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
Senator Reid Spokesman: No Deal On Student Loans Yet
Back on the drugs topic, while it is true that any amount of taxation and/or regulation will create a black market, those markets aren't enough to sustain criminal empires. Most people, given the chance, will buy their tobacco and alcohol legally. The same will undoubtedly be true of marijuana.
The reason why the illegal drug trade is associated with violent crime is that there is a huge street markup. Sell these drugs legally at market prices with regulated quality and you undermine the profit for the cartels. This is basic economics. Sure there will still be a black market, but there won't be enough money in it to allow an entire country to be held at gunpoint to supply U.S. demand.
As for the "marijuana as a gateway drug" argument, that's pretty much bullshit. It's one of those things that somebody made up ages ago, like Reagan's infamous "welfare queen", in order to justify the continued War on Drugs, and now it's something that "everybody knows" without any real evidence to back it up.
Make no mistake: there are huge financial interests behind continuing to prosecute drug users as criminals. The private prison system is the largest advocate of the War on Drugs. It shouldn't take a genius to figure out why.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Mondale was probably the only candidate that really had no chance and got there by fair means.
Humphrey actually narrowly lost,if Nixon didn't sabotage the peace-talks he would've won
Mc Govern was a dark-horse because Nixon took out Muskie who by all means should've won
Carter's re-election was sabotaged by Reagan sabotaging any attempts at getting the hostages freed,and stolen debate notes. Before the 1980 debate,the candidates were tied.
Dukakis lost because of the death penalty question,and frankly Bush wasn't too far right either.
And y'all seem to forget that though the GOP had the Presidency from 1968-1992 except for Carter that the Dems had straight control of the Congress except for 3/4 of the Reagan presidency.
The GOP since Clinton has had Congress for most of the time,but have since lacked the Senate
This has probably been posted many trillions of times, but this sums up my feelings on the death penalty
.
That was an unfair lose-lose situation,if he sounded emotional it would've been that tank fiasco again and he probably wouldn't have even taken any of the states except Minnesota,Massachusetts,and Hawaii since those three are the new Solid South when it comes to loyalty.
So naturally he went for the android approach as to look strong,and then that had it's drawbacks to.
Nope,
nope,
and nope.
Black markets for legal things is a multibillion dollar industry and often comprises a noticeably large chunk of all sales (and like I said before, occasionally outright dominates the market as in the third link).
edited 27th Jun '13 10:29:10 AM by Pykrete
Can someone explain why Tumblr-and everyone else but the Republicans are praising the people in the Texas Abortion fillibuster as heroes? Personally, I think it's a stupid, stupid law.
However, any time the republicans use-or threaten a filibuster to delay a law, we're screaming bloody murder, and with good reasons-it's a cheap way to delay democracy. It's the political version of storming off in a huff. I don't think the fillibuster has any place in the American political system. It just seems like a massive double standard we're running.
Same reason we can never get the filibuster changed. Everyone hates it until they have to use it.
The way bills work, it usually takes a really long time to get one all the way through the system. In the event of something like the abortion bill, where some overwhelming 80% of the constituency opposed it, it occasionally gives enough time to last until elections, where the bill in question will be ammunition for smear campaigns, and even if safeguard legislation never comes up in the state house/senate in the meantime, it can be prop'd in by the citizenry.
edited 27th Jun '13 10:40:10 AM by Pykrete
I do disagree with the filibuster on a baseline philosophical level. I think it's undemocratic and purely a bad idea from a governmental efficiency standpoint.
However, I don't think it's necessarily hypocritical to be against the ROUTINE use of the filibuster, but not against the OCCASIONAL usage of it. The issue with the filibuster's unpopularity at the federal level is largely because it's been used more and more and more with each passing year, hitting a fevered peak with the Republicans stonewalling everything, including routine legislation, in the past few years. If they hadn't been abusing it so much, most people wouldn't care about the filibuster one way or the other. By contrast, the Texas filibuster is an exceptional circumstance in a special session that was explicitly called to ram unpopular legislation through - the environment is pretty much the opposite of the one the national filibuster takes place in.
And all that is combined with the fact that the Texas filibuster requires you to, you know, actually filibuster, instead of just saying you're filibustering and then sitting down and having a nice cup of tea. I mean, if you're going to obstruct a major branch of government, it does help if you do so in a way that shows physical fortitude and passion, instead of just passively bureaucratic intractability.
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.They're praising them because 1) if this had passed, and if it does next week, it would have closed down all but five abortion centers in this state (And Texas is fucking huge) cutting off care for thousands if not millions of women, and 2) The Republicans fucking cheated to end the filibuster and then the filibuster people spent two hours holding up the proceedings to get things back on track.
And keep in mind that Davis had to keep on topic as according to Texas law; she couldn't read from a phonebook like I think someone did once in the federal Congress. That's eleven hours with absolutely no breaks whatsoever because those are the rules here.

A bit of a thread hop but the concept of Jimmy Carter on steroid amuses me.