs unchecked and anyone who doesn't look white can find themselves jailed for days, weeks or months, with few legal recourses.
- Except even worse, because the suspects have to be held in jail at the expense of local law enforcement, local law enforcement are the ones on the liability hook if they wind up detaining someone who turns out to be here legally and sues in response, and having such a detainment policy in place makes people (especially immigrants, legal or illegal) less likely to report crimes or cooperate with local police. Lots of jurisdictions hate them, and Obama's administration was trying to more or less phase them out and get a different system in place.
- Federal courts have ruled that compliance with these orders is voluntary for local law enforcement, detainee's Fourth Amendment rights are definitely violated if they are actually held beyond their otherwise normal release date, such requests require probable cause to be issued in the first place, and it's disputable if ICE has authority to issue them even *with* probable cause (https://www.ilrc.org/sites/default/files/resources/detainers_legal_update_october_2016.pdf). Some more stuff on how Trump is changing the policies here. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/sanctuary-cities/)
- Conservatives label cities whose police departments do not comply with these orders as "sanctuary cities" where illegal immigrants are free to rape and murder honest Americans.
- Sally Hernandez ran for Travis County Sheriff on an explicit platform of stopping these detainment requests and only detaining people who are actually convicted of something, or who are accused of a capital crime (murder, sexual assault, or human trafficking). This was and remains very popular with Travis County voters - she was elected with 63% of the vote, and is (quite rightfully imo)currently claiming that she is acting fully within the law, protecting everyone's constitutional rights, and has a mandate from the voters to do so.
- Governor Greg Abbott disagreed and tried to order her to comply anyway (despite the fact that being governor gives him no legal standing to do so). When she still refused, he threatened to cut off all state grants and funding to Travis County law enforcement programs, and to remove her from office (despite the fact that he has no legal standing to do so). When she *still* refused, he followed through on cutting the funding, and is seeking to remove her by asking the state legislature to make a new law empowering the governor to remove and replace any elected official who does not comply with ICE requests. The bill is being fast tracked, declared an emergency item, and cleared out of committee today (yesterday by the time anyone reads this). Even Fox News is astonished at the level of bullshit on display here. (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/26/texas-gov-abbott-threatens-to-oust-officials-who-promote-sanctuary-cities.html) It is clearly what one might call Hella Unconstitutional to depose an elected official in this way - the Legislature does not have the legal standing to do it or empower the governor to do it either - but that isn't stopping them from trying.
- The outcome of this struggle is likely to shape national precedent for how law enforcement agencies and local authorities respond to Trump's executive orders, and is a test case for the possibility of conservative governments ousting elected officials for noncompliance without due process or legal backing. This is really, really important and potentially *the* case that determines how far authoritarianism in the US can go right now.
- AND! Regardless of the outcome of Abbott vs Hernandez, oops, all the state grant funding for Travis County agencies got cut off. All of it. Not just the Sheriff's department. Everything from the DMV offices to police salaries to substance abuse programs to National Guard veteran's benefits has been defunded, and will be defunded for at least a couple of months - even if Abbott had a change of heart tomorrow morning, returning the grant funding is a lot more difficult and time consuming than stopping it was. It may even need total reapproval from the Legislature. If, yknow, they were inclined to do that. A huge number of people are going to be hurt by this, no matter what else happens now, and that's why Hernandez, Austin's US Rep Lloyd Doggett and the Democratic Party are setting up this crowdfunding campaign to try and help the county remain somewhat functional.
If you have money you were considering donating somewhere, please consider this. I'd say "even if you aren't Texan, call Texas officials about this" except it's unclear who you would even call, and the lines in the sand are pretty much drawn already. This is like 10000000 "strongly worded statements" level of importance though.
BONUS RICK PERRY TAKE: (https://www.texastribune.org/2017/02/03/protesters-flood-state-capitol-lawmakers-debate-sanctuary-cities-bill/)'Perry said the blame for that and any subsequent action in other parts of Texas aren’t the state’s fault.
“The state did not remove those funds,” he said. “The action of the jurisdiction, their decision to violate the law” did.'
PS. Hey kid wanna read some Breitbart? (http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/01/31/feds-bust-mexican-murder-suspect-wanted-sanctuary-city/) You really don't, but Hernandez is getting a lot of death threats, in case you were wondering.
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Alex, you the man. This is the perfect case study/good cause to throw cash at. Keep us updated.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/us/politics/trump-white-house-aides-strategy.html?_r=0
Really good article on how things seem to be playing out inside the White House.
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Hey there everybody, I am here to sing the same damn note I've been singing for the past week and a half.
Your Daily Action Item:
Go here.
https://oversight.house.gov/subcommitt…/national-security-2/
See these folk? I want everyone to blast these congressfolk's social media accounts with this link:
youtu.be/LHcY4YZYcg8
It's the video of Steve Bannon calling for the rise of "church militants" that you may have seen floating around. I want to make sure every member of the House Subcommittee on National Security is aware of Mr. Bannon's radical views and outright calling for the destruction of America.
For each representative, share the video on BOTH Facebook and Twitter--links are provided on the House website.
Take a second look. Are any of these representatives YOUR representative? Call them and inform them of the clear and present danger to our country that Mr. Bannon represents.
Example script for Facebook:
Good morning. I am sending this to you because of your placement on the House Subcommittee on National Security. Please review this video of Mr. Steve Bannon, the chief political strategist to the president, openly calling for religious violence.
youtu.be/LHcY4YZYcg8
Example script for Twitter. This should meet the character limit even after @ing the rep. in question:
Good morning. I am sending you this bc u r on the House Subcommittee on Natl.Security
youtu.be/LHcY4YZYcg8
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Awesome. This dude basically has my vote for whatever office he wants until he fucks up. (http://www.heinrich.senate.gov/press-releases/heinrich-statement-on-trumps-appointment-of-steve-bannon)
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Y'know, if we get out of this alive and with a functioning representative democracy? http://democracyjournal.org/arguments/keep-it-simple-and-take-credit/
* CK Fucking salutes.*
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Y'know, if we get out of this alive and with a functioning representative democracy? http://democracyjournal.org/arguments/keep-it-simple-and-take-credit/
* CK Fucking salutes.*
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/10/30/2015-27143/student-assistance-general-provisions-federal-family-education-loan-program-and-william-d-ford
Here's the federal register entry for the REPAYE regulations that have allowed me to save thousands of dollars on student loan interest over the past year and a half. I had to read them to understand how the regs worked to know if I could use the benefit.
Buried in this entry is the reason why: the regulation HAD to be complicated and HAD to have some unpopular features (notably using AGI of a borrower and their spouse, rather than just the borrower's AGI to calculate payments) because the DOE lacks the statutory authority to write a simpler rule, because a simpler rule would cost too much money. So you get a complex rule instead. Best they could do with what they had.
Now let's talk about simple, easy-to-understand actions you can take credit for. Ever hear of Trump's Muslim Ban? It's simple, and easy to understand, and the simplicity of slamming the door on everyone, immediately, with no exceptions, is the very factor that has caused untold human suffering over the past 2 weeks. If he had enacted the same ban, but it had been effective a month from now with a boatload of specific exceptions for people already in the visa process, it would have been significantly less destructive.
It's the same with legislation - if you want to, for example, enact a healthcare law in a way that doesn't blow up entire industries and send thousands to the unemployment lines, it's gonna be complex. by necessity. And if you're gonna enact legislation that does some good but you need a few Rs to vote for it, you bet your ass it's gonna be complex, by political necessity.
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DeVos in.
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So are we allowed to make fun of the American education system now?
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You could do that already. Now it's just sad rather than funny.
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Jim- Yeah, political sausage is messy and Obama was president under rather awful circumstances all around. But that's not really the point.
Like... okay, REPAYE? Send out a fucking bat signal for that!
Stamp the Obama Emblem on all those bridges!
Make the Republicans pay in blood for 8. Straight. YEARS. of doing nothing. Instead of, y'know, making gains hand over fist on the basic premise of "Government has failed, look at it failing!"
The ACA is complex and sometimes unpopular, and people don't respond to big numbers much. So why hammer on the numbers and not the more straightforward bit of how it's saved lives of uninsurable, let the self-employed get actual coverage, and is the first wave of much-needed Medicaid expansions?
Basically the only thing Democrats really trumpeted about during the entire Obama administration with a clear a to b line drawn for the audience was "We killed Bin Laden". Which people respond to! But apparently the focus groups just can't get behind straightfoward lines being drawn so people know how their lives have improved over 8 entire years? That's just freakin' dumb.
Also: we have seen today the limits of "get Republican votes", ie "not enough to matter, half of them are bought and paid for and the other half are actually in favor of radical Christian supremacy". SO yeah, trying to reach across the aisle is just getting Dems their asses handed to them, and since no small part of the Left is watching all this VERY CLOSELY it's almost certainly going to come from both ends.
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DeVos in.
Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.:
" ... she is the most incompetent cabinet-level nominee I have ever seen. Last night, I urged my Republican colleagues to oppose her nomination, because if we cannot set party loyalty aside long enough to perform the essential duty of vetting the President's nominees, then I don't know what we are even doing here."
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CK I generally agree that Dems could do better at messaging. I took issue with the article you posted and its Obamacare flow chart. That's clearly not messaging - whatever it was taken from was a good faith effort to actually explain the details that people eventually need to deal with.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/02/the_democrats_never_had_a_chance_against_betsy_devos.html
Anyway, I hope the amount of attention Democrats have put on Betsy DeVos - who they had no chance whatsoever of stopping - demonstrates that they're doing what they can with the very, very little they have to work with.
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https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/02/14/frances-marine-le-pen-quietly-pledges-to-end-same-sex-marriage/
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Flynn out, Puzder (Mr let's replace all humans with robots) dropped. This is unraveling at an incredible pace.
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Let's not get too optimistic here. If the Senate Republicans was going to chop off 9 of the patient's fingers to cure him, and then became convinced that perhaps they should only chop off 8, this is definitely a step forward, but it's still pretty bad. Merely the people Trump has who've already been confirmed can keep the truck headed for the cliff at high speed. (I hope I'm wrong.)
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It's too early to feel safe.
I'll finish you here
This news merely means that I am a little less depressed, but I can't even be cautiously optimistic until either Bannon's out or congress gets its shit together and actually holds Trump accountable for blatantly being a corrupt Russian tool. And congress isn't doing that so long as it's under Republican control, no matter how undeniably egregious Trump's infractions become.
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I'm not particularly optimistic but there's a sheer lack of basic competence here. That makes the range of possibilities pretty wide, for good and bad.
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It's true. The more publicly badly things go for Trump, the less coherent he becomes, and the more he takes it out on his staff, who take it out on their subordinates, who then leak to the press to cope with the stress and frustration, which only destabilizes their boss further in a feedback loop of infighting and petty recrimination. It's an astonishing primer on how running a business =/= running a government.
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Abuse, where trickle down economics actually work!
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Cid let's not forget: Trump is pretty shitty at running businesses too. His talents lie in self-preservation, not management or strategic vision.
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Dear God.
Listening to the live news conference right now.
It is...so bad it's DEPLORABLE
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"Unhinged" is way too kind a word for that clusterfuck. Hell, so's "clusterfuck."
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I'm reckoning with the fact that a significant proportion of the country watched that press conference and cheered because he took on the media and told it like it is.
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https://gop.com/mainstream-media-accountability-survey/
https://mobile.twitter.com/Jose_Pagliery/status/832680689795358721
Maybe the most childish thing the Trump administration has done so far
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I do wonder if there's a point where Trump's approval ratings slip to the point where the GOP has to jettison him. I think it's remarkable that they'll essentially abide by anything to get tax cuts for the rich and an ACA repeal. If everyone hates him by the midterms, it is possible that the House is taken back even with gerrymandering. Anything meaningful that gets blocked requires GOP congressmen and they're falling right in line.
https://medium.com/@SenatorJohnMcCain/dont-count-america-out-b009355ab990#.bn6nzfuw8
uh huh. I have to wonder about his incentives because he has his senate seat locked down and yet still won't defy Trump in any meaningful way. McCain's rep as a maverick has never been particularly meaningful in his votes. The dude made fun of his military service. Where's the fucking line?
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I don't think that there's any floor of approval low enough to deter their tacit support. Only public disclosure of some truly unprecedented treachery (I.E., undeniable proof of actual collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia which irresistibly leads to overwhelming public demand for prosecution) will force their hand in actually denouncing and opposing him, and even then only from necessity. But every Republican congressman in a position to actually pursue any meaningful investigation into the administration has steadfastly refused to do so--instead, they are now voicing more significant concern over the people leaking information about the Trump administration's transgressions. The implication here for our new standard of governance is chilling: it isn't what you did wrong that matters, but what you got caught doing wrong. The solution to Trump's blatant scumminess and the polling gap that it fosters is therefore not to disavow and prosecute Trump and his cronies for their infractions, but to minimize public knowledge of his crimes.
Public disapproval of Trump's general shittiness might move individual congressman in the short term on specific issues, but it will not lead to any sea change in the party's behavior. They need him more than he needs them. In spite of Hillary's flaws as a candidate, do we actually think that Pence could have won on his own? Mike Pence is a charisma-free zone. It was Trump's sociopathic grandstanding that got them the White House back, not the appeal of the traditional Republican platform. But thanks to him, they are free to focus on what really matters to them: cutting taxes for the rich, at the expense of everyone else's benefits and privileges. He is wonderful cover for this. It's easier for the public to focus on the latest dumb thing Trump said or did than on the dry, legislative reality of shredding the social safety net and demolishing the environment for the short-term gain of a wealthy few. They won't forsake this deal without incontrovertibly damning proof against Trump, and they will fight to keep any such facts out of the public eye.
Because there is one thing at least that both Trump and the GOP can absolutely agree that they want to get out of this administration: they want to guarantee that no one can get them out of power again. There's zero chance that Trump will accept a lost election in 2020 and peacefully step down, but more to the point, we should absolutely expect every coordinated effort to prevent this eventuality from even being possible. Voter suppression laws will be a reality on every administrative level; this has been a trend with Republican-controlled state legislatures for the past several years anyway, and with Sessions as AG we should only expect this trend to accelerate. Polling failures will not move the Republican party, because their approach is increasingly to lean hard upon their base and simply disenfranchise anyone who might vote against them. When people write in the future about the death of democracy in America, they will conclude that it could not have happened without the Republican party's Faustian bargain.
And yes, nice speech there, McCain, I agree with everything you said, it's exactly the kind of thing that you should be saying in the context of American politics, to your own party. The maverick rep he's tried to cultivate has never in reality had any teeth. There is no line that Trump can cross to make McCain do more than bleat occasionally in mild protest. He's too much a party man to actually do anything other than go with the flow. So he'll complain publicly once in a while to maintain the reputation of a principled conservative, but in practice we should expect him to do nothing whatsoever to hold Trump accountable for his own actions, nor to pressure his party into taking any meaningful stand against the administration's excesses. Because Rowling was right: it's harder to stand up to your friends than it is to your enemies. And McCain hasn't got it in him.
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McCain voted for Betsy DeVos. I don't think you need to say more than that.
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Only two things demand that much blind loyalty. Donald Trump, and the Republican Party. Turns out getting people to do whatever despite their personal beliefs while dangling a power carrot (https://stocklogos-pd.s3.amazonaws.com/styles/logo-medium-alt/logos/image/power_carrot00-01.png?itok=bYompbWx) in front of them is a pretty good method of clawing up power for yourself.
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I'm rather enjoying watching Milo get completely destroyed this morning. Someone named Reagan Battlion (No, seriously) started up a much deserved outrage storm over his comments on Pedophila after Milo got an invite to a leading 'conservative' conference this weekend.
McCain voted for Betsy DeVos. I don't think you need to say more than that.
DeVos is incompetent, but as she is truly small change next to some of the other things Trump is doing. Come on impeachment, I have a bottle of Tequila waiting for that day of celebration!
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DeVos is incompetent, but as she is truly small change next to some of the other things Trump is doing.
Indeed, but her incompetence is so obvious that she makes a good litmus test for "will you vote against the most blatantly idiotic bullshit Trump is willing to tee up for you?" Even Joe Manchin found the stones to vote no on that one.
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Pretty much what I was getting at, yes.
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https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/i-dont-want-to-hear-another-fucking-word-about-john-mcc-1792493680
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Yep
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The town hall ended up being overflowing, had a friend text me that people were being turned away by the time I looked at going there last night. I'm glad for the outpouring of civic pride here. http://wavy.com/2017/02/20/congressman-scott-taylor-hosts-town-hall-meeting-in-va-beach/ Taylor gave pretty thoughtful responses here, which is good.
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Unsure if this should be in Politics or IotD.
Decided there was minimal difference currently.
http://linkis.com/iowastartingline.com/yzVnD
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...
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
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What, is OK a fan of unreliable Jüdische Physik?
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Also, breaking news: Mitch McConnell is an asshole
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Have there been any news reports on how likely that thing is to getting passed?
Three real thoughts on reading the article. First, the person ends it with a rhetorical flourish of stating that this is wrong because universities are places for a diversity of thoughts and opinions. I think that there could in fact be a solid defense of this bill along those lines by pointing out that there is a trend of an overrepresentation of certain viewpoints and beliefs among those who act as instructors in institutions of higher learning, and as such forcing them to hire people with more different viewpoints would thus support the goal of having students interacting with and understanding more ways of seeing the world. Secondly, given the sort of person who'd go about and make a bill like that, I suspect that one major flaw will be that it'd be in force even in departments where the politics of the instructor should never matter, at all. So, basically everything but the humanities, liberal arts, and philosophy. Third, I also suspect that this guy isn't putting in the sorts of safeguards you need to make an affirmative action bill, like this is, work. Namely, are there provisions here that show how this bill will eventually lead to its own obsolescence, are there provisions for showing how the ideological makeup of faculty is changing, for showing how this change willbe self-sustaining over time without legal oversight, and when they can expect this to happen so they can track expectations vs. results, and effectively know when they can stop forcing an unfair job market and allow people to apply based entirely on their own merits once more?
Frankly, since applying to a job like university teach is a self-selecting trait, and unlike most affirmative action bills, this one aims for political views, which is also a self-selecting trait, and given there are signs of a correlation between belonging to one political group and seeking to teach at a post-secondary level (or even, I suspect, at any level), I would be shocked to find that there are any unbiased studies which suggest that the ideological makeup of the professors at post-secondary institutions will ever be the same as the general public without it being strongarmed by law or forced hiring practices.
Huh, that took up more than I thought it would. Anyways, on to what I actually came here thinking about.
Not sure I was ever gonna say these words, but I'm kinda impressed by Trudeau's damage control savvy. While I'm not sure how big a percentage of his electoral base they are, there's certainly a very vocal, noisy portion which was in love with one thing they thought he'd do, and another he'd promised to do. Namely, not build more oil pipelines, and changing our electoral system, by fiat if necessary (because having the party in power right now determine the method by which any other party might try to replace them by fiat is a genius idea, but I digress). He's since given the ok to two major pipelines, and he recently dropped the bomb that he isn't going to change the electoral system after all. Cue the sound and fury and the marches and the petitions.
The clever thing is, he dropped that bombshell about two and a half weeks before he was due to meet Trump for the first time. So the dude pulls off some of the political theatre him and his father are so good at, gets along well enough with Trump while landing enough small digs that everyone can read in subtle insults and evasions of the more egregious Trumpisms. And now all that anger is gone because if there's something the noisy ones hate more than pipelines and British systems of voting, it's Trump. And now we're back to a chorus of Trudeau's general awesomeness and even a few shirtless Trudeau pics (though I'm really hoping those go away soon. Damned things were fricking everywhere back during the honeymoon).
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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/1000-protesters-greet-mitch-mcconnell-kentucky-speech-45635639 (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/1000-protesters-greet-mitch-mcconnell-kentucky-speech-45635639)
If people were still unclear, McConnell was kind enough to give us the direct soundbite on how the current GOP/administration thinks and functions. They won the election: therefore they can do what they want. And that's all there is to it. (I think this is what OK was talking about?)
First, the person ends it with a rhetorical flourish of stating that this is wrong because universities are places for a diversity of thoughts and opinions. I think that there could in fact be a solid defense of this bill along those lines by pointing out that there is a trend of an overrepresentation of certain viewpoints and beliefs among those who act as instructors in institutions of higher learning, and as such forcing them to hire people with more different viewpoints would thus support the goal of having students interacting with and understanding more ways of seeing the world.
This is one of the major false equivalencies that drove the US down this cliff in the first place. Not all viewpoints are equal. Racism, sexism, and outright fascism are not equivalent "different viewpoints" or "ways of seeing the world" and absolutely should not receive equal representation in classrooms. Mainly because they inherently argue against the very premises of diversity, and allowing them to take root leads to drastic inequality and human misery whenever they do happen to gain a majority foothold. Such as what's happening right now.
(sorry if that comes off harsh, Excal - not directing that at you personally, as you said, you don't really buy that. Just an all too common viewpoint that I have to speak out against.)
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Yes + their use of "diversity" smuggles in a their desire to return to their structures of moralism that's ultimately what they want. There's a grave misunderstanding of the idea of free speech. Plus I highly doubt a university with openly racist and openly liberal professors and workers would function in the longterm, especially for "business."
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Y'know... there's points of view other than yours and 'racist'.
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But in the main Republicans do not advocate for any of them.
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I don't read that as Dunie was trying to imply that Republican = Racist there. (Or am I misreading Excal and that isn't a response to that in that way?). I parsed it as the explicit scenario she laid out; if this bill was passed and Universities then hired openly racist professors and staff = bad results. Not that this will automatically happen (where do you even get the staffing for that?)
Now in no way not implying that the motivation of the people behind the bill itself isn't so motivated...
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You all will need to be polite to republicans to eventually win them back, but I think it's pretty fair to call every Trump voter a racist motherfucker for about 6 months
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Y'know... there's points of view other than yours and 'racist'.
No!
Edit* Less bitchy version: o rly? How you only took racism from that is beyond my threshold for caring, so, you're right.
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I cannot see a feasible defense for this bill. Like, at all. It is one thing to encourage diversity, but this bill would only be encouraging discrimination. A bill that would give a bonus to universities for having a diverse staff? That is encouraging diversity. A bill that literally enforces discrimination on grounds that it is currently illegal to factor into a hiring and/or firing process, letalone even speak of in most circumstances at work is not. At least, I know it's 100% illegal where I live. And it should be. A university professor job is still a job, same as anything else.
So, yes. Diversity = Cool. But not if you're going to gain it by discrimination, because that's where the problems roll in and when the racists do gain power and positions of authority. For example? See the white house.
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I cannot see a feasible defense for this bill. Like, at all.
Of course there's a feasible defense. Let's start with the fact: academics swing left, and in the past 20 years, have swung much harder left than they used to. And in the past 1 year have also been hugely anti-Trump, i.e. even the bastions of academic conservatism like economics professors and engineering professors have swung hard against him.
There are, roughly speaking, three potential reasons for this:
A) Smart people who've taken a more careful analysis of the issues than most disproportionately swing left. (Stephen Colbert: "Reality has a well-known liberal bias.")
B) Smart people are evenly split down the middle or favor conservatives, but academia is a weird magnet for the lefties for strange or unknown reasons. Maybe liberals really love college bureaucracy and structure.
C) Smart people are evenly split down the middle or favor conservatives, but college professors are liberal bigots who hate conservatives, so they only hire fellow liberals as part of some anti-American litmus test.
Liberals are happy to claim A, but many conservatives quail from this, and perhaps for good reason. (Better to believe that education pushing people left is not true than to think it is true, and thus believe that education is evil and corrupting and best avoided.) That leaves B and C. In the case of B, then that sounds like a problem government can and should correct! Big government when it favors us, woo. And in the case of C, hey, it's the liberals who fired the first shot, you don't get to complain about discrimination when you started it by discriminating against us. That'd be like people in an industry that was 98% male complaining about incentives for hiring females if that threatened to upset the "natural" 98% of the workforce being male thing, without realizing that the current situation was artificial to begin with.
It might be "obvious" to all of us that the answer is A, but it's easy enough to see the logic from the other side... people believe what flatters their own position, like liberals calling every hurricane proof of climate change, and conservatives any snowy day as proof that global warming is a hoax.
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Snowfire: Even were reason C true, which I'm not saying it is or isn't, but if Reason C were true, then shouldn't the reasonable reaction be to follow through on the fact that discrimination is part of the hiring process? Because I don't think people should discriminate in any direction, personally. Like, if Person A is supposed to hire professors for College A, and they are asking questions that pertain more to political affiliation than to the job they are interviewing for, then that is discrimination and should 100% be followed up on so that Person A no longer has a job in power and authority. However, if Person A is simply asking regular, neutral questions that have nothing to do with anything but the job at hand, and this happens to involve hiring more of a certain political party, then that is still natural.
Also, about people complaining about incentives for creating a diverse workforce, unless the incentive is flawed to begin with, then complaints are going to roll in no matter what you do because it's impossible to please everybody.
Ideally, we should be striving for a world where nobody who discriminates (for any reason) should be in a position to do things like hire for a company or institution. And at the same time, that means we should be free to create incentives, as necessary, to help encourage a more diverse workforce without it leading to further discrimination. To take your 98% male workforce example: If 98% of the workforce is male, and this is a natural situation, then even with a proper incentive to hire more females, the employer will only hire females if they are a good fit for the job, not just because they're female. This would lead to a situation, however, where if the employer has multiple potential hires of roughly equal potential for the company, they will be slightly more weighted toward hiring the female one(s). And this is good, because a workforce dominated by a single gender to that degree is just plain awkward for everybody involved, and eventually this will lead to an equal split, which will result in happier employees because now everybody feels more comfortable and represented. Now, if the workforce is an artificial 98%, then even with a proper incentive, the employer will still only hire males aside from the "token female," because it was artificial for a reason.
Also, in all honesty, I am going to say that I am okay with utilizing greed and other such motivators to motivate people who otherwise don't care about things like this to create a more diverse, welcoming society. For some people, that's just what it takes to get them to pitch in, and that's fine. More people creating a better society is better, regardless of the motivations, IMO.
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Well that's the core question of affirmative action, no? That sometimes it's okay to discriminate to correct a huge imbalance. Fair enough that you might disagree with it in general, though. And I do agree that in the long run, businesses being rational will iron out these imbalances... eventually... it's just potentially slow. (Faster in industries that live and die fast, slower in ones that don't.) (And of course it's massively hypocritical in that many Republicans also are against affirmative action for, say, blacks, but are for oppressed conservative - see Jim. I'm slightly joking by taking the affirmative action argument seriously here but applying it for conservatives.) That said, this isn't a "neutral" matter like whether the dudes hired for the construction project are white, black, or terrorist refugees. Education is pretty darn important. Imagine if... and yes this is ludicrous... if for some strange reason, Mormons consisted ~95% of your local teachers, despite being a minority in general. And furthermore, these aren't quiet Mormons; no, they're aggressive, evangelistic Mormons, who won't shut up about Joseph Smith and his golden plates in classes, and let their Mormonism color their entire teaching. In a situation like this, taking a stand to reduce the Mormon percentage of teachers starts to seem reasonable, no? That it's free indoctrination of schoolkids for a minority? Well to some conservatives, the situation in academia feels identical. Liberal professors have their whole teachings colored by their liberalism and won't shut up about how America is evil and whites are racist, and they're like 95% of the academy, and they're not shy about spreading their faux-"religion" to their kids. It's just as bizarre and frustrating a state of affairs for them as the all-Mormon school system would be for non-Mormons.
Lest this sound like assuming too much about the "other side", I point you to the box office numbers of these surprise low budget Christian hit films:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_Not_Dead_(film) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_Not_Dead_(film))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_Not_Dead_2
I suppose I should stress again that it is a feasible and wrong defense, but it's wrong because the premises are invalid, not because it's logically invalid. i.e. if alien slugs were going to invade in 2018, then the government building salt guns would be entirely rational, but they're not, so the salt guns are a waste. But for people who really really passionately believed in the alien slug threat, it's madness to act casual and not take action.
(Although, to be sure, I wouldn't be surprised if *some* departments really did recoil violently against any potential conservative profs and be reluctant to hire them, aka the option C that some conservatives fear... Woman's Studies and various Ethnic Studies departments come to mind. But I have to assume that very few conservatives even major in them, since they're inherently colored by leftist politics a bit.)
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Y'know... there's points of view other than yours and 'racist'.
Oh. Please. Do explain. In detail. I'm bored and want to eviscerate someone's arguments.
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Sad links
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39049670
http://m.hindustantimes.com/india-news/srinivas-kuchibhotla-s-family-says-sports-craze-led-him-to-death-alok-s-dad-wants-son-back/story-nh0chWgkDD2J01C6TQxh1J.html
http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2017/02/24/muhammad-ali-jr-detained-immigration-fla-airport/98376180/
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/fake-sweden-expert-on-fox-news-has-criminal-convictions-in-us-no-connection-to-swedish-security/
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Well that's the core question of affirmative action, no? That sometimes it's okay to discriminate to correct a huge imbalance.
Snowfire's basically hit on the point I would want to hit on. There are arguments, and they're generally used more by those on the liberal side of the equation, that discrimination is totally fine so long as it's being used to correct a greater wrong, and that's it's being used in a fashion which is meant to be temporary and where you can measure the effectiveness of the measures taken in order to see that they either will be temporary, or that they're ultimately useless and can then be scrapped and replaced with something that will work. And honestly, the only reason I can be ok with affirmative action policies is because of their dedication to using equality of outcome only as a means to transition to a proper equality of opportunity.
In this instance, I'm a firm believer in Snowfire's scenario B. It seems patently obvious that the people who love education and academia just also tend towards a certain political bent as well. That said, while I can understand the frustration in this, I certainly feel it at times as well, I don't really see any use or point in legislation like this because I don't think you can use the hammer of the law to create equality of opportunity here. That that equality effectively already exists, it's just that the people you'd need to create 'balance' just aren't terribly interested in taking those opportunities. At which point, *shrug* whut'cha'gunnado?
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In addition to any natural inclination of academics to be liberal, there's also the fact that American conservatism, at least, has developed an anti-academia bent that's going to alienate those people just because it's very rare to want to join a political party that hates you personally. See also why there are few Trump supporters in journalism.
