Re: Politics and Current Events

by **reboot** Fri May 20, 2016 12:17 am

I am at the point in my life where I just do not have the fight in me anymore. And this is how the old give way to the young (but still criticize from the sidelines) Smile

by Wondering Fri May 20, 2016 1:42 am

Trump is a bully and a hothead, who has said publicly that he doesn't think it's important to look back at or learn from mistakes, and he will have at his disposal nuclear weapons. I'm much less worried about what Trump will actively do here (he will definitely passively trash the economy) than what he will actively do to other countries. And then what they may do in return.

You might not be better off in other country, reboot. The sort of place your job takes you is sure to be the type of country Trump wants to trump up a reason to destroy. Sad

by jcorozza Sat May 21, 2016 1:05 am

I think there's some pretty scary stuff Trump can do here, that I'm already seeing, that has very little to do with policy. He seems to be bringing together what I had thought were fringe groups of extremists (mostly hate groups) and making them...well, not so fringey. Like, remember a year ago when we all thought, "nah, he'll never make it that far, no one will take him seriously". Apparently a bunch of horrible people will, and we'll see just how many of those horrible hateful racist sexist anti-Semitic there are out there - it's waaaaaaay more than I thought.

Then again, even if he doesn't get elected, some of that damage is already done. And for the first time, I'm not just disappointed with our country, or annoyed. I am fucking terrified.

by Wondering Thu May 26, 2016 1:21 pm

So, Trump and Sanders are going to debate each other and Clinton's not invited? Yeah, the sexism isn't just the Bernie bros. Sanders looking more like Trump in his behavior toward women.

by WJMorris3 Thu May 26, 2016 3:08 pm

Trump just clinched the presidency for the Democratic Party!

by Wondering Thu May 26, 2016 3:31 pm

The end times, they are here.

by bomaye Sat May 28, 2016 2:30 pm

So the delegates at the Conservative Party of Canada convention in Vancouver just voted to strike their... silent protest of Gay Marriage let's call it from their official policy book. They don't really say much about it anymore or challenge gay marriage laws because it would make them unelectable, but it still remained part of their policy book to appeal to religious voters of all stripes. The party membership now has to hold a vote and if that's okay'ed, it's officially deleted.

Also, Kevin O'Leary, who's a reality star in business shows and kind of wants to tap into a little bit of what Trump's doing, wants to drag the CPC back to just plain Fiscal Conservatism and apparently said something like

“Assisted suicide? Yes. Legalizing marijuana? Yes. Gay rights? Yes. All of these are going to be identical to the Liberal Party.”

that as part of his pitch. He also mentioned holding a national referendum on pipelines so we can stop with Federal and Provincial governments arguing about it (I like this idea) and some other stuff that wasn't so bad.

I also find ChickenTrump effing hilarious <_<

by Wondering Thu Jun 02, 2016 3:09 pm

That guy who shot the UCLA professor shot and killed a woman in St. Paul before he drove out to LA to kill the prof. He had a hit list, and she was on it.

I will assume, until told otherwise, that that particular shooting was a domestic/stalker killing. Because that's what such deaths of women usually are.

by **eselle28** Fri Jun 03, 2016 3:45 am

Wondering wrote:That guy who shot the UCLA professor shot and killed a woman in St. Paul before he drove out to LA to kill the prof. He had a hit list, and she was on it.

I will assume, until told otherwise, that that particular shooting was a domestic/stalker killing. Because that's what such deaths of women usually are.

I'm sure it will be to your complete and utter lack of surprise to learn that the victim was his former wife.

by **reboot** Fri Jun 03, 2016 9:06 am

eselle28 wrote:
Wondering wrote:That guy who shot the UCLA professor shot and killed a woman in St. Paul before he drove out to LA to kill the prof. He had a hit list, and she was on it.

I will assume, until told otherwise, that that particular shooting was a domestic/stalker killing. Because that's what such deaths of women usually are.

