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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Democrats now sit at a 70% chance of holding the Senate, based on models by Sam Wang of Princeton.
Teen substance use is trending ever downward.
Obama's biggest economic policy mistake is basically not being more to the left.
Though admittedly, most of the people he listens to are Wall Street money tightners, so...
edited 18th Sep '14 5:22:55 AM by PotatoesRock
Professional Forum Ninja
edited 18th Sep '14 5:51:21 AM by tclittle
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
Lost in Space
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Shaming them out of politics, one dinosaur at a time.
It was obvious as far back as 2010 that Boehner had lost control of his party's House caucus. It's just going to get worse if Republicans fail to take the Senate. I hope those polls are accurate; I want the next two years to be sane.
At the same time, I don't want Boehner to resign as Speaker. The reason for this should be obvious: he's a practical policitian. Better the devil you know — he might be replaced by some Tea Party knucklehead and the House will become essentially nonfunctional.
edited 18th Sep '14 6:49:48 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
The guy who replaced Cantor is the most likely candidate to replace Boehner (i know he's from Louisiana, forget the name)
That would be Kevin McCarthy, who's seen internally as a middle ground between Boehner and Cantor.
In some strange way, Boehner and Obama are Not So Different. Both are being pulled further to the right by fringe assholes who have no interest in anything other than their wallets. Both are facing borderline insurrections from former supporters who find them spineless. Both have proven unable to rein in those fringe hardliners despite having ample fuel against them.
edited 18th Sep '14 7:42:23 AM by Sledgesaul
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
I thought Kevin Mc Carthy had stayed in his old position (he's the guy from Santa Barbara, California) and some guy from Louisiana had gotten the majority leadership position?
No, McCarthy is now the Majority Leader and thus Boehner's prospective successor. He is seen as a mild one, though.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Yeah, Washington was convinced Cantor would replace Boehner. A lot was made over Cantor being The Starscream throughout his time as Majority Leader. Many insiders were planning their future careers over the prospect of a Cantor Speakership before Dave Bratt dropped a bridge on him.
Before then, Kevin McCarthy was the Majority Whip, meaning he was third in line between Boehner and Cantor. He became Majority Leader basically by default. A Teabagger replaced him as Majority Whip, but he's not as anti-Boehner as his fellow Teabaggers. With Cantor's loss, hundreds of Republicans (who grew to view Cantor as Boehner lite) are clamoring for a chance at the Speakership.
Meanwhile, McCarthy himself is finding his new job getting harder and harder every day. He's most likely gonna be a Sacrificial Lion come election time.
edited 18th Sep '14 8:27:01 AM by Sledgesaul
Is he really a dinosaur if he's nineteen? Though the fact that he leaves Youtube comments should have been a sign about his qualifications for office. Ironically, among other things he left this comment on a video.
"f*ck Abraham Lincoln"
edited 18th Sep '14 9:22:26 AM by Parable
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
Just a douchebag, sounds like.
Although this shows that it will be interesting to observe would-be politicians as we move into the era of social media. We've all made iffy comments in our pasts, no doubt, and unless you're a college student with a serious belief that you'll be a congresscritter some day, you're not going to watch what you say.
Likely it'll just be a disadvantage for very young candidates like this guy.
Lost in Space
Most nineteen year olds have no business running for public office, and those posts should clearly demonstrate why. Although, from the article, it seems that those posts were from a while back (relatively, I suppose). How far back a person's social media history should be usable against them is a debate that can be had, but in this case I'd say it's kind of moot.
Edit: Also, the "dinosaur" metaphor isn't about age, although its symptoms appear with greater frequency among older people. It's the ideas that are dinosaurs. That he's become infected by them may not be his fault per se, but it definitely should shame him out of any political ambitions until he learns better.
edited 18th Sep '14 10:49:53 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
I can never run for office then. Anything I say out of context and I'd look like a complete jackass.
Oh really when?