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As someone who is actually in education, B is absolutely true. Consider a statement such as "We can all be successful in life, but to do so we will need the help and support of others." Poll people on how much they agree with this statement, and without question you would see liberals scoring it higher than conservatives. Yet, of course, independently of that, those who go into education would also tend to strongly agree with that statement (we believe in the desire of that supportive "other" so strongly that we choose to try to be that for hundreds of people as a living). That suggests a rather obvious correlation.
Actually I think all three of Snowfire's suggested reasons are true to some extent (although my personal experience leads me to agree with Excal that B is probably the strongest), and Shale's absolutely, 100% is as well.
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You guys are forgetting the very real fact that the Republican party is in the midst of being co-opted by people who are openly calling for a White Ethno-state in the US. FFS Steve Bannon spoke OPENLY at CPAC the other day, and in the crowd MANY people, especially young college republicans, openly identified as White Nationalists.
So this normalizing and arguing that, "Oh, those poor little small government conservatives aren't willingly going into academia it's technically okaaaaaaaaaaaaaay" is all well and good in a vacuum but Dunie was right to cut through the disingenuous bullshit and jump straight to the conclusion: A bill like this means more White Nationalist professors spreading White Nationalist ideas and need I remind you that White Nationalist is PC for FUCKING GODDAMN RACIST. This bill isn't being proposed with a geniune care for rounding out academic discourse, it's being proposed to make it EASY FOR WHITE NATIONALISTS TO SPREAD THEIR IDEOLOGY DURING THE FORMATIVE YEARS WHERE HUMANS FORM THEIR WORLDVIEW.
For. FUCKS. SAKES. Any time any of you want to play devil's advocate about this shit, stop and recognize that you're arguing as if all this shit's going down a vacuum. Read between the lines. Take things in context. You fucking Perpetual-Motion-Birds-Who-Keep-Drinking-Water.
Fun fact: Devil's Advocate is an Anagram for Useful Idiot.
...and if it took you too long to realize the former doesn't have a U in it I think my point has been made
EDIT:
Unrelated, but my town hall's facebook feed had an astroturfing campaign regarding House Resolution 30, some resolution to condemn a dog eating festival in China. All of the accounts had nothing but animal abuse shares and whatnot, so it was pretty obviously an organized astroturfing. Just be on the lookout for people talking about that so you can call them out on their shit.
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I nearly waded in there to point out that not only is it a pointless smoke screen, but you know also racist as fuck. That wasn't PETA protesting there, it was people using "LOLOLOL CHINESE EAT DOGS AND PUPPIES ARE GREAT" to completely derail conversation when these same people you can guarantee eat beef and lamb.
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I now feel compelled to clarify what I had thought was unwarranted. And I'm just laying it all out, with the first assertion that black folk can talk about more than race. So let me go back to my original post, which was in wholehearted agreement with Alex's description - yet I was the one addressed and slighted.
To continue.
"Yes + their use of "diversity" smuggles in a their desire to return to their structures of moralism that's ultimately what they want. There's a grave misunderstanding of the idea of free speech. Plus I highly doubt a university with openly racist and openly liberal professors and workers would function in the longterm, especially for "business."
First sentence: structures of moralism. I have to unpack that. I mean preferential treatment to male employees, I mean Board of Regents and Presidents of unis who have more of a habit operating conservatively in states with red dominance that leads to "balance of opinions" rescinding LGBTQ "protections," I mean Muslim students having little psychological protection on campuses because Red Democrats of the University of Free Speech wants to imagine free speech as saying anything without repercussions, I mean student suicides understood unanimously as tied to increase in gun ownership but those people who would never save bystanders in the first place feel the most threatened and demand their corporeal space. That is not free speech. That is ensuring dominance. It means returning to the exclusivity of voice, because let's face it - most "liberal" colleges are few and far in between, beyond many paywalls, not relevant depending on your geographic mobility, and students (and their parents) at every single university, private, public, religious have the negotiating power in their idea of what free speech should be - not professors of any political background. They are the customers. Education is not what it was when it could only be for so few.
Second sentence: openly racist AND liberal professors. I suppose this is where the word "race" was mention and someone clutched their pearls. Okay. I'd love to hear about everyone's experiences at US educational institutions, because they are breeding grounds for so many profound emotions that don't just reach the so-called student population. Sifting faculty by a chosen and, arguably negligent, political affiliation misunderstands free speech at its very foundations. Has anyone taught student populations in US unis? Because you'd know that the students have the keys to your failure or success, especially if you're one of the many adjuncts saturating the market, and even if you broach the topic of "expanding our understanding by bringing in multiple viewpoints" (re: uh, duh, classroom makeups are changing dramatically in ways more than race) frightens students who are not used to forming critical opinions about anything other than their feelings. Why is it that LGBTQ/minority TAs and professors always receive the worse reviews, especially at institutions that are primarily white? Would anyone really feel comfortable spending a lot of time trying to look beyond systemic issues of racism, sexism that are uncontrollably regardless of your BA/MA/MS/PHD/lifeinloans education? If so, that's time I'm not willing to waste and I guess congrats on that beautiful spot you have with the in-crowd to not experience that stuff.
I don't care to speak about the case scenarios, but I don't mean to invalidate them. They are not a conversation I plan on investing energy into, clearly. But I am absolutely against any legislation that tries to give political affiliation the same weight of race, class, sex, gender. Sure it's relevant, but I'm shocked that Iowa unis (and more than likely other majority-white areas and unis) are thinking of even entering into the ether. A variety of opinions is already a given, but to assume that political affiliation is the legitimate balancer is an old boy's club game (to clarify: re, not you, the legislators). Public unis are grasping their purse strings for federal aid. Rarely would a professor, by themselves, expect to preach to students some trickle down liberal or conservative or radical or wtfever when they prefer to keep their jobs and colleagues' respects (aka, normally professors issue joint letters, not singular, and if they do they tend to step down and leave) and sanity. Can they argue for this? Sure, just like Abbey argued reverse racism at UT Austin where the black student population (because she seems to only view BLACK people as the only other contending race) is only 7-fucking-percent. The implementation of affirmative action is so uneven it's functionally unclear. If unis are trying to hold onto the funding that allows state legislators to keep cutting state support as tuition costs raise, then they are never going to view the hiring process as "we need a trump supporter," "we need an obama fan," and function in the long-run once students wake up to how much their wasting their money at this particular business.
MAN. Imagine if course catalog listings had: "Art 101, Julia Dunie, Black Woman, Democrat." I wouldn't have a job because courses wouldn't fill at most unis. I can only prove this by seeing how hard it is to fill "contemporary" (ALERT, POLITICS) by tenured well-published faculty in my own department. I can't take such legislation at face value. There's always underlying messages.
Written without editing, take it as you will.
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https://twitter.com/AdamHSays/status/836416602736312320/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
jesus fucking christ
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Not surprised, honestly - terrible interpretation and illustrates she clearly doesn't have the knowledge or skills for this job, but the way this has been going in the last 2 months, it's going to take a lot more to actually shock me anymore...
Comments on other stuff that's been said:
Zenny is right about a "bait and switch" - there was an article on Fox News that I can't find anymore, but it basically said "While the liberal media focuses on one story (the travel ban), President Trump distracts them so he can put the real important policies in place (around the time Bannon got on the national security council)". It was flat out stated there, and that's worrying - there's so much shit going on, I do see something important getting veiled.
I don't know if I'd call every Trump voter a racist mother fucker (although a number I do think deserve that label). I think there are some people, particularly in rural parts of the country (Appalachia, etc.) who heard "jobs" and believed him, and that's why they voted that way. They are going to be terribly disappointed (he's not bringing back coal, at least in the level they're expecting), but that's what happened.
And...*looks at self and his colleagues* yeah, colleges to attract liberals. There are definitely some conservatives, but they're left-leaning conservatives, and they were terribly disappointed with the election.
I've felt the need to apologize twice so far for our country to the international students we have. Pretty fucking pathetic all things considered.
I've given my rep and senators several calls - I understand they've been inundated, still. Hopefully some reasonable Republicans (uh...whose left? the 2 who opposed Devoss?) will come to light and really discuss things and work together bipartisanly (not going to happen, but I really hope - the partisanism is ridiculous on both sides).
I am mortified of what happens with healthcare.
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I don't know if I'd call every Trump voter a racist mother fucker (although a number I do think deserve that label). I think there are some people, particularly in rural parts of the country (Appalachia, etc.) who heard "jobs" and believed him, and that's why they voted that way. They are going to be terribly disappointed (he's not bringing back coal, at least in the level they're expecting), but that's what happened.
When the best, most humane possible argument you can make for voting is "fuck you, got mine" it's pretty dire.
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I don't know if I'd call every Trump voter a racist mother fucker (although a number I do think deserve that label). I think there are some people, particularly in rural parts of the country (Appalachia, etc.) who heard "jobs" and believed him, and that's why they voted that way. They are going to be terribly disappointed (he's not bringing back coal, at least in the level they're expecting), but that's what happened.
Even in that case, all but the most dirt-stupid had to know they were voting for a guy who would fuck minorities over and decided that it was a good trade for them. (In other words, "fuck you, got mine!") That's not sheet-on-head racist, but it's still racist.
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Everybody here is underestimating just how catastrophically stupid voters can be. This is vaguely heartening in that it means they might not be complete racist dickwads, but the level of stupidity required to miss the racism is horrifying in its own way. It does imply these voters might be changeable the next election, although how to appeal to people who apparently believe anyone who stands up and says "I am a supergenius at creating jobs, trust me, all the bad things in my history just make me a Relatable Guy Like You" is unclear.
Proposal: it is generally pretty rare to be racist against yourself. (Dave Chapelle's famous skit notwithstanding.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/yuma-county-arizona-latinos-trump.html?_r=0
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-probably-did-better-with-latino-voters-than-romney-did/
Quotes I am not making up:
"I liked what Trump said about keeping American companies in America,” Garcia said. "Yuma can use some of that. We need jobs, but we also need workers."
"I voted for Trump — we need to shake things up. But I’d like to hear his plan to give more visas for agricultural workers," Mr. Martinez said. "If no American wants these jobs, are we going to let the lettuce go rotten?"
What is the one thing that Trump was pretty consistent on? Immigration restrictions! How is it even POSSIBLE to believe that Trump was going to OPEN UP immigration? Apparently because Trump = good businessman = he'll know it makes sense for the economy. Crazy. (And... Trump isn't even a particularly good businessman anyway! It's just a brand! ARGH)
Anyway, just as those 30% of Latinos who are also Trump voters might not be racist (sexist, though...), presumably something similar could be said for phenomenally stupid non-Latinos as well. They are the people that the Democrats need to win back. Get your focus groups ready.
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Hopefully some reasonable Republicans (uh...whose left? the 2 who opposed Devoss?) will come to light and really discuss things and work together bipartisanly (not going to happen, but I really hope - the partisanism is ridiculous on both sides).
Hello I am here to Grinch it up again, you pinged on a thing that's been bothering me seeing it repeatedly.
DeVos was confirmed by the narrowest margin possible, a tie vote broken by VP Pence with lots of mulling and rumors of opposition before the vote. It seems like a lot of people are looking at this and thinking it is a good sign. "Some Republicans opposed her, and she just barely got through! That means there's hope for next time, right?"
Wrong. This was actually the worst possible outcome for Democrats and a strong signal that the GOP remains united and well coordinated.
Voting in a connected, politicized body is not naive. Individual members of Congress do not vote for their own consciences, or even their home constituents. They are spending their careers, in some cases their entire lives, in this environment. Don't think about your home experience with going to the polls and casting your individual vote however you like. Think about a Mafia game, or a show like Survivor or Big Brother. Alliances, factions and group voting blocs are not just norms but inevitabilities. If you can be sure of anything about congressional voting, it is that every vote everyone casts has been discussed, prenegotiated, planned around, and possibly traded.
There are no "brave reasonable individual Republicans who stood up to DeVos." That is not what happened. What happened was the Republican senators saw an opportunity for big PR gains. They conferred and figured out the precise number of how many Republican anti-DeVos votes they could afford, and then decided who among them were going to get to cast those votes (and hopefully reap the exact rewards in reputation that we're seeing).
The fact that they were able to do this so precisely, down to the actual tie, is a sign that they have 100% confidence in their membership to act exactly as planned and ordered, and they felt there was no chance even a single senator would actually break rank and flip the outcome. We'll call this case A. Now, a narrow defeat here would be the worst possible outcome for the GOP, they lose the vote *and* show weakness *and* miss opportunities to gather goodwill/favors from the opposition, so they surely want to avoid that. If they were actually worried about that possibility, one would expect to see them either: B. concede that battle and toss DeVos fully out the door, with many Republicans voting against her to buy what "bipartisanship" goodwill they could, or C. double down hard, call in favors, and make whatever threats they needed to make to ensure DeVos passed with as many votes as possible.
If you really want to, I guess you could believe that option C happened there and they just barely forced her through. But that doesn't make much sense to me - it doesn't match the votes on pretty much any other recent issue, and DeVos herself is so dumb and divisive that it's hard to envision a reason why the GOP would choose C over B. In other words, if they thought there was any real danger of losing, they would've abandoned the cause entirely and told Trump to pick someone else.
The only realistic way that we see the outcome that actually happened is if Republicans are fully in control of their own party, everyone's on board, and they're dictating votes down to the individual. This is vote bloc 101 stuff here, it shouldn't really be surprising, but... there's this myth of the noble individual congressperson who just goes in to their job every day and debates from their soul and votes as an individual, and, and maybe everyone just does that, and then we open the box and see which side had more people that believed in it with their whole heart!! That's how love and justice work in democracy?!! America!!! <3 <3 <3
No, that's not how it is. No, not for anyone. No, not even on the Dem side. No, not even if you "call your congresspeople enough;" they do not, in fact, "have" to listen to you. In fact, we can see right now how the "spam their phones!" stuff backfires pretty hard. Even on the Democrat side, ain't nobody want to work with someone who's going to listen to and encourage phone spam rather than traditional alliances. (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/16/dnc-leaders-unhappy-with-party-activists-aggressiv/)
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Alex is right both on voting and that your representatives can choose not to represent you and actually demanding representation from them is going to cause backlash.
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Wrong. This was actually the worst possible outcome for Democrats and a strong signal that the GOP remains united and well coordinated.
It's a signal of that, yes, but I think the outcome for Democrats was perfectly good.
Dems successfully vilified her, and raised her profile to the extent that she can be used as an attack ad. I mean, Joe Schmoe doesn't know who Obama's education secretary was. But the awareness is pretty high that a) DeVos is education secretary, and b) DeVos is unqualified, or at least in some fuzzy lizard-brain sense, bad.
This is a person who McConnell HAD to allow 2 republicans in purple states to vote against, because Democrats were able to parley her poor senate committee performance into popular sentiment. She'll be an attack ad in 2018.
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In that sense it's a staring contest where nobody blinked. Both sides "won" inasumuch as they could affect the outcome through their own behavior, but with Congress the way it is that means the GOP gets to enact its agenda and the Democrats get a campaign ad.
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Not much that can be done about that though; Republican agenda until 2020 minimum (it'd take a major Republican unforced error for them to lose either house in 2018) is a thing that is going to happen.
While the DeVos thing does send the signal that the Republican congress is showing great solidarity with each other, it is somewhat notable that it shows relatively less solidarity with Trump, as do the comments by folks like Graham and McCain. (I know they're just comments, but it's notable that you did not, that I recall, see such comments by prominent Democrats against Obama.)
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Well, Alex, I had the same thoughts you did, that it was planned out by Republicans that way. I don't WANT to think that way, but I know it's a definite possibility. I listened to interviews with those 2 senators right around the time of the confirmation, and they gave seemingly reasonable rationale for why they were voting against her. Yes, that could be planned (and the more I look at the timeline and think about the logic, the more I err on that side of thinking), but maybe it wasn't. There is not complete consensus in the GOP, so it's possible.
Again, though, I recognize the likelihood of getting cross-party consensus in this environment is ridiculously unlikely and way too optimistic. Democrats aren't exempt from this - I'm hearing nothing about working together from their side, just "oppose, oppose, oppose" out of principle. The thing that makes me laugh and cry at the same time is, back when the GOP took control of the senate under Obama, McConnell said that they were going to oppose Obama on everything out of principle. Cause that's clearly the best way to do things. Now, with a complete GOP controlled national government and like 2/3 of the state governments in GOP control, they have the audacity to complain that Democrats and others are voicing their concerns and trying to have discourse on things. They Democrats HAVE NO FUCKING POWER. It's not like back when Obama was in office, where things could be blocked on a partisan basis - stop bitching and work together and fix things if you're so goddamned insistent that it's broken.
2020 is probably when things could change - the senate possibly could swing Democratic in 2018, but I think it's more likely that it either stays the same, gets more GOP, or gets a 50/50 split, which basically means no change from now.
Partisanism bugs me, probably because of the science background. Should we not be making the best decision for the country, rather than sitting in blocks based on ideology? Compromise, it's like fucking marriage, people. Do it, then have awesome make-up sex. Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell yaoi, yo!
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If the Senate swings Democratic in 2018, then I will be terrified, because it likely means that everything has gone directly to shit. 2006 and 2012 were both very, very good years for the Democrats. And furthermore, since 2008, Democratic turnout in prez years has been way higher than off-year elections, due to the changing Democratic electorate. (Old people, who are among the most reliable voters out there, used to swing Dem - and certainly did in 2006, the year of privatizing Social Security. They've since decisively swung Republican.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2018
The Dems need to hold North Dakota, Montana, Missouri, Indiana, and West Virginia, when winning ANY of these races might well be an achievement. (bear in mind that 2012 was when, in a big surprise, Republican idiots won the primaries, basically let the Dems off the hook in Missouri & Indiana, and even then, it was a near thing.) Then they will need to take *3* Republican held seats. Nevada is the only plausible pickup (and it's far from guaranteed), the others are states that would require some kind of 2010 Obamacare backlash wave election to take, like Mark Kirk winning super-Democratic Illinois. Maaaaaaaaaaaaybe Nevada, Arizona, and Texas if there's some kind of massive Southwest backlash?
Gerrymandered as the House is, it's the best hope for Democrats that doesn't involve assuming an utter collapse of the Republican party. That said, the best odds of doing it are probably by collecting the fruits of Clinton's appeal in wealthy, educated, Republican districts like Long Island or Orange County that was useless in a presidential election, but might just swing in the House if we really did end up with an educated coastal elites vs. interior Republicans realignment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/upshot/democrats-best-bet-for-house-control-is-following-the-sun.html
There's also a well-documented trend of some amount of voters to like to "balance out" the party in power. IOW, all those strange people who voted for House Republicans to keep presumed President Clinton in check might now vote for Dems. It's not a LOT of people who do this, but across 435 races, it might be enough to swing 1-3 of 'em extra to the Dems.
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Also, I think Alex is simultaneously right & wrong in his take on the confirmations? Like, right in that it's surely organized, but wrong in that it's a worrying sign of an evil Republican masterplan. Counting votes has been done since 1789. Back In The Day it could be tricky, when a lot of legislation was split within each party, so you could have situations where the other party guys say they'll vote for a bill, then surprise vote against it, but that's not real common anymore. You just ask them; even if they're voting against, they'll do their colleagues the solid of warning them. If you don't have the votes in your party, you don't put it up for the vote, and the nominee is informed to withdraw and cite family concerns or something. That's not new. So... the case of a humiliating surprise failed nomination vote isn't really going to happen.
However, I disagree it was just "PR." Or that if it WAS PR, it was a stupid plan, and not sign of Congressional Republican competence. To Joe Random Voter, a bunch of cabinet nominees confirmed on party-line votes is super-boring, who cares if it was 6 or 8 nominees this happened to. This dissent signals that there's a problem and "even some Republicans" acknowledge it. Look at, say, Obamacare 2009: the fact that some of the then-Blue Dogs in the Senate hemmed and hawwed about Obamacare was taken as "proof" that even some Democrats didn't like Obamacare, because obviously honest debate = they know it's the worst thing evar!!1! There's very little upside for showing any sort of dissent, politically. So... it was genuine discontent. Now, it's entirely possible that, say, 5 Republican Senators weren't happy about it and wanted to vote no, and the leadership said nah, we gotta push this through, we'll give permission to 2 of you to vote against. But... that's still genuine discontent that this conversation was happening to begin with. Collins is a well-known vaguely sane Republican and Murkowski did work in Education back in Alaska and serves on the Education subcomittee, so seems pretty plausible that they'd hate DeVos the most, and felt they just had to vote against, and negotiated with the leadership to do so. Pudzer, meanwhile, clearly saw even larger opposition from Senators, so the System Worked (by which I mean The System Didn't Completely Fail Everywhere, Just Mostly Everywhere.)
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http://www.sciencealert.com/that-thing-the-standing-rock-protesters-were-afraid-of-just-happened
It took less than 2 months.
Edit - Obligatory YouTube Link to express emotions (https://youtu.be/zivqZP3oTw4)
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That happened months ago. Look at the date in the byline.
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Fucking wow. Okay, I should read a ton more news more closely.
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Fucking wow. Okay, I should read a ton more news more closely.
This is 100% bad for you.
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And that is partly why I missed this, because I was trying to look after myself and it has failed anyway.
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So it turns out that not only is Jeff Sessions a racist Confederate gremlin, he's also a really bad liar.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessions-spoke-twice-with-russian-ambassador-during-trumps-presidential-campaign-justice-officials-say/2017/03/01/77205eda-feac-11e6-99b4-9e613afeb09f_story.html?utm_term=.be343a69a2b5
Note the exchange at the heart of this: Franken asks Sessions how he'd respond to information that a member of the Trump campaign was in contact with the Russian government -- presumably looking for a promise to conduct an objective investigation, or appoint an independent prosecutor -- and Sessions' response is to blow straight past the part where he'd be investigating and instead deny any knowledge of Russian involvement in the campaign, or that he personally spoke with Russian officials. Something about protesting too much....
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Damned fools are going to be damned fools: The motto of politics of late. Enjoy a much deserved lynch mob Sessions!
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-gravity-is-strong
nice take on the Sessions revelations.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/03/02/this-lawmakers-bio-touted-a-business-degree-it-was-actually-a-sizzler-training-certificate/
The Iowa version of the academic-balance bill. File it under "educated elite mocking uneducated real Americans who don't merely not have a business degree - which is fine - but don't understand that they don't have a business degree." So... not such a good campaign ad, alas.
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Um. What? That's an article about a dude who claimed his sizzler management course certificate was a business degree. I'm not being coy I literally don't understand what the fuck you're saying.
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He's a guy who was apparently was too stupid to know that Sizzler degree is not equal to business degree, which would be hilarious, except he's also a guy proposing a ludicrous "academic balance" bill like was mentioned above that would actually affect how real academia works, which makes it slightly less funny.
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No heart.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN16A2ES
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No brain, either.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-obama-wire-tapping-trump-tower-phones-235679
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Get your coathangers out ladies, the Republicans are in charge!
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obamacare-repeal-20170306-story.html
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http://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2017/03/07/racist-fliers-appear-on-texas-state-campus-for-the-fourth-time-in-past-three-months (http://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2017/03/07/racist-fliers-appear-on-texas-state-campus-for-the-fourth-time-in-past-three-months)
I've seen some people saying that making current political comparisons to Hitler and the Nazi party is "unwarranted" and "offensive."
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http://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2017/03/07/racist-fliers-appear-on-texas-state-campus-for-the-fourth-time-in-past-three-months (http://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2017/03/07/racist-fliers-appear-on-texas-state-campus-for-the-fourth-time-in-past-three-months)
I've seen some people saying that making current political comparisons to Hitler and the Nazi party is "unwarranted" and "offensive."
but my freeze peaches
ur ruinin my freeze peach by calling nazis nazis
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http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/gop-lawmakers-are-about-to-pass-two-laws-that-would-make-it-nearly-impossible-to-sue-corporations/
A man walks into an election booth.
Ballot paper: who are you going to vote for
Man: just fuck me up fam.
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so. right when settlements for trump university aren't so settled
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/09/epa-scott-pruitt-carbon-dioxide-global-warming-climate-change
Oklahoma proud, yo.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/09/epa-scott-pruitt-carbon-dioxide-global-warming-climate-change
Oklahoma proud, yo.
Oklahoma is too busy polluting it's own water supply while now being in the worse level of drought in the country (as least in terms of % of the state covered; other states might have areas with worse drought levels in certain areas) to worry about pesky things that will cause an additional contraction in clean water supplies.
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https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/840980755236999169
Great party y'all got here. Conservatism is odious shit that needs to die forever.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/--100931
in case anyone was thinking this is a one-off with King, it's very much in line with prior statements. so no giving Iowa a break - they knew who he was when they re-elected him.
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It looks like his human suit is uncomfortable.
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http://www.npr.org/2017/03/16/520305293/trump-to-unveil-hard-power-budget-that-boosts-military-spending
This budget is hilariously bad and even though it's mostly bullshit that probably won't pass, it points out priorities. Things like cutting NIH funding is really obviously terrible. It is already difficult to get research funding right now and this would make it be harder unless you're doing something like cancer research or privatized moonshot projects. Incremental science is not sexy but it is how larger discoveries are made.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/trump-budget-cuts-science/519825/
The other battleground being fought is over Meals on Wheels, which feeds older people. It is getting cut because the "program doesn't work," which... uh...
https://twitter.com/axios/status/842461464631885824
Everyone who thinks this way needs to be destroyed.
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Of course, Meals on Wheels and free school breakfast/lunch do work; there's reams of studies showing that MoW keeps seniors out of nursing homes -- improving their quality of life and reducing Medicare spending -- and that kids do better in school/life when they have a reliable source of food. The only reason you tell that lie is because you don't care whether poor people live or die.
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Also, the Trump administration appears to have decided that the best way to distract from their incompetent kleptocracy is Iraq War 3.0, but against a nuclear power in China's backyard: https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/842695283758776321
Hahahahahahahahaha we're all going to die in fire
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I like that the budget discussion has immediately laser focused on Meals on Wheels - which is a pittance of an expense. It's really the perfect cut to hilight, and Trumps' opponents have made it a proxy for his entire package - putting the Trump folks in the unenviable-to-say-the-least position of needing to publicly attack it instead of attacking less popular and more costly government programs. Good political acumen.
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Big cutbacks at the FAA, too.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/white-house-endorses-plan-to-remove-30000-faa-workers-from-federal-payroll/2017/03/16/ce4a4e3c-099c-11e7-93dc-00f9bdd74ed1_story.html?utm_term=.65ac57a977f9
NextGen has indeed been a shitshow, but it's not clear it'd be less of a shitshow if done even more by contractors than it already is.
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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dissecting-trumps-most-rabid-online-following/
Cool article about 538 analyzing Reddit to death. No big surprises other than the news subreddits being a lot more centered than their reputations.
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Hat is just checking overlap of posts though, and measuring by frequent posters. It should work well for checking overlapping interests. It isn't really checking the behaviours of voters who don't post which especially on big subreddits on less focused topics (like say News) then measuring just by the presence of comments isn't going to give the whole story. News subreddits didn't go to shit because it gets bombarded by far right commenters, they went to shit because of vote stuffing by them.
For most stuff though yeah the method is good.
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https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/845008285916938242
we're the dumbest
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We didn't have a post about the Dutch election with Rutte winning over Wilders?
For posterity that was the blip on the radar where I nearly had hope for world politics for a day.
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there was also van der Bellen in Austria 2016!
hopefully the tide gets taller. elections in the future, work to do...
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How's the French election? I think Macron was doing fairly well last I checked but I don't know much about it.
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I will throw this to our man in the field if he ever surfaces from a Yoko Taro haze.
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Le Pen from the far right is first but likely to lose in the second round
Macron the centrist is doing well
Fillon the right wing candidate is getting one scandal / week and has plunged. Le pen has been in a scandal too but her asshole voters aren't going to care about it.
There are two left wing candidates that share a small pool of voters and don't have much hope (though I like Hamon. I'll vote for either him or Macron)
Macron would be the winner but you never know. He's getting a lot of pressure right now and might be hit by a scandal. He does like money
Yoko Taro for president 2017
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Fillon had this image of austere and respectable right wing liberal who demands sacrifices from the people and won the primary thanks to this image. But then it was revealed he has paid his wife 1 million of tax money to do fuck all and he completely botched his defense. Then we learned he paid his kids with tax money before they graduated. Then we learned about his conflicts of interest re: Putin.
He has no credibility left and has gone full Trump / Berlusconi since then, along with most of the right, which has been really shameful. Dude is scum.
A lot of right wing voters fled to Macron since then.
Schadenfreude.
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Everything still sucks, but let's take a moment to bathe in some conservative tears, shall we?
TEA PARTY MORE LIKE THE TEAR PARTY! BAM!
AHCA? A HORRIBLE CONSERVATIVE ASSKICKING! EAT IT!
GOOD THING Y'ALL STILL GET MAMMOGRAMS, YA BOOBS!
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why sway
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Everything still sucks, but let's take a moment to bathe in some conservative tears, shall we?
TEA PARTY MORE LIKE THE TEAR PARTY! BAM!
AHCA? A HORRIBLE CONSERVATIVE ASSKICKING! EAT IT!
GOOD THING Y'ALL STILL GET MAMMOGRAMS, YA BOOBS!
I am amazed every time anyone thinks Paul Ryan is smart or a policy genius.
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He just keeps getting promoted because he's the most convenient empty suit at any given moment. He took over the budget committee when they needed somebody to ignore all practical or policy considerations and yell about cutting spending. Said yelling set the stage for him to be named the token right-wing ideologue on the Romney ticket. That elevated his profile to the point where he could wrangle an assignment to the Ways & Means Committee. He did nothing there, but as a result of taking no actual stands on anything when Boehner went down Ryan was the only Republican in the party who (a) everybody knew; and (b) neither the Tea Party nor the "moderates" hated. And that's how you become Speaker of the House by getting your ass kicked in a presidential election.
