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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Enkufka Wandering Student ಠ_ಠ from Bay of White fish Since: Dec, 2009
Wandering Student ಠ_ಠ
#52902: Apr 10th 2013 at 1:38:11 PM

Reposting because it got buried PDQ.

So, miffed that some judges are having the AUDACITY to BLOCK these VERY IMPORTANT (in keeping democrats from voting) LAWS, WI GOP state legislators are trying to neuter their effectiveness.

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#52904: Apr 10th 2013 at 3:34:40 PM

@Fighteer: The problem with gun control is that the attempts in the 1990s really did go completely out of control, and a lot of voters still are a bit wary of that. Any bill that bans "assault weapons" or "Saturday Night Specials" (that was slang from the '90s for easily-concealed handguns) will inevitably be poorly-worded as hell and applied in an overly-arbitrary manner.

And I will say this: The NRA has history on their side when they suggest "background checks will lead to THEM COMIN AFTER OUR GUNZ AND OUR FREEDOM!!!!!" Why? Because after the Brady Bill (federal waiting period, background checks, banning felons from carrying firearms; one stupid provision does in fact cover individuals who have not been convicted of anything, but restraining orders are another subject entirely) passed, HCI immediately started pushing for Brady Bill II, which had stuff like assault weapon legislation, Saturday Night Special bans, punitive taxes on all guns and especially ammo, and I don't remember the rest. It was an ungodly mess.

So the NRA does have a point in that, if they refuse to compromise at all and prevent the nation from having a conversation on gun control, they have a better chance of keeping gun laws from going somewhere actually harmful. Of course, they also ensure that nothing beneficial can be done either.

@Enkufka: I wonder what would happen if that law was struck down?

edited 10th Apr '13 3:39:18 PM by Ramidel

Sledgesaul Since: Oct, 2011
#52905: Apr 10th 2013 at 4:23:33 PM

Fighteer, if you doubt the Americans' ability to do anything, what makes you think the demographics will ever sort themselves out?

edited 10th Apr '13 4:25:54 PM by Sledgesaul

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#52906: Apr 10th 2013 at 4:47:06 PM

@Sledgesaul: Because the actively destructive minority will, eventually, become too small to dominate our politics.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Sledgesaul Since: Oct, 2011
#52907: Apr 10th 2013 at 5:01:06 PM

If that was true, we wouldn't be in this shape right now. Politics inherently turn worse so long as psychos have the money, and they have plenty of it.

edited 10th Apr '13 5:02:36 PM by Sledgesaul

Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#52908: Apr 10th 2013 at 5:54:10 PM

He's not saying we should do nothing, he's just saying we don't need to start tossing Molotov cocktails at penthouses. It's sorting itself out without getting radical.

Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
Drtentacles Cephalopod Lothario from Land of the Deep Ones Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Cephalopod Lothario
#52909: Apr 10th 2013 at 5:57:05 PM

Well, what am I going to do with these gasoline filled coke bottles then? Drink them?

(Ahem. Serious note. Just because things are changing doesn't mean we shouldn't keep up constant pressure. Democracy isn't a system that works with lazy, apathetic citizens)

Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#52910: Apr 10th 2013 at 5:58:58 PM

[up]Hey: gas tastes better than some alcopops do (and the faked ones are probably more dangerous)... You're on to a winner. [lol]

edited 10th Apr '13 5:59:29 PM by Euodiachloris

DeviantBraeburn Wandering Jew from Dysfunctional California Since: Aug, 2012
Wandering Jew
#52911: Apr 10th 2013 at 7:14:20 PM

House GOP campaign chief: Obama budget is ‘shocking attack’ on seniors

.............................................................tongue

House Judiciary threatens subpoena over DOJ kill memos

Speaker Boehner on Obama's budget: 'Whoop-dee-doo'

Paul Ryan pans Obama budget

edited 10th Apr '13 7:16:54 PM by DeviantBraeburn

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#52912: Apr 10th 2013 at 7:26:03 PM

So Obama gives them what they want and they hate it. Why am I not surprised.

Drtentacles Cephalopod Lothario from Land of the Deep Ones Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Cephalopod Lothario
#52913: Apr 10th 2013 at 7:26:50 PM

I don't know why the hell he expected anything but this to happen. Or why he imagined it was any sort of decent idea.

RadicalTaoist scratching at .8, just hopin' from the #GUniverse Since: Jan, 2001
scratching at .8, just hopin'
#52914: Apr 10th 2013 at 8:13:27 PM

What. The Flying. Fuck.

To Obama, curbing entitlement growth has never been a core priority — it’s more a means to an end — and the liberal rage against the CPI plan is useful only up to a point.

It makes his CPI plan seem like a major concession instead of the minor baby step Republicans claim it is.

“We’re not going to have the White House forever, folks. If he doesn’t do this, Paul Ryan is going to do it for us in a few years,” said a longtime Obama aide, referring to the 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate who proposed a sweeping overhaul of Medicare that would replace some benefits with vouchers.