Student of Story
Unfortunately for President Obama, the security moms are back. And as a result, the levee Democrats were counting on to protect against a GOP hurricane is starting to crumble.
Although today’s terrorism scare doesn’t rival the aftermath of 9/11, the parallels to 2002 are striking nonetheless. As a result of the ISIS beheadings, the percentage of Americans “very worried” about terrorism has just hit a seven-year high. Once again, women are more afraid than men. According to a CNN poll last week, women are 18 points more likely to say they are “very” or “somewhat” worried that someone in their family will be the victim of terrorism. According to Pew, they are six points more likely to call terrorism “very important” to their vote this fall. In a recent piece about “Walmart moms” who participated in focus groups in Des Moines and Little Rock, my colleague Molly Ball noticed the trend: “The women in both groups expressed pervasive worry about violence .… This emphasis on security was a departure from previous groups, many of which I've covered in the past few years, in which economic anxiety has overwhelmingly dominated.”
As in 2002, this anxiety about foreign threats is hurting Democrats. The GOP’s advantage on “dealing with foreign policy,” which was seven points last September, is now 18. And the shift toward Republicans has been strongest among women. In August, women were 14 points more likely to support Obama’s foreign policy than men, according to a Wall Street Journal poll. Now the gap is down to two points.
In August, white women favored a Democratic Congress by four points. Now they favor a Republican Congress by eight.
I... I just... what? Really? Really?! You really think Republicans are better at dealing with foreign policy threats?! How fucking quickly can you forget? Isis might not exist, and certainly wouldn't be anywhere near what they are today if Republicans hadn't stuck their "lets kill Saddam" boner into the crazy that is the Middle East!
I mean, the average Democrat's understanding of dealing with foreign countries and powers is often dumb and flawed as well, but still... *headdesk*
The court system in NY is becoming ridiculously broken for anybody who can't afford a lawyer.
For Lane Lozell, accused of stealing $20, time in jail meant losing his job. Not having a lawyer at his arraignment meant he was sent to jail pending trial when he was not able to afford the $2,500 bail. And being in jail pending trial meant he could not even make contact when his lawyer when he had one. After months of not hearing from his lawyer, he pleaded guilty to three months in jail to end his incarceration.
James Adams also lost his job. He had a lawyer in a case accusing him of stealing deodorant from a drug store, but he couldn’t reach him from behind bars. When he used his jail phone calls to try to reach his attorney, his voice mailbox was full, and his office did not accept collect calls. Even after hints from the judge that Adams had been overcharged with felony burglary and robbery, Adams’ lawyer did not file a motion to dismiss — until the judge ordered him to do to so.
Ray Robinson was arrested after his girlfriend reported that she had threatened to kill him. After getting a call from the police, he voluntarily appeared at the police station because he knew he was innocent. But when he got there he was arrested and placed in a holding cell, his phone confiscated. Robinson’s lawyer urged him to plead guilty to a felony, but for months, Robinson urged his lawyer to just look at the text messages on his phone. When Robinson finally convinced the judge to review the evidence, both the prosecutor and public defender looked at his text message, and agreed that Robinson was guilty of nothing more than a violation warranting a fine. “Half a year of court proceedings could have been avoided if Robinson’s attorney had looked at one single piece of evidence — the text message on Robinson’s phone,” the report explains.
Lawyers in several of these cases arguably fell short of their constitutional duty to provide effective assistance of counsel. But they don’t have the time or the resources to do otherwise. Cagnina recalled numerous times when a client sat in jail for days because no one contacted her office to tell her about an arraignment before a long weekend. “If a person had a private attorney, they’d be able to get ahold of them right away,” she said. Cagnina, who worked in Onondaga County, said it was “next to impossible” to get investigators who would work on her cases because of the “miserably low compensation rate.”
“I was never able to represent people the way I wanted to or the way the Constitution required,” she said. The NYCLU’s Corey Stoughton said lawyers are “overwhelmed by hundreds more cases than any person, even a superhuman lawyer, could handle.”