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*ahem*
Paul Ryan is a terrible politician. I had some respect for the guy prior to the election campaign, but then he just stuck is his head so far up Trump's ass that I can't have any respect for him ever. I think I have less liking for him than about anyone else in the government. I am happy the AHCA is down for the moment. Of course, people keep bitching about the ACA, why don't they work together and fix it? 80% of the problems with ACA are not the ACA's fault, it's our fucked up healthcare system, costs, etc. Fix that, ACA is very solid, with a couple changes being all that's needed. "Obamacare will explode" is not true from everything I've read and seen - our healthcare system might explode, but that would affect anything similar. Stop this "repeal and replace" shit - it was never going to work, it was just stupid partisan rhetoric to get a fully Republican government to enact "your agenda", and that hasn't worked out. People had issues with it because 1) you lied about it (lol, "death panels") 2) people don't understand healthcare (yes, healthcare is much more complicated than it seems - clearly, with the AHCA proposal, they showed they don't know how health insurance works).
But, I'm not so naive that I think people will actually work together on this. Frankly, if things explode, shifting blame to Obama or the democrats is stupid - if you know it's going to blow up and fuck over a ton of people, you need to prevent it from blowing up, or that's on you.
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To give Ryan some VAGUE credit, I have to presume he was (ineffectively) trying to sabotage Trump back in 2016 - he "withdrew from active campaigning" after stick-hand-in-her-pussy-gate and all but anti-endorsed Trump, thinking that Republicans would be savvy enough to get what he meant, or care. Hahaha nope. I think his popularity dipped by 15 points after he did this. Not a huge surprise he learned his lesson.
Leadership is a two-way street in a democracy. Right now we have the voters leading the "leaders" and getting rid of anyone who doesn't toe the line, so it's no shock we get modern Paul Ryan, creature of whatever Trump wants. If somehow Ryan changed, then some equivalent would most likely just become Speaker instead.
Also, not to kick the AHCA while it's down, but for all that it was a goddamn disaster that was not policy-thought through from the start, it somehow became even worse toward the end in the quest for votes in an utterly incoherent way, which is really really scary (if not unexpected). You can have "crippled Obamacare" where there's mandatory minimum insurance requirements and flat subsidies based on whatever to help pay for them. You can have "free market rulez!" where you throw away both the requirements and subsidies and let the magic of the market do its thing. Well, in trying to get the Freedom Caucus votes, the AHCA threw away the mandatory minimum insurance requirements, but not the subsidies. This is incoherent and should have been immediately vetoed by anyone who knew anything about policy. That just means "Attention healthy people: I am selling 1 dollar insurance. It doesn't actually cover anything, but we'll split the gov't subsidies 50/50 between us. You can just go get on real insurance if shit goes down anyway." Gov't fraud & waste central. But I guess anyone who understood that in the Republican side had their caring ground away a long time ago.
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You mean the people who came in to power after a piece of policy came in were taking the chance to reform it in such a way that might compromise the very foundation of it in such a way that will ultimately be able to be used as proof that the original policy was a terrible idea in the first place? And then when presented with a choice on whether to compromise it further for more votes after already attaining support from others, didn't fight too hard against the compromise?
Sounds familiar.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/28/republicans-are-poised-to-roll-back-landmark-fcc-privacy-rules-heres-what-you-need-to-know/?utm_term=.e161599a9dab
So this low key bill passed and naturally it fucking sucks. One of TN's worst House members (which is a pretty hard thing to be) is Marsha Blackburn, who has gotten tens of thousands of dollars from Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, etc, and she's been pushing for this kind of thing for a long time. VPN, folks!
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The darkly hilarious thing about that one is...
A) One of the arguments for it is that the FCC was being unfair because it wasn't regulating Google/Facebook/Apple/etc. as well. But they don't have authority to! The FCC is only for telecoms companies. This is like saying that because gun shows exist, gun shops shouldn't have to comply with regulations and background checks either. (Wait, that line of argument IS used.)
B) Also, "Hey, Google/FB/Amazon/Microsoft etc. have this data already, why can't Verizon/AT&T get in on the fun?" Yeah, assholes, if a company screws up, there are ways to not use them. Plenty of people who just don't use Facebook or only use non-logged in Google search. Cable is much more a natural monopoly; yes, satellite companies exist, but they're much worse service. And once you do use a cable service, there's no way to opt out; they get everything. And... they don't even *need* any data to do their jobs! With Amazon, if they don't have your credit card and shipping address, this thing isn't working. With Netflix, if they don't know your taste in movies, you get worse service. None of those arguments has anything to do with providing good telecommunications infrastructure.
C) I think the Trump administration also nixed a rule that required good data stewardship practices and to avoid theft. Say what you will about Silicon Valley, they generally have something approaching a clue when it comes to data security. AT&T? Hahahahahaha no.
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Info Sec is a cost center that provides no revenue. Why should a business ever invest in it????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Is that enough question marks to signify sarcasm.
Edit - Not enough sarcasm, have some more.
I think you are being a bit harsh on the Snowfire, I mean they absolutely can use that data to improve their services. If they monitor people's traffic and record it they could offer a special package to a user to prioritize their traffic to the MindGeek CDN for an additional fee! That's value!
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Well, today's comments from Paul Ryan have cemented my previous statement that he is my least favorite person in the government.
Said best by Bob Corker:
"We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem."
Da fuq
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So, funny story...
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mike-flynn-willing-testify-return-immunity-n740836
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It's kinda funny what'll happen when you get rid of loose ends by throwing them under the bus.
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"We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem."
Da fuq
Looking at the positive, it's awesome that Bob Corker was able to wake up from the coma he's apparently been in since 2002 and immediately resume his duties in the U.S. Senate.
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"We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem."
Da fuq
Looking at the positive, it's awesome that Bob Corker was able to wake up from the coma he's apparently been in since 2002 and immediately resume his duties in the U.S. Senate.
I've been in TN a long time and doubt this will last more than a week.
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So this has been an incredibly eventful... two days.
Bannon removed from NSC.
Jared Kushner being made responsible for solving literally every problem
Devin Nunes recuses from Russia investigation.
Nuclear option invoked on Senate filibuster.
Summit with China.
Launching of ~50 Tomahawk missiles at an airfield in Syria.
Don't know what to say. I need to lie down forever.
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Well, I sure awoke to a firestorm this morning
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So this has been an incredibly eventful... two days.
Bannon removed from NSC.
Jared Kushner being made responsible for solving literally every problem
Devin Nunes recuses from Russia investigation.
Nuclear option invoked on Senate filibuster.
Summit with China.
Launching of ~50 Tomahawk missiles at an airfield in Syria.
Don't know what to say. I need to lie down forever.
^
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So this has been an incredibly eventful... two days.
Bannon removed from NSC.
Jared Kushner being made responsible for solving literally every problem
Devin Nunes recuses from Russia investigation.
Nuclear option invoked on Senate filibuster.
Summit with China.
Launching of ~50 Tomahawk missiles at an airfield in Syria.
Don't know what to say. I need to lie down forever.
^
oh yeah gorsuch is in
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So this has been an incredibly eventful... two days.
Bannon removed from NSC.
Jared Kushner being made responsible for solving literally every problem
Devin Nunes recuses from Russia investigation.
Nuclear option invoked on Senate filibuster.
Summit with China.
Launching of ~50 Tomahawk missiles at an airfield in Syria.
Don't know what to say. I need to lie down forever.
^
oh yeah gorsuch is in
Yeah i agree at least I. The mobile phone era we can post from bed while contemplating our inability to make the world a better place and decide sleep is better than trying to human.
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Luckily everyone seems to have agreed that Iraq is just kind of a thing that happened, and Libya doesn't exist, so bombing the Middle East to get rid of a malevolent dictator is a great idea that can only improve conditions in the region!
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Luckily everyone seems to have agreed that Iraq is just kind of a thing that happened, and Libya doesn't exist, so bombing the Middle East to get rid of a malevolent dictator is a great idea that can only improve conditions in the region!
Plus the previous 50 years of history stretching back to 1953 and Mossadegh at minimum.
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You guys, don't worry - Trump knows more than our generals, and he has said multiple times that he will handle it. And there's no one more trustworthy and honestly straightforward than our president.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/sessions-orders-justice-dept-to-end-forensic-science-commission-suspend-review-policy/2017/04/10/2dada0ca-1c96-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html?utm_term=.81d5560578c6
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-jeff-sessions-wants-to-bring-back-the-war-on-drugs/2017/04/08/414ce6be-132b-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html
Jeff Sessions is quietly really odious and unlike many other agencies that are being left to die, he's making a lot of sweeping moves that's going to result in a lot of bad shit domestically.
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https://www.google.fr/amp/s/thinkprogress.org/amp/p/1655c23a524c
When I thought "respectable american newspaper" my mind always defaulted to the NYT
Not anymore
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New York Times reporters are usually quite good, but the opinion pages have been a shitshow for a long time. Brooks and Douthat are really embarrassing and I don't like Dowd or Thomas Friedman either. Bret Stephens makes that problem worse.
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Give me a break. Your average editorial slate of columnists is a mix of viewpoints, left & right. That is utterly bog standard at most newspapers. It is in fact the whole point of an opinion section. The NYT is famous for having a super-duper-liberal slate comparatively. They have the "problem" that all of the "respectable" conservatives they hired all hate Trump's guts (e.g. Brooks, or Douthat to a lesser degree) and drifted to the center. Having a "token conservative" so that people feel their viewpoints aren't being entirely shut-out is harmless.
It and also makes for a better barometer of opposition / support. e.g., to pick a less contentious time period, if you polled Democrats in both 2004 and 2006 they'd say that Bush sucks and is horrible. You can't tell the difference. You need to ask some conservatives to see a drop in Bush support in 2006. It's the same thing with making a test of all easy questions; you can't tell the difference between the good and the great.
The Washington Post has a similar problem, by the way - they've had *actual* conservatives for a long time being humbly allowed to contribute to their editorials (Will, Krauthammer, Rubin) but all of said conservatives despised Trump, so they're kinda up a creek as well. Elite conservative opinion & street conservative opinion aren't the same.
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Basically, the NYT is respectable because of its main newsroom. The opinion writers are all free-agents who should be judged on their own merits. This doesn't mean that the NYT is gonna hire idiots for beat reporting.
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I don't believe in presenting "both sides" when one side ignores all scientific evidence, and I disagree that it is harmless, the NYT legitimizes this view by paying this guy to write an opinion piece
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My problem isn't so much with the different viewpoints involved but rather that the opinion writers are fucking idiots. Stephens would probably be the among the worst of them and I don't see what adding someone whose opinions are afactual and ahistorical does for you. Even being a "climate agnostic" is a ridiculous opinion to have against the preponderance of evidence out there.
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Two points.
A) My hometown newspaper was run by a conservative, and tended to endorse Republicans a bit more frequently than Democrats. (Considering they made no endorsement in 2016 (http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/editorials/media-s-job-is-to-help-voters-make-informed-choices/article_0cf59776-ffaa-5fb6-a352-b16cba2b924e.html), when lots of explicitly conservative sources endorsed Clinton...) Nevertheless, they ran plenty of liberal columnists (well, paid for, small newspapers & all) in their opinion section. They printed letters to the editors from reasonable people as well as utter steaming idiots. It was a paper for everyone. What's the problem with that? Asking for the NYT to run no conservatives would be like asking for my old paper to run no liberals. It'd have caused my family to cancel their subscription. I want conservatives to read the NYT, not the NY Post.
B) One of the most alarming changes in media is partisans only getting their news from one side. The whole idea of "papers of record" that are a neutral source that tells-it-like-it-is is under threat. (I know that idea never really existed in the UK, and maybe not so much in France either? But it definitely did at one point in the US.) The New York Times editorial section has a reputation as basically being a mouthpiece of the Democratic party. To the extent that they can have *more credibility* in their statements by including a larger pool of viewpoints, what's the harm? Or, to put things in reverse, if Devin Nunes says "hey guys Trump is totally innocent", are you lining up to believe him? But if Devin Nunes and some random Democrat say "hey we looked into this and there wasn't anything there", isn't that at least *somewhat* more plausible, such that even Donald Trump would prefer it?
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NYT not being a main read for me might colour this a bit, but from my experience NYT where it leans left also leans hard into Neo Liberalism, they generally (again my experience) are pretty damned bad on social issues. They don't lean hard into super racist shit or anything, but they don't push any boundaries on anything primarily socially driven.
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This doesn't work for climate change because this isn't something you agree with or not. The problem is that this isn't an ideological battle, but a battle between truth and falsehood, and we need some newspapers to at least draw the line at one point
Would you be fine with the NYT hosting an opinion piece about how Pizzagate is true, Obama is actually an anti american muslim, evolution is a lie?
NYT openly hiring a flat earther to write opinion pieces going directly against what the actual journalists have been saying in the same journal? I don't think this makes the newspaper more credible
NYT has been advertising itself as a beacon of truth in the post-truth area and this is pretty messed up.
I read one French newspaper (Le monde) that stays fairly neutral on all subjects and wouldn't stoop that low, and the general public sees it as a mostly neutral newspaper
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All I can say is: it's the freaking opinion section. It's supposed to have loons who are Obviously Totally Wrong. I dunno, it's like complaining about newspaper comics as being Fake and Made Up stories. Well yeah, that's what they do, they're humor. (And which writers people think are totally wrong varies. Also, most people don't "believe in" evolution, and that's just as much a fact.)
Now, if the NYT hired him to do beat reporting? Sure, raise the alarm then, but for opinions, no. (Unless he proves to be a shitty writer, in which case he should be fired on those grounds.) Put things another way, Will / Krauthammer have been infuriating hypocrites who are ludicrously wrong over at the Washington Post for a long time, and big deal. I know what I'm getting into if I read one of their columns, and they're decent writers at being wrong usually.
This is kinda random, but you ever read "The Road to Wigan Pier" by Orwell? It was funded by the Left Book Club, an English socialist organization, but also included some of Orwell's idiosyncratic takes on why socialism hasn't already taken over. Because the socialist movement was and is endlessly spending time shooting itself in the foot by Socialist A and Socialist B accusing each other of lack of purity, or not understanding the meaning of "diacletic" in the same way and thus being a class-traitor or some such, the editor, Victor Gollancz, put in a ludicrous (but very sincere!) prologue talking about how while he doesn't agree with everything Orwell says, it's a really good work, and only the worst kind of fascism could have an "official platform" where any deviation is forbidden, so I'm publishing it anyway, and please don't get mad at me fellow socialists because Orwell dared say something bad about the current socialist movement tactics. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier if you're curious in more.) It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to include multiple points of view.
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Broadcasting multiple ideas in your content is fine, there is a bundle of other reasons to publish Orwell at the time, some of which is just moving copies.
The difference between a socialist publication publishing a dissenting but still socialist author is an ocean apart from picking up a paper with the NYT branding all over it and pushing the Opinion that the earth is flat and fossil fuels are put in the ground for us to use however we see fit.
Orwellnis still on brand and on message to some degree at least there, if NYT is actually progressive then posting something rooted completely polar to their beliefs is counter productive at best or as I take it, a sign that they aren't as progressive as they talk.
Edit - this same critique goes out stronger to Forbes and its blog section.
Is there room for conservative writers in the publication? Sure, throw in some talk about how the rust belt voted for conservative candidates over economic frustration or whatever, but you are still being judged by the message you are providing a platform for.
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https://crimethinc.com/2017/01/26/this-is-not-a-dialogue-not-just-free-speech-but-freedom-itself
Now THIS is fairly partisan ranting but includes a lot of accuracy for how I feel here. Also, agree with everything Fenrir said. Climate change denial, Holocaust denial, these are not viewpoints and a newspaper is not stronger for including them. Not even in the opinion section. The same people who are dumb enough to believe that stuff are also the people who do not mark any meaningful difference between "It was in the NYT!" and "It was in the NYT Opinions section!" If it was in the publication at all, that's a legitimization, and the use of legitimizations like this is a deliberate tactic employed by the alt-right to spread and normalize their falsehoods. Newspapers have a duty to not print falsehood, even in opinion sections. Opinions can, in fact, be wrong. I am deeply disappointed in the NYT for doing this.
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Publishing "opinions" that are in fact just lies goes a long way toward legitimizing the idea that you can decide what facts you want to be true and proceed from there.
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snowfire i am here to add to the voices telling you you are wrong but fenrir/alex/shale kinda already covered me on the details, so here's some bad poetry
"It's the opinion section they can do what they want"
Ignoring editorial culp-a-bility
The opinion section of the New York Times,
Shouldn't look like the comments you read on line.
The whole point of an established news source
Is to filter out fact based opinion and to have recourse
If the writer's just a lying sack of shit.
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Publishing "opinions" that are in fact just lies goes a long way toward legitimizing the idea that you can decide what facts you want to be true and proceed from there.
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I dunno if the meter scans on that, Zenny.
(also also obligatory "the NYT opinion slate is erratic" in that I agree Dowd & Friedman are way too one-note, Douthat & Brooks are flakes, etc. Mixing 'em up on those grounds would be fine.)
There's lots of areas where there's some weird viewpoint that's totally right but only 5% of people agree with, and that includes you-the-person-reading-this-right-now, and it's super-bad if you can't publish that because everyone else thinks you're really wrong. This means that some people will be published who actually ARE really wrong, rather than ahead of the curve. Like... we've got socialists here, right? Would you think it would be fair if you got a job writing editorials? Because I can find you some obligatory conservatives who would hate on such views just as hard as we (rightly) hate on climate change deniers... they can and *do* whine when leftists get such positions.
If conservative papers stopped running liberal editorials because they're "just wrong" and "legitimizing" liberal views, it'd be bad times. If the cost of avoiding that is running the occasional idiot conservative to laugh at in liberal papers to burnish the idea that everyone deserves to have a say, I'll pay it.
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Climate change denial is not a conservative political view. It is not a political view at all. It does not become a political view entitled to the same protections of equal expression as other political matters just because some number of people say that it is and will whine if it doesn't get equal treatment. It is not, and cannot ever be, comparable to advocating a particular structure of government, because it is a matter of fact rather than opinion.
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I dunno. I could write about this for days. I'm keeping at this one even though everyone disagrees with me because it strikes me as a profoundly bad move solely from a tactical perspective, let alone a moral one, to declare that only blessed liberals are allowed to talk. Okay okay you didn't say that, but "we liberals will only reward straight-up liberal outlets who don't include conservatives." It's not gonna be effective in advancing the cause; it's counter-productive.
A) The right has sung a song for a long time about the biased liberal media and how you can't trust it. Suppose the NYT backs down tomorrow and says "We apologize to the progressive community, we'll only hire new writers we think you'll like." Does this make the NYT appear particularly credible as a source? Sure, the harder core conservatives don't care already, but to the extent that (idiot) centrists exist, and they do, you know, the "Trump is a sleazeball but Hillary is crooked too" types, this isn't good for convincing them.
B) There are plenty of all-liberal outlets you can support, like, say, the Democratic Party. (Or even the Socialist Party or Bernie-affliated fundraisers.) Good! Those have a place. But what's also good, and sometimes even better? A nice "neutral" source that happens to say the same thing. "Reality has a well-known liberal bias" and all. Take a look at various international organizations during the Cold War; they had nice neutral voting rules and identified themselves as international ones, but really, they danced to the tune of the US. Then Republicans and others became idiots and forgot about this and whined, not realizing that paying the UN / World Bank / etc. is an extremely cheap way to exert power indirectly. It's not the US telling you this; it's these friendly international bureaucrats (who are wholly absorbed in the US & "West's's system, and will draw you into it on their terms). These international orgs can do shit the US can't do directly, or if the US did directly would be ineffective and look like neo-colonialism. In the same way, a "neutral" organization that happens to dance to your tune can be highly useful. Classic example: the US Chamber of Commerce, at least since 2000 or so. It is basically an arm of the Republican Party, but one with the tiniest shred of independence that both makes the Chamber look more respectable when it parrots Republican talking points, and serves as something of an warning sign in the rare instances they DO disagree. (Actually just happened again recently, with the Chamber disliking Ryancare. In the same way, if the NY Times thinks the Dems are making a mistake, that's a bit of a "hey guys, are you SURE you want to do this" alert too.) Or, for a Democratic example, various environmental organizations like the Sierra Club are more effective when they very occasionally endorse a Republican. They can dangle the carrot of "hey, you might get our endorsement" and have SOME pull over Republicans as well by doing this; if they simply declared "the best thing for the environment is a Democratic Speaker of the House" - which everyone knows to be true - they just make themselves a branch of the Democratic Party and weaken themselves, even if it's true.
C) Does having opinion show up as fact encourage the idea that all facts are just opinions, so pick the ones you want to believe and like the most? Absolutely! But that's water under the bridge. And it's not getting fixed any time soon regardless of editorial policy.
There's lots of things to hit the NYT editorial section on, but this ain't one of 'em, and even if you really don't like it, it still doesn't impact the rest of the paper a bit. It's circular firing squad, let's attack the NYT for doing something that IMO is actually more likely to help the liberal cause, if that is your sole objective. I know I used this example already, but Congressional Committees. There's a reason they're often times 9 majority party members, 4 minority party members or the like rather than just 9 majority party members. And why minority members, if they really hate the way things are going, will sit out and boycott! The message is more convincing, more respectable if it comes with some minority viewpoints, even though anyone with savvy knows that the 9 majority members were the only ones who mattered.
EDIT: Ninja'd by Alex (I was just going on anyway to myself). Well. I'm not gonna stand up for climate change denial, obviously. But, I stand by "it's the Opinion section" where a lot of stupid shit is permissible. Also, there's "provocateur making stupid shit comments out of field" (which applies to a looooot of editorialists) and "is sincere denialist." The impression I got was more the first. From the ThinkProgress article attacking Stephens:
And while the Times asserts that Stephens brings to the paper, “profound intellectual depth, honesty and bravery,” Stephens won’t even stand by what he wrote for the Journal. He actually told the Huffington Post he is a “climate agnostic.”
"won't stand by what he wrote for the Journal" sounds like a good thing to me! Sounds more like he was randomly shit-talking. Which is stupid as all hell but not unusual. WSJ is paywalled as usual, but "Liberalism's imaginary enemies" sounds like vanilla conservative ranting about how climate change Isn't Really That Bad. Which is incredibly wrong, yes, but not beyond the pale wrong like Nazism. (Anyone with a subscription able to read https://www.wsj.com/articles/liberalisms-imaginary-enemies-1448929043 , by the way? I want to see just how stupid it is myself...)
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You're missing the point. The problem isn't that it's a conservative view. The problem is that it's actively fucking harmful disinformation. Claims that climate change isn't real are claims that can be verified, fact-checked. Facts are not up for debate.
That's the issue. There's a difference between a paper refusing to publish outright lies based on stuff you can fact-check, and a newspaper nixing a submission based solely on the politics of it. Would you not agree that you'd think less of a newspaper if they published an opinion piece advocating for watering our crops/gardens/plants with Pepsi? And not only that but defending it after readers call them out on publishing outright lies?
The fact that "It's their opinion, you can't expect them to base it on fact!" is the default mindset you're approaching the issue with is a huge symptom of the core issue. A large part of the populace refuses to even listen to facts because facts don't line up with their political views. NYT defending the dude because millions believe him doesn't make them bastions of free speech and expression, it makes them look like a joint that doesn't give a shit about facts.
EDIT: Oh my god I just read the first sentence to your reply that you ninjaed in and I think I don't have to read the rest. You really don't get what the issue is, do you?
You also ignore that there are plenty of avenues for people to express their opinions that don't require a news source to call into question how much it gives a shit about fact-checking.
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I am so very happy to wake up to a thread of woke gamers who are critical of the economics of politics and knowledge production. I don't mean to taunt either, but thank you Fenrir, Alex, Grefter, Cotigo, Shale, Jim & the Duck. I would never create the space or pay for the perpetuation of falsehoods, or any opinion which itself always requires the task of investigation. Having such a bad portfolio before you of twisting information is the easiest thing to reject were one not bent on shoddy arguments of discrimination, or even the more disturbing fact that NYT's is inviting a particular demographic that seeks no real conversations or debates with its existing readership - for money and clickbait. Anyway, I really appreciate you all. Thanks.
edit* won't stand behind strong verbal emotions that are not mine though (aka a southern socially liberal way of saying not behind the name-calling)
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"Alternative facts" aren't even a conservative-exclusive phenomenon. I would absolutely think less of the NYT if they hired a columnist who believes vaccinations cause autism, for the exact same reasons. Only a tiny bit less so because there isn't a clear and present gestalt of liberal forces in power and attempting to actually push harmful laws based on falsehoods about vaccines.
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It seems like Snowfire is having a completely different conversation than everyone else. Fenrir's stance was never about upholding liberal bubbles by hating on conservative viewpoints, but rather ones that are completely incorrect. No one here was arguing against the utility of having other viewpoints in decision making. The issue here isn't about political ideology but being able to agree on basic factual premises. If you don't have that, you can't even begin having reasonable discussions. Entertaining these views isn't about ideology. There's anti-vax sentiment from the left that I also find disdainful and that I do not think deserves this platform either.
The NYT and Washington Post ("Democracy Dies in Darkness") have touted themselves as safeguards against falsehoods and misinformation and they have no obligation to hire someone who peddles in horseshit. Even if you don't agree with that, then it's an opportunity cost because there are a lot of different voices on the left and right that they could have picked instead.
"It's just the opinion section" is a really bad justification for this decision. This isn't just some whacko sending letters to the editor, he's getting a regular column every week and he has pushed views that are wrong and harmful, ones that will be legitimized by this platform. I think it would be one thing if the view were "climate change is real but it isn't a pressing concern," because there at least you're starting with a factual premise that you can base a discussion on priorities on. Climate denialism is another issue altogether.
PS,
Best of Bret Stephens:
http://fusion.net/the-best-of-bret-stephens-your-newest-new-york-times-o-1794297718
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Edit before actually posting but Inhad all these words and the suddenly Duck Post. Tldr; fuck the Opinions section.
Man you know you fam and all and don't want this to seem/feel like ganging up on you.
Like, NYT is free to do that, they can make that their brand all they want. I just am flat out not interested in that being the face of "neutrality" in journalism. I want neutral journalism to be that, in the journalism. Present stories and facts from as neutral a point of view as you can. The place for your bias is in your editorials, BUT I think hiring people on just to do opinion pieces is garbage in a news source. That isn't editorializing, as in the people heading up Editting who have to be across most of the damned news in the thing putting out their opinion. Someone paid just to do articles? That is just paying people to give you juicey hot takes that will shift copies, either in rage bait or pandering to their base. If you must get discourse in the paper do it through reader mail (or something else because it isn't 1977) that you are at least remotely detached from (though of course the choice of what to publish is still something). Economically supporting a point of view, especially when you are doing it specifically for that point of view IS supporting that view.
It is trashy tabloid journalism, which is fine for plenty of topics, but can fuck right off out of my politics and world news. I am more interested in a biased news source I can read parse and take into account for it than one that builds up a semblance and image of Quality TM and then uses it to peddle garbage pieces in the name of fairness.
Also to just directly address it, do I think NYT should publish someone with views as far left as mine? Not if they want to be a centrist/neo-liberal nation of some kind. I mean frankly if they offered it I would either be taking them up cynically for a pay check or to try and abuse their reach/branding, since based on there usual dialogue on things I would talk about (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/anarchists-respond-to-trumps-inauguration-by-any-means-necessary.html) my politics doesn't exist, as if Antifa is made up of Anarchists only aka the left wing equivalent of "thug". Shorthand for "these people with ridiculous ideas that you don't need to pay attention to" as if A) Anarchists have no ideas worth talking about and B) those are the only forms of left wing politics that are prepared to be militant.
Edit - okay so upon clicking Duck Link, the quote on sexual assault makes me want to punch my phone. That is the most tone deaf circular argument I have ever seen and the reference of 2 "debunked" assault cases disproving that there is a rape culture on campuses is so fucking intellectually dishonest it hurts.
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Yes I'll echo others here.
The vaccines causing autism comparison is pretty apt.
The unfortunate endgame of capitalism is that if you have enough money and want to spread an obvious lie, you can create think tanks and buy influence until eventually half the population will believe it and the NYT will publish it.
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I do not fucking get it. Yeah, there's a line somewhere for "not appropriate for the papers." It is generally at things like advocating violence. Otherwise, it's a free-for-all.
The whole point of being confident in your ideas is that they will win out in an open exchange. You let people publish their stupid shit, and then you mock them for it for being wrong. You don't soft-censor it. Now, yes, there are a billion exceptions, I'm not in favor of those assholes handing out pamphlets outside abortion clinics or whatever. If there is one place where it should be the most open, it's the newspaper opinion section, which is the area of the body public that is most sacredly reserved for "I'm an asshole and here's my opinion, fight me." If you think that should only be for "correct" discourse, you will regret it. That is the path to fucking Vladimir Putin's Russia. In fact, here's an article on the remnants of the Russian press from the Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/business/media/vladimir-putin-moscow-press-trump.html?_r=0
You want to win? Then argue for lots of freedom to publish whatever shit you want without suffering a boycott if you don't toe the party line perfectly. This shit plays into Trump's hands.
To my knowledge, conservatives don't generally complain to Fox News when Fox hires liberal commentators. (Most famously the Colmes of Hannity & Colmes, back in the day.) They "get it"; that these liberals are there to lose. They get to say their piece and then be shouted down by twice as many conservatives, but they're there, they get to provide their "wrong" viewpoint. It's the same thing. Stephens is being hired to say his piece and then lose.
You're missing the point. The problem isn't that it's a conservative view. The problem is that it's actively fucking harmful disinformation. Claims that climate change isn't real are claims that can be verified, fact-checked. Facts are not up for debate.
Fenrir's stance was never about upholding liberal bubbles by hating on conservative viewpoints, but rather ones that are completely incorrect.
they have no obligation to hire someone who peddles in horseshit.
spoilers but IT'S ALL COMPLETELY INCORRECT AND HORSESHIT. Fuck, do I have to be the one pointing out the garbage coming from the White House these days? The stream of lies headed that direction? You're not going to find many "untainted" conservatives, and those that you can won't be perceived as conservative enough, because they're too sane/rational. Sorry, but if the line was "not completely incorrect" than in my opinion there shouldn't be ANY conservatives writing in newspapers. It's all almost as bad as vaccines-cause-autism! Which is really bad, yes!
The Duck's point about there being opportunity cost from not hiring someone else is fair, but I struggle to imagine the possible alternative if we assume that a rightist is needed for balance. How many honest conservative writers/intellectuals/commentators who only supports things backed up by science (so no climate change denialism & the like) who are also a full-throated Trump supporter are there? I can think of, perhaps, one, and said support is quite contrarian and not really for the same reasons as most Trump supporters. It's also especially weird in a newspaper. Nobody, nobody reads every article in a newspaper, so you're always paying for some content you don't care about, but which piece of content is different between people. Nobody is forcing you to read Stephens if you hate him. (And I for one would probably only hate-read him to get some idea of what conservatives are saying. Which is useful to know, too.)
