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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

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#282151: Jun 4th 2019 at 6:04:18 PM

Indeed. The majority of the barriers against black voting in the South ranged from shady and corrupt (grandfather clauses, rigged literacy tests) to outright illegal (simply not counting black votes); the law after the Amendment said that every citizen could vote by right.

Problem is, the law doesn't protect people. People protect the law. And the powerful in America have a lot of experience in not protecting black people's rights.

Anyway, the reason I said wisewillow's post was unhelpful is that she was responding to a celebratory post about the anniversary of a significant advancement with "but it didn't make everything perfect." It was unnecessarily negative.

Edited by Ramidel on Jun 4th 2019 at 5:06:08 AM

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#282152: Jun 4th 2019 at 6:07:34 PM

[up] And diminishes the major achievements of the Nineteenth Amendment.

ILikeRobots Aspirant Creativity Wizard from the worlds of my imagination Since: Aug, 2016 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
Aspirant Creativity Wizard
#282153: Jun 4th 2019 at 6:10:53 PM

Anyway, the reason I said wisewillow's post was unhelpful is that she was responding to a celebratory post about the anniversary of a significant advancement with "but it didn't make everything perfect." It was unnecessarily negative.

I mean... I get that, but you can't celebrate it as "a significant achievement" and get grumpy when someone points out that a ton of (nonwhite) people in the US still couldn't participate in political process. White feminism (i.e., hyping up and hyperfocusing on advancements for white women to the detriment of women of color) is a big problem in third wave feminism as it is.

Plus there was the fact that the suffragettes tended to throw black women and other races under the bus in order to secure their own rights. Hell, one of the arguing platforms of the white suffragettes was that black men had the right to vote and white women didn't.note 

Adventurers: homeless people who steal from tombs and kill things.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#282154: Jun 4th 2019 at 6:25:01 PM

[up] The article I posted actually talks about, restrictive state laws that prevented Woman of Color from voting, as well as some of the intersectional issues of being black and female.

After the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, Black women voted in elections and held political offices. However, many states passed laws that discriminated against African Americans and limited their freedoms. Black women continued to fight for their rights. Educator and political advisor Mary Mc Leod Bethune formed the National Council of Negro Women in 1935 to pursue civil rights. Tens of thousands of African Americans worked over several decades to secure suffrage, which occurred when the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965. This Act represents more than a century of work by Black women to make voting easier and more equitable.

So the act was a major achievement in that it laid the groundwork for the later Civil Rights movement, and established the precedent of black woman being able to vote and hold political office, but was not fully realized until the civil rights movement.

There is a bit more to it than that, of course, but it's still worth mentioning.

Edited by megaeliz on Jun 4th 2019 at 9:31:19 AM

KazuyaProta Shin Megami Tensei IV from A Industrial Farm Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Shin Megami Tensei IV
#282155: Jun 4th 2019 at 6:40:52 PM

Trying to hold Utopian Perfection and Success as a standard is by far one of the biggest issues of the Progressive Left

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jun 4th 2019 at 8:41:13 AM

Watch me destroying my country
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#282156: Jun 4th 2019 at 6:43:39 PM

[up]Martin Luther King said the thing to fear most was the white moderate.

"We just need to wait for change or not go so quickly."

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#282157: Jun 4th 2019 at 6:48:13 PM

Yeah, but he probably never actually shat on the 19th Amendment itself.

Edited by M84 on Jun 4th 2019 at 10:02:29 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#282158: Jun 4th 2019 at 6:56:47 PM

NVM

Edited by HailMuffins on Jun 4th 2019 at 11:18:59 AM

nombretomado (Season 1) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#282159: Jun 4th 2019 at 6:58:17 PM

[up]I have no idea how we got here, but, yeah, not a fan of where this is going.

AzurePaladin She/Her Pronouns from Forest of Magic Since: Apr, 2018 Relationship Status: Mu
She/Her Pronouns
#282160: Jun 4th 2019 at 7:14:01 PM

We've had two mod notices in three pages on a fast moving thread now. Can we please all take a deep breath?

Trump's visit to Britain continues, and it now appears a Trump supporter punctured and deflated the baby balloon carried around at the London protests. The President himself clashed with Mayor Sadiq Khan, and Jeremy Corbyn atttended and addressed the protest.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Jun 4th 2019 at 10:14:10 AM

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#282161: Jun 4th 2019 at 7:18:42 PM

"It was love, great love," Mr. Trump said. "I didn't see the protesters until just a little while ago and it was a very small group of people, so it was fake news."

Frankly, what more needs be said at this point?

[up]You're right, I'll tone down on the abrasive attitude.

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#282162: Jun 4th 2019 at 9:20:17 PM

Well, according the news I'm watching right now, Barr and the Justice Department at the very least are taking this contempt vote seriously. To the point of apparently begging Nadler and his committee to not have the vote, and promising to hand over anything. (It's the Rachel Maddow show I'm watching right now, btw.)

And the House apparently passed a bill for creating a path to citizenship for Dreamers today, with seven Republicans siding with the Democrats.