If the Americans actually give the GOP full control of the government again; they deserve what they get.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Hmmm...
But does the rest of the world?
That's the unfortunate part, especially if the Tea Party decides to crash the global economy in the name of Supply Side Jesus. But there's little the rest of the world can do to impact American elections.
At the very least the war Hawks in the GOP are in a minority now, I doubt a GOP administration would be gearing up for another major war barring another 9/11 scale attack.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Now now, it's not entirely our fault. They draw the election lines and place the voting stations.
edited 18th Sep '14 2:01:20 PM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?
True, the voter suppression is a GOP problem while your systemic gerrymandering issue is the fault of both parties. But that hardly excuses the general public falling for the GOP's bs, especially in the terms of Senate and White House races.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Student of Story
And as I said on another forum where I was somewhat more restrained about the matter, it's a rather amazing testament to both how disconnected the average voter from who does what in government and what effect that has, and to the Republican propaganda machine and constant tearing down of anything done Democrats, including through outright lies.
I mean, how else can you rationalize thinking that a party took their eye off Osama, (and let him get away for almost a decade) knocked over a country where they killed millions, made said country into a training and breeding ground for terrorism, helped to form ISIS in the first place and got thousands of our own people killed and spent trillions doing it is the party of good foreign policy, while the party that killed Osama, overthrew dictators without boots on the ground and found a way to avoid becoming entangled in foreign wars is not?
I'm getting increasingly fed up with the US, honestly. I'm about to turn 34 and have been seeing this shit go on all my life. I am feeling increasingly desperate for a refuge from all the rampant corruption, short-sighted, pathological greed, and the addiction to using brute force and general "America fuck yeah!" as a substitute to... well, almost anything.
I mean, we can spend billions upon billions upon billions building and buying military aircraft that doesn't work and commissioning the 2 aircraft carriers that we have under construction when we already have more carriers than the rest of the world combined, we can spend trillions waging war against people who chief weapons used against us are cheap IEDs and AKs, but not the millions it would take to rebuild roads and bridges, to subsidize kids going to school so we actually have enough health care professionals to adequately staff hospitals or just keep those hospitals open.
We can spend shit tons of money locking people up but refuse to give families a few dollars to lift themselves out of poverty and not need to turn to crime, we don't dare say that there's anything wrong with 1% of the country owning 35% of the net wealth, but rail against people fleeing drug wars coming to take our jobs even as companies that pay no taxes outsource most of our manufacturing sector overseas.
What is this fuckery and where do I go so I don't have to deal with it anymore?
edited 18th Sep '14 2:23:08 PM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Lost in Space
In the world that we live in, the kind of conservatism that you're so mad at is all over the place. You can't evade it with cheap solutions like leaving the country. You have to stand up and make your voice heard, not go Galt (metaphorically) and expect things to turn out well for anyone.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Student of Story
Yeah I know, and sorry about the ranting, I guess I had more of that anger built up in my system than I thought. How much blame do I get to deflect due to trying to balance med school, work, and moving? I'd probably submit lack of sleep and rewatching The Wire as contributing factors too. 
Wandering Jew
Bernie Sanders and 9 Senate Dems vote against the bill.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Please be smart and don't fund the rebels.
Swallow your pride and cooperate with Assad and the Russians
Oh really when?
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
As long as we don't actually send troops over there (and we won't, since Iraq doesn't want 'em), then folks will have forgotten about ISIS for the most part.
Much like Benghazi itself in the 2012 election. Republicans always seem to get a Foreign Policy-based Hope Spot, but will it stick enough to go anywhere?
Al Qaeda's South Asia wing has claimed responsibility for hijacking a Pakistani naval ship and trying to use it to fire rockets at U.S. vessels in the Arabian Sea, in the first major assault by the newly created group.
They'll never stop will they?
edited 17th Sep '14 9:18:30 PM by deviantbraeburn
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016