Also to just directly address it, do I think NYT should publish someone with views as far left as mine? Not if they want to be a centrist/neo-liberal nation of some kind.
Well, Charles Blow is pretty darn left, IIRC. But even if you personally weren't up for it, what's so weird about wanting a range of views that focuses on the left? 1 conservative, 2 centrists, 3 center-leftists, 3 liberals, 2 ultra-liberals? Isn't that a more interesting set than say 10 identical liberals? And even if you disagree, you can surely acknowledge that *some* people might be interested in that?
The unfortunate endgame of capitalism is that if you have enough money and want to spread an obvious lie, you can create think tanks and buy influence until eventually half the population will believe it and the NYT will publish it.
Well, yes. No argument here. Blame for that lies in the Koch Brothers & others for helping spread climate change denialism to begin with. Past a certain point, yeah, it does become a part of society that you can't escape. Put things another way, you're only going so far in Chinese politics if you openly talk about Mao being an incompetent murderer. It's true, but you have to pretend the official story is correct, and work around the margins. And the problem goes deeper than just astroturf money-funded beliefs. More alarmingly, look at something like ethnic tensions. What do you do as a politician in a place like Myanmar, where 80% of the population despise the Rohingya for stupid reasons?
Having such a bad portfolio before you of twisting information is the easiest thing to reject were one not bent on shoddy arguments of discrimination, or even the more disturbing fact that NYT's is inviting a particular demographic that seeks no real conversations or debates with its existing readership - for money and clickbait
I have no idea what you're talking about with shoddy arguments of discrimination. It sounds like the NYT will be *losing* money from this, anyway, but they're doing it anyway because it's the right thing. What exactly is the NYT's evil plan here? Become the favorite paper for firebrand conservatives? Why is it so hard to believe that they'd want a dissenting view, that this doesn't imply they've abandoned their politics?
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I do not fucking get it. Yeah, there's a line somewhere for "not appropriate for the papers." It is generally at things like advocating violence. Otherwise, it's a free-for-all.
The whole point of being confident in your ideas is that they will win out in an open exchange. You let people publish their stupid shit, and then you mock them for it for being wrong. You don't soft-censor it.
News outlets not publishing lies on equal footing with the truth isn't an open exchange of ideas, it's dereliction of the basic principles of journalism. Good ideas may win out over bad given enough time and sunlight, but the "sunlight" part is important -- there has to be some consideration of what the objective facts are. Putting truth and falsehood on an equal footing and expecting readers to resolve the conflict for themselves legitimizes liars as pundits or even experts, sows confusion and wrecks the "marketplace of ideas" model because it deprives readers/viewers/listeners of the framework necessary for choosing which argument to believe. Providing that framework is supposed to be our job.
When you instead print arguments by people like Stephens in the same venue you give to people who aren't lying it does the opposite, even if you also publish takedowns of their work, because you've abdicated any editorial judgment and are just throwing everything at the readers, saying "you figure it out." That's not how you convey information. That's how you confuse the shit out of people and prompt them to make decisions based on political affiliation, self-interest, rhetoric, etc.
This isn't theory, it's easily observable from the last 30 years of national news coverage. The climate change "debate" shows pretty conclusively that when the subject at issue is far enough removed from people's own personal experience that they can't personally test it, no amount of scientific proof will overcome the influence of a committed group of liars.
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Shale: Perhaps, but I just don't see how this won't boomerang. Let me point out again that I read a fairly conservative paper back in the day, but one that nevertheless published a range of opinions from across the spectrum, and said "you figure it out." Even though we're right and they're wrong, I can't see how this exact same argument wouldn't be used by conservatives to censor liberals in the "marketplace of ideas", and would have caused Young SnowFire to only read conservative columns instead. After all, as far as least some of them are concerned, the Clintons are a committed group of liars who hoodwinked America in the '90s or something before using emails and Haiti charities for new evil.
I dunno. I could go on about this for ages. The world Donald Trump wants is one where there is no such thing as a "neutral" authority - there are only differing political opinions. Don't trust the failing, lying New York Times. To accept this and make the Times a "liberal" mouthpiece is to make the Times *weaker*, not stronger. If the Times, as a neutral source, says everything that Trump says is bullshit, that is inherently more powerful than the Times as an actually partisan source. Part of being an apparently neutral source is letting conservatives on, including ones who are really, really wrong about stuff and believe the lies that have been fed to the public for the last thirty years.
And to go more deeply into Fenrir's comment about what happens after you convince half the people some crazy idea is true... well, yeah. I think accepting that is important. There's the truth, and there's what the people with guns *think* is the truth. When you defend the first truth, which is important, you have to be careful to ensure you don't inadvertently give license for the second "truth" to suppress *your* beliefs. The problem is that no matter how right we are and how wrong they are - and make no mistake, we are right, and they are wrong - simply from a perspective of power, there's no guarantee that the "right" side will be in the majority. All throughout history, there have been unpopular, minority opinions that turned out to be powerfully right. (Abolitionists!) In societies that allow unpopular minorities to say shit that everyone else thinks is factually wrong, these viewpoints are allowed to fight it out and gain influence. In societies that don't, they cover up a problem until it explodes, or else risk stagnation. The price of letting ahead-of-the-curve people say their piece is letting piece-of-shit jerks who actually ARE wrong say their bit too. I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it, and all that. If liberalism gives up on this idea and thinks that people who are "factually incorrect" should not be allowed to say their piece, it will boomerang and be used as an excuse to clamp down on anyone who opposes the government. You can't rely on some good philosopher-king to only suppress the actually incorrect opinions. That goes double for right now! So yeah, in a democracy, once enough people believe some shit, you have to give it its due. That does NOT mean accepting it or saying the truth is somewhere in the middle, it means fighting it, but fighting it in the open.
Shutting down the likes of Stevens risks inviting the wrong majority under Trump to shut down newspapers in the future because they're spreading fake, clearly incorrect news that dares speak against the regime, backed by a committed group of liars. It's not a hypothetical threat, Trump has already upgraded his attacks on the media from mere whining. It is in no way irrational to act against this threat by scrupulously upholding a commitment to including all points of view.
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if the line was "not completely incorrect" than in my opinion there shouldn't be ANY conservatives writing in newspapers.....
Yeah, pretty much!
I struggle to imagine the possible alternative if we assume that a rightist is needed for balance.
We do not make that assumption. Facts, journalistic ethics and integrity are the top priorities. Balance is a ways down the list.
How many honest conservative writers/intellectuals/commentators who only supports things backed up by science (so no climate change denialism & the like) who are also a full-throated Trump supporter are there? I can think of, perhaps, one, and said support is quite contrarian and not really for the same reasons as most Trump supporters.
Ok, I think I see what you're saying from this. So the conflict here is between the obligations of newspapers to print and support facts and not falsehoods, and to present differing political viewpoints? I would say the former absolutely has to take precedence. If there aren't any Trump supporters who only support things backed by science, then as a consequence of that, yeah, I guess Trump supporters don't get their views presented in any news worth the paper it's printed on. A rightist would certainly be nice for balance, but it is not needed in the same way that adherence to facts is needed. If you pay that cost then your news starts to be worthless as actual news. If you let "party lines" and political obligations extend that far, to making scientific facts matters of opinion, that destroys the whole foundation of journalism.
I don't agree that there is a meaningful difference between the Opinion section and the rest of the paper, or that the Opinions page is a sacred free speech battleground. Maybe decades ago that was true, but not anymore, and definitely not to anyone who sees things in terms of the whole media being a biased ideological battleground, as conservatives are purported to do so. What's actually going to happen is they run this guy's column, and conservatives nod their heads and go "See, liberals? Climate denial is totally credible, it was printed in the NYT!" "But it was only in the Opinion section-" does not matter, falls completely on deaf ears, "it was in the NYT which is a reputable source even to liberals!" and that becomes a new point of proof that further reinforces and legitimizes it.
Fox News is not a preeminent brand with international reach and credibility. Quite the opposite. "Appeared on Fox" does not give anything weight or credibility. Even people who watch Fox as their primary news source don't trust Fox implicitly, they know, as you say, that Fox is a biased outlet and any liberals on there are automatically there to lose. The NYT *is* a brand trusted to provide factual reporting, and anything appearing in it - even Opinions - carries an implicit stamp of approval and legitimacy, one of the highest regarded in world news media. At least, right now. That's going to go downhill fast if they start hiring people who support climate denial and similar alternative facts, or report on them as credible in any way. Maybe it gains a sliver of approval from American conservatives... at the cost of losing it everywhere else.
The Times maintains neutrality not by presenting all sides, but by sticking to facts.
Or from another, much simpler angle: advocating violence against immigrants and minorities is *also* an inherent part of the Trump supporter alt-right conservative platform. If alternative facts aren't enough, perhaps that makes it more clear why we are saying this platform should not receive a voice of advocacy in reputable journalism, and why "provide a voice for both sides" can't take precedence over it?
https://medium.com/@juliaserano/free-speech-and-the-paradox-of-tolerance-e0547aefe538
Seen a ton of articles on the subject over the last few months, wish I had a better one at hand, annoyed this is all I can dig from specific memory at the moment.
Also yes Snowfire, we are chill, please do not take this personally or feel dogpiled.
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Shale: Perhaps, but I just don't see how this won't boomerang.
I don't see how it could -- there's no cause and effect relationship in this "boomerang," there's just assholes making an excuse for doing what they want to do anyway. Favorable coverage and a "we throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall, you decide" paradigm in the media was hugely important to Trump's election and it didn't stop him from declaring war on the press within weeks of taking office. The excuse is not the actual reason -- they'll come up with a justification to do what they want no matter how deferential you are, unless you decide to cross the border into outright collaboration. If anything, the more the media plays into the "Democrats say X, Republicans say Y, who knows what truth is?" framework, the easier it gets for the noise machine to make up fake transgressions and be uncritically believed.
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I want some type of conservative voice in mainstream publications. Not because I want some kind of fair and balanced thing (I've long since accepted that for a lot of reasons the media leans towards a center left view of the world; which annoys the far left as much as it does the right), but because it helps protect against some of the fake news claims. It's too easy to write off a media source if it's 100% of one political view and voice, and helps to lead to things like Infowars/Breitbart/etc gets traction with voters. My local paper was largely left of center; they ran some right of center writers though ot all. IE They refused to run Ann Coulter after 9-11 which is fair enough.
I would feel the same regardless of my politics. American discourse has been badly hurt by tribalism on both sides but whoof, right wing media in particular is a special kind of dumpster fire.
The right has been seriously hurt on the whole by talk radio and the rise of the internet; it's destroyed the ability of publications like the National Review and the Weekly Standard to play gatekeeper. I don't know what the solution is other than purging the Limbaughs of the world with fire but that's not easy to implement.
E: I don't have an opinion on Stephens in particular, never really read him myself. Specifically to the point: are there any mainstream right wing/right of center writers that you wouldn't object to being hired for that post?
(If you did want to read a good right of center site, try this. Though they are very much #nevertrump so they are, like me, politically homeless atm: https://thebuckleyclub.com/ )
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I want some type of conservative voice in mainstream publications.
Sure, but putting on my editor hat, I feel very strongly that if those voices can't pass a "don't be a habitual liar" test, that's not my fault.
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Okay, after reading the last two pages I felt like I had to weigh in a little bit. (Disclaimer for everything I say below: for those who don't know since I don't tend to broadcast my politics too much, I generally identify as very liberal.)
I definitely understand/empathize with you, SnowFire, insofar as that the NYT (or indeed any reputable newspaper of record) editorial pages need a balance of opinions both liberal and conservative. On that, I agree. The trouble is, as everyone else in the thread has pointed out, separating legitimate matters of opinion (e.g. debates on the merits of, say, single-payer socialized medicine versus free-market insurance coverage) from things which are not matters of opinion no matter how much some people want to cast them as such (e.g. whether or not the Holocaust actually happened).
Now, to be clear, I do think the editorial pages possibly have some place for discussion of climate change, so long as it is presented correctly, and the facts are appropriately laid out. There is, I think, room for legitimate debate about to what extent humans have influenced or accelerate climate change versus how much it is a natural cycle (and I'm not sure even the scientists really agree overwhelmingly in that regard, other than "we have probably accelerated it some yes"). There is not, however, room for questioning whether climate change is actually happening or not; that it is, is a well-established fact.
TL;DR: "but it's the opinion pages" is not an excuse for the NYT, or any newspaper, whether liberal-leaning or conservative-leaning or neutral, to give objective untruths a platform. Objective lies do not belong anywhere on the pages of any reputable newspaper of record, other than in articles identifying them as such; to print them on the opinion pages under the banner of "but it's an opinion!" cheapens the credibility of your entire newspaper and lends credibility to those lies. Period. If you cannot find enough conservative voices speaking the truth to balance the viewpoints on an opinion page, that indicates a problem with the conservative movement, not with the ideological balance of the opinion pages.
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There's the truth, and there's what the people with guns *think* is the truth. When you defend the first truth, which is important, you have to be careful to ensure you don't inadvertently give license for the second "truth" to suppress *your* beliefs.
Oh my god. That you don't understand how ironic this passage is killing me. Making lies look legitimate by dressing them up as news is a large part of why it's so impossible to talk to the half of the country you disagree with. Not only are we operating on different sets of facts, but it's also night impossible to the uninformed to figure out if something as basic as what they hear in the news is fact or some demagogue's horseshit. Pretending liars simply have a differing political opinion and letting them sell their snake oil alongside doesn't defend truth, it actively makes the problem worse.
The fact that "beliefs" and "facts" are so conflated in your mind that we can't even have manage to have the same conversation IS IN FACT, THE FUCKING PROBLEM.
EDIT: To wit, I get that your problem is, "How do we address the political divide in the US, shouldn't we try to bridge it?", let me ask you. Put on your empiricism glasses. NYT keeps this dude on. What's the liberal response? I think we've pretty much covered that one. Now, what's the conservative response?
If you're under the pretension that the response will be a decrease in number of accusations of fake news, and an uptick in conservatives basing their opinions on facts instead of what stories line up with their worldview, then I have a bridge to sell you.
I guess it comes down to this. You think that playing the big boy game, the take-the-higher-road game, the same game we've been playing for 30 years is the way out of this hyperpartisan hellhole we've found ourselves in. I don't agree that there IS a way out of this hyperpartisan hellhole, so frankly, I don't think letting liars in newspapers is going to do much at all that's practical except discredit those newspapers.
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Well, I don't want to fillibuster forever, so I'll try and keep this brief. Suffice to say, this is something I'm really passionate about. When the Framers wrote the 1st amendment and talked about freedom of assembly and freedom of the press, "newspaper editorial page" is, to me, like ground zero of that. It is among the most important places where people can bring up their opinion despite the fact that everyone else thinks it is stupid and wrong. Very often it actually IS stupid and wrong. But that's the place to do it. When you say a person shouldn't be heard in the public square, you are attacking your own right to be there.
So yeah. Re Alex's good post, I do want the opinion section to be a special space cordoned off for that like it was 1982 again. Maybe it is dead, we'll see how things unfold in the next 4 years. (Edit: And yeah, I remember seeing that article on the paradox of tolerance. I'm actually fine with denying good speaking platforms for Nazis like Spencer! I think he'd cross the line no matter where it gets drawn.)
The fact that "beliefs" and "facts" are so conflated in your mind that we can't even have manage to have the same conversation IS IN FACT, THE FUCKING PROBLEM.
I tried to crank up the volume before, but just in case it wasn't high up enough: I absolutely, 100%, do *not* conflate beliefs and facts. There's a lot of issues where in fact one side is wrong, and the other side is right. And hell, I'll jump on the train for attacking the Times and some of the other "mainstream media" for sometimes covering the 2016 election in entirely too horse racy a fashion, for all that the reasons behind that were understandable.
What I disagree with everyone about is the proper way to fight the wrong belief. If the NYT's sole goal is liberal advocacy - it's not, but let's say it was - it would be more effective at said liberal advocacy including a token conservative or two. Even ignoring the high-falutin' "big boy, take the higher road" style which says all points of view should be reflected at least a little, the "low road" might well suggest doing this anyway. So no, I'm not just saying "How do we address the political divide in the US, shouldn't we try to bridge it?" I'm saying that if you are single-mindedly trying to advance a liberal agenda, you *still* actually want "neutral" sources. Both the high road and the low road lead to the same conclusion. (Well, if you're actually correct, at least. If you're the Republicans, you might do things like preemptively talk shit about the Congressional Budget Office, a neutral source, because you know they're gonna bring up awkward facts about Ryancare and the like. So I'd get it if *they* want to abolish neutral sources that call them on their bullshit. It makes no sense for the side that should be more confident in being "right" to be wary of neutrality.)
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I have no idea what you're talking about with shoddy arguments of discrimination. It sounds like the NYT will be *losing* money from this, anyway, but they're doing it anyway because it's the right thing. What exactly is the NYT's evil plan here? Become the favorite paper for firebrand conservatives? Why is it so hard to believe that they'd want a dissenting view, that this doesn't imply they've abandoned their politics?
A very short answer is needed here.
Shoddy arguments about discrimination:
Liberals think it is okay to post only liberal things until conservatives point out something along the lines of "reverse discrimination" as the opportunity to publish with X company. BOTH sides are remiss to assume that each perfectly portrays facts. That is just baloney. Do you understand now?
I hope the NYT's loses money, not because it is bringing in a conservative voice. It should have lost money from its liberal supporters way back with its blind presidential reporting. It should lose money because it is -clearly- failing to give platforms to voices that value the facts. I value the facts and I happen to be liberal-leaning. I also value conservative views that value the facts. SHOCK I do not care for or will invest in anything that chooses to peddle fiction as fact.
Can opinions contain facts? Yes, I am sure we would all agree. Can facts contain opinions? Yes, I am sure we would all agree. Here is the catch: just what impact facts AND misinformation can make is the issue-- either convincing people that returning to coal is a good thing to the detriment of so much environmentally.
If you disagree that the opinions section can be harmful by liberal, moderate, conservative viewpoints - and in particular now a certain kind of conservative that is resistant to nonreligious "facts" - that is probably a central issue in communication here. Are you just waiting for liberals to admit they are problematically resistant to certain views?
Anyway, if NYT's hired a convincing conservative religious type who could debate their points and science well (meaning being able navigate fact and fiction well) I think that would be a good thing.
Do you get my points now? If not dwell on it.
Where I disagreed was the idea of allowing more space for misinformation, and yes I admitted liberals can do the same. And? Thus I would demamd the NYT's rethink how it advertises itself as a fact-based toptier news source. The end.
edit edit edit after actually reading your responses to more than me:
I am just currently standing on the side of putting most of my energy into "independent" news sources, businesses. The NYT isn't a stage for me in this battle, since I have been strongly skeptical of them after cancelling my subscription in 2013. But the NYT has had and still has conservative writers. If our goal as consumers is to repel Trumpbabble and Trumpdiscrediting, I am not settled with battling the mainstream. I also don't get the point of criticizing where people want to put their money- yes you can ignore sections but your money still goes to it. Yes abolitionists could fight for antiracism but they still filled their tea glasses with sugar in a system propelled by unpaid labor and racism. For the record, Bret Stephens is a really convincing writer and that might frighten people some as well.
Thanks for the linkdrop super, I've been really interested in more stable platforms for conservatives but hadn't done the work of looking for such unfamiliar sources.
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dunie: I don't really get the overall point of what you're saying. (So... for "do you understand now" and "dwell on that", the answer is basically no, but it's a sincere one, not a sarcastic one - I'm not trying to criticize.) Not "disagree with" necessarily, I certainly agree that both liberals & conservatives can be wrong, misinformation is bad, etc., but don't get what it's leading to. I don't think I'm waiting for liberals to admit anything?
I'm certainly not criticizing where people put their money. People can buy or not buy for whatever reasons they like, certainly no moral obligation to purchase a subscription to a product you have qualms about! However, backing up, the original point from Fenrir was:
When I thought "respectable american newspaper" my mind always defaulted to the NYT
Not anymore
i.e. that the NYT goes from respectable -> not respectable by hiring this jerk. If you didn't like the NYT already due to their presidential coverage not being what you'd like, that's fine! But... that case isn't really what I was talking about. I was talking about "The NYT is cool" -> "The NYT is no longer respectable" specifically because of hiring an opinion columnist with wrong/bad opinions, and focusing in on that idea specifically.
In the realm of "conservative religious type", the Times has Douthat, if you ever read his stuff at all. He's a bit of a flake at times but he's okay as a read, and "respectable" in that he opposes Trump.
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So, circling back to Fenrir... thoughts on the French election? According to well-known connisseur of international politics Donald Trump, the attack might be the Avril surprise LePen needs... linked to a non-respectable newspaper for fun.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/world/europe/paris-champs-elysees-gunman.html
Also, snap British election coming up soon... could be alarming. It sounds like Labour is still in shambles, so this is pretty scary. I rather doubt the Lib Dems have broad enough appeal to ever be a replacement opposition party, so if Labour collapses hard, it could end up with something stupid like the SNP being as big as Labour and a huge Tory majority largely of the pro-Brexit flavour of Tory... ugh.
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dunie: I don't really get the overall point of what you're saying. (So... for "do you understand now" and "dwell on that", the answer is basically no, but it's a sincere one, not a sarcastic one - I'm not trying to criticize.) Not "disagree with" necessarily, I certainly agree that both liberals & conservatives can be wrong, misinformation is bad, etc., but don't get what it's leading to. I don't think I'm waiting for liberals to admit anything?
I'm certainly not criticizing where people put their money. People can buy or not buy for whatever reasons they like, certainly no moral obligation to purchase a subscription to a product you have qualms about! However, backing up, the original point from Fenrir was:
When I thought "respectable american newspaper" my mind always defaulted to the NYT
Not anymore
i.e. that the NYT goes from respectable -> not respectable by hiring this jerk. If you didn't like the NYT already due to their presidential coverage not being what you'd like, that's fine! But... that case isn't really what I was talking about. I was talking about "The NYT is cool" -> "The NYT is no longer respectable" specifically because of hiring an opinion columnist with wrong/bad opinions, and focusing in on that idea specifically.
In the realm of "conservative religious type", the Times has Douthat, if you ever read his stuff at all. He's a bit of a flake at times but he's okay as a read, and "respectable" in that he opposes Trump.
I think the main issue here is you thought my first post related to the NYT was an indirect rebuttal to you. Correct me if I'm wrong. No, actually I was talking about the general conversations that people who enter discussions have about the diversity of views through "reverse discrimination." I was not considering your response at all when I mentioned "shoddy arguments." My point in the first related post was "NYT was never cool, screw these sort of debates, I want facts from everybody." So even though I backed the wokeness of DLers before, color me unsurprised by the wrong flavor of jerk. After this explanation, I'll be honest and say that I don't know how to clarify even further because this is what I believe I posted about. I was never debating you but did agree generally with everyone that editorials have a firmer role in news reporting than they appear.
And so here is a further rant which isn't debating you: I wonder how much money the NYT's lost since then? It doesn't seem to be much if newsworthiness of that isn't happening, I suppose. But if NYT and other pubs are following the flow of Twitterphoria, hiring a conservative, contentious misuser-of-information editorialist seems like clickbait more than scaffolding diverse and open conversations. It'd be that liberals either completely remove their financial support or that they beeline to his editorials to scapegoat retweet & re-share examples their view of what is wrong with everything.
You know, I'm writing this after reading about Flint, Michigan (pipeline laying), Nestle plastic-bottle pumping, Trenton, New Jersey (high levels of lead; I grew up here for four years) and the shithole recessive "third world" situations in our own country. Written and spoken rhetoric that undermines caring environmentally, therefore socially, and instead places the ordeal of healthy living and caring for ecosystems on people crippled by economy and big business should never recieve one dime. Yet it does. People die as we wax poetically about upholding diverse views. It hurts. I think it was said in some way, shape or form here, but the equivalent of "quit telling folk to empathize, sympathize or try to understand with the oppressor" is what cuts for me in this entire conversation --- in what became a much longer ranty-post than I expected, what I only want to understand from the powerful misinformers across the board are their tactics, so as to deconstruct or resist.
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And so here is a further rant which isn't debating you: I wonder how much money the NYT's lost since then
They've claimed they've broken subscription records since Trump got put in office. He's been good for business for papers.
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le pen will most definitely win the first round, only the second counts. And people who didn't vote for her on the first are not likely to vote for her on the second.
And Le Pen always gets really good scores on the first round (she'll be first this time) but hits a glass ceiling on the second round.
Le Pen and Macron are in a runoff now after the end of the second round. Macron is leading but not by much.
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Macron has like a 38 point lead in the polls head-to-head with Le Pen... This isn't comparable to Hillary v Trump.
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I'm usually pessimistic about politics (I expected Trump to win, and Fillon to go against Le Pen) but things look hopeful here.
Le pen only got 21,6% on the first round. Where is she going to get the last 28,5% needed to win, as a far right candidate running against a centrist?
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The only possibility I see is an anti-EU and anti-immigrant defection of voters on the far left. But from what little I know of French politics that doesn't seem too likely?
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Yeah. Melanchon's base is less communist working class and more young and hopeful. Think Bernie Sanders' base. I don't see his voters going for Le Pen. Leaving the EU, maybe, but not like that.
The only issue I could see is mass abstention on the 2nd round
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I like that your runoff elections are so quick. The runoff for my district 6 (VOTE YOUR OSSOFF YALL) is June 20th, elections were April 18. :-\
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Oh god yes. I'm happy there aren't two more months of uncertainty.
It will all be over in two weeks.
I'm sad for Hamon, who was reasonable and humane (he gave an especially powerful speech post defeat) I really don't want Melanchon to devour the rest of the left
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There wasn't much evidence that Le Pen has any kind of hidden vote or would outperform her polls here, and yeah, it seems that the path for her to overcome that huge a polling disadvantage would be a huge defection (most of Melanchon voters will not vote for Le Pen) or if nobody votes. I'm unsure what turnout/energy is for this but I hope it's high.
I like that your runoff elections are so quick. The runoff for my district 6 (VOTE YOUR OSSOFF YALL) is June 20th, elections were April 18. :-\
I think it's undercovered that this is a crazy result. The GA6 had fucking Newt Gingrich for years and for it to be possibly go blue is kind of incredible. Trump is very unpopular and the GOP is branded with a disastrously bad health care bill (and the new one looks worse), so this shit should be easy to run against and there should be someone put up in every district. This seems obvious but the Democratic party is so decimated in some states and districts that they aren't running anyone at all. Hopefully this energy keeps up into 2018.
Also, this week it's worth paying attention to what will happen with a possible government shutdown, with the WH insisting on payment for the stupid wall.
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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/le-pen-is-in-a-much-deeper-hole-than-trump-ever-was/
It's been making the rounds bit I don't think it's been posted here so: 538's analysis of why LePen is in deep doodoo.
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There wasn't much evidence that Le Pen has any kind of hidden vote or would outperform her polls here, and yeah, it seems that the path for her to overcome that huge a polling disadvantage would be a huge defection (most of Melanchon voters will not vote for Le Pen) or if nobody votes. I'm unsure what turnout/energy is for this but I hope it's high.
I like that your runoff elections are so quick. The runoff for my district 6 (VOTE YOUR OSSOFF YALL) is June 20th, elections were April 18. :-\
I think it's undercovered that this is a crazy result. The GA6 had fucking Newt Gingrich for years and for it to be possibly go blue is kind of incredible. Trump is very unpopular and the GOP is branded with a disastrously bad health care bill (and the new one looks worse), so this shit should be easy to run against and there should be someone put up in every district. This seems obvious but the Democratic party is so decimated in some states and districts that they aren't running anyone at all. Hopefully this energy keeps up into 2018.
Also, this week it's worth paying attention to what will happen with a possible government shutdown, with the WH insisting on payment for the stupid wall.
We're also trying to flip District 32, Democrat Christine Triebsch came out on top with a 3% margin and people vote again May 16. This is the Marietta area (re: we don't want public transit because it brings brown people-area). Her campagin finances pale in comparison. Georgians can be tempestuous - we've pretty much had a democratic governor since the 50s until Bush but crazy low voter turnout per districts. Even this year for District 6 is halfish of 2008 I believe.
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http://uproxx.com/technology/reddit-red-pill-founder/
EDIT: longer article http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/25/the-republican-lawmaker-who-secretly-created-reddit-s-women-hating-red-pill.html
and some of his comments:
"When I'm out with friends, including girls, you know EXACTLY what the conversation will entail, it's gossip or fashion, pop culture, trendiness, personal experiences. Nothing abstract. They do not chat in the abstract...when I told myself I thought they were smart, I really had the footnote in the back of my head... smart.. for a woman...But you know what two-way conversation I'm never going to have with a woman is? About how interesting special relativity is. How I consider the free-will argument to be moot because time travel causes paradoxes that render the concept nonsensical. Oh, sure, they'll be interested, or at least act like they are. But there will be no two way conversation...I don't hate women. I just understand what use they are to me."
“ I find women's personalities in general to be lackluster and boring, serving little purpose in my day to day life."
“Would you believe that religion and shaming of divorce was put into place to control female hypergamy? What you see today, with the decline of the control the church has on our society: divorce rates going up. Men getting screwed. Men inventing game to counteract the changes feminism brought to our society."
“women will gladly see to it that you do, in fact, die alone...Women will do what they want. They will do what ever fits their fancy. They just plainly do not give a shit!...But you have to be awake to the reality that in the woman's mind- her emotions are the only thing that matters to her. She will be fickle and can easily up and leave with literally no regrets..."
“Religion and Marriage were constructed to keep female hypergamy in check. Unfortunately, infidelity is no longer looked down upon and excommunication from the church doesn't matter. Since women can make money themselves, there's literally no reason for them to stay married."