I'm sure it will be to your complete and utter lack of surprise to learn that the victim was his former wife.

According to the NYT she was his former girlfriend and he was quite the ass to her:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/03/us/ucla-shooting-mainak-sarkar.html?_r=0

by Wondering Fri Jun 03, 2016 4:12 pm

They were married in 2011, so former or estranged wife. But the specific status doesn't matter. Her death was completely "you rejected me, so I'm going to kill you" fare that's become so standard.

by **eselle28** Sun Jun 12, 2016 9:16 pm

This fucking day. Fucking people. The US's fucking gun laws.

by WJMorris3 Mon Jun 13, 2016 2:31 am

eselle28 wrote:This fucking day. Fucking people. The US's fucking gun laws.

What I'd give for President Obama to grow a spine and sign an executive order repealing the Second Amendment. Thoughts and prayers aren't nearly enough.

by Wondering Mon Jun 13, 2016 12:38 pm

WJMorris3 wrote:What I'd give for President Obama to grow a spine and sign an executive order repealing the Second Amendment. Thoughts and prayers aren't nearly enough.

Yeah, no thanks. Presidents suspending constitutional amendments via executive order is not okay. If they can* do it with one that's unpopular**, they can do it with any.

*They can't. An executive order can't be against the law, as far as I understand.

**I don't have a problem with the 2nd Amendment. I have a problem with how it's used and interpreted (the "well-regulated militia" part is always ignored). And the problem is that the refusal of Congress to do anything to limit gun rights drives opinions on the issue farther and farther to the extremes of 1) all guns all the time, or 2) no guns ever. Neither is the right answer. But as long as the only gun lobby in the country is made up of gun manufacturers, this is not going to change. I wish there was a reasonable group for reasonable people with reasonable attitudes toward guns. Assault rifles are not reasonable. They're not to protect yourself or your livestock or to hunt. They're to assault. And this is, what, the fourth mass shooting with that particular LEGAL weapon now?

by WJMorris3 Mon Jun 13, 2016 3:37 pm

Wondering wrote:
WJMorris3 wrote:What I'd give for President Obama to grow a spine and sign an executive order repealing the Second Amendment. Thoughts and prayers aren't nearly enough.

Yeah, no thanks. Presidents suspending constitutional amendments via executive order is not okay. If they can* do it with one that's unpopular**, they can do it with any.

That doesn't actually concern me that much; I don't care very much about any of the amendments. We can do without them if need be.

by Wondering Mon Jun 13, 2016 4:26 pm

Morris, considering the 13th, 14th, and 19th amendments, what you just said is blindingly privileged.

by **eselle28** Mon Jun 13, 2016 4:59 pm

WJMorris3, I think you're being a bit too blithe about the amendments and about lawmaking in general. We don't live in a benevolent dictatorship, and we frequently have leaders who care a great deal about gun rights and not at all about free speech or protection from discrimination or protections against police searches.

I'm going to suggest we drop the executive order angle of the topic, especially given the enormity of the recent tragedy.

by BasedBuzzed Mon Jun 13, 2016 6:28 pm

Not sure if needed here, but I liked this post on the framing of debates about gun rights: https://popehat.com/2015/12/07/talking-productively-about-guns/
I think everyone here is pretty much on the same line, but perhaps it can aid you in other discussions.

by **eselle28** Mon Jun 13, 2016 7:26 pm

BasedBuzzed wrote:Not sure if needed here, but I liked this post on the framing of debates about gun rights: https://popehat.com/2015/12/07/talking-productively-about-guns/
I think everyone here is pretty much on the same line, but perhaps it can aid you in other discussions.

It's an interesting set of thoughts. I don't disagree that guns have a strong cultural component and that it tends to be ignored sometimes by the most ardent supporters on both sides.