What sort of incompetents has the President surrounded himself with? Is he himself honestly so incompetent that he doesn't believe he can protect the greatest political legacy of his party and the most popular government program in the country from a self-destructing opposition after he whooped them in an election the year before despite a fledgling economic depression and levels of partisan division never before seen in this country?

This...this is baffling.

To disagree with Charles Pierce for a change:

We will be told — and already have been — that this is simply the president's positioning the Republicans into a corner. But that's not consonant with the quote above. That quote isn't about what's happening now. It's about telling people that they have to accept some pain now because, otherwise, they'll face agony later at some unspecified time and the hands of some unspecified president. There is only one reason for anyone in the White House to adopt this rationale, and there is only one reason for anyone in the White House to float this rationale in public. The only plausible reason for adopting this rationale, or for floating it in public, is because this is what you really want to do in the first place and you are groping for a plausible alibi. The only plausible reason for it is that you've bought the deficit-hysteria to the point where you believe that you have to do this thing right now. Nothing else makes sense, unless the White House mess has changed where it shops for its mushrooms.
But even if gutting Social Security was Obama's intent, it was something he could have done ages ago, easy. This is the most circumlocutory, mishandled, incompetent way to kill a program he could have imagined. And if it was an attempt to gut Social Security that he could safely get away with, it failed. It couldn't have possibly worked given the attention being paid to the current entitlement reform debate and the revealing powers of the Internet. And Obama's people have known since day one how good the netroots is at spreading stuff like this - it's how he got elected. There is no way Chained CPI will make it through without Obama becoming known as the biggest traitor in the history of the Democratic Party.

What idiots is he surrounding himself with? Is this what happens to an administration that is willing to let people like Van Jones resign when people start throwing some nasty names? Really?

edited 10th Apr '13 8:23:34 PM by RadicalTaoist

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#52915: Apr 10th 2013 at 8:20:40 PM

I still wonder if he's trying to expose their hypocrisy in some way. If so he's doing it in a really stupid way.

edit: Okay what aides are saying this? Are we sure these are his own words?

edit 2: Has he ever once suggested that they need to remove the cap on social security taxes above 110k?

edited 10th Apr '13 8:26:18 PM by Kostya

Midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#52917: Apr 10th 2013 at 9:24:37 PM

I find it hilarious not a single republican can figure out why the black vote fled.

Nevermind every political science or college history teacher on the planet can tell you why.

Because the goddamn Dixicrats joined the republican party,

terlwyth Since: Oct, 2010
#52918: Apr 10th 2013 at 9:28:12 PM

And then of course the whole "welfare queen" speech by Ronald Reagan didn't help.

deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#52919: Apr 10th 2013 at 9:41:02 PM

...

...

...Is it bad that the first thing to come to mind was making a parody of "Dancing Queen"?

You are the welfare queen, greed and sloth, over 35
Welfare queen, take money from the taxpayers

...

...And does this make me a bad person?

edited 10th Apr '13 9:41:17 PM by deathpigeon

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#52920: Apr 10th 2013 at 9:45:07 PM

There is no way Chained CPI will make it through without Obama becoming known as the biggest traitor in the history of the Democratic Party.
To be fair, there are worse ways he could betray the Democratic Party. That's not much of a recommendation, though. If this is indeed his logic, then he's fucking over the hopes and dreams of the people who elected him.

Krugman thinks that Obama is still trying to reach out to the Cult of Centrism in the vain hope that it will stop declaring him unwilling to compromise.

After all, if whoever it is that Obama is trying to appeal to here — I guess it’s the Washington Post editorial page and various other self-proclaimed “centrist” pundits — were willing to admit the fundamental asymmetry in our political debate, willing to admit that if DC is broken, it’s because of GOP radicalism, they would have done it long ago. It’s not as if this reality was hard to see.

But the truth is that the “centrists” aren’t sincere. Calls for centrism and bipartisanship aren’t actual demands for specific policies — they’re an act, a posture these people take to make themselves seem noble and superior. And that posture requires blaming both parties equally, no matter what they do or propose. Obama’s budget will garner faint praise at best, quickly followed by denunciations of the president for not supplying the Leadership (TM) to make Republicans compromise — which means that he’s just as much at fault as they are, see?

After all, there's no way that the GOP will pass any Obama budget proposal that isn't a total capitulation to Paul Ryan's Assrape America plan. Still, all this "peace offering" does is make him look weak.

edited 10th Apr '13 9:46:19 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Thorn14 Gunpla is amazing! Since: Aug, 2010
Gunpla is amazing!
#52922: Apr 11th 2013 at 12:49:44 AM

I wonder when Obama will just go "Fuck it, Republican's wont accept a thing I do."

Swish Long Live the King Since: Jan, 2001
Long Live the King
#52923: Apr 11th 2013 at 1:04:29 AM

[up]... 2016... After the Republican nominee vehemently denies that Barrack Obama supports his candidacy. tongue

RTaco Since: Jul, 2009
#52925: Apr 11th 2013 at 2:03:11 AM

Hopefully he'll realize it before he makes even more "compromises" and leaves everyone miserable.

edited 11th Apr '13 2:03:23 AM by RTaco


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