“Women voting was an inevitability. I do believe old social structures like religion, marriage, honor, family lines, stuff like that were all constructs to keep hypergamy in check (among other things). As we lost those, we lost monogamy...If sexual strategy is amoral, then the question I guess we should ask women is this: Are you happier now? Though I don't think we'd get a terribly insightful answer to that, because there are plenty of women from old traditional marriages that are happy despite the controls keeping their hypergamy in check. If we ask a chick from today, she'd look at the old ways and say "heck no!" to that, because it wouldn't feed her hypergamous instinct, no matter how unhappy that truly makes her."
“Feminism is a sexual strategy. It puts women into the best position they can find, to select mates, to determine when they want to switch mates, to locate the best dna possible, and to garner the most resources they can individually achieve...Yes, game got a bad reputation from girls who demonize manipulation. This is because game is an effective strategy against their own sexual strategy. I believe women's opposition to game can be attributed to the unconscious factors in women's sexual strategy"
“Today's women are trained the following way: 1. Following your emotions will make you happy. 2.If something makes you unhappy, you must not have been following your emotions. 3. Therefore, if something makes them unhappy, it goes to show that they did not opt for that decision, because following their emotions will make them happy, and therefore they follow their emotions...nobody taught women that their decisions could possibly have a negative or less than perfect consequence...Standing strong as a man means pushing forward. We do not concern ourselves with our current emotional state. Instead, we put objectives in our head and work towards them. If something makes us unhappy, we make objectives to rectify the situation. Our current emotional state is something we work in spite of, not as slaves to. Women, however, have no such inclination..."
“Sometimes people call me an asshole. They say what I do is wrong or evil towards women. You know what I always say back? "Well if they stopped rewarding my behavior with sex, I probably wouldnt do it!"
“I feel zero regret or shame pumping and dumping."
“Due to statutory rape laws, perfectly viable women under 18 are out of bounds. Fine. Evolutionarily, that was never a problem, but today we have to deal with it. So 18 is the bottom end. And for women, 30 is wall. So women have a window of 12 years."
“I spin a soft harem."
“I live in an area unaffected by racism...nd my life is untouched by sexism...trust me- it's not popular to just say to a woman "Stop being a bitch." Not because she wasn't, but because she justifies her emotions by having emotions..."
“This particular brand of woman is entitled and thinks bringing a pair of boobs grants her equal footing with somebody bringing intelligence or a personality. The least she could do is approach dating with some humility. Not everybody is going to pay your meal ticket because of your tits."
“The only problem I've had with seddit is the growing culture of betatude that's cropping up in the comments on all posts there. Things like "no don't do that, it's creepy" which really steers the conversation in the wrong way."
“Well for instance, the increased awareness of rape- through feminism- has enlisted white knights to start doing the mental gymnastics for them. Guys start looking at other guys as rapists, anybody exhibiting what's considered "creepy" behavior is now on watch."
“We not paranoid, in fact we're just realists!...We're becoming strangely good at a sexual strategy, and we're using evolutionary theory to lead the way...It can easily be seen when I describe an incredibly erotic night with a women I just met and get accusations of being creepy or rapey from everybody except the woman who enjoyed the fuck out of herself that night."
“There is literally no legal protection I can think of that could eliminate the risk of a previous sexual partner of mine falsely accusing me of rape, no matter what the circumstances. I now have a video recorder in my room."
“Also if she feels insulted, your incidence of false rape accusations or pregnancy scares go waaaaaaaaay up. You might think I'm paranoid, but statistically, I'm overdue for a false rape allegation."
“I'm going to say it- Rape isn't an absolute bad, because the rapist I think probably likes it a lot. I think he'd say it's quite good, really."
“15 year old girls have boobs. Puberty doesnt strike at 18 overnight. Secondly, not creepy- 15 year old girls and guys are commonly sexually active. Its just illegal."
(in response to someone saying that the Rep's point was "one should not have sex with underage girls because one might go to jail, not because there is anything actually wrong with it."): "That is precisely my point. Biologically having kids that early was pretty normal. In fact, a lot of cultures on our planet still do this. It's only our culture and a handful of other recent cultures that started protecting the young adults- and get this, it used to be only women protected with age of consent laws...In my opinion, since these are no longer factors due to birth control, it should no longer be a consideration."
(in response to a video leak where Stuebenville High Schoolers are joking about raping a teenager 'deader than Trayvon Martin'): "So a bunch of guys made rape jokes... lacking class for sure, but.. not wtf nor news worthy."
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Re: Yesterday (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92IkddsjtAA)
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Le Pen lost handily
Some good news
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Thank Jeebus. Even then, the Russians tried to influence that election also by hacking Macron's emails. They just waited too late to do it.
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I don't think that would have reversed a 35 point win, but again this speaks to how sensible the few week period is compared to the fucking eternity of American campaign season.
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Okay, so, we're mega-fucked.
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but... her emails...
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Okay, so, we're mega-fucked.
america had a shitty run
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So British Columbia had an election. It's pretty much tied and one of the districts hanging in the balance is a 9 vote gap between the two leading parties. This could decide the difference between the BC Liberals, who are the right-of-center party with a massive hate on for teachers (so not exactly beloved in our household), taking the election or if the other party wins the whole system will be deadlocked in a massive chess game for the next year and a half where the Green Party* has just enough seats to push either other party to a majority! This would be quite an excellent outcome and I am rooting for it pretty hard.
The interesting thing about the campaign is that both sides ran ads against each other trying to tie the other person with Trump. Trump is extremely extremely unpopular here thanks to his taxes on soft lumber, which is one of BC's main exports.
*Just as a note, the BC Green Party is not really the same as the American Greens. They are likely further to the right than the left wing party in the election, and it is unclear whose side they would take in the case of minority. The leader of the Greens is a climate scientist, not a crazy conspiracy theorist or a fake pill pusher.
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Man, the site went down, and I missed a lot of posting in here. Didn't realize it was back up. The most important thing I have to post, which came out just when the forums went down, is this:
(https://i.imgur.com/jpCnmsd.png)
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I love it
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Something that annoys me a bit is whenever pundits swoop in after a close race to declare that everything the loser did was wrong, and everything the winner did was right, and check out our interview with this one person who was TRYING to tell the losing side how to win, but was cruelly ignored. (If only the Democrats had used the power of "framing"! Yeah, I think they know that, thanks. Or alternatively, Romney should have run harder to the center/right/whatever.)
Anyway, one of the memes in the postmortem was that Hillary's campaign was "too negative" and needed to make an affirmative case for Hillary rather than simply be anti-Trump. Who knows whether this was actually true as a matter of electioneering. (I doubt it, negative ads have proven effective many times before.) But, goddamnit, as a matter of good policy, it was so ridiculously right. Trump's opponent hardly should have mattered; he was one of the most uniquely unfit individuals for command the nation has ever seen. Trump shouldn't be trusted with any sort of position of governmental responsibility, let alone President, and he continues to prove it every day. Like, if Trump had run as a *Democrat* and adopted a bunch of seemingly Democratic positions, I would have happily voted for Jeb Bush or something. WTF. (Basically Jim's "WTF Trump voters" rant. What did you THINK would happen??? Are you okay with this?!)
Slightly prompted by these recent articles:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-an-anti-trump-message-be-enough-for-democrats-in-2018/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/04/13-remarkable-quotes-from-people-who-voted-for-both-barack-obama-and-donald-trump/
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You say that Snowfire, but back when you were trying to find your keys this morning and they weren't on your desk, but were on the coffee table? You should t have even put pants on before looking for your keys. Walking out to get your keys in your undies would assert dominance and stop you being such a cuck. Putting on your shoes with the right foot first shows that you aren't a follower of the left handed path and that you aren't prepared to make the hard calls to fight god (who doesn't exist) and you probably believe flat earth.
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Only 3% of Trump voters regret their votes apparently
https://www.google.fr/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/22/how-many-trump-voters-really-regret-their-votes/
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Holy shit
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAY5yVTUAAECF6i.jpg:large)
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Texas, where chief exports include beef, oil, and discrimination.
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https://twitter.com/Slade/status/866677394345742336/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Ftalkingpointsmemo.com%2Flivewire%2Fmar-a-lago-sinkhole-pay-attention-to-signs
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I preferred the "Giant metaphor opens in front of Mar-A-Lago"
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/24/greg-gianforte-bodyslams-reporter-ben-jacobs-montana
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/24/greg-gianforte-bodyslams-reporter-ben-jacobs-montana
This is a classic move that rallies the base.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/senate-republicans-consider-changing-custom-that-allows-democrats-to-block-judicial-choices/2017/05/25/d49ea61a-40b1-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html?utm_term=.56223d27cb2a
Among all the bad things that could happen in an all-Republican government, this is definitely one of the most alarming ones. Especially aggravating since this rule was observed with a Dem prez & Dem Senate in 2012-2014.
The blue slip rule is actually sorta fine (means that Texas is more likely to get Republican judges, California more likely to get Democratic ones), but I can actually see getting rid of it if the gears grind down too hard (e.g. Trump doesn't get to nominate ANY blue-state justices, Obama can't nominate ANY red-state justices). Doing it this way is incredibly infuriating from a process perspective. You want to make this change and not be hypocrites? Fine. Do it this way:
* For judicicial vacancies opened in 2014 and before, ask Schmuer for a list of judges. Vote them up even if you hate them. THere was a Dem Senate then.
* For judicial vacancies opened from 2015-2016, when control was split, agree on a 50/50 slate. Or heck, if you want to really get fancy, a 25/50/25 slate where half your list is just unconditionally approved, and the other half requires at least one Senator from across the aisle to approve as well, so there's a "moderate middle" that the likes of Manchin or Collins can live with.
* For new vacancies, fine, go make a stream of Republican judges. The Dems will repay that should they ever retake the Presidency.
This is fantasy-land of course, the Republicans will just shove through all Republicans and be rewarded for their obstructionism under Obama and nobody will care about boring procedural cheating.
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in case any of you wondered what it's like in The Christian Bubble, here's an editorial from the Statesman today.
Herman: Vote my way on bathroom bill, or I’ll have God fire up holy blowtorch,
Austin American-Statesman 26 May 2017 Ken Herman Commentary kherman@statesman.com; 512-445-3907
RALPH BARRERA / AMERICAN-STATESMAN 2015
Steven Hotze, president of the Conservative Republicans of Texas and publisher of crtxnews.com, leads an antigay marriage rally in March 2015 on the south steps of the Capitol.
While we’re waiting to see what the Legislature does about bathroom and locker room usage by our transgender neighbors, you might want to know that God has been asked to train his considerable wrath upon those who oppose the so-called bathroom bill.
But first, our word of the day: imprecatory.
It’s new to me. I like learning new words. Looks like this one means “to invoke or call down (evil or curses), as upon a person.”
So it’s a potentially useful word. I heard it from Steven Hotze of Houston, a longtime player in really, really conservative politics in Houston and Texas. He’s a big backer of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a major backer of the bathroom bill you’ve heard too much about.
Hotze used “imprecatory” in a recent posting on the Conservative Republicans of Texas News’ website crtxnews. com. Hotze is its publisher, and he is none too happy with Texas legislators who differ with him on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and which bathrooms transgender folks should use. All of those are issues on which there is plenty of room for reasonable discussion and debate. I bet there are officeholders with whom you disagree from time to time.
But have you ever called for an imprecatory prayer against those folks?Vote Probably not. In fact, you’ve perhaps called for a supportive prayer for folks with whom you disagree, because you’re mature enough to realize that, disagree though we do at times, many of us are God’s children and there’s more that unites us and blah, blah, blah.
Please keep reading and see if you agree with me that Hotze perhaps has gone a bit too far with his prayer request posted on his website. I think you’ve crossed some line when you pray prayers invoking phrases like “consumed, collapse, rot and be blown away as dust.”
That just sounds a bit excessive to my ears. See how it sounds to yours:
“There are Texas legislators who call evil good and good evil,” Hotze wrote, “who support the murder of unborn babies, who pervert God’s holy plan for marriage between a man and a woman, who accept, affirm and celebrate those who promote and choose to practice sodomy and other perverse, deviant, wicked and evil sexual behaviors, and who would allow perverted men and boys, who sexually fantasize that they are women, to enter women’s and girls’ bathrooms, showers and locker rooms.” See what I mean? And Hotze has a plan for what should happen to these folks. He asks God to carry out the plan. And he asks that you join him in praying for the carrying out of his plan. Remember the meaning of imprecatory?
“Pray this imprecatory prayer for the wicked state legislators,” Hotze asks. Here’s the imprecation: “In the name of Jesus, I prophesy and declare: May all the individuals serving in the state Legislature, and their staff, who support, promote and practice sodomy and other perverted, sexually deviant lifestyles, who support the killing of unborn babies, and who hate God’s Law and God’s Word, receive just retribution from God for their evil actions.
“May they receive what their unfaithful ways deserve. May they be consumed, collapse, rot and be blown away as dust from their current positions because of their wicked works, thoughts and deeds. May people scorn them and nations abhor them. May their punishment lead them to repentance and faith in Christ. May God’s will be done in their lives.”
I don’t know. Sounds a bit excessive. I’m generally just good with voting against politicians I don’t like.
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Just let the damn state secede already
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https://thenewinquiry.com/dispensing-gods-care/
'nother good article on why this is happening. I see a lot of this not being well understood outside of The Christianity Bubble.
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I usually forget the details on that one, but it definitely fits with general calvinistic intent which I already attributed to... well honestly more than just the Christian Right but especially them. Dunno if most people are cynical enough to really grok it though.
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http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/18/politics/how-the-republican-health-care-bill-fell-apart/index.html
Tons of articles on this everywhere.
Having said that, the last time the healthcare bill died, someone dropped a phoenix down on it, sooo....we will see
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This was the Senate's Phoenix Downed version -- they followed the same pattern of "extreme right-wingers and moderates both badmouth the bill, so they come back with changes for the nutjobs and trust the moderates to fall in line," only this time neither side would fall in line (except Ted Cruz). It really seems like they might have to go back to the drawing board instead of reusing the shitty-ass AHCA model.
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grapevine says the vote is near
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This was the Senate's Phoenix Downed version -- they followed the same pattern of "extreme right-wingers and moderates both badmouth the bill, so they come back with changes for the nutjobs and trust the moderates to fall in line," only this time neither side would fall in line (except Ted Cruz). It really seems like they might have to go back to the drawing board instead of reusing the shitty-ass AHCA model.
While that's the logical assumption, until a failed vote happens, I won't be betting against party solidarity any time soon
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HOLY SHIT THE MAVERICK ACTUALLY EXISTS!
I was this close to shitting myself when that vote came through
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WHAT EVEN IS REALITY
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Fuck a Maverick. Fuck him being called a hero and people clapping for his actions over female senators Murkowski and Collins who stood firm in their fucking convictions. Fuck him, fuck the clappers. and fuck living on the edge of a three person group that could affect the lives of millions.
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Also let's give Democrats credit for being so innately not-awful that we take it for granted!
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Fuck a Maverick. Fuck him being called a hero and people clapping for his actions over female senators Murkowski and Collins who stood firm in their fucking convictions. Fuck him, fuck the clappers. and fuck living on the edge of a three person group that could affect the lives of millions.
Whatever you feel about McCain politically, he is an honest to goodness hero who has spent his life serving his country. I have plenty of bones to pick with him, but dumping on him in that way is uncalled for.
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Eh. Letting people stew for days on whether they will live or die for a bit of political grandstanding is worth a "fuck you" at the least.
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Not a McCain fan, but I don't think he had made this decision days ago - it seems to have been a response to Ryan's failure earlier that night to guarantee skinny repeal wouldn't be voted into law as-is.
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I agree with dunie. While I'm glad he flipped on this issue, did everyone just suddenly forget how horrid McCain has been these last few months (years???)? Are we just going to completely ignore that the president threatened a senator's state's federal funding in an attempt to "guide" this (and fucking kudos to her for calling that ridiculous bluff)?
And what about the TWEETING that destablised the LGBTQ military members and supporters, only to be responded to by the DoD releasing a statement saying "now wait a minute"?
What the actual fuck is going on in there?
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I wrote a lot of colorful things about the transgender ban on Facebook. Figured I'd spare the forums.
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Not a McCain fan, but I don't think he had made this decision days ago - it seems to have been a response to Ryan's failure earlier that night to guarantee skinny repeal wouldn't be voted into law as-is.
On that note: If they were serious about wanting that guarantee, they could have included a "poison pill" amendment in the skinny repeal nonsense to guarantee that the House wouldn't pass it as-is; for instance, "this bill does not take effect until the year 3000." Or, "Henceforth, the Speaker of the House must conduct all official business while wearing a full-body monkey costume." You have to go to conference unless the House and Senate pass exactly the same document, so putting in something that makes the bill self-defeating would be enough to make sure that step would happen. They chose not to because "we're DEFINITELY going to conference next, no way we just pass something and slap it into the U.S. Code over the weekend" was bullshit. At the very least, they wanted to have that option if conference talks went nowhere.
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Don't misunderstand me, my calling him a Maverick is more about the shock that he actually broke from party lines on this vote. As others have said, he has made terrible voting decisions based on the party line for a long time, despite speaking out publicly against them (see: the last 6 months asst least). I respect the man as a military hero, even though I don't support his political views. Senators Collins and Murkowski have as stated made consistent efforts against the party line, and I have a lot of respect in them for that.
But yes in general, I am still going "what the fuck" after the events of this week. The transgender band being posted through Twitter is ridiculous. If people want to serve honorably in the military, just fucking let them. There are no exorbitant costs of transgender care, so there's another reason for this ban in between the lines...
This is just a ridiculous amount of bullshit thrown out at once. I wonder if they're trying to put so much crap out at once that anything major is lost in the dust?
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This is just a ridiculous amount of bullshit thrown out at once. I wonder if they're trying to put so much crap out at once that anything major is lost in the dust?
People keep attributing these moves to a conscious strategy. That's what normal people pretending to be crazy would do. These people are actually crazy, and the reason Trump does stuff like this is probably because he ate paint chips as a toddler and now he has no impulse control. At this point, given the sprawling evidence we have before us, assigning a logical motive to Trump is nuts. You only do it because your mind is trying to make sense of something that makes no sense.
Trump fired Comey, then bragged about it to the Russians because he genuinely thought firing Comey would ease the pressure on him.
Trump tweeted that he's banning transgender military service because the House GOP had an embarrassing squabble about whether the Pentagon should cover costs of gender reassignment surgery, and Trump thought, "no trans people, no problem!"
He thinks he's Alexander the Great and he sees Gordian knots everywhere he looks.
If he had any idea who Alexander the Great was or what the Gordian knot was, he'd think he was like that guy. But he doesn't, obviously.
EDIT: Argh I did it too. fix'd.
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The fact that this bill got as far as it did is horrifying, and in an ideal world, every Republican who was up for re-election in 2022 (i.e. "safe" from primarying for a time) would have been in revolt. But I'll take 3 Republicans in revolt over none, so sure, credit where credit is due.
Re McCain, I think that the problem is that people interpret 'maverick' in the wrong way. There's 'maverick' meaning "moderate", so something like Collins or Manchin, and there's 'maverick' meaning "has actual principles they put ahead of advancing the party." McCain is quite conservative but has his own drum he marches to. So expecting him to be a cuddly Democrat in disguise is going to get you bit. What McCain is useful for is that there's a lot of "process" / "values" principles that have unfortunately become politicized that used to be, or at least *should* be, non-partisan. "Is torture bad", "should unlimited money slosh around in politics", "are immigrants real people", etc. In that, he unfortunately does deserve praise. (Alternatively, "most other Republicans deserve scorn", if you must.) Who knows why he voted the way he did, but the best guess seems it was process related, also possibly brush with death related. Who knows. Also, on the process note, fuck all the Republicans who whined about the way Obamacare was passed (in a chamber that had 59 Democrats) but didn't see any issues with how BCRA was attempted to be passed.
Dunie, just focusing specifically on the McCain attention vs. Collins & Murkowski... well, McCain was the surprising vote is the thing. In the alternate universe where Portman & Heller were steadfast Republican opponents from start to finish, and Jodi Ernst or Deb Fischer cast the surprising vote to push the bill off the cliff, then it'd be Ernst getting all the attention. It's the marginal vote that matters.
Re NotMiki on the trans-in-the-military issue, my budgetary foo is weak, but couldn't Trump have simply announced that the military will no longer pay for any costs related to gender reassignment surgery if that was his angle, not from Budgetary authority (which rests with Congress), but from his powers as Commander in Chief? I'd certainly think it'd work in reverse, i.e. Obama ordering the military to let it happen without need for Congressional intervention. (Granted, not sure it matters whether it was the paint chips making him not notice this obvious option, or if he genuinely did want to throw a bone to the religious right by doin' some ol' fashioned gay bashing. My money is slightly on the gay bashing, FWIW.)
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POTUS: Please abuse prisoners while making arrests. Police: *thunderous applause* https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/891020515980267522
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POTUS: Please abuse prisoners while making arrests. Police: *thunderous applause* https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/891020515980267522
I have seriously checked out of following politics these days other than to comment on people's FB statuses and rant at sympathetic coworkers because it is just a neverending torrent of shit and I need to keep my belief that humanity generally has some redeeming qualities to it.
I want to do something useful but I honestly haven't got a clue what.
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I am with Dunie (fuck you autocorrect) on this. mcCain may be the tipping point, but he isn't the one pushing and pushing against it. He should not be being praised as the hero of this story. It is the people that made their stance consistent and known through the whole thing especially in the face of the party line (though normally
I am not going to be a fan of most of their policies).
McCain gets some points for doing the right thing for once in political power, but the people that championed against it the whole time are the heroes of this story.
Edit - holy fuck that clip. For sure, just give peopleyou have detained and removed body autonomy from some head trauma. That some one you have arrested but is not convicted of anything even pretending that corporal punishment was still a thing.
Holy shot I am going to go listen to some Fear Factory now because of just how much that statement says.
Edit - God fucking dammit duck you autocorrect. Dunie is no asinine.
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Also Reince Priebus was just fired and replaced with (Gen.) John Kelly, so we're one step closer to a crazypants military junta.
Happy weekend!
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POTUS: Please abuse prisoners while making arrests. Police: *thunderous applause* https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/891020515980267522
Long Island: the worst.
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This is just a ridiculous amount of bullshit thrown out at once. I wonder if they're trying to put so much crap out at once that anything major is lost in the dust?
People keep attributing these moves to a conscious strategy. That's what normal people pretending to be crazy would do. These people are actually crazy, and the reason Trump does stuff like this is probably because he ate paint chips as a toddler and now he has no impulse control. At this point, given the sprawling evidence we have before us, assigning a logical motive to Trump is nuts. You only do it because your mind is trying to make sense of something that makes no sense.
Trump fired Comey, then bragged about it to the Russians because he genuinely thought firing Comey would ease the pressure on him.
Trump tweeted that he's banning transgender military service because the House GOP had an embarrassing squabble about whether the Pentagon should cover costs of gender reassignment surgery, and Trump thought, "no trans people, no problem!"
He thinks he's Alexander the Great and he sees Gordian knots everywhere he looks.
If he had any idea who Alexander the Great was or what the Gordian knot was, he'd think he was like that guy. But he doesn't, obviously.
EDIT: Argh I did it too. fix'd.
I'm just trying to have some hope in humanity that our government is not a reality show trying to dig for ratings.
Fuck me, can we have Chris Harrison as our President? It would probably be better.
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Yeah, I am taking the mainstream (Not you OK) and their use as stepping across party lines as a shiity platform to stand on and I wouldn't doubt people using its multiple meanings. He was marginal vote, but it would have never got where it did or had the delays without Murkowski and Collins. Another way of me viewing this is like anything team-related, in which one player gets more attention over others. It also has those sexist contexts I don't need to sexplain.
Looks like the house passed a package that includes 1.5bil for a xenophobic fence also yesterday.
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People keep attributing these moves to a conscious strategy. That's what normal people pretending to be crazy would do. These people are actually crazy, and the reason Trump does stuff like this is probably because he ate paint chips as a toddler and now he has no impulse control. At this point, given the sprawling evidence we have before us, assigning a logical motive to Trump is nuts. You only do it because your mind is trying to make sense of something that makes no sense.
Yeah, I've been following politics like a hawk because I'm terrified, but commenting on it very little, because commenting on it means trying to come up with explanations, and I don't know. I can't explain these people.
Like...Trump's stupid military thing. Or the Justice Deptartment redirecting civil rights division resources to take on discrimination against white people:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/politics/trump-affirmative-action-universities.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share
Are they just extremely evil? Are they just stupid and don't realize what they're doing? Are they pretending to be evil for some kind of political purpose? I don't know!
(At least with the health care vote I can actually understand that there is some level of political strategy. When they've been campaigning for 7 years on repeal and replace Obamacare, even if their bill would be bad for the American people, and most of them seem to know it would be bad and unpopular--polls put it at 17% popularity--a bunch of them still thought that failing to pass the one piece of legislation they promised for 7 years would make them look even worse than passing a bad bill).
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won't somebody please think of the white people ::) ::) ::)
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Are they just extremely evil? Are they just stupid and don't realize what they're doing? Are they pretending to be evil for some kind of political purpose? I don't know!
Mostly, they're evil. Jeff Sessions? Unquestionably evil. He's doing what he's doing because he wants non-whites to suffer, wants them to be unable to participate as full-fledged members of American society. An evil man through and through. The only value his life serves is in providing a good example of the Lawful Evil archetype for DMs.
Most of the GOP senators are different - most of them don't have evil goals, because policy goals are largely irrelevant to them. Personal advancement is their only true goal, and they're willing to condemn people to suffer and die needlessly in service of their ambition. (This personal ambition stuff is undoubtedly true of Democratic senators as well, but the Democratic platform is by and large good, not evil, so who cares?)
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Yeah, I've been following politics like a hawk because I'm terrified, but commenting on it very little, because commenting on it means trying to come up with explanations, and I don't know. I can't explain these people.
Like...Trump's stupid military thing. Or the Justice Deptartment redirecting civil rights division resources to take on discrimination against white people:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/politics/trump-affirmative-action-universities.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share
Are they just extremely evil? Are they just stupid and don't realize what they're doing? Are they pretending to be evil for some kind of political purpose? I don't know!
My own theory is that this particular brand of evil is something the Trump administration is doing as a distraction. Don't forget, he's currently under investigation for collusion, and has also just failed at his attempt to repeal the ACA. These are things which piss off some of the people who voted for him, the one thing he can't afford politically. The solution? Distract everyone with some social justice stuff that his supporters largely agree with him on; the left starts complaining about that and Trump's base start to remember why they like him more than they like his political opponents.
Not that what he's doing isn't worth complaining about, mind! The whole situation is certainly rather frustrating, to pit it mildly.
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His record-low approval ratings seem to have been a reaction to the transgender military service ban, at least innsofar as we can read into the timing of it. So that's something, at least.
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bye felicia
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How many Nazis in the White House? One less!
Still like... all of them, but one less!
That said, Bannon was the brains on the campaign trail, so if we can check Sessions and not get blown the fuck up, the uphill to get rid of the fucker is a lot less steep.
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Aha.
Ahahaha.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Aha.
Ahahaha.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I didn't know any better, I'd swear OK became Tidus
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https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2017/08/19/these-aerial-views-show-the-size-of-the-counter-protest-crowds-in-boston?event=event51
Went to the counterprotest today. I'd say the tenor was a lot like the womens' march, except there were fewer kids, a lot more signs with the word 'fuck' on them, and waaaay more white people chanting "black lives matter" which sounds a lot less like favoritism when the issue of the day is "the President is a nazi sympathizer." On the subway down to the meeting point for the march you could tell people were nervous, like are folks gonna show up to this thing, and is it going to be dangerous or violent? Well, folks did show up. 40,000 folks, according to the city police commissioner (and I'd believe it) and the tenor of the day was blessedly peaceful and, despite everything, positive. Took 3 hours to march 2 miles, and it was pretty draining, frankly. The meager collection right-wing creeps called it a day early.
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http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/20788354/president-donald-trump-speaks-nfl-player-protests
Welp. Our President has decided to wage war on the NFL over peaceful protest during games. Cool.
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I've been reading news like a hawk, but not actually posting much. In a lot of cases there's just not much to analyze. Like..."this is bad yep" "yep" "ok".
This Contra Points video actually gave me a fair bit to think about though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuN6GfUix7c
I'm not sure how realistic the advice of "be like Miles Davis" is, when people who want to see bad behaviour on the left will just cherry pick bad apples. But it's interesting advice.
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Much like the video and the comments left after the post sort of alludes to, it is a bit of vapor-advice. It is calling out the need/value in keeping on message, being understood and keeping the general public on your side, but it also lacks any of the impact or drive that the more fiery fronts on the left can drive. Edit - posting after midnight, missed key thing, it also in no way suggests how one acts like an ice cold motherfucker.
It is also interesting that there is a reference to the Tabby character not speaking to emotion and being too wrapped up in theory while also being criticized for Bash the Fash rhetoric which is pretty much 100% call to emotion.
Regardless though it is a really good video, very open and honest dialogue of things that she clearly struggles with while trying to be fair to external ideas. Take all that and compress it into a fun skit? yeah this is some good Contrapoints.
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Contra does have a way of building on her arguments as she goes (almost like her background is in formal logic and philosophy or something~) so hopefully future videos will revisit the ice cold motherfuckers thing.
I feel like the point is closer to "from the outside hard leftists look like they just want to fuck things up and make up gobbledegook to justify it after the fact", although those two things are presented in opposite order (that is, open with gobbledegook, then introduce Bash the Fash). And if you're not already versed in either marxist or feminist theory well yeah, most leftist ideology does look that way. By contrast fascism provides a clear emotional throughline from theory to action (moooostly because it's an A to B route because it is the most simpleminded of all philosophies) which makes it quicker, easier, more seductive. Appeals to emotion that sound like reasoned arguments. Then again, for 99% of them, they probably think they are making rational arguments. Only takes a handful of manipulators to snowball a fascist movement.
Granted, I suppose the real point is just "you guys DO know this is also a PR war, right?", but without any clear answers on immediately applicable solutions. It's telling the skit ends on "well, don't get yourself killed" with no major vilification of Tabby. Contrast both the TERF and Arguing with Fascists videos.
