Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
North Carolina G.O.P. Moves to Curb Power of New Democratic Governor
Sorry, bruhs. But at this point, it's clear that the GOP are, fundamentally, at their core, an outright evil organization.
I dare anyone to provide a counterexample.
New Survey coming this weekend!Talk about nuclear option yikes...It's pre-impeachment.
The state Board of Elections would also become a bipartisan body, with equal numbers from each party, instead of being controlled by the governor. The governor’s election, which was decided by only about 10,300 votes, or 0.2 percent, put a spotlight on North Carolina’s election boards as they examined voting challenges in dozens of counties brought by Mc Crory supporters, who claimed dead people and felons had voted.
The challenges stretched on for nearly a month, and it was not until last week that Mr. Mc Crory conceded.
On paper, bi-partisan and equal represenation of each party in these positions sounds okay-ish. But I guess this will lead to gridlock and I assume some NC Dems are more conservative and can be swayed and cajoled to the GOP and what they want is to prevent a Liberal Governor from effectively halting the Conservative Tide and rolling back the voting suppressions.
John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rob Portman, to name the first three examples that come to mind.
But anyway, it seems to me that would create a terrible precedent, one that's abusable as heck by both parties. So going through with that would be a terrible idea. Especially since they just pissed off the voter base by dragging out a pointless recount.
edited 14th Dec '16 10:29:18 PM by Gilphon
At this point, I don't feel too inclined to give any GOP member with name recognition too much benefit of the doubt. Any time they present a bill or an opinion that sounds reasonable at first, I'm always going to be looking for the catch.
edited 14th Dec '16 10:40:05 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedStalin apologia. Really? This is where the conversation has gone?
It was deliberate mass murder. Stalin didn't just prevent the Ukrainians from growing sufficient food, he confiscated food from starving people and then, to put the icing on the cake, criminalized starving. He had an order passed that declared that anyone who was starving was an enemy of the state who was deliberately harming themselves in order to discredit the revolution.
If you withhold food from a starving man, you're guilty of murder. If you withhold food from hundreds, thousands, or millions of starving men, you're guilty of mass murder. And if those people all happen to fall into a particular ethnicity, you may well be guilty of genocide (or politicide if they share political beliefs, etc). Stalin knew what would happen, and he either a) did not care or b) wanted it to happen. Either way, upwards of five million people starved because Stalin did not give a damn about their lives and that is absolutely a crime.
As for comparisons to the Trail of Tears and Irish Potato Famine, the Potato Famine wasn't deliberate, but the sheer scale of criminal incompetence demonstrated by the British government of the era would see them prosecuted for gross neglect and multiple counts of negligent homicide in the modern era. The Trail of Tears is, if not genocidal, than certainly an act of ethnic cleansing, one of many conducted by the American military and government over the course of its interactions with the Natives. So yeah, even if we accepted that the Holodomor should be compared to those and not the Holocaust you'd still be accepting that the Ukrainians have every reason to loathe Russia.
And of course, the reality is that the Holodomor was deliberate, and did result in the destruction of vast swathes of an ethnic group. And since the dictionary definition of genocide is the deliberate destruction in whole or in part of an ethnic or religious group, that meets the standard.
I've said it before and I'll say it again—that America did terrible, and unjustifiable things in the name of fighting Communism does not change the reality that the Communist regimes were terrible states. In this case, I will likewise add that the fact that Ukrainians have at times used their victimization under Stalin to promote terrible political philosophies does not change the reality that they were victimized under Stalin.
edited 14th Dec '16 10:43:47 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
So Arpaio is reviving the birther crap again.
Ugh, is he THAT desperate to stay relevant? Maybe he's looking for a post in Trump's administration. Or maybe he's doing this as a favor to distract the media from Trump's latest shenanigans in exchange for a pardon in the future.
How the fuck did President Obama put up with this shit for eight years so gracefully?
edited 14th Dec '16 11:02:49 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedIt's where you are taking the conversation and I am not going to fall into that trap. I discussed a broad range of issues dealing with America's Cold War Propaganda and the ramifications of that on its foreign policy in Eastern Europe and its domestic consequences, among which is the Prague Declaration and you are deliberately picking the most controversial part. I have cited legal arguments such as the 1948 Genocide Convention at the United Nations. I say we keep emotions out of it or at least keep such exchanges for PM.
