The General US Politics Thread

I mean, only if you say equate being a registered Republican with being a fascist. You take the good with the bad, when good outweighs the bad.

But on the subject, even if party I.D. isn't protected, straight up threatening to fire people if they don't vote the way you tell them to has to already be illegal right?

I know enforcement is an entirely different matter, but it is isn't it?

edited 20th Sep '17 5:39:05 PM by LSBK

I suspect it would be illegal...

It is but do you have the money and time for a legal battle?

Worse if you live in an At Will Employment state. Cause then your boss can say he fired you because he felt like it or your shoelaces were the wrong color and legally he's in the clear.

I don't believe political affiliations are a protected status in the USA, though I could be wrong. Many employers trawl employee social media accounts for dirt on them, so it's pretty important for people here to be weary, or use something with a fake name among closer personal friends and have a "public" one as a cover. I've had some friends fail to heed this and end up losing their jobs around the time the election rolled around and they began openly volunteering/campaigning for the Dem candidates.

They wouldn't likely cite politics as a reason for the firing anyhow, just something as vague as "things aren't working out" to cover their asses and not step on the nondiscrimination policy.

Also, where would you sue them? In a local court with elected judges?

I figured all the reasons it wouldn't come up often, I was just a bit surprised by the brazenness of the announcement. Which is probably silly of me, given the political climate.

edited 20th Sep '17 5:53:34 PM by LSBK

Yeah, this is why when getting an interview you should always try to be a bit evasive when they ask you to tell them about yourself: they can give vague reasons for not hiring you for any reason.

Senate GOP aims to vote next week on ObamaCare repeal.

On the one hand the article says it isn't clear yet that they have enough votes (in fact Grassley says they're still one or two short). On the other hand McConnell had said he wouldn't bring it to the floor unless he thought they did have the votes, and now he is, so...

Also: I know people said this bill was in the works for a while now, and probably would have been brought forward regardless, but besides what I mentioned about them not having the time to do so if they'd still been stuck debating and trying to get votes for the budget/debt ceiling, make note of what Graham said about it being a choice between socialism and federalism. He probably couldn't have made that argument if Sanders had waited to try Medicare for All until after October 1...

Things must be very different where you guys are. Nobody would stand for that sort of thing where I live. If we have a difference of opinion like that, we simply avoid the topic altogether, we don't get vindictive over it.

edited 20th Sep '17 6:06:57 PM by pwiegle

Things are very bad down south.

Which is why I believe the whole ARP (Abortion, Religion, Politics): of things to avoid at work or casual settings is bullshit.

The former two might raise a few eyebrows, but the latter will probably cause physical violence to break out

Yeah honestly I feel that way about politics in my own country now too. I don't really see a big deal about telling people I'm agnostic or pro-choice, and in fact I feel like I could probably have a decent conversation about those subjects with open-minded and reasonable people who just disagreed with me, but politics right now is in a really terrible state.

An acquaintance of my stepdad's posted about how fascism isn't just a history lesson but an everyday fact now, and that he (as both a gay man and someone who has family that was tortured by the military dictatorship a few decades back) routinely is confronted with people trying to justify unacceptably awful opinions.

To be fair, Parable is in California; people can be terrible everywhere.

But, yeah, worse in the South.

edited 20th Sep '17 6:09:40 PM by LSBK

X3 The first two are tied to the third.

X6 I'm impressed by the ability of some people to work their hatred of Sanders into everything, it's an amazing talent.

edited 20th Sep '17 6:10:51 PM by Silasw

I think the only reason McConnel will try to have the vote is because he thinks he can get Rand Paul's vote if Rand Paul's Amendment (which is essentially a clean repeal of Obamacare) is added to it. If it doesn't pass (and considering the clean repeal of Obamacare completely failed back in August), then it won't get the necessary 50 Votes to pass, and the Obamacare Repeal And Replace Movement will be dead.

Of course, at this point, it appears any attempts to save Obamacare are also dead; so we're either stuck with Pre-Obamacare Healthcare, Obamacare 'as is', or Singlepayer "Medicare for All", all of which come with a lot of problems. As a Diabetic, I'm going to be feeling a lot of pain and dealing with a lot of healthcare related stress, for months or years to come.

I wonder if the amendment can even be added onto it at this point. Either way, call your reps.

In a mild change of subject, Colbert interviewed Hillary Clinton. She talks about Vladimir Putin, Russian interference, Trump's attitude as a president and the situation in general.

It's a much more softball interview than his with Bernie, so it doesn't earn as many interesting results, but I thought it'd be interesting pointing out.

As usual, I am severely disappointed with mankind given how the videos have a very high dislike bar (10.000 likes vs 6.000 dislikes and 5.000 likes vs 2.000 dislikes, respectively) and the hateful comments about Hillary but that's life.

Disappointed? What did you expect?

Knowing something is going to happen doesn't necessarily make you numb to it.

edited 20th Sep '17 7:00:08 PM by LSBK

"Knowing something horrible will happen but still being severely disappointed when it happens" has been my feelings about a lot of things in since c. 2013.

I'm actually relieved that the number of likes are higher than the number of dislikes. Though the comments are still a cesspool — but that's Youtube comments for ya.

At the very least, I've trained myself to resist the temptation to look at comments on political videos. I don't feel like driving myself to a heart attack in my twenties.

@ Silas: I don't hate Sanders, in fact I voted for him during the primary and still think he has a lot of good ideas. I just think his timing on the Medicare for All bill has turned out to be rather unfortunate, and am afraid it could give the Republicans the push they need to succeed. Also, my post was about thinking that Pelosi and Schumer's deal with Trump may also have helped give the Republicans more of a window.

In other news: Puerto Rico has lost 100% of its power, and estimates say it could be down for 4 to 6 months...

edited 20th Sep '17 8:50:28 PM by Ingonyama

My first thoughts when I heard about the Medicare for all thing were "yeah, this is not going to pass any time soon" and "couldn't this have waited until October 1st?"

edited 20th Sep '17 8:53:38 PM by M84