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[beware: stream of consciousness]
Re: #metoo
so this whole #metoo thing, I've been thinking a lot about the myriad responses coming from all different corners of the emotionalverse. And, because I'm trying to hold myself accountable to different communities beyond the dirty, soul-draining yet oddly comfortable ivory tower, I've joined the Women's March-turned-Alliance FB groups for Atlanta Georgia, and my district. And I comment rarely, unless there's just something gnawing at me. This lady posted a rebuttal to how #metoo is forcing women to bare their trauma, etc. And, that's a bit of a fucking overstatement. The author didn't convince me that the line between sharing and being forced is such a clear thing. But that said, the lady, who's shared that she also is holding onto years of sexual trauma said that "we've been saying this for years, people need to offer up some other thing." my first response in my head: "then perhaps you have enough experience to share ideas of your own? especially since you've have the time.." then I dial back, ya know, trying to be respectful and outside of my head I decided to frame my critique not towards her but this weird pattern of everyone criticizing any kind of digital protest.
like.
other than pessimism or ignorance, why would anyone assume that a digital protest is the extent of someone's actions of empowerment or dismantling [lib speak heterosexist misogynist patriarchal blah blah blah]?
Like. Really.
Why do we assume that when I put on a shirt with angela hillary etc. (yeah, commodification is another convo) that that's my only history as an active feminist?
there are fifty bagillion other situations in the world where people have provided tomes of information, studies, ideas, projects, actionable items that people sleep on or assume no one is using (and yes, it is very possible that people don't use it, like--- so called antiracist white liberals who can't read a book on their own, or black feminists who only cite chima to display their knowledge of so called third world feminism, or men who say they just don't know what to do about sexism can you please help me please). I am growing to distrust these think pieces even more because they're not really good at capturing the dissonance between the phenomena of internet protest and things people are doing in non-internet real life. like, yes, me too, almost every black woman (or .. someone else, I guess I'm being discriminatory here, I've never chatted with a nonblack woman who reads Ebony) who reads Ebony knows this phrase is old, yes, it's being attributed to white women (WHOSE SUHPRISED HURR?), but there are subtle differences being flattened out by just recognizing that me too was a phrase-turned-project and metoo is a hashtag that could inspire lazy antiracists to do things or can inspire longterm antiracists to rethink their strategies to fit with the current euphoria of internet feminism. i also question the integrity of men saying omg imma change now, and the big wall being built for sexual harassment to be a project that bills itself as open to harassment across the sexes. i ain't all about OMGMETOO changed my life, but damn, it's always the people who do nothing but blow the hottest air who use writing to critique and get clicks or responses but they never put shit into action. if she was like "yo. this has been a thing for a while. we've already been saying it. if you're interested in engaging more deeply beyond a post, get at us." i feel like that basic ass thing would help a lot for the people who want to build socalledcoalitions. like. you don't gotta give everyone your syllabus. people learn better with effort. but damn, give someone an oreo and let them get the milk to wash it down.
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A few of my own thoughts on Weinstein/me too. Read an op-ed the thrust of which was "why do people indulge in this little feel-good exercise when it won't do anything." Where do they find these morons? Weinstein just got canned, people are up in arms over the manhattan DA, shit is happening. Sure maybe nothing comes of it, so what? You keep trying and trying and trying until something works. (to quote Nier: Automata, even if it's pointless you still have to do it!) And maybe you don't save the world in a single hashtag, but you save someone. Jesus H. Christ these people.
On a related note, it's been pointed out that Weinstein was a promoter of womens' causes, and a Class A hypocrite. To which I say: awesome. I want everyone in the world to act as if assaulting women is unacceptable, even if they don't believe it. Maybe the next generation will.
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Good stuff
So... yeah awillingly own up to the fact that I need to get back into reading way more theory and am not as active as I should be... I am starting to get really frustrated (seeing some eye rolly stuff on social media from people I want better from) with some of the response as well.
Like, how fucking long have we been telling people and hearing about how you should listen and believe? Then the moment you get people actually fucking opening up, even if it is just a simple Me Too it is the straight to the same bullshit "Virtue Signalling" and "Damn Millenials and their #hashtags. activism? MORE LIKE SLACKTIVISM" kind of bullshit the right wing side of the internet discourse always bash on people with, but I am seeing it from some places that damn well should know better. Even if you don't use the term Virtue Signalling and say it some other way, claiming people are doing it just to feel included or for attention is both a garbage argument and not fucking believing people on face value.
I also don't understand what avenue there is supposed to be for this kind of thing if not people sharing and discussing it on social media? Like... yes you can get way more active than that, but fuck me man. Should everyone organise like a big social event where we can have people be in public tell everyone that "hey you do know I have been sexually assaulted before right?"
The social media platforms allow you to have a much much broader social context and understanding of just how much it happens and people can do it in a soft way that keeps them feeling safe and comfortable since you are engaging with it on the level you want to which you have zero fucking option for in actual meatspace.
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While going to check e-mail caught a news blurb about "North Korea threatens unimaginable nuclear strike on U.S." I'll admit to feeling unsettled.
Rather than perpetuate cynicism, gloom, and pessimistic predictions on my end (as tempting as it is) I'll leave the following thought: I have this fantasy where the figurehead leaders of the U.S. and North Korea settle their differences in a mud wrestling pit. I doubt this wish will be granted but no way am I letting the parade of dick wagging from certain world leaders dominate my mood.
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Good stuff
better stuff
i imagine they'd prefer people to only write op eds and sign petitions that organizations are now looking at as less threatening. also, like, it's pretty clear they simply should readjust their understanding of the internet or figure out ways to engender what they want on it.i was listening to Still Processing's finale podcast episode "We Are Tired of Sexual Harassment" that ranted about #metoo and weinstein in general. queer-bee wesley morris pretty much admitted that, as a male and as a queer man in sausagefest situations where offenses do happen, he pretty much doesn't do anything except steer the direction in another way. and i think by that very fact of being honest and saying how he's failing the action he wants people to have has the potential to do a lot. i'm sure the impact will be exponentially greater were more queer id/het men to be more direct against such [trash]. women as well, although i can say for myself that i'm the exhausting one who rarely let's [trash] pass anymore. it's a great way for cathartic release, despite my meter filling on the daily.
*edited, wow, potty mouthdunie.
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Good stuff
better stuff
I don't know about that, but tyvm.
And yeah I think you are spot on in the vein of "but that isn't howwww you protest! It should be done like this!" Which tastes like a microcosm of the same shitty sentiments as "I agree but now is not the time" and "that is not the way to protest" stuff that I know we are familiar with because it is 2017 and have all been paying attention at least since 2014 (and they are as old as the hills).
Edit and sometimes you should just let yourself swear, it is a natural part of language and cathartic, but it is also okay if you don't make public spaces for all kinds of reasons.
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Yeah, I don't really get the objections to the #metoo stuff. The whole point of it is that yes, a lot of women have experienced sexual harassment (and for the record: me too; fortunately pretty mild stuff in my case; coworkers deciding it's ok to stroke my hair without asking, that kind of thing). But this also shouldn't be new information even to the hashtag twitter world. Like...the hashtag #YesAllWomen was what...3-5 years ago?
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And the response was still the same🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
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https://theundefeated.com/features/nfl-houston-texans-bob-mcnair-shows-that-some-owners-have-no-idea-where-players-are-coming-from/
SO Texans owner Bob McNair is a twat. He said that, in these NFL protests, that the 'inmates shouldn't be running the prison'. Good job at using the worst analogy possible!
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Jesus Christ.
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Something tells me it was not a slow day at the office for you.
Trump says the indictments aren't connected to his campaign. As far as Manafort, that's true, but it should still give him serious cause for concern. Trump previously hinted that his red line was Mueller investigating financial crimes of Trimp and his family. Today's indictment is a clear signal that Mueller considers such indictments part of his mandate. Of course nothing will come of that because despite the secrecy Trump has never engaged in tax evasion or financial wrongdoahahahahahahaha. ha.
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The Picklepepperless reveal seems like it could be potentially more damning, depending upon how everything turns out. Political Intrigue, or, as John Oliver calls it, "Stupid Watergate"
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I suspect we're never gonna get much more from the campaign than we already have. I also suspect we're gonna get serious goods on Trump's past financial dealings. His not releasing his tax returns is going to look exactly like it seems - attempt to keep past financial shenanigans under wraps.
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Some interesting and erudite commentary on tax reform from our White House Press Secretary:
http://theweek.com/speedreads/734201/sarah-huckabee-sanders-just-read-viral-email-forward-from-2011-reporters-explain-white-houses-position-tax-reform
(was her speechwriter on drugs?)
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If the Democrats could stop sucking on all levels long enough to string up the GOP, that'd be great. Between Brazile's story today and northam's struggles in the governor's race, they've outdone themselves this time.
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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/politics/courts_law/energy-chief-perry-fossil-fuels-can-prevent-sexual-assault/2017/11/02/02178e28-c009-11e7-9294-705f80164f6e_story.html&ved=0ahUKEwjgurKNpKHXAhWMOCYKHfLyB-EQFghHMAo&usg=AOvVaw0zwkYqXaVmW5LEvceKavpw&cf=1 (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/politics/courts_law/energy-chief-perry-fossil-fuels-can-prevent-sexual-assault/2017/11/02/02178e28-c009-11e7-9294-705f80164f6e_story.html&ved=0ahUKEwjgurKNpKHXAhWMOCYKHfLyB-EQFghHMAo&usg=AOvVaw0zwkYqXaVmW5LEvceKavpw&cf=1)
I want some of what he's smoking.
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Well we could all use a light that shines the righteousness, couldn't we.
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Some interesting and erudite commentary on tax reform from our White House Press Secretary:
http://theweek.com/speedreads/734201/sarah-huckabee-sanders-just-read-viral-email-forward-from-2011-reporters-explain-white-houses-position-tax-reform
(was her speechwriter on drugs?)
of course not.
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If you haven't been following the elections in VA, right now it's a big Dem wave. Northam exceeded his polling by around 6 percent and they're on track to take the House, which nobody thought was possible.
Also worth noting that the guy that wrote the bathroom bill has lost his seat to a trans woman.
I'm not gonna try and pretend like I know whether or not this is a portent of things to come but if I was a GOP congress member in a purple state I'd be very nervous right now.
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saw that! if anything it's refreshing to not keep seeing red. maybe that'll pick up some folk who feel beaten.
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My disteict was 12 votes for the R incumbent. Might decide Medicaid expansion for half a million people...
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Well, if you were wondering whether the Republicans could discover a worse look than "hey, let's hear out those guys with the torches and swastikas before assuming they don't have anything worthwhile to contribute," you've got your answer.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/359792-alabama-state-rep-roy-moores-accusers-should-be-prosecuted
The race to the bottom is looking more like a freefall every day
EDIT: https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/928999549376528385 ok that's 1. McCain called for Moore to step down and called the allegations serious, but stopped short of saying that he found them credible.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/special-counsel-investigating-alleged-plot-flynn-kidnap-turkish-cleric
How is this real life
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Incredibly easily.
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Cory Gardner, the Colorado senator who's in charge of the national GOP senate campaign group, is now openly calling for the Senate to expel Moore and have him replaced by the governor if he wins the election. If this takes hold it could help Republicans vote Moore with a clean conscience, knowing that they're really just voting for "generic Republican who very probably didn't molest anybody that we know of," but it would also depress turnout among the hardcore #MAGAheads if their only options are a Dem or an establishment Republican. I mean, probably. Who knows how those brains work.
Also, Pyro's district might flip after all: It appears likely that there's a substantial (in terms of a 10-vote margin) number of uncounted votes due to, I swear to god, some polling stations using ballpoint pens (https://twitter.com/QuentinKidd/status/929007395040382976) instead of felt-tip.
This fucking year.
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It's unlikely that Moore could be replaced for long - the Supreme Court would likely force a special election. (There apparently isn't much precedent on this point, but what's there suggests a period of appointment longer than a year or two us unconstitutional)
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Fun alternate thought: what if JEFF SESSIONS is nominated for the post. He did, after all, win the full term normally before resigning. Maybe he wouldn't require a special election?!
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That's one of the theories being thrown around -- the idea is that Sessions could get away from the supposed looming threat of Trump firing him for allowing the Mueller investigation to continue, get his cushy Senate seat back in a walk, and Trump could replace him with someone who hasn't recused himself and would gladly fire Mueller in a miniature Saturday Night Massacre. The idea that Sessions wants to leave seems far-fetched to me, but it would solve a lot of problems for the regime.
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Jesus fuck.
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Postal survey for supporting gay marriage in Australia was a Yes. Now the government can actually legalize it if they want to and not lie, but nothing holding them to it and they could have done it without wasting money on the Bureau of Statistics holding it.
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Dear GOP: stop. Just... Please stop
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This tax bill they are throwing together like frankenstein's momster and pushing to pass now now now is bonkers.
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Well, since alt-right videogame flare ups seem to be a predictor of electoral activity, I guess this belongs here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/7dbv5x/frances_greatest_video_game_forum_and_dumpster/
Original French article:
http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2017/11/16/jeuxvideo-com-les-moderateurs-racontent-les-coulisses-du-forum-18-25_5215777_4408996.html
The French Website jeuxvideo, which...15 years ago I remember being pretty cool, had apparently descended into gamergatey 4chany /pol/esque racism and sexism, and was orchestrating harassment campaigns against feminists, and then against journalists who reported on the harassment campaigns. Well, a bunch of advertisers pulled out, the owning company took notice, took down the forums for several days, hired 10 more admins, and then brought the forums back up again, which...so far seem to be calmed.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/11/20/the-senate-just-made-it-a-lot-easier-for-trump-to-appoint-federal-judges-over-democrats-objections/?utm_term=.7769a89f457a
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Boy, I never thought I'd say this in my entire life, but I am so excited about current happenings in Alabama.
Tomorrow should be interesting.
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...
...
...
Did...
Did that just happen?
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I can confirm that that did, in fact, just happen. Fuck yeah.
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That’ll do
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFYRkzznsc0
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42374693
interesting development in a place other than Britain and the US
ps germany still does not have a functioning govt.
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Going back into the last page for an election update....
My disteict was 12 votes for the R incumbent. Might decide Medicaid expansion for half a million people...
RECOUNT SAYS FUCK THAT. (https://twitter.com/notlarrysabato/status/943217438556065793)
One. Vote. Margin. Pyro, the entire state of Virginia thanks you for voting.
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Looks like House of Delegates is back to a tie. They might flip a coin to determine Pyro's seat.
Also I dunno about @notlarrysabato 's political savvy. He seems incredibly hostile to having a downstate rep be Speaker (assuming the Dems even get that close) because... I dunno. Even if the sole goal is to have NoVa issues represented in the House, to do this, you're gonna need at least SOME support in the rest of the state...
Anyway, if the Dems somehow get control of the House or even get to do some power-sharing agreement, I think I'd want to trade any and all political goals to change the Virginia redistricting process - well, assuming that the Republicans couldn't just change it again in 2019 at least. Make it so that the districts are not so brutally gerrymandered that it requires an absolute wave election to maybe tie.
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https://twitter.com/elizabethcatte/status/947107951436816384
Great followup to some stuff about coal country. Eat the rich.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJW4-cOZt8A&t=897s
The degree to which I find myself represented in late 2017 Contrapoints is getting eerie. PS eat the rich.
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Contra does have a way of building on her arguments as she goes (almost like her background is in formal logic and philosophy or something~) so hopefully future videos will revisit the ice cold motherfuckers thing.
FYI still Eat the Rich unironically tbqh.
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“Rich as we are as West Virginians in our natural resources,” he said in his March 1913 inaugural address, “more than 80% of our fuel and raw material is utilized outside the state.”
I mentioned in the Books topic that I read the book Open Veins of Latin America. The degree to which this article reflects what was written in that book is quite eerie. Resource wealth ended up being a bad thing for the rank and file citizens of a place because outside interests came in and pillaged it for low prices.
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So remember a few pages back how I had a mad on for NYT and was dragging them for pushing conservative climate change denial editors? And how it did the readers a disservice after marketting themselves as a point of sanity in the incoming Trump presidency?
So yeah fuck the New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/us/politics/trump-reinventing-presidency.html
That headline. Section after section being “here is a bunch of bad stuff buuuuut look at how effective/impactful it all is!”. This is pretty trash from top to bottom.
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We've been back & forth on this before, but I absolutely do not get it, and totally disagree. That isn't a puff piece by a mile, and it's worth knowing what parts of Trump's badness is being implemented, no??! I... I don't get it. Is the only news article allowed "Trump didn't actually change anything and therefore everything is fine?!" How is that accurate? What's the problem here?
Under Mr. Trump, it has become a blunt instrument to advance personal, policy and political goals. He has revolutionized the way presidents deal with the world beyond 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, dispensing with the carefully modulated messaging of past chief executives in favor of no-holds-barred, crystal-breaking, us-against-them, damn-the-consequences blasts borne out of gut and grievance... He has kept a business on the side; attacked the F.B.I., C.I.A. and other institutions he oversees; threatened to use his power against rivals; and waged war against members of his own party and even his own cabinet. He fired the man investigating his campaign and has not ruled out firing the one who took over. He has appealed to base instincts on race, religion and gender as no president has in generations. And he has rattled the nuclear saber more bombastically than it has been since the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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Mr. Trump has cast aside the mythology of a magisterial presidency removed from the people in favor of a reality-show accessibility that strikes a chord in parts of the country alienated by the establishment. That indifference to the way things have always been done has energized Mr. Trump’s core supporters, who cheer his efforts to destroy political correctness, take on smug elites and smash a self-interested system that, in their view, has shafted everyday Americans.
Yeah no man. Puff piece. This is the language to use to talk about Facebook in 2005: "oh well this is kinda concerning and this one expert thinks it's a huge mistake, but it's really revolutionized the industry and is leaving a definite mark on the american psyche". Man's nazi followers have killed people in the streets, his brownshirts rip apart families left and right, god knows how many hundreds have died due to bigots emboldened by his election, but we're going to take the long-view "oh the presidency will be FINE, there's always some give and take in the ebbs of history" view because anything else would demand taking off the cloak of pretend-neutrality they covet over actual substantive news coverage.
Yeah no, fuck those guys.
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But... do you actually disagree with that statement?! Are you saying that Trump's supporters deplore his efforts to destroy political correctness, endorse the measured judgment of elites, and liked the system before? Am I reading a different article here or something? Like, every other paragraph is absolutely flamebait for Trump-supporters but couched in somewhat neutral language. I don't know how you can think the author has anything other than contempt for Trump. If merely describing Trump & Trump's ideology is somehow endorsing it... argh!
If you want to actually read Trump-supporting year-commentary stuff, I can find some easily enough. Or for that matter scrupulously "neutral, both sides have good points" commentary (although this is kinda rare). That article is not that.
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If merely describing Trump & Trump's ideology is somehow endorsing it... argh!
Yes, it is, when you do it in the NYT. And it is argh, indeed. That, uh, was the entire lesson of the election, the press insisting on giving "fair" "equal" front page headline coverage to the most extreme views legitimized them as a platform and catapulted them into mainstream support.
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RE: is the only article “he didn’t do anything meaningful” the only article you can write. Of course not, but you could actually fucking do or say anything in your piece. This just states things that happen without doing things like damning the whole section “this is why he won” or pointing out how horrendously autocratic everything in that paragraph is. There is no context on the horrible shit he actually fucking does with the power and authority he consolidates there.
All it is doing is describing Trump ignoring protocol and social norma, exactly what he said he would do going in, without saying a goddamned thing. All it does is push Trump’s brand as being on point and what it said it was. There is fuck all about the harm and lies that goes with this. There is ONE reference to lies in the whole article, and that is “according to fact checkers”. There is ZERO references to how efficient or inefficient the Whitehouse is actually run, just that it has less staff. There is no stories from anyone there that is not a mouthpiece to people in charge there.
All this says is “look at all the change Trump makes and how everything is going to be in response to Trump”.
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A brief side story first. My father is a nice fellow, but he's a bit of a political neophyte at times. He sent off what he thought was a nice, we can all join hands, happy NYTimes editorial out on Christmas, including to his conservative relatives. He got an absolute flameblast email reply back, and both my mother & I could have told him beforehand. What "appears" to be a nice balanced neutral piece in the liberal bubble is in fact incendiary trolling outside of it: it was really inviting conservatives to unilaterally disarm and support liberal policy proposals, because that would be nice and can't we all agree on that. The conservative relatives picked up on this immediately, my father didn't.
Anyway, Grefter, don't trust me. Find your local Trump-supporter (or Australian equivalent... not that I think any exist...? The Libs don't seem crazy enough), and ask them if this is a fair-and-balanced year-end recap; trust them.
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Sir Alex: Well, I have bad news, but Trump is the president of the United States, horrible as that is, and I at least would be interested to bear about what he's doing and why. Said extreme views are now very relevant. I think that as far as legitimizing them, the article goes to pains to point out just what a break with traditional American standards they are, which is good to keep reminding people of. I think that they absolutely have to be covered, and to the extent acknowledging their existence legitimizes them, this cost is outweighed by the knowledge in knowing what's going on. "Trump is very bad, trust me" may be too vague to help.
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EDIT: I should probably add for why I have a very strong response to this. It's... it's crazy. The article, a somewhat boring year-end filler piece so the journos can go on vacation, outright calls him an authoritarian who's demolishing America's political traditions. What do you want here?! Look, I can get criticizing the NYT for being not left enough. I think this would be ill-advised, but I get it. Saying "fuck these guys" basically seems to be saying that the Times is secretly allied with Trump, or is enabling him, or something. Which is crazypants and being unable to distinguish an ally from an enemy. Ask Trump himself if the mainstream media is on his side. (Now, if you want to rag on the media for over-coverage of the Mueller emails, fine, but that's not related to this particular article.) Trying to delegitimize the media because... I'm not even really sure what the complaint is, but because it didn't say FUCK TRUMP obviously enough or something... is playing into Trump's hands. The media's watchdog role is a good guardian for society, and a lot of the problem we have now is thanks to Trump ragging on them and claiming fake news every 5 seconds. If the left agrees with this, that truth is relative and is solely about power, it will be the stupidest thing ever. That article is doing the watchdog thing of firmly stating just all the terrible things Trump did. That's a GOOD thing.
(now, if you want to rag on the Times for recent articles, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/us/ohio-hovater-white-nationalist.html is a better one to pick... it's just a pretty insubstantial article. People accused it of "normalizing" a Nazi, which was Kind Of The Point - a bit of a "they live among us" thing - but hey, it got the Nazi fired from his job, so it's not all bad.)
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But that is the problem! It does NOT say he is an authoritarian. It describes an authoritarian down to a capital A. It doesn’t once call out and actually label what they are describing. I am not saying call him Literally Hitler. But when you describe an Authoritarian and a liar and you don’t call it plain in your text all you are doing is showing that you aren’t prepared to do just that. If there is ever a time to speak truth to power it is when you are doing that with the leader of your country.
Edit - And if you think just presenting he facts and waving your hands like you did a magic trick is going to communicate to the broader public then you clearly missed the election where an autocrat with an autocratic campaign got elected and people calling him out on it were ignored and told they are being too extreme while the opposition won on a platform of telling it like it is.
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(https://i0.wp.com/gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/i-feel-like-im-taking-crazy-pills.gif)
Bob shot up the gas station, beat the clerk up, took his wallet, looted the register, then ran off.
Okay, I GUESS you can say that for people in favor of robbery, this might sound like an endorsement. But it totally isn't. This hypothetical passage is "descriptively" yet factually attacking Bob. Nobody would say that such an article is obscuring Bob's nature or some such. The article is filled with this - "bristled at the restraints imposed on the presidency as few have, lashing out at judges, lawmakers, investigators and journalists who anger him", "no other president would publicly assert such power in such a raw political fashion", talking about impeachment. Like I said, I'm really not sure what you're looking for here. Now, to be clear, if your default personal preference for reading is for more explicitly editorialish outfits, fine. I certainly got lots of my news from The Daily Show back during the Bush years. But attacking the NYT for writing facts you apparently agree with (that he's an authoritarian), in perhaps slightly more staid terms, is insanity!
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Chiming in to 100% agree with SnowFire on this. I do not see the two-sidesness false equivalence in it that y'all do, and I say this as someone who caneceled his NYT subscription during the runup to the election for precisely that reason.
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But there is a massive difference between expecting your readers to understand that a robbery is illegal, but you would still also say that police have a suspect under arrest! You would still call it a criminal investigation.
I am not even asking for “I think this is the rose to American Fascism without some intervention” at the end. I am asking to not use passive voice and “neutrality” to paint a position which legitimizes and normalizes this kind of thing. All this article does is say literally this.
Talk of “absolute” power and a noted affinity for foreign strongmen have fueled fears of authoritarianism. For the most part, Mr. Trump, with some notable exceptions, has demonstrated more bark than bite. But that bark has become a power unto itself, and the question remains whether he will follow through on his threats in the next stage of his tenure or whether his attacks will prove ultimately self-defeating.
This sentence immediately precedes the next sentence and primes it with the part in bold.
Mr. Trump is creating precedents that may outlast his tenure. He is making the presidency more authentic or more autocratic, depending on the vantage point. Either way, it may never be the same.
Depending on the vantage point that clearly is NOT this NYT author. If it passes through editorial as news article and not an editorial/think piece I am sure as fuck painting it as their official stance.
He acts like an Authoritarian most of the time but is only really good at it on a few outlier issues, so we aren’t going to call him one (or mention which things it happens to be).
Now again, NYT can run how it wants, hire who it wants, but if it is going to ride a wave of subs on being the bastion fighting against Trump and the rising Authoritarian Right then I am going to be mad about it.
I have no idea how much more to explain to you how using passivity and neutrality for the sake of your own image as a publication is self serving and only serves to help people in power who are prepared to abuse both truth and positions of power.
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I'm going to chime in to agree with Grefter here, because there is an important aspect missing from your example, Snowfire.
If someone hears about someone who robbed a bank and got away with it and is now in a position of power then anybody who is considering robbing a bank will be more inclined to do so because "hey, that guy has a sweet gig now! I want to have that too!"
So, yes. If you merely outline the facts, then it does actually make a difference, because simply outlining the facts emphasizes the importance of the outcome. And in this case, the outcome is something that a lot of people find awful and truly terrifying and are actually afraid for their very lives.
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The article linked does not simply "state facts" but rather seeks to what I'm going to call (and for reference I am not trying to positively or negatively spin with these terms and will happily substitute if someone can think of neutral terminology) "soften and justify" why they put things the way they do.
Presidents are human, too, a blend of varying degrees of idealism, generosity, empathy, ambition, ego, vanity, jealousy and anger, but they generally hide their unvarnished traits behind an official veneer. Call it decorum, call it presidential. Mr. Trump essentially calls it fake, making no effort to pretend to be above it all, except to boast that he is stronger, richer, smarter and more successful than anyone else. To him, the presidency is about winning, not governing.
This is basically both "softening/justifying him" (first line, emphasizing that he, as president, is human too and therefore must be having or exhibiting empathy/generosity/etc - it is safe to assume that other words could have been chosen if those traits were not desired to be pushed, even generically positive ones) and emphasizing what he ran on and what he has ruled on in a generic way - perhaps conservatives would say it is too "harsh" and liberals too "kind" as to how he rules, but it fails to take any real stance outside of its existence. It lists multiple controversies and issues that Trump has been involved in during his time but then provides a list of people commenting about it either being good (his supporters, vast and unspecified) or norm-breaking (experts not really followed up with on impacts), all through that section. It's just "this all happened, supporters think it's good, experts think it's new".
There's one direct attack on how he's performed in the third section (Axelrod) - again, couched by other people trying to more emphasize the norm-breaking over anything else. Basically, it all just returns to this cycle of "a Twitter thing happened from Trump, here's how people reacted". There's nothing actually taking him to task, nor any explication as to what damage has been done or will be done by these tweets - just handwringing over whether or not it will do anything.
I'll be honest - it mainly reads to me just like an article that wanted to engage in omphaloskepsis over how "it's changed the American institution of the presidency" without significant factual discussion outside the generic twitterstorm and lashback, or discussion of some of the more extensive damage he's wanted to/trying to do to governmental institutions. I don't think puff piece is unfair because it fails to really do anything outside of "It's a thing, look at it", more or less; "Trump did a thing with social media, people said yay, people said boo, this may change things." I'd expect better writing except I know not to bother from most institutions nowadays. Given both that his twitter dogshit is the least offensive thing he's really doing (which is incredible) and that even if you wanted to focus on media and communication there's infinitely better examples (trying to control how many departments communicate to disturbing degrees, perchance?)... It's trying to write, I think, about the long term effects of the presidency, but fails to really do even that. If you're writing on such a topic, one may want a thesis beyond "things change and he's doing things that will change things" - but that's all the piece comes down to.
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Fuck it have an editorial piece about something else that is less inflammatory for us.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16840170/swatting-death-call-duty-toxic-fandom
Linking editorial rather than news article because news is actually a few days old and I like the breadth covered in the editorial.
Someone died in a Swatting, it was just a matter of time.
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(I wrote this up before I saw Grefter's last post, so feel free to ignore this first part. I guess I'll post it anyway, but happy to edit it out and let the matter drop if need be too.)
I guess here's my problem. Grefter, pick your favorite news source. I'm going to look through its articles and then pick the lines that appear to be the most matter-of-fact statements about some Important Issue. Then I'm going to claim that this means said news source doesn't care about it. Then I'm gonna say "Fuck Grefter's news! It's enabling Trump! Yeah!" Is this "fair"? Ignore the long-form explanation of some issue, pick on the one (true!) line that said "Republicans scored a win by passing the tax bill", then claim it was just engaging in horse-race journalism?
Of course not. Analyzing slant requires a holistic view. And I'm going to fall back to what I said before. Go find some conservative friend, or even an assidiously moderate friend, and ask them what they think of the article - paste it into a Google Doc or something and hide the source if you want to be really hardcore. That should make the question less hypothetical as to how Joe Random will interpret it, if you're worried that this article is going to somehow empower Trump.
(The thing is, per NotMiki, if you want to hit the NYT on this, there are some articles you can find that maybe are offenders.... I can't understand the complaint about THIS article, though. And I'll add in the NYT's defense that even if you find some article that I agree is too mealy-mouthed, they publish a LOT of articles, and you expect some variation.)