I tend to disagree with a lot of the rest of it, from its tendency to take the extremes of cultural framing (as someone who lives in a rural area, knows how to shoot and is comfortable around guns, and also identifies as highly liberal, all I can really say is that it's not that simple for many Americans) to its dragging in of other controversial issues like breed bans and criminal defendants' rights (so many beehives) to its framing of rights under the US Constitution as if they are philosophically coherent rather than a set of compromises made by people who lived a couple centuries ago who were motivated by pragmatism and politics as much as ideology (both are legitimate legal points of view, but I personally find the one White seems to be leaning toward to be both personally unconvincing and unlikely to do much to sway voters who have little interest in legal scholarship).

I also suspect that the argument suggested to gun control supporters is one that is very specifically targeted at libertarians and will not be of any particular use when talking to more mainstream conservatives, if only because many of them support post-9/11 measures that the author seems to oppose. This may be not entirely unrelated to the fact that White is a lawyer - the right wing of that profession tends to be rather libertarian-leaning and there isn't necessarily that much representation of views from either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz/Mike Huckabee leaning crowds.

by Wondering Mon Jun 13, 2016 8:07 pm

Ken White is very much libertarian, and opposed to post-9/11 measures. So you're not wrong there. I used to read his blog fairly consistently.

by Wondering Tue Jun 14, 2016 12:26 pm

Is it legal for a president to ban certain press from press conferences? Campaign events are private, so I see how it can happen there, but could a president legally, under the First Amendment, ban certain news organizations he didn't like while admitting others?

by **eselle28** Tue Jun 14, 2016 3:25 pm

Nope. They have to let them in the room, assuming basic requirements are met. They can not give them a chair, ignore their questions, and refuse to give the reporter or network interviews, though. Even that has some checks, because networks and newspapers will stick up for each other if they think a peer organization is being treated unfairly.

by Wondering Tue Jun 14, 2016 4:12 pm

eselle28 wrote:Even that has some checks, because networks and newspapers will stick up for each other if they think a peer organization is being treated unfairly.

Interesting. Because the WaPo is not the first news organization that Trump has banned. It does appear to be the first traditional newspaper, though.

Here's a list via NPR:

The Huffington Post, Politico, BuzzFeed, the Daily Beast, the Des Moines Register, the New Hampshire Union Leader, Univision and others have also been blocked from covering events.

by **eselle28** Tue Jun 14, 2016 9:32 pm

My prediction would be that there's going to be some real backlash from other establishment media sources now. I can see people letting that quartet of websites slip by (though I think it's interesting that all four of those sites, which I would consider to be in each other's peer group, ended up banned), but I cannot imagine that there won't be severe criticism and perhaps even some consequences. Though, I suppose I'm not sure what the consequences might be. In the past, the response has been for peers to state they'll stop granting interviews to a president's subordinates where they can explain the administration's policies. It's possible Trump doesn't care about that, either because he's only a candidate or because he's confident in his ability to generate press attention or because he does most of his messaging himself.

by **eselle28** Tue Jun 14, 2016 9:41 pm

This is a slightly different rant, and I'm going to acknowledge ahead of time that I sound really fucking self-righteous here. It's one of the reasons I'm writing it down rather than mentioning it to people I know directly.

I just came back from voting, and even though it was evening, the age distribution in the room was: me, two other people about my age, the little boy of one of those people, and a few dozen people in the 60-80 age group. And, yeah, it's a primary, and kind of a boring one at that. But there's a pretty competitively contested Republican primary with candidates who are all across the GOP spectrum, for people who lean that way and for Democrats who feel inclined to vote on that side of the ballot (crossing primary lines has some value, especially if your party of choice isn't likely to be competitive in the general election; it's also sort of fun). For my Bernie-supporting friends, there's also a ballot measure that touches on populist versus corporatist issues they generally care about. Plus, there's the usual dull local and county and judicial elections that do a lot to actually effect people's every day lives. I'm going to guess most of my friends weren't there in the morning or at lunch, either, even though the lines are short and there's same day registration.

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