So yeah, it does seem like the Democrats are attempting to do things here.

tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#282163: Jun 5th 2019 at 9:24:31 AM

Washington Post paywall: English classes, recreation, and legal aid for unaccompanied minors have been cut because higher immigration is making them cut corners.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#282164: Jun 5th 2019 at 9:28:42 AM

Jesus fucking Christ. No one is MAKING them cut corners; Jesus Christ on a stick this is deliberate cruelty.

Edited by wisewillow on Jun 5th 2019 at 9:34:15 AM

AzurePaladin She/Her Pronouns from Forest of Magic Since: Apr, 2018 Relationship Status: Mu
She/Her Pronouns
#282165: Jun 5th 2019 at 9:48:34 AM

[up] [tup] Seconded. Its victim blaming at its finest. "Well, you're the ones who came up here and made us have to slash our budget."

Yeah, no. Wisewillow is 100% correct here.

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#282166: Jun 5th 2019 at 9:51:19 AM

Always makes me wonder when they slash the budget for something where the money that would have funded it goes instead,my inner cynic says it goes into their coffers instead and the lame excuse they give is draw attention away from that

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#282167: Jun 5th 2019 at 10:00:30 AM

Probably paying for another square meter of Trump property rent

"You can reply to this Message!"
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#282168: Jun 5th 2019 at 10:05:59 AM

And they've already made it clear they feel entitled to take money from other places to fund whatever they want. So saying they have no funding as an excuse is utter hogwash even by their garbage standards.

PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#282169: Jun 5th 2019 at 10:11:47 AM

I may be stating the obvious, but it's clear that the victim blaming is just an extremely thinly-veiled excuse because even the Trump Administration knows they can't just outright admit that they just wanna make life that much harder for immigrants.

Though, honestly, I wonder why they even bother at this point.

Edited by PhysicalStamina on Jun 5th 2019 at 1:13:13 PM

i'm tired, my friend
ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#282170: Jun 5th 2019 at 11:03:27 AM

Well, we've got a couple more cases of Enemy Mine going on.

First, AOC is calling for Manafort's release from Solitary Confinement at Riker's Island, saying: Paul Manafort is being sent to solitary confinement in my district – Rikers Island. A prison sentence is not a license for gov torture and human rights violations. That‘s what solitary confinement is,” the New York Democrat wrote on Twitter. “Manafort should be released, along with all people being held in solitary.

And the Senate is going to hold 22 individual votes on the arms deals with Saudi Arabia, so they can get Senators on-record as being in favor or opposed to it. They don't expect to reach the threshold of overriding a veto, but it's a good symbolic gesture if nothing else.

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#282171: Jun 5th 2019 at 11:14:52 AM

You Tube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views The decision by You Tube, which is owned by Google, is the latest action by a Silicon Valley company to stem the spread of hate speech and disinformation on their sites

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/business/youtube-remove-extremist-videos.html

Russia's manipulation of Twitter was far vaster than believed – A cybersecurity firm analyzed a massive data set Twitter released in October 2018 on nearly 3,900 accounts and 10 million tweets

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/05/study-russia-cybersecurity-twitter-1353543

Edited by sgamer82 on Jun 5th 2019 at 12:16:07 PM

AzurePaladin She/Her Pronouns from Forest of Magic Since: Apr, 2018 Relationship Status: Mu
She/Her Pronouns
#282172: Jun 5th 2019 at 11:19:18 AM

[up] Don't get too excited on that.

They decided recently that although Stephen Crowder has been publishing hateful and harassing content against a Vox Journalist on the site, that it didn't actually violate their rules.

He had been calling the journalist homophobic and racist names, siccing crowds of followers onto him, and You Tube has done nothing. De facto, if they will not enforce their anti-harassment rules against homophobia, it is now allowed on Youtube.

Right at the beginning of Pride, too.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Jun 5th 2019 at 2:20:18 PM

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#282173: Jun 5th 2019 at 11:28:16 AM

On the other hand, they are taking down a lot of Make America Straight Again ads. The Liberty Baptist Church is holding an event encouraging genocide of LGBT people near the Pulse Nightclub (of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub Shooting fame) during Pride. That is not hyperbolic; in the ads, they literally say that LGBT people should be executed.

A coordinated backlash campaign to shame their pastors and get their hate videos taken down off of YouTube has been very successful so far. Even if some of the public shaming is a little bit petty (but well-deserved).

I'm not saying that Pastor Tommy McMurtry is attracted to pumpkins. I'm just saying we don't really know.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jun 5th 2019 at 12:30:19 PM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
AzurePaladin She/Her Pronouns from Forest of Magic Since: Apr, 2018 Relationship Status: Mu
She/Her Pronouns
#282174: Jun 5th 2019 at 11:56:38 AM

Don't get me wrong, its a really good thing that You Tube is getting rid of those videos. Just remember that they aren't as thorough as one should be and don't actually care all that much (these videos would have been removed already if they had).

I'm not saying that Pastor Tommy Mc Murtry is attracted to pumpkins. I'm just saying we don't really know.

...I can't tell if this is one of those "Homophobe is secretly gay" jokes, but if it is...can we please not? Insinuating that insecure gay people are the ones who inflict homophobia on others only shifts the blame off straight people to gay people, which is...pretty yikes.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Jun 5th 2019 at 2:56:51 PM

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#282175: Jun 5th 2019 at 12:07:56 PM

Projection is a thing,you know?

have a listen and have a link to my discord server

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