And finally, the part that frustrates me is why you'd even want to pick this fight so vociferously. Like I said before, if you merely prefer a bit more spice in your news, go for it. I can see saying the NYT isn't your cup of tea, you want stronger denunciations. But I'd think it'd be self-evidently obvious that the "enemy" is narratives which deny this authoritarianism completely. This is cheating a bit since it's an editorial rather than a news piece, but an example from a slightly different Times:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/dec/15/trump-should-exercise-presidential-authority/
On immigration, Mr. Trump announced he would terminate DACA, Mr. Obama’s unilateral amnesty program - a major win for conservatives who disagreed with Mr. Obama’s lawless approach to immigration policy.
And with ObamaCare, Mr. Trump ended the Obama-era illegal subsidies granted to health insurance companies. The subsidies, which Congress had never appropriated, were illegal from the start, and Mr. Trump’s decision to reverse course reinforces the U.S. Constitution’s wise insistence that funds be appropriated by the legislative body.
All of these actions on Mr. Trump’s part reflect a proper understanding of presidential authority. In contrast to Mr. Obama’s embrace of an imperial presidency, Mr. Trump has instead focused on the authorities granted to the president in the Constitution.
Mr. Obama once boasted about bypassing the legislative process simply by using his “pen and a phone,” and cavalierly promised on many occasions that he would sidestep Congress to accomplish his agenda. “If Congress won’t act, I will,” was his mantra, and his disregard for the Constitution’s separation of powers was evident throughout his eight years in the White House.
For conservatives, Mr. Trump’s presidency is refreshing for two distinct reasons - on the one hand, Trump is reversing many of the misguided Obama policies, but, on the other hand, he is rejecting, at a much more fundamental level, the entire Obama approach to one-man governance. And that, undoubtedly, is going to be one of Mr. Trump’s biggest accomplishments.
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Mr. Obama’s expansive view of the presidency reminded Americans why we need our system of checks and balances. But Mr. Trump’s presidency has already taught an important corollary - that the president has sufficient constitutional authority to reaffirm the rule of law and reverse the previous administration’s unilateral executive actions.
If you want to pick a fight with a media narrative, why would you direct your ire at the NYT, which you agree with that is laying down the facts for why Trump is governing like an autocrat, rather than the very real opposing narrative that Trump is governing like a wise scholar with respect for presidential boundaries, unlike that barbarian Obama? THAT is the opposing argument! Not the Times!
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Mage, I certainly agree with you that people are scared, and that Trump is a Big Deal, and that his actions shouldn't be minimized. Now, as noted above, I think that this specific article is actually highly slanted against Trump, but let's suppose for the sake of argument that it was just a perfectly neutral recitation of facts. I think this would still have merit to exist? The NYT editorial board has been very, very clear what they think of Trump, both before the election and afterward... they hate him. Having a more "just the facts" reference is still helpful. It's like separating the prosecutor's closing argument from the coroner's testimony. The witness shouldn't need to slant things much.
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AllTheseDangCats, I might be old-fashioned, but "except to boast that he is stronger, richer, smarter and more successful than anyone else." comes across as ragging on Trump to me, not justifying him. "Boast" is not generally a positive verb.
As far as "explaining" Trump, I guess there's a little of that in the article. But is that bad? At risk of a Godwin violation, since Grefter already invoked Hitler... Would you find an exploration of how Hitler rose to power offensive? Would you find books like "Hitler's Willing Executioners" offensive because they suggest that ordinary Germans went along with Hitler, and why? Hitler and the Nazis weren't movie monsters who spawned out of a hell dimension then mysteriously disappeared. They were normal people, doing evil things. We should absolutely seek to explain and understand this so that we can stop it, just like those anti-extremist activists. I saw one of the most effective guys out there for getting people out of Nazi groups at a panel once. What was his background? Well, chief recruiter for the Nazis in all of California. This was his penance after he realized he was being a huge jerk. But since he know what got people in, he knew how to get people out. Investigating Nazis in no way "softens" or "justifies" their crimes, it helps fight them better.
Also, for alarming other effects of the Trump presidency, there are so many that any article is going to have to focus only on so many of them. It's just too big, the article would be five times as long if the writer tried to hit everything. The article focused more on Trump's personal approach. Stuff like 1984-esque communication restrictions are bad, yes, but there's also no way that Trump wrote that up himself - that's his staff doing it, probably 3-4 layers deep. I agree it's bad, of course, but it doesn't fit within this specific article.
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Other article isn’t to say “We Doen Here!!!!11” just a chance to move on/ have some other conversation.
You respond like that quote was a specifically cherry picked line and the only thing in the article that I took issue with rather than what I was trying to communicate it is representative of the whole. That line is the only place that “Authoritarian” shows up. I just don’t see what you see into the article without assuming there is an underlying critique there which in what I do read in NYT is just not there (again a fair weather reader because of my opinion of them).
I could do a meta analysis of NYT and link things like exclusive interview they got where the outcome that I read was 3 articles, one pretty neutral post about it, the edited transcript and then a separate 10 point articles of fact checked statements there and how spreading out what could have been 1 good article by a few writers that was impactful instead they muddy the discussion by splitting it into 3 over to drive ad traffic and oh hey the fact checking one also happened to be last one published on a different day, isn’t linked to in the transcript and at least in by browser doesn’t show up in the first batch of related coverage articles (could be tainted by cookies though ofc, I make no assumptions about that).
So why don’t I do this? Well I like most of our discussions and these (you and I specifically) soon our wheels a lot and they aren’t our most fruitful discussions. Why this one and now? Because it was the most recent one and it was frustrating enough for me to bring it up.
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I thought that interview was a massive takedown of Trump, myself. He came off completely deranged in the edited transcript.
I do agree that holistic is the way to go. I just get a radically different impression of that article than you do.
I've said it twice before but I'm gonna say it a third time. Don't trust me on this. Actually ASK someone who isn't a leftist (aka, the relevant audience... leftists presumably already despise Trump) that you trust whether that article is pro-Trump or anti-Trump. Please. They are going to be more authoritative than either of us as to the general slant of it. If you ask that person and they say that the article improved their opinion of Trump, I'll shut up and admit you were right. (I'll even create an anonymized Google Doc with the text C&P'd in if you want.)
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For SWATing, I'd be fine if any attempted SWATing was treated as a case of attempted murder. That said, the police deserves a lot of the blame for this one, maybe even more than the SWATer. The situation didn't remotely come close to what the phone call described, nor did the home inhabitants. Wrong ages, no hostage situation, no gasoline ready to catch on fire. They just shot the guy because.... because. Made no sense.
http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192147194.html
The mom was reasonably direct: "the cop murdered my son." I really hope the cop gets prosecuted for this. (Hopes not high.)
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/roy-moores-jewish-lawyer-voted-for-doug-jones-raised-money-for-his-campaign/article/2644738
If I may, something we can all agree on: AHhahahahahahahahahahahhahaohgodahahahahahahahaha
re: SWATting, I mostly blame the FBI for not taking this seriously enough. The fact that the culprit could be found and apprehended within a day with a minimal amount of sleuthing, and he was a repeat offender who was not remotely cautious about talking about it online, all says the FBI is not paying any attention to this brand of internet crime. Articles said there were something like 400 confirmed incidents in the US last year. You're talking about a guy who is likely responsible for >1% of the crimes, who was ALREADY arrested for fake bomb threats. Infiltrating the Call of Duty community can't be a high bar. Hell, if you told them you're FBI they'd probably just think you're a 12-year-old boy.
(I doubt the cop gets prosecuted but I DO predict a settlement of civil claims for wrongful death in that PD's future. As for the swatter, felony murder sounds about right, but who knows.)
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Wouldn’t a ruling of responsibility for a SWAT caller causing death imply anything to police shootings (if not this specific one) or do you think is it likely just to be only impacting the likely civil case for this specific incident?
(At work, not ignoring you Snowfire, though also okay if we both want to just let it lie. You good fam)
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Not really, no. All you need for felony murder is for the death to be a predictable and immediate consequence of the felony. If the cop had acted completely rationally in shooting the victim it would be the same as if the cop shot like a drunk stormtrooper.
The prototypical felony murder scenario is that an armed robber gets in a shootout with the cops and the cops accidentally shoot a bystander. You can see why we wouldn't want the armed robber to be allowed to escape a conviction just because the cops are bad shots.
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I should clarify that bad sentiments towards NYT aren't about that particular article. But NYT crosses my desk about once a month, and it's always stuff exactly like that (or worse, like that nazi spaghetti piece). So either fluff or disgusting. Pick your poison, or just say fuck those guys and don't give them money.
(WaPo's not immune to it, but they've put out actual good stuff too if you really wanna invest some journalism dollars.)
That said, the more I thought about it the more that piece actually does bother me.
Find your local Trump-supporter (or Australian equivalent... not that I think any exist...? The Libs don't seem crazy enough), and ask them if this is a fair-and-balanced year-end recap; trust them.
For someone still supporting Republicans in December 2017, anything less than print fellatio of Dear Leader is treason. Such lost souls can only be helped with years of one-on-one counselling to affirm their need to abandon hate groups.
I don't know how you can think the author has anything other than contempt for Trump
Saying "fuck these guys" basically seems to be saying that the Times is secretly allied with Trump, or is enabling him, or something.
Oh, no, the writer clearly wants the reader to understand that Trump is a bad bad man.
Describing these attributes as things Trump was elected for is factual, and perhaps there is merit in stating that for people who don't know anyone who voted for Trump. I mean, literally every article I was linked to from NYT in calendar year 2017 was about that same goddamned topic, but y'know, sure.
What I clicked to is that this is all still enabling him.
Here's the thing. True blue Trumpian conservatives... don't read the New York Times. It's fake news, hit pieces top to bottom. Liberal media.
Lefties only hate-read it. I'm not exaggerating much about my exposure to NYT this year (like... maybe you linked me to some decent articles? That's the only way it woulda happened), and you can guess what my twitter feed looks like.
Nah. NYT fancies itself the newspaper of record, and aside from the occasional viral blowup that means it has two main types of readers:
1) Conservative Democrats, like the sort that would work the New York financial scene and the like. It's their town paper after all.
2) Capital C Centrists. After all, it's the paper of record! Where else do you get the best facts? We'll be refering to them as Idiots for the rest of my spiel here.
Now here's the thing. Idiots think that both parties are more or less equal, that the wheels of government spin on without tending, that creating government deadlock is a worthy goal. Idiots believe that alternating who holds the White House is all to the good, keep one party from getting too powerful. Idiots believe that Washington's cesspit of special interests is the real problem, and so someone that can't be bought, and who'll "shake up the system", can only be good.
But most of all, Idiots believe that what happens in Washington doesn't really matter very much.
That's the dereliction of duty here. You're letting Idiots think that Trump being a very bad man is just a historical curiosity because you've written an entire article about all the very bad things he's done and then didn't explain what very bad things caused. All the Very Bad Things are a bunch of broken norms in Washington apparently! They might damage the dignity of the office! But maybe not, it's pretty resilient! And he's kinda scary and really likes dictators! But his worst impulses are held in check!
And that's all fine things to talk about if you provide greater context.
Trump being a very bad man has alienated all our allies! He tried to start a nuclear war over twitter yesterday! Sure the article was written before then, but he did it last year too! That laundry list of awful stuff I said in my last post! And sure, there's probably other articles in the NYT, it's a big paper. Maybe some of them are about that. But you need to provide some portion of that context, as appropriate to the particular topic (since we're talking about Trump as Chief Executive and the powers of the office, maybe his pissing matches with the Courts and that patently illegal travel ban he keeps peddling?), otherwise Idiots will miss it.
Look, NYT wants to peddle in facts, not truth. So I don't expect them to end every political article to the effect of "Donald Trump is an existential threat to the human race and there is no future so long as he lives". But I do expect them to print all the relevant facts on a given topic to provide context, rather than just saying "Donald Trump is a very bad man" and letting Idiots think it won't hurt anyone.
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CK: THere's a lot to unpack, and I'm attempting to disengage anyway, and there's (as usual) multiple layers of assumptions I don't share with here. So I'll more cover my key points rather than attempt a point-by-point response.
* The New York Times is a newspaper. It is not the Democratic Party. Their editorial board famously might as well be part of the DNC "establishment" as far as their endorsements, and yes, corporations have social obligations. That said, their goal is ultimately to serve the news. So I wouldn't expect them to be putting out DNC-esque press releases. It's not that I disagree with the DNC's press releases that state Trump is an existential threat, it's just that this is the DNC's job.
* In the same way, I reject the idea that fact-based coverage is somehow slanted as for Trump. And if it was, then this would imply Trump was right! As Stephen Colbert said, reality has a well-known liberal bias. So why not let that stand? (Or, put another way, would the Russia investigation have more or less credibility if it was run by Bernie Sanders instead of Mueller?)
* This is a bit off-topic, but since I know you read and respect Nate Silver, to go back to the hiring of Bret Stephens for a bit: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-really-was-a-liberal-media-bubble/ (you can argue the Times overcovered the emails because it was so obvious that Clinton was going to win... for all that I doubt the Times itself mattered that much, their readership in Pennsylvania among swing voters isn't that huge. That would be more CNN if you want to blame someone.)
* As a reminder, there's three other notable papers here in NYC, two of which are the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. They're both owned by someone you may have heard of, called Rupert Murdoch! And further, he's clamped down on whatever independence the Journal at least used to have ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/11/01/the-sorry-state-of-murdoch-media/ ). So it kind of cheezes me off when it sounds like certain liberals want to paint the Times as the "true" enemy here. Again, I'm not saying you even have to LIKE the Times, stick to The Nation or Ramparts or whatever if you want. And the Times is far from above reproach, they make mistakes. But "fuck the Times"? At worst, ignore it and don't support it. Save "Fuck you" for the actual Trump outlets, not the left outfits who don't match the exact tone you'd take if you were in charge of it.
* So one of the key arguments Grefter and you are making is that articles like this empower Trump, or won't turn "Idiots" to your side. If you don't want to ask a Trump supporter, fine, "ask an Idiot". You and others have suggested that this article and others like it somehow empower Trump. So find some swing voters and ask 'em about the article, if it's pro-Trump or anti-Trump, if it convinced them of anything about Trump. Don't make this hypothetical when it can very easily be made real. Like I said to Grefter, if you can find some swing voters who are more impressed with Trump after reading the article than before, I'm willing to change my stance. I only ask that you be open to persuasion as well.
* At risk of pointing out the obvious, we (and yes, *we*, you are stuck with 57 flavors of leftist & skeptical centrists in your coalition with slightly contradictory goals, sorry) lost in 2016. You get that this means turning "Idiots" over to voting Democratic, hence why you are annoyed at the Times not doing this well in your opinion. What might be worth a moment's consideration as well is figuring out how to woo these people who voted the wrong way in such a way that makes it clear that they done messed up, but it's a fixable problem and we love you anyway. If we screw that up, if the meme of leftist contempt for the Common Man who can't resist saying I Told You So, is intensified, then prepare to lose and lose some more. Which I dunno about you, but I think that would suck. I want to win.
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Anyway, in the room of (probable?) good news, using the forbidden source:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-voter-fraud-commission.html
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*raises eyebrow* I think you're having an entirely other conversation here man.
But "fuck the Times"? At worst, ignore it and don't support it. Save "Fuck you" for the actual Trump outlets, not the left outfits who don't match the exact tone you'd take if you were in charge of it.
What did you think "fuck those guys" meant?
What might be worth a moment's consideration as well is figuring out how to woo these people who voted the wrong way in such a way that makes it clear that they done messed up, but it's a fixable problem and we love you anyway.
And presenting Trump as an isolated Political Problem divorced from Real Life does the exact opposite of that? Which was my entire point?
There's other stuff to quibble there re: terminology and shit but eh, that's not really interesting, especially if we're not actually interested in continuing the discussion.
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So the New York Times is a pro-Trump outlet because one article focused on one aspect of Trump's badness rather than a different aspect of Trump's badness.
Okay.
(more serious reply: you realize that the Times has run plenty of human-interest stories on people affected by Trump's policies as well... right? Right? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/business/economy/united-mine-workers-retiree-health-plan.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/us/politics/obamacare-trump-cuts-open-enrollment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/health/trump-travel-ban-doctors.html )
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Anyway, since it seems an article of faith that said NYT article will be used to convert people to Trumpism via understating his terribleness, but nobody else seems to want to bother to test this hypothesis. I called up the closest thing to a centrist I could get - a Trump-skeptic conservative cousin of mine (I think he backed Rubio), and asked him to read the article. Here's what he said, paraphrased:
I don't think any newspaper article, anywhere, is really going to change anyone's opinion of Trump. There are very, very, very few people who haven't already formed an opinion of Trump, and for those who have, a newspaper article isn't going to be enough to change it. It'd have to be something way more dramatic - the economy crashing, say. So I really doubt one newspaper, no matter how slanted or bad or biased in any direction, has political heft.
He also ragged on Pelosi & Schumer for claiming the sky was falling every time Trump did anything, since the parts of Trumpism that are "implement vanilla conservative goals" come across to him as No Big Deal. So presumably a more "alarmist" article that even more explicitly said TRUMP IS RUINING EVERYTHING would not have worked on persuading him, at least.
So he doesn't think (like I would) that the NYT has any useful role in slowing Trumpism, but also doesn't think it could possibly be accelerating it either (as others here seem to believe). Make of it what you will.
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That quote aptly captures what's been my impression for a while: there won't be any sea change of established opinion significant enough to change the political situation until everything's in pieces, by which point it's too late. (Specifically, "Complete economic collapse" has long been my guess as to the one and only extreme that could possibly alienate Trump's supporters from their avatar, and even then only after many waves of blame have been dumped on easier political scapegoats).
And I'm guessing it's part of what makes this such a heated conversation for CK et al, because it sure as hell is for me: feeling like Cassandra's no fucking fun.
Anyway, I'm gonna suggest that a group of people who obviously all hate the guy already could maybe deal with it better than just sniping at each other about the proper manner and degree of expressing that disapproval (why is this kind of infighting always the left's most significant self-inflicted handicap?) The horse is truly dead.
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NYT is a leftist publication though? Compared to Breitbart or the Daily Mail? Sure, but I do respect their drawing their lines as Neutral (not Centrist) and their right to present as such. My critique tends to try and be either where I think the framing of their Neutral POV drives a right wing/populist agenda (not necessarily Trump) or where they have sold themselves as a force against Trump specifically previously but I think provide a much softer focus than they should if they are just doing facts based reporting.
I also may do a horrible job at that.
Left attacking left? well that would be why I don’t sit here and cuss out Snowfire for being a Centrist Socialist fuck who will be one of the first against the wall when the war comes, because well really most of the time that isn’t how I feel. Besides that’s what Facebook is for.
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I feel this less political article shows our issue with the NYT approach well
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/dining/raw-water-unfiltered.html?referer=https://www.google.fr/
NYT spends most of the article legitimizing this new phenomenon, the only counterpoint is two small paragraphs citing a doctor saying that it might be a bad idea.
Only our own knowledge allows us to say that this phenomenon is absolutely fucking stupid and these people are dangerous and mental. Anyone with no knowledge on the subject reading the article could think that, hey, fluoride is maybe a lot worse than dysentery
Also in 2020 NYT recruits an editorialist actively promoting drinking unfiltered water
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I should add that I’m not saying the NYT had to do a hit piece - just give a bigger choice to experts on the subject, explain more thoroughly why tap water is filtered, compare the potential dangers of both, etc
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I definitely agree with Fenrir that the article on water is a frustrating one and doesn't give nearly enough time to experts on why this is a bad idea. Someone could read the article and come away thinking the idea was fine.
I don't get that same sense at all from the linked article on Trump. It's pretty obvious to me that the writer is saying "these are things Trump has done that are bad". I'd dig out quotes but Snowfire already did it. Heck, the article looks a lot like ones that have made the rounds in my family's e-mails accompanied by nodding of "Yep, look at all the ways this man has damaged the institution of the presidency", some of which have even been from the NYT.
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Ah hell. VA republicans get to have control of state legislature because of a 50/50 namedraw from a hat.
I wish I hadbbeen more motivated to canvass.
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Fenrir: Yeah, we've had our debate on this one before. I agree with you on this issue.
Grefter: Two issues in there, slightly conflated IMO.
* I'm sure we can have a great conversation about what counts as leftist, by which definitions, etc. etc. But for purposes of this thread, by "leftist" I've meant "the 50% of Americans who usually vote Democratic", which is a more conservative set than in, say, Norway. And just as a point of order, however bad you think the NYT is, there are plenty of media sources that routinely favor Democrats and yet are to the right of the NYT, even the worst Bret Stephens hiring caricature-of-the-NYT. This is part of why I was taken aback by a denunciation of them on political grounds.
* Left-on-left disputes are fine, and that leads to a different discussion that I personally would have been a lot less heated in, as this is a perfectly respectable criticism of the NYT. I'll say that I disagree with my cousin's comments above on one thing about the role of the media: maybe the media doesn't have much effect on converting centrists anymore (what CK thinks were the swing voters weren't; well-meaning peaceful transfer of power, dignity of office types saw every single newspaper endorsing Clinton), but the media CAN maybe affect the policies each side favors. Classic example of this is global warming; in 2008, McCain basically said "yeah the Democratic answer to climate change sucks, ours is way better and less onerous regulations & stuff." By 2010, it was treason to even talk about climate change except to laugh at the scientist conspiracy, thanks to Republican elites on Fox News and the like. In the same way, I'm sure Rachel Maddow & MSNBC and the like can sway the terms of what counts as an acceptable Democratic candidate. And to the extent you, Grefter, want something even harder left than the NYT, sure, I can see ragging on the NYT for that, that they're dragging the Dem true believers who also read the NYT the "wrong" way.
But! That's both a different kind of ragging, and a different kind of article. This would be an article endorsing, I dunno, the NYT isn't as "corporatist" left as some people think, but global trade deals or some such maybe. And it probably wouldn't be a pure hate "fuck you" level denunciation on political grounds. I'll make the occasional "eh, not really" comment to some not-my-flavor-of-leftist memes on Facebook, but I'm not gonna go hunting them out and saying FUCK YOU AND EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR because their proposed policy is slightly different than mine.
So this is why it gets the incredulous, strong response from me. It's wrong on two levels. One, it's treating a boring end-of-year-wrapup article like it was making some treasonous policy suggestion. Second, even if it WAS some policy idea you hated and/or thought would empower President Trump, it's not grounds for unperson, go fuck yourself everyone who is supporting this vile rag (aka me, if not obvious...) level rhetoric. It's a left on left debate at most. It'd have to be something really, really crazy to merit the full-throated dual shotgun blasts - something like a liberal equivalent of Roy Moore.
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Anyway, here's a nice article from NotMiki's mom of all people:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/never-mind-churchill-clement-attlee-is-a-model-for-these-times
On the achievements of a certain British politician who brought socialism and decolonization to the UK, and knew who the real enemy was and who the political rival of the day was.
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Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. I dug my own grave by reading a NYT article when I've been pretty good about avoiding them since Nov 2016. Dammit. Dammit. And so I respond out of obligation not knowing anything about this article or its reception before the forums:
RE: NYT and Legitimization
I agree that this is a puff piece article, and I would say the author emphasizes that point by consistently building a maverick-super hero image of Trump. People call this normal reportage, but it's really slimy in my opinion because the writing style contributes to masking clickbait in a presumptively neutral article. In fact, this is so slimy that I would have loved to incorporate it into some kind of syllabus to discuss criticism and reading comprehension. The question is what would I prefer? Well, in anything that's not an editorial: balanced reporting, which I don't think this one is successful at doing. Instead of doing what I did last year, RE: Fuck the NYT, I'm doing something else...
These are some of the many moments throughout the article that I feel run the risk of actually undermining any clear characterization of Trump as a tyrant, a racist, yadda yadda: silly color-coded commentary~
WASHINGTON —
Mr. Trump is the 45th president of the United States, but he has spent much of his first year in office defying the conventions and norms established by the previous 44, and transforming the presidency in ways that were once unimaginable.
a maverick showing us new horizons, despite every president over the last century doing such
Under Mr. Trump, it has become a blunt instrument to advance personal, policy and political goals. He has revolutionized the way presidents deal with the world beyond 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, dispensing with the carefully modulated messaging of past chief executives in favor of no-holds-barred, crystal-breaking, us-against-them, damn-the-consequences blasts borne out of gut and grievance.
a blunt penis maverick who busts them walls
The presidency has served as a vehicle for Mr. Trump to construct and promote his own narrative, one with crackling verve but riddled with inaccuracies, distortions and outright lies, according to fact checkers.
this little flourish ending the sentence places the observation entirely within the perspective of fact checkers, and the author happily takes a backseat on the rollercoaster ride until....
That indifference to the way things have always been done has energized Mr. Trump’s core supporters, who cheer his efforts to destroy political correctness, take on smug elites and smash a self-interested system that, in their view, has shafted everyday Americans.
... the author uses "in their view," validates the perspective of Trump's core supporters as fact. Were they to treat this sentence comparably, it'd read: ..... "The indifference to the way things have always been done has energized Mr. Trump's core supporters, who, in their view, see Trump destroying political correctness and smashing a system they view as self-interested with Trump taking on individuals they see as smug elites."Just my opinion but I see that as far more neutral than what's in the text. There's a weird positive/negative occurring throughout the article and rhetoric in support of or against Trump are not handled evenly.
Not just push. Mr. Trump has shattered boundaries, at least those his predecessors observed. “Everyone else seemed to play within a certain box,” said William M. Daley, who served two presidents, first as a cabinet secretary under Bill Clinton and then as White House chief of staff under Barack Obama. “But this one is totally outside the box.”
What post-1980s child doesn't interpret "thinking outside of the box" as being creative and a positive contribution?
Talk of “absolute” power and a noted affinity for foreign strongmen have fueled fears of authoritarianism. For the most part, Mr. Trump, with some notable exceptions, has demonstrated more bark than bite. But that bark has become a power unto itself, and the question remains whether he will follow through on his threats in the next stage of his tenure or whether his attacks will prove ultimately self-defeating.
"has demonstrated more bark than bite" betrays any assertion (which doesn't exist) in this article that Trump could evenly possibly be an autocrat
Mr. Trump is creating precedents that may outlast his tenure. He is making the presidency more authentic or more autocratic, depending on the vantage point. Either way, it may never be the same.
especially here, since this is definitely handwaving something that should be a total stop sign were the author willing to reveal their actual opinion. if this is an editorial (not sure, only clicked on the link) then it most certainly should reveal an opinion. if this is just reportage, then it does nothing more than blow hot air, imo.
A portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office. Mr. Trump “very seldom asks how other presidents did this,” said John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff.
It's not like the newbs would know anyway~
Presidents are human, too
SCREED: frfr?
He distorted a comment by the Muslim mayor of London to paint him as soft on terrorism. He accused Mr. Obama of tapping Trump Tower, calling him a “Bad (or sick) guy!” — a claim Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department rejected. He said there were “very fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally and counterprotest in Charlottesville, Va. He endorsed an accused child molester for Senate.
He called various targets of his ire “crazy,” “psycho,” “short and fat,” “crooked,” “totally inept,” “a joke,” “dumb as a rock,” “disgusting,” “puppet,” “weak and out of control,” “sleazy,” “wacky,” “totally unhinged,” “incompetent,” “lightweight” and “the dumbest man on television.” Among others.
"Among others." How dismissive. So here's a master list, yeah? And all of these things are vile total trash. But if this was simply reportage, the author noticeably fails to incorporate people's responses to some pretty important events that received very accessible local and international responses. My question is the author's choice to expand or not, and they most expand upon Trumpporters
“You hear all the time he’s not presidential,” he added. “But I say to myself, ‘That’s why he won.’”
Now'd be a good time to also report on how he actually won, through the electoral college...
Even Mr. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who took over in July as chief of staff, has met the limits of his ability to guide the president.
tha' thar meeliterry man culdn' even keep tha' man down, nah!
“I’m not put on earth to control him,” Mr. Kelly said. “But I have been put on earth to make this staff work better and make sure this president, whether you voted for him or not, is fully informed before he makes a decision. And I think we achieved that.”
so what you're saying is our tax dollars have gone to bringing us martian conservative republicans and our tax dollars are going into tracking the screws that broke off from the transportation units and that our tax dollars are going back into sending rich folk away fr fr?
“One way he’s changed the institution is that most presidents see themselves as trustees of the democracy,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “And while every president is irritated by the limitations of democracy on them, they all grudgingly accept it. He has not. He has waged war on the institutions of democracy from the beginning, and I think in a very corrosive way.”
Mr. Trump’s bellicosity may alienate many voters, but it has kept him a force in Washington beyond what other presidents with approval ratings in the 30s might expect. While lawmakers and lobbyists normally smell weakness in an unpopular White House and disregard its wishes, other players in the capital remain reluctant to cross Mr. Trump lest they find themselves on the wrong end of a Twitter blast.
Why the switch up in tone now with "may, but" and respond to a quote with actual text finally attributable to you dear author?
If Mr. Trump’s unconventional presidency succeeds, he could set a new paradigm for the presidency. If he fails, it would be a cautionary tale for his successors.
"Cautionary"? Why so? If his successor is not like him, then...
Mr. Trump is testing the proposition that a president can still effectively remake the country without securing or even seeking a broader mandate.
so legally? gotcha, just wanted to be sure...
edit* just learned mah' color system was busted ;D
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dunie: I still disagree that these segments undermine characterizing Trump as bad.
"Unimaginable" is negative in context (it's not a good unimaginable). "Us-against-them rhetoric" was traditionally considered a "bad" thing to genteel centrist newspaper readers (although who knows these days anymore). "According to fact checkers" is a way to squeeze in a slam on Trump while still appearing "neutral" (there's no implication that the fact-checkers are wrong or biased anywhere). You're right that "self-interested system" is technically not attributed to Trump supporters. I get the message the writer is going for, but, sure, I can see a difference of opinion on proper phrasing for that one. "Outside the box" can be positive without any context, but the context is a bunch of norm-shattering authoritarianism, and it's a direct quote, so presumably the reporter thought that was the best quote to work with. "More bark than bite" has been thankfully true on some issues - if you take all of Trump's tweets and threats literally, he has not actually followed through on many of them. I think it's fair to worry that this understates what Trump has done, but I think it's also fair to mention that Trump can be a blowhard at times, which is just clearly true (and is bad for the country in a different way). Reality can accommodate both Trump being terrible and promising to be far more terrible but not following up. Trump making the presidency more "authentic" is the Trump-supporter's stance, contrasted with "autocratic" from detractors; I think it's valid to mention the other side's stance, as it's what you pick to explain Trump if you like him. Understanding the opposition's arguments is useful. For "Presidents are human", here's the full paragraph:
Presidents are human, too, a blend of varying degrees of idealism, generosity, empathy, ambition, ego, vanity, jealousy and anger, but they generally hide their unvarnished traits behind an official veneer. Call it decorum, call it presidential. Mr. Trump essentially calls it fake, making no effort to pretend to be above it all, except to boast that he is stronger, richer, smarter and more successful than anyone else. To him, the presidency is about winning, not governing.
