The General US Politics Thread

In fairness, the goal of every campaign slogan is to get the Cheap Pop - Sanders' is a bit cheaper than most, which is kind of fitting given his personality, I gotta say, and definitely ripe for humor mining (see previous statement).

And as for the corporatocracy stuff, American capitalism is downright despicable, with a great case-study coming out in just the past week.

Activision-Blizzard, headed by Bobby Kotick, managed to post a record profit for Q4 2018, and yet their stock took a beating^read lost roughly half its value because said record profit was "below expectations". In response, they just laid of 800 employees, representing roughly 8% of their entire workforce. This comes just a month after they hired a new CFO to the tune of $15 million - $11.3 million in stock options, $3.75 million signing bonus, and a base salary of $900,000, and this after their previous CFO (who'd replaced the new one - weird story) had jumped ship to Netflix and got fired for breaching A-B's contract with him.

Contrast that with the actions of Nintendo executives back in 2011 and 2014, in which zero layoffs occurred, but instead the high-level executives took pay cuts of 20-50% and later a 36% cut after sales failed to meet expectations.

American capitalism is one of the shittiest setups we've got, because every time a private company does well, those at the top reap the harvest while "trickle-down" helps those at the bottom - but when the chips (and stocks) are down, those at the bottom get jettisoned first while those at the top remain largely unaffected. It's a mentality that needs to change, but I admittedly have no idea how to make that change happen.

Edit: Holy hell that's a nice page-topper!

Edited by ironballs16 on Feb 20th 2019 at 3:01:41 PM

American video game developers have also managed to always pass the resulting crunch time and stress down on the employees rather than the executives. They're worked beyond any measurable amount of stress for little money and when things fall behind, they're replaced without a second thought.

I'm not buying Red Dead Redemption 2 because it was made under such horrible conditions.

I've given up on buying anything triple-A even before that and I shall remain so until the day comes where micro transactions, loot boxes and all that other bullshit gets stuffed in the bin. It's just anti-consumer as all hell.

But speaking of which, are there unions for developers and the like?

Typically given the Wal-Mart and/or Amazon approach - fire the person trying to get one started.

Even worse than that - unless they're a mainstay developer, most of them working for the big publishers are considered independent contractors. Translation: "you're not a full-time employee for us, so we don't have to give you any benefits!" The reason this is allowed to fly is because a game's development only takes so long - and once that game is completed, the employees are subsequently let go, then rehired for the next one.

Edited by ironballs16 on Feb 20th 2019 at 3:05:10 PM

Man, this is such bullshit, this is a basic worker's right, how the actual hell there's no one doing anything to stop this!?

Of course I know the answer: big corporations, lobbies, the whole nine yards, but still, it's just infuriating!

Has anybody pointed yet the biggest weak spot in Sanders’ slogan?

“Not me. Us.”

Leave off the last word.

If nothing else (and I'm not sure that's the case); its way, way too easy to mock.

I'm not sure how I feel about the special counsel investigation wrapping up. Certainly is unseemly timing with Barr only just confirmed.

Wasn't it winding down to be finished around now I'm any case?

Virginia voters — including African-Americans — get Northam's back – A pair of new polls show the embattled governor seems to have weathered his blackface scandal.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/20/ralph-northam-virginia-poll-1176071

Edited by sgamer82 on Feb 20th 2019 at 1:38:17 PM

Important to remember that the Democrats can force the release of the report, and that Mueller is not the be all and end all of the investigations against Trump and co.

Talking to some black Virginian Voters via social media, the general consensus is that they always knew their leadership was racist but grade on the curve. Forcing him out just means that the GOP will be stronger and they're overtly racist.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 20th 2019 at 12:52:55 PM

This doesn't surprise me at all, I wish they could have a better class of politician but Virginia gonna Virginia

IIRC there are some New York State investigations ongoing that could prove particularly damaging.

But yeah, important to keep in mind that any investigation is just another stepping stone. There’s not going to be a silver bullet that brings the whole administration tumbling down at once.

Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 20th 2019 at 12:54:42 PM

The problem is that it's presented as a silver bullet, not only by the left but by the right. The left expect it to be a silver bullet, the right want it presented as such so that when it's not, they can call it a nothingburger.

It's why I am kind of annoyed by Stephen Colbert. He's hilarious and anti-Trump, but he stirs up so much "Mueller will fix this" rhetoric that it's going to be crushing to morale when the report is released and it doesn't immediately lead to anything.

Would there be any negative repercussions if the report does turns out to be a sipver bullet, unlikely as that is shaping up to be?

I maintain a very likely scenario is its presented before just before the election or immediately after it.

If Trump loses, he's likely to be arrested.

We have to remember that Nixon weathered a few years of scandal before things finally came down on his head. (And we'll have to hope that Pence or a Republican president doesn't just pardon him, thereby making it impossible to arrest him.)

Anyway, at this point I think we ought to be making every effort possible to vote him out rather than just depending on investigative efforts.

@Rational Insanity: Exactly how can they force the revealing of the Mueller report? Because right now it looks like it's up to Barr, and I genuinely can't tell if he'd be for or against showing it to the public.

> If Trump loses, he's likely to be arrested.

Watch him flee to Russia in a hurry then discover that the Russians don't him either,so he gets sent back to the US where they spend years and millions of dollars trying get him into a court room

There is no way Russia would send him back, having a former President act as a mouthpiece would be absolutely delicious from their POV.

Snowden was one thing but Trump, that would be a propaganda coup.

They can keep him, IMHO.

I think they would actually,but it would require the next President to intimidate Russia into complying,essentially Russia would never go to war because they would lose,and if they think "Shit,they're not bluffing and they mean it" they might hand over Trump to avoid escalating the situation.Russia may even have a leadership change so it's singing a different tune altogether (sadly that's a pipe dream)

Anyone else expecting that the report will be a nothingburger? I mean so far it looks like Trump himself (and Congressional Republicans) aren't involved, just some mid- to low-level staffers.

There is no way Russia keeping Trump would result in war, MAD continues to exist.

?? What on earth have you been reading? That’s a completely inaccurate summary.

Oop. I had forgotten about the Individual-1 thing. But I don't think it works unless Cohen has offered some evidence beyond his own words, did he have?

Besides, we all know that Republican Senators will not pass an impeachment motion no matter what.