My sources for this is the works of Matt Tauger, J. Arch Getty, Sheila Fitzpatrick and William Schabas (not a historian but an Israeli lawyer, one of the foremost scholars on genocide law in the world and an expert on the 1948 Convention) as far as general debates on famine goes, Mr. Amartya Sen who insists that famine usually comes from natural factors but can be solved if proper information and conditions are clearly communicated. These are my sources, please cite yours, so if I am wrong I at least know where I can correct myself.
If the Trail of Tears, the Irish Potato famine are accepted as genocides legally, then yes the 1934 Famine is also genocide. That much I agree on. But as I said, you would have to find actual legal evidence that fits the criteria of the 1948 Definition, and it's extremely hard to do that for events that far back and for famines which originate as natural phenomenon (as did the 1934 Famine which in any case affected the whole Soviet Union and not just Ukraine) it's harder to do. The reasons the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust is shocking and exceptional is that we have actual evidence and information for this, especially the Holocaust. I mean not every pogrom against the Jews historically (committed by every nation in Europe at some point) is genocidal...except in the sense that the lack of punishment, the tacit enabling of these crimes, and indifference, ultimately did lead to the Holocaust. We distinguish between attacks and massacres on some Jews versus the event that targeted all Jews, we differentiate mass sudden spontaneous violence as against deliberate, cold-blooded co-ordinated attack.
I mean calling the destruction and cleansing of Native Americans as genocide has to account for first the fact that many of them died by disease. There is some evidence of intent, which in the case of the English general Jeffrey Amherst who apparently gave smallpox blankets to tribes in Canada shows some deliberation but we don't know if this was one action done by one crazy and heartless Englishman or an overall policy by the English and Colonial administration. The Trail of Tears was more or less land-grabbing and ethnic cleansing, and displacement of land but I have not studied that in detail yet.
They didn't just promote terrible political philosophies they acted on it, and collaborated with Nazis and victimized Jews (which Stalin himself did in the early 50s in the Doctor's Plot incidentally), they massacred them and so on. There's no complicated and simple national identity to be formed without accounting for that and it is up to these nations to do that, which most of them are not showing signs of doing. America has itself failed to learn the lessons of accounting for its own national past is naturally not capable of setting the right example. The fact that neo-fascists and the eastern european alt-right is coming to power in these regions on America's watch and with its indifference
is no way to remember the victims of Stalin's purges or the 1934 Famine and it certainly damages the memory of the Holocaust by equating some of the killers of Jews with their victims. That's my main concern by the way, as the creator and originator of The Holocaust page, not Stalin or USSR. Preserving the memory of the victims and preventing any commemoration or honor for its perpetrators, enablers, directors and commissioners.
edited 14th Dec '16 11:24:36 PM by JulianLapostat
Do you not consider it insulting to the victims of the Holocaust that you feel the only way to preserve the Holocaust's place as a great evil is to downplay other evils?
It's entirely possible to acknowledge things like the Ukrainian famine as horrible acts of ethnic cleansing/genocide (technically legal definition notwithstanding) and still acknowledge that the Holocaust was an act of supreme evil.
This isn't a zero-sum game where by admitting that one act was evil you somehow reduce to aparent evilness of another act, we're all (I hope) smart enough here to acknowledge multiples evil of varying horrificness.
edited 15th Dec '16 12:22:39 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
I replied by PM to that post.
![]()
Those days are gone.
If you read TNC we should have expected this....progress always greets backlash and this cycle has been the main continuity in American history...Reconstruction then Jim Crow...New Deal and then Red Scare-Mccarthyism...The '60s and Reaganism...Obama and Trump.
edited 15th Dec '16 1:05:09 AM by JulianLapostat
I just remembered an old Leverage episode...was it in season 3? Anyway, the "con" in question was that a fascist-leaning millionaire wants to take over a little state. So in order to prevent that from happening, the team has to free the opposition while - and here is the important part - manipulating the election itself. They basically do it by spreading all kind of falsehoods about the millionaire, including one story in which Eliot claims that the guy is mistreating cute little puppies.....
The episode is no longer as funny as it used to be.....
Looks like a "Funny Aneurysm" Moment or Harsher in Hindsight entry.
Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

I think there needs to be some amount of competition for the DNC Chair to at least give a sense of choice and options and paint the DNC as truly representative and not some shady cabal.
I mean that's the misperception people have and this Perez V Ellison thing will clear that image.