It's a set-up for "Trump is more interested in parading his victory around then acting presidential and ruling the country." That's an overall attack on him - presumably even diehard conservatives want someone who can both win AND "govern." The bit about Kelly: It's in response to a meme among the "respectable" centrists that maybe John Kelly would "fix" the White House and help Trump after he became Chief of Staff, which the author is saying "eh, probably not" against. The electoral college wouldn't have mattered if Trump had lost by a 85-15 margin, which is what "should" have happened; how exactly he hustled his way to 46% of the vote is the point of interest the author is exploring. I think the EC would be fine to talk about in a different article, but this one was more focused on his first year in office, and how his supporters interact with him is relevant to that (with the election being the backstory for it). re "cautionary tale", it'll be a cautionary tale for future presidents because if EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE by 2020 future presidents might say "huh let me not do that again". The "broader mandate" thing is hitting on Trump for making radical changes despite having half the country hate him.
Anyway, as for whether this piece is really Trump-friendly or not, I'm going to fall back to the same thing I mentioned earlier in the thread: are there people who are Trump-neutral or Trump-positive and agree with the stance that this piece is portraying him as a maverick-super hero? Would that article appear in Breitbart without too many angry comments? If the only people who think Trump is being burnished by this piece are people who already hate Trump and won't have their minds changed anyway... is the piece actually pro-Trump in any effective sense?
At the very worst, if nobody can be found that thinks Trump is flattered by it who doesn't already hate Trump, that would imply the article is a wholly ineffective pro-Trump puff piece. Which is something I guess.
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See, I didn't read the article with an interest of parsing Good Trump or Bad Trump. Although I'm unconvinced in your response, getting entangled with whether things such as "unimaginable" as "negative" wasn't my part of my reading. It's that, when an author chooses to not name a thing, then using terms with the potential to carry negative or positive connotations is slippery business. They could have made the work far more easier by simply naming their target instead of belaboring what really is a shifting target in their writing. And I'm not sure I can convince you that I was, in fact, not reading the article drooling with anger out of any possible positive thing one could say about Trump. So yes, presenting multiple stances is important. I just have not been convinced by their writing or anyone else that they were effective in presenting both. Trump can be a maverick-super hero without him needing to be a villain to be seen as good or bad. You're right though, I clipped off the "Presidents are human, too" paragraph only because it's right under a headline and right before a slew of paragraphs and quotes such as "“One thing he’s done to the Oval Office and our political culture as a whole is brought a lot more authenticity than people have been used to from politicians,” said Andy Surabian, a senior adviser to the Great America Alliance, a Trump-aligned group" that the author does not counterbalance or respond to with other information. So it was an easy target to troll. So I'm not sure if the article would be met with snuggles by Breitbart readers, but after my color-coded commentary and some chatter it's been definitely embraced by my Trumpporter colleagues, who don't care about Trump being flattered- they care about how he's been defying the odds they've wanted to him, even with all the trash he's knocking over. To not belabor the point further, I hope you'll come to see my response as something concerned far more with clickbait and my general feeling that any unclear denouncement of Trump can be taken as a compliment. [edit: and if not it seems there's just simply an impasse! And really no useful result in further arguing except to ask more questions about the readers/critics/lovers than the writing] To use the crudest example: any school bully who's only described by what he does and how his friends view him mostly, whether good or bad, who's not actually called a bully, plays too much fire with responsibility. And that bully gets to go home and puff their collar.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/01/09/a-real-halloween-special-fusion-gps-co-founder-questions-new-york-times-report-on-trump-russia/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.c4b0c2e63db6
here's a nice starting point if y'all want to continue to beat up on the Grey Lady
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https://streamable.com/no6jt
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"I'm a proud shithole!!"
-Serious political commentary from January 2018.
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https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/federal-judges-invalidate-north-carolinas-unconstitutionally-gerrymandered-congressional-map.html
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/12/supreme-court-texas-racial-gerrymandering-338733
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I'm tired of these immigrants from shithole countries coming over here and harassing our white women (https://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/animaniacs/images/f/fe/2528459-hello_nurse_yakko_and_wakko_1_.png/revision/latest?cb=20161116192023)
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/01/17/daily-202-unexpected-defeat-in-rural-wisconsin-special-election-sets-off-alarm-bells-for-republicans/5a5eb5d230fb0469e884019a/?tid=pm_pop&utm_term=.2492df7fa422
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Iiiiiiiiiiiiiit's shutdown time!
Fun tidbit about the last-minute negotiations:
"Democrats seem to think they were really close to a last-second deal to avoid a shutdown. Republicans not so much. Lankford (R) says Dems withdrew a deal to fund til the 8th. Piecing this together, sounds like Democrats and Republicans were fine with extending funding to the 8th. Sounds like it fell apart over commitment to get DACA tied to the must-pass bill on the 8th. Sounds like it was Paul Ryan, via phone, who sunk negotiations. Wouldn't commit the House to tying DACA to a must-pass funding bill." (https://twitter.com/pdmcleod/status/954602867834474496)
It's weird that the GOP hold on the House is way more endangered than its Senate majority, but they're the ones who refuse to play ball, right?
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I'm still bitter that the public rewarded the GOP's hostage-taking style of government budget passing in 2013 with a huge victory in the 2014 elections. Damn the public for not caring about that. Given that the US voters have shown that they don't care about this, why not try the same thing even when you're in power? Just threaten to kill things even the GOP claims to be for (CHIP, maybe DACA) so that they offer the minimum possible concessions, hey, you kept popular bipartisan programs afloat with us while we beat you everywhere else?
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It's interesting. My public's been condemning that heartlessness ever since. So, in this way, I actually haven't received any material or news feeds that praise or validate GOP since like, 2008. By public do you mean news or your information circle?
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I think he just means election results?
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Gotcha. If so, color me unsurprised by party politics.
[depression]
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So...looking away from the trash fire for the moment...Canada has ratified the TPP with most of the Asian countries:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tpp-champagne-deal-1.4499616
My initial reaction was a bit negative, but it sounds like they've addressed a lot of the issues that I had with the TPP, like forcing American IP law onto more countries, and they added a number of environmental restrictions. (Probably both only possible because the US dropped out of the deal). Economically, obviously, it's smart for Canada, but it sounds like it's not sacrificing too many moral principles either, which was my main prior objection to the TPP.
From a strictly "how does this affect me personally cause I'm living in the US?"--actually IP law is the one thing that probably would impact companies I work for, as many american videogame companies struggle to sell in Asia where pirating is common. But eh--what I think is a good and moral deal, and what I think will maybe result in slightly more profits for the company that employs me is not the same thing.
Canada, I imagine, is pretty happy with how all this shook out. Canada already has NAFTA for free trade with the US, and now gets a trade deal with Asian countries without having to submit to extra demands from the Americans. I also have to wonder whether Canada/Mexico thanks to NAFTA will be used as a bypass for tariffs (ex: the new solar cell tariff--I believe that legally can't apply to Canada or Mexico, so...will Chinese manufacturers ship to shell companies in Canada and from there into the US in order to bypass tariffs?)
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https://thinkprogress.org/pennsylvania-gop-leader-tells-state-supreme-court-he-will-defy-its-anti-gerrymandering-order-afc0b3cd8eb0/
And now, a brief glance back at the trash fire, since this is one of the things I'd qualify as a real critical point.
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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pennsylvania-supreme-court-impeachment_us_5a79cdb8e4b00f94fe95ade3
(https://i.imgur.com/kQLc13s.jpg)
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wuuuuuut
ya know, everyone's happy about punching nazis, because
but i wish it were as socially acceptable to punch sociopathic assholes
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Yes yes, I know, there have been other events more recently. But I'm fascinated by Alexei Navalny's latest video, wherein an instagram model who happened to be dating the Russian Oligarch whom is owed a large debt from Paul Manifort, and who received regular election updates from Paul Manifort during the 2016 campaign--that instagram model may have accidentally revealed that the deputy prime minister was on-board that oligarch's Yacht and receiving the intel.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/02/13/a-russian-dissident-pulls-off-a-virtuoso-trolling-of-the-putin-regime/?utm_term=.d3d88aeba812
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/russia-is-trying-to-bury-this-video-and-they-might-shut-down-youtube-to-do-it/
The fact that Russia is considering blocking all of youtube and instagram to stop this video means that it got under someone's skin, true or false.
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(https://i0.wp.com/gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/i-feel-like-im-taking-crazy-pills.gif)
Terrible hiring decisions have infected the culture of the paper and these are the thoughts their writers have now. (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWHIfNyXkAEvfSX.jpg)
NYT is garbage.
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I'm still on the fence on how bad the first tweet is. Perhaps if he hadn't added the last part with "another sad reason..." it would've stood just fine. That's where it adds the terrible implication he feels he needs to qualify.
It's the second tweet where he verily falls on his own sword and deserves all the derision. The equivocation/apology is worse than the offense, running kill count 11billion.
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I need to stop looking at the news for like a month. I'm going to have a stroke one of these days reading an article on... Well anything
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Neither of those tweets seem especially bad to me? There is an unfortunate implication that could be taken from the first tweet but he clarifies that it wasn't his intent in the second. Good lord, everyone's said things that could be taken as more offensive/insensitive than intended before.
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If it helps he deleted them and has a “Sorry you got offended” follow up.
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https://kotaku.com/kentucky-governor-blames-violent-video-games-for-shooti-1823075688
The worst take. I say that not because it's about videogames but because it's basically a Boomer putting the blame for a mass killing on young people, collectively. Needless to say: fuck that guy.
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https://kotaku.com/kentucky-governor-blames-violent-video-games-for-shooti-1823075688
The worst take. I say that not because it's about videogames but because it's basically a Boomer putting the blame for a mass killing on young people, collectively. Needless to say: fuck that guy.
(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/left4dead/images/b/b5/Boomeridle_1.png/revision/latest?cb=20101024005739) (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/deathbattle/images/4/47/VS.png/revision/latest?cb=20160727174407)(https://rpeacecraft.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/5.png)
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13 Russians and one American got arrested by Muller today. So that's a thing that just happened.
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The Russians have to be stateside or in an extraditing country for arrests to be made. Unless they're somehow in custody and that's slipped in reporting?
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I'm not reading that any of them are actually in any position to be arrested, so seems unlikely.
I think it's more a P.R. move intended to put pressure on stateside people already under scrutiny in the investigation than anything else, but Mueller is proving adept with surprises like this.
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It's also a way to put his findings about how the IRA operation worked on the record, rather than having to limit it to his final report rather than court filings that can later be cited as proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
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Additionally, it seems pretty clear to me that this is designed to inoculate the investigation from claims that it is illegitimate, hasn't turned up any evidence of crimes, and is merely a witch hunt of Donny T. Rump. Now, whether that will actually stop the shills in the GOP from making these claims remains to be seen, but it does strike me as something solid to point to when they start squawking about how the special counsel is a waste of time and money.
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"The first count is conspiracy against the United States. The second count is for making a false statement. Remarkably the alleged false statement was made by Gates to the Special Counsel’s Office and the FBI on Feb. 1, months after the original indictment was issued, according to the information. That suggests Gates lied in the course of plea negotiations. His lawyers moved to withdraw from the case the same day."
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/gates-mueller-plea-deal-entered
Gates lied in his plea agreement and that's why his lawyer dropped him! THAT DAY! He'd been charged, decided he'd pretend to play ball but actually still lie to the FBI, and they caught him!
:emojiwhereimlaughingsohardimcrying:
:emojiwhereimlaughingsohardimcrying:
:emojiwhereimlaughingsohardimcrying:
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https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/03/07/ive-been-called-a-dyke-a-rug-muncher-a-whore-snps-mhairi-black-opens-up-about-vile-online-abuse/
People are, of course, pearlclutching about her saying vile language in the Parliament, as if that weren't literally the fucking point. I love the guy in the article who says "Won't someone think of the meeeeen?" He's like a strawman personified as a human being.
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#allmrasmatter
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Ways to not let Canadians lord their superiority over us and get 'em to can the attitude:
1. Vote Trump & his cronies out of office, say "whoops guess we hit the wrong button lolz musta been sleepy that day!", pretend that 2017-2020 never happened.
2. Canadians do something just as stupid as we did and elect Doug Ford, brother to Mayor Cocaine of Toronto, to lead Ontario, their biggest and greatest province????
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/opinion/doug-ford-populism-canada-trump.html
Tide, this is your fault.
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Bolton as National Security Advisor.
There will be blood.
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Michael Bolton can truly go the distance as national security advisor
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http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/23040693/houston-texans-owner-bob-mcnair-regrets-apology-inmates-comment
Still a cuntbag.
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Half of the things I thought I knew about the pulse nightclub shooting were lies:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/noor-salman-pulse-massacre-wrong_us_5ac29ebae4b04646b6454dc2
As far as investigators could tell, Mateen had never been to Pulse before, whether as a patron or to case the nightclub. Even prosecutors acknowledged in their closing statement that Pulse was not his original target; it was the Disney Springs shopping and entertainment complex. They presented evidence demonstrating that Mateen chose Pulse randomly less than an hour before the attack. It is not clear he even knew it was a gay bar. A security guard recalled Mateen asking where all the women were, apparently in earnest, in the minutes before he began his slaughter.
Based on data from their cell phones, neither Mateen or Salman had ever been in the vicinity of Pulse before. On the night of the attack, Mateen first went to Disney Springs and EVE Orlando ― both of which had heavy, visible security ― before ending up at Pulse after a Google search for “downtown Orlando nightclubs.” Notably, his search did not include the words “gay” or “LGBT.”
Salman’s trial cast doubt on everything we thought we knew about Mateen. There was no evidence he was a closeted gay man, no evidence that he was ever on Grindr. He looked at porn involving older women, but investigators who scoured Mateen’s electronic devices couldn’t find any internet history related to homosexuality. (There were daily, obsessive searches about ISIS, however.) Mateen had extramarital affairs with women, two of whom testified during the trial about his duplicitous ways.
“She was not his partner, she was not his peer, and she certainly was not his confidant,” one of Salman’s lawyers, Linda Moreno, said. Mateen was a domestic abuser who treated Salman with disrespect and violence. “Her only sin was that she married a monster,” she said.
Salman told her family that her husband had beat her. He raped her. He controlled her life. Her story was echoed by Mateen’s first wife, who said he physically assaulted and terrorized her during their short marriage.
“[T]he agents had coerced Noor into agreeing that Omar Mateen had cased the Pulse and selected the nightclub as his target,” said Swift in an email, “and it was not in the government’s interest to contradict that narrative.”
[...]
Salman had originally been granted bail by a magistrate judge in California, but prosecutors appealed, asking a federal judge to keep her behind bars. They pointed to her confession that she had scouted Pulse with her husband ― even though by this point they had strong evidence to the contrary
[...]
During the trial, when an FBI agent testified that he had determined “within days” of the massacre that Salman had never been in the vicinity of Pulse, based on her cell phone data, Byron stopped him.
You knew within days? he asked.
Yes, the agent responded.
Did you tell anyone?
Yes, the agent said.
Whom did you tell?
My superiors, the agent replied. Byron asked for their first and last names. Later, after excusing the jury, he asked prosecutors to explain themselves. Why had they misled him when they asked him to deny Salman bail?
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Well, with Kennedy stepping down, it's time to talk about what happens if Roe V Wade is overturned.
This has a lot of implications, some of them negative obviously, but some potentially positive.
On a political level, it will be put up or shut up time for the Republicans. This happened in Canada in 1988, when an older anti-abortion law was struck down by Canada's supreme court. The conservative party was in power at the time, and vowed to come up with a new law and...then kind-of didn't. I mean, fundamentally, a lot of the options for bans or restrictions just aren't great, and any actual concrete policy will always be a lot less popular than the vague idea of a partial restriction or ban. Kind of like how everyone likes the idea of "better healthcare" but Obamacare ended up not satisfying the right or the left.
Let's say the Republicans actually get what they want, Roe V Wade overturned--now they would actually need some real policy proposals. Way too many times in 2008 with Palin, and 2016 with Trump, I would talk to Republicans who were like "I hate this candidate, but I have to vote for them cause abortion." Take away that carrot, and now suddenly candidates will need to have actual policy positions, instead of just promising the same thing for 40 years.
Now what about in the interim? Some people fear a return to 60s America and rusty coat hangers. Not to mention Abortion being available to rich women but merely being about 10x more expensive. I'm...skeptical, just because technology has changed.
#1, the internet Fundamentally, most abortions are done by taking a pill, taking a pill you can take at home, and even if the pill is banned, you honestly probably could make it in a home chemistry lab, or order the relevant chemical compounds from those mail order Chemistry labs in China. There are websites for all these things https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/website-aims-to-help-women-self-induce-abortions-using-drugs/2017/04/26/119a1ba8-29c4-11e7-be51-b3fc6ff7faee_story.html?utm_term=.c6f7048c77af . There isn't really a way to block this information without pretty obviously violating the 1st amendment either.
#2 If the pill does get banned, Smuggling has gotten more economical too Know what people in Europe did when Poland had restrictive abortion laws? Smuggled abortion pills into Poland via drone: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/24/abortion-drone-border-poland-germany-women-on-waves
#3 Travel I look at the cost of an abortion in the US (always paid out of pocket, I believe, due to restrictive laws). We're talking generally $300-$800. Round trip flight to Canada is like $300. So even with this extreme option, we're not talking 10x more expensive as in the 60s. More expensive, but more like a 50% increase instead of a 1000% increase.
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I suspect the most immediate course is that it falls to the states to legislate abortion availability individually. Guess what the Republicans have been extremely effective at legislating away on the state level for years? (Other than voting rights.)
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#3 Travel I look at the cost of an abortion in the US (always paid out of pocket, I believe, due to restrictive laws). We're talking generally $300-$800. Round trip flight to Canada is like $300. So even with this extreme option, we're not talking 10x more expensive as in the 60s. More expensive, but more like a 50% increase instead of a 1000% increase.
Well the problem is it's not just the round trip and cost of the procedure. It's the time off work. It's childcare if applicable. It's the cost of a passport if you need to leave the country (though I'd think that flying to a state with legal abortion would be easier,). And that assumes you find a place that will perform the procedure without a waiting period.
I mean 10x is probably still an exaggeration but it's a very significant barrier to those with lower incomes (and really, that's who we're worried about here; the wealthy always have and always will be able to get abortions if needed).
FWIW I think we're still at least one more SC replacement away from this being a real danger but y'know Breyer and RBG aren't young and I have steadily less faith in the Democrats to win the 2020 election.
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What NEB said. A couple hundred dollars is a lot of money to a woman in trouble anyplace rural, and quite sufficient barrier (plus the difficulty getting time off of work, as noted--again something that often presents an obstacle for voting, why is election day not a fucking holiday?) to be an insurmountable hurdle in states that have pushed through bullshit laws to restrict abortion access to a couple clinics. This is already a problem.
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Quite heavy-handed, but...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/opinion/race-politics-whiteness.html?imp_id=84086400&action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
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It's occurred to me more than once over the past several years that being heavy-handed is sometimes the only effective way to make certain points.
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Although it feels weird to me not to mention how deeply those things are intertwined with American christianity as well. There's a non-negligible portion of them that actively design policy goals to speed up the literal Apocalypse via Holy Land (ie Israel) shenanigans.
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https://twitter.com/salstrange/status/1037780384363233281
A rare case where many of the comments are also worth reading!
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The burden of being a heterosexual woman who can reproduce is so goddamned oppressive and suffocating in the US. Add all the other intersections and my god. Most of my close friends are lesbians, and the stories they have shared on their journey for kids??
I will only ever see a cis female feminist midwife and only ever have a black cis female doula for any of my women's health. Ever. And though I don't find that much of a privilege by comparison, it's definitely something out of reach for thousands of women.
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This hearing is a shitshow.
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What the fuck was the conclusion of the hearing today? Seriously. What the fuck happened, none of the people in the room seem clear on it.
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3x the voters of 2014's results showed up on day one of early voting in Georgia. As both sides of the ideological poles brace for these midterms, I'm just sharing the data for Georgia: http://georgiavotes.com. We like numbers here.
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Day 2 of early voting for Georgia was apparently higher than day 1.
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Yeah, I've heard both sides are expecting huge turnouts after the Kavanaugh thing. Should be real interesting to see how it all hashes out. I'm expecting some degree of a Dem wave for a variety of reasons, but the question is how much of a one?
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I live in a big ol' activist blue bubble so it's hard for me to get a good picture of what the rest of the country is doing, but I've heard a lot about Republicans showing up in droves in early voting tallies. I would not be too shocked to find that was true. I'm still puzzled by the blue side being disinclined to participate in the democracy part.
I am and have nearly always been registered No Party so I worry at how much stock is put in the "Democrats/Republicans do a thing" dialog when there are, I know, plenty of people like me who don't register within a party but tend to vote for the same one and their particular issues in every election.
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Republicans are usually more likely to vote early (overall, it can vary by state/locality) , believe it or not. This is not really a change. It'll be interesting to see the breakdowns afterwards though of how much the numbers have changed though, both Democratic increase/decrease in early voting, possible Republican increase/decrease, etc. Historically, Republicans have better turnout in Midterm years and Dems in Presidential election years, so there will be benchmarks to refer to.
And yes, while registered Independents have been a growing group, GSS and NES surveys have pretty much confirmed the majority of them tend to vote exclusively for one party or the other. Very few of them (<=20%) actually vacillate between parties.
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Good luck.
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It varies. The stock in Dems/Rep can be sly in a place like GA for example. We do not have to register at all, so as you'd expect the parties absorb unofficial numbers from voting patterns.
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Election is coming up. Things are getting tense. Again, I live in the brightest fucking blue spot in the country so it's a little different here, but people are angry and depressed and just so beat down. It's really awful to see. Every time a new story comes up, there is really impassioned arguing that fades in the face of both "you already know, you think the same way" and "the people who don't aren't listening."
It's just... really ugly. And I can't wait to see how this year's slate of "popular vote decides the constitution" goes for California.
- Give veterans stuff out of the general fund
- Make millionaires pay for mental health services and homeless shelters
- Do some stuff to fix the water problem out of the general fund
- Borrow more money to build more children's hospitals
- Amend the comically disastrous Prop 13 to alleviate old people trying to actually go somewhere else
- Rewind that 2017 tax increase on gas stuff, whoops
- Live on DST permanently (if the feds decide to allow it)
- Make dialysis clinics stop gouging the fuck out of their patients
- Repeal that old rent control thing and LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED (let localities set their rent control parameters)
- Force EMTs to never take breaks, but it's cool we will also mandate that they get some mental health coverage
- Raise animals humanely in size-based pens, not chickens-walk-in-circles pens, or else you can't sell those products
The current General Fund spends about $138 billion. What's another billion dollars here and there anyway, right?
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https://www.topic.com/the-secret-weapons-of-the-far-right
The 14 words are carefully chosen, and this is why. Violent wife beaters are ubiquitous among right-wing activists, but simply put they don’t have a movement without the organizing and recruitment work they have no capacity or willingness to carry out.
The damning thing is, thanks to the way feminism was coopted by capitalism it seems comically easy for them to sway middle of the road ‘liberals’.
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https://www.topic.com/the-secret-weapons-of-the-far-right
The 14 words are carefully chosen, and this is why. Violent wife beaters are ubiquitous among right-wing activists, but simply put they don’t have a movement without the organizing and recruitment work they have no capacity or willingness to carry out.
This is the only thing I appreciated from Lee's Blackkklansman film. There's not enough conversation about how women are the sacrificial lambs of masculinist nationhood and identity searching, whether the women lean in agreement ideologically or not. Although, I would argue for days that this was unwitting on Lee's own part, negligent even. But to not diverge so much from your point, this is why consciousness-raising groups or even a small amount of socialization is powerful as it can stand to brunt the isolation or fear that legitimizes stuff just like in that link.
The damning thing is, thanks to the way feminism was coopted by capitalism it seems comically easy for them to sway middle of the road ‘liberals’.
[/quote]
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I may have been dabbling in bell hooks recently, which definitely put that sort of thinking at the front of my mind.
But yeah, I'm coming to believe that the simple acts of fixing your own heart and existing are a lot more powerful as part of the work than usually credited.
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You've been stealing my heart this past year.
If you ever want to chat out your readings in Black feminisim or womanism, I'm game.
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You know the meme about how it's really the left's fault for ignoring and belittling the Hard Working Normal Americans and driving them into Trump's hands? Here's a bizarre variant of that in East Germany rather than East Iowa... communism succeeded too well at educating women so they all left for better jobs elsewhere and the remaining men got really embittered and racist?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/world/europe/merkel-east-germany-nationalists-populism.html
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Well fuck Texas for continuing to vote for Cruz. Guess I should be happy that it was close. Ciato should be happy about Oklahoma 5.
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This was certainly an outcome, alright. Could've been a lot better but in all honestly I don't think I held much hope for the House flipping.
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Abrams isn't conceding yet. I'm bitter but no one in my racial community has ever received complete, unobstructed wins to anything. Today I'm going to plant some trees in the yard, keep dissertating, get my eyesbrows done, and stay attentive for the maybe-maybe-not mad dash run-off in December.
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Senate would have been good to take. House is a point to start doing lots. Lots of angry to be had about the super broken process but I don’t have valuable input. Lots of good stories mixed in with the bad.
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Recap on California's props and the results:
- Give veterans stuff out of the general fund - Yeah, sure
- Make millionaires pay for mental health services and homeless shelters - Yes! Please.
- Do some stuff to fix the water problem out of the general fund - No...? What was the question again?
- Borrow more money to build more children's hospitals - It's for the CHILDREN.
- Amend the comically disastrous Prop 13 to alleviate old people trying to actually go somewhere else - Fuck this attempt to give the landed elite any more breaks.
- Rewind that 2017 tax increase on gas stuff, whoops - Fuck this attempt to legitimize partisan fighting.
- Live on DST permanently (if the feds decide to allow it) - I still have a hangover from this change.
- Make dialysis clinics stop gouging the fuck out of their patients - Oh wait, look who was funding this one. And they're trying to punish 2 specific companies. This is not a state issue!
- Repeal that old rent control thing and LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED (let localities set their rent control parameters) - Nooooooo. Rent control bad! This one says rent control! Therefore, bad.
- Force EMTs to never take breaks, but it's cool we will also mandate that they get some mental health coverage - Brought to you by the companies that now don't have to pay as much.
- Raise animals humanely in size-based pens, not chickens-walk-in-circles pens, or else you can't sell those products - We fucked up with the previous version of humane farming, let's do this one!
No huge surprises, though the rent control one was sorely missed by some, the EMT one is a bitter example of what happens when companies punch down, the gas tax one was despicable because it had supporters (actual politicians!) on record as saying they backed it because it was divisive and more likely to pull out the conservative vote. The one about old people moving/fixing Prop 13 was a very good example of how screwed up direct democracy is because it is precisely the sort of thing we hire legislators to handle. I mean yeah, sure, help people move instead of punishing them for staying! Except, wait, no, we're "punishing" them with an insanely good benefit they don't want to lose when they sell their house at 5-10x as much as they paid for it? Fuck those guys.
We really need to fix Prop 13 though, omg. Someone with a winning answer to that problem is going to become the President. It's incredibly unlikely they're going to touch Prop 13 directly - it's actually known as California's "third rail," as in it will destroy you if you touch it - but the side effects definitely need some alleviation, because property tax contributions to local initiatives is huge and hugely affected by what date your property tax was pegged into.
--
I've also been complaining repeatedly about democracy in general on Facebook. I've been reading articles, forums, speeches more than I've done work lately. I feel so powerless and I hate it.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/22/hillary-clinton-europe-must-curb-immigration-stop-populists-trump-brexit?CMP=twt_gu
You were robbed. You should be president right now. The world would have a more certain, easier path to the future if it were so.
But please don't run again in 2020.
God damn what a cowardly statement.
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https://twitter.com/VicBergerIV/status/1068615911198855168
Conservatives accuse others of their own misdeeds, example #29010
May they all be locked away to never harm another again.
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https://twitter.com/VicBergerIV/status/1068615911198855168
Conservatives accuse others of their own misdeeds, example #29010
May they all be locked away to never harm another again.
All criminals or all conservatives? Rather important bit of clarity there.
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All the names contained in that link.
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https://twitter.com/VicBergerIV/status/1068615911198855168
Conservatives accuse others of their own misdeeds, example #29010
May they all be locked away to never harm another again.
All criminals or all conservatives? Rather important bit of clarity there.
I'm sure I've said this before: there's nothing wrong with being conservative normally; there was a year in Canadian elections when I supported the Canadian Conservative party, as I liked some of the reforms they had implemented in their first term.
There is a problem with the alt-right, and with the American Republican party in recent times. (Also plenty of problems with the American Democratic party. But a lot of the ways the US government has ceased to function properly in the past five years has been stuff like Mitch McConnel refusing to vote on a single judicial nomination for the last two years of Obama's presidency, or Ted Cruz single-handedly deciding to shut down the government because he can, or the NRA agreeing to funnel Russian money to the Republican party).
And in this case...actively working to defend a pedophile ring. (Which has a particular irony, when the alt-right spent a year on conspiracy theories claiming that literally everyone on the left was a pedophile--some alt-right kid actually killed his dad cause he believed the conspiracy nonsense: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/10/23/alt-righter-seattle4truth-charged-killing-father-over-conspiracy-theories Actually apparently stories like this have happened more than once: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/milo-yiannopoulos-intern-lane-davis-kill-father-call-nazi-accused-samish-island-alt-right-a8021011.html ).
Like...this is so genuinely alarming when I compare it to the political climate I grew up with when I was a teenager. Except maybe in Ireland, where people were bombing each other when I was a teenager. But like...that's a pretty shitty slogan for 2018. "2018: we're not as bad as Ireland in the 90s."