The General US Politics Thread

When a US citizen is saying "The N Word" we are not referring to Negro.

That's possible, though I don't see in what context you'd use the Niger River and the White House together.

I've got a question for y'all. I just got an email asking me to support the Tuition Free Act, and while I'd sign it anyway, I'm still a bit unclear as to the full implications of the act. See, I'm in the middle of college, and have already racked up a decent amount of debt, so what I'd like to know is if it would get rid of the tuition and debt I've already accrued, or if this only applies to people who actually haven't started college yet. Because nothing I've found really helps elaborates on this. So if anyone can answer this for me, it'd be much appreciated.

The Texas House passed a bill which would end the state's controversial "pick-a-pal" grand jury system, which allows judge appointed comissioners to select grand juries.

The Texas Legislature has passed a law banning state and local government buildings from posting "no guns" signs.

Julian Castro is calling the entire Hillary e-mail scandal a witch hunt.

edited 24th May '15 3:00:20 PM by tclittle

Las Vegas Tycoon Sheldon Adelson to face graft accusations in U.S. court for illicit activity in Macau.

Well, that's not a security nightmare, at all.

That sounds awfully seditionist, citizen.

Google's algorithms are largely heuristic. They self-learn connections based on common associations within web pages (usually keywords or anchor text), and between search results and click statistics. This gets abused every once in a while.

Google Maps cross-references and datamines those connections to pick up aliases of destinations, among other details. So no, nobody at Google deliberately coded that particular connection.

edited 25th May '15 4:53:41 PM by Pykrete

Well...it was funny when Google happened to Santorum...

In weather news, as the west burns, the southern plains drowns.

In politics, The Supreme Court says bankruptcy courts have authority to rule on disputes that fall outside the bankruptcy proceedings if the parties to the case consent.

Representative Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) has announced a run for the Senate seat held by John McCain.

edited 26th May '15 8:49:29 AM by tclittle

When family friendly policies backfire. A way to solve this is to not force employers to finance these policies, as has been done in all US states that offer paid family leave.

Fuck that. Better to force employers to close the wage gap and tighten penalties on discrimination.

It's not that the price is too expensive. It's that discrimination against women is commonly accepted across the board.

Parents of either gender shouldn't be penalized for being parents.

This is just a smoke screen especially since women are often penalized on the supposed "chance" they can become pregnant.

Asinine.

Indeed, the problem is employers discriminating against women, not laws trying to stop it. This is like saying that trying to cure infectious disease means people will die of heart attacks and cancer, so it's better not to give them medicine at all.

Edit: We could have government pay the costs of family leave for women, sure, but that would have to come out anyway in the form of higher taxes. It's not like you can magically wish the up front cost away, although one can make the argument that it pays for itself in the long run.

edited 26th May '15 11:27:47 AM by Fighteer

We know what happens when laws don't make employers pay equally: they cheat everyone as much as they can get away with, and they cheat women more.

The idea that they might use some Loophole Abuse to continue cheating people despite the law doesn't say we shouldn't make laws against them cheating people, it says we should make better laws and make it very, very, punishing and painful for them to break those laws so they abide by them.

I honestly don't get the thinking that if a law against something doesn't prevent it from ever happening in the first place, that must mean that the law is ineffective. I mean, laws against murder don't prevent murder form happening. And it creates a massive government bureaucracy and cost to the taxpayers to enforce or deal with all the murders it fails to prevent, so obviously the law is ineffective and a waste of time and money, right? And have you ever seen laws against rape, theft, or hurting children stop people from doing any of those things? More useless laws and people trying to direct how you live, amiright? *eye roll*

edited 26th May '15 11:28:20 AM by TheWanderer

It depends on which side of the aisle you fall with respect to the thing in question. For example, many on the right love to put people in jail for using harmless drugs like marijuana, despite the observable fact that this does little or nothing to deter its use. They want abortion banned despite the proven fact that permitting it and coupling it with sex education and contraception reduces abortions instead of increasing them.

However, they argue that gun laws are pointless because criminals will find ways to get guns anyway.

The faulty logic is beside the point; these are not logical arguments. They are emotional ones.

edited 26th May '15 11:31:11 AM by Fighteer

Emotional arguments appear in just about every political view.

But if male and female paternity leave laws were equal, wouldn't that mean that some employers would attempt to discriminate against both men and women of the right age?

edited 26th May '15 11:40:04 AM by Greenmantle

Yeah, it's this sort of thing in particular that led to my little rant. I mean, what sort of thought process do these people go through? Any law that doesn't preemptively prevent a criminal from breaking it or the criminal activity it's aimed at is a failure? Then every law or rule ever created by human society is a failure! So what's the alternative, a massive frenzy of every person in the world fending for themselves forever and ever?

I mean, I can understand a hardcore anarchist arguing for that, but the law and order crowd who also want to forever vilify and take away all rights from anyone who breaks a law? Are they really that incapable of looking up from their hurt feelings and fears to the bigger picture and seeing the natural consequence of what it is they're arguing for?

In the States there is only FMLA.

Family Medical Leave Act.

There is no gender requirement.

If you have been employed with a company full time for over a year, you have the right to take time off for qualifying events:

• Birth of a child
• Adoption of a child
• Death of an immediate family member
• Illness of an immediate family member (sometimes hospice, but not always)

There is no such thing as strictly Maternity or Paternity leave unless the company voluntarily institutes it as part of their policy.

The Texas Legislature has voted to establish a state depository for gold.

Fort Tex?

It's really quite simple. The Texas legislature is making preparations for its secession at some point in the vaguely defined future. It will quit the Union and return to the gold standard. Because if you're going to do one utterly stupid thing, you might as well do all of the utterly stupid things.

It would be amusing to see the epicness of that particular fail, if not for all the people that would be hurt and screwed over by it.

Although not as amusing, I'll settle for someone recording all the politicians in Texas actually reading the documents about Texas becoming a state and seeing that there is no right for Texas to break away, just to put that little myth to bed for good.

And the whole thing about the gold standard reminds me: exactly how do people who want a return to the gold standard think that's going to work? I mean, there's only so much gold in the US, so if we're basing our currency on it, does that mean that wages and prices have to be drastically adjusted overnight so that it's not possible for there to be more currency in play than can be backed by gold? Are we going to have to impose limits on what execs can be paid so that it's not overwhelming our limited currency system? Somehow someone being called a thousandaire just doesn't have the same flair as billionaire. I wonder how all the people so proud of Conspicuous Consumption would deal with that...

edited 26th May '15 1:24:57 PM by TheWanderer

Texas would have to undergo massive internal deflation to make it possible for it to operate on the amount of gold available at world market prices, which would be catastrophic for its citizens — it would strip itself down to Third World status in short order.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/marylands-free-range-parents-cleared-of-neglect-in-one-case/2015/05/25/deb30e12-0093-11e5-[[805c-c3f407e5a9e9_story.html Maryland's "free range" parents clear of Neglect in one case.]]

(WP, Plume Line) The Koch brothers try to rein in the GOP primaries, possibly a sign the various factiond at the top of the party are worried the giant field is damaging to their interests.

Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on citizens vs residents with regards to voting map construction:

That one too seems fairly open and shut. The 14th amendment says "persons," unless we are denying non-citizens personhood.

From what i've heard, it's actually a debate about voting-age residents and not citizens non-citizens, but the 14th amendment is fairly clear here.