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
@Fighteer: Which is my point. Ron Paul (despite being a states' rights neo-Confederate) was close enough to "genuine libertarian" to get an amount of grassroots support on both sides of the aisle. But, because he was unwilling to coalition-build, sell out and play politics, he could be marginalized rather than fought head-on. (And getting people to put on their trollfaces and register as Republicans just to bolster him requires a lot more effort out of the footsoldiers than he can count on.)
Though I disagree with your position on his economic liberalism, since I do think he'd have tried to end subsidies as well as regulations, which would not have the effect that you think it would. Namely, it'd completely prevent anything from getting done for the duration of his term, because each and every lobby in Washington would scream about its own ox being gored.
House panel approves bill curtailing EPA power on climate regs
The nuclear option is an option for getting a vote to pass under a simple majority instead of two-thirds. Reid threatened to use it, then promised not to if the opposition followed certain conditions on non-obstructionism, which apparently they have not done to his satisfaction. (Shocker.)
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.Bush calls for immigration reform, but says he won't enter political debate on immigration
John Kerry chokes back tears in first comments on wife’s health scare
@Ramidel: "because he was unwilling to coalition-build, sell out and play politics"
That's one of the things about politics: it's a team sport. Charismatic figures with controversial positions and a lack of high profile backers scare the heck out of people. As much as I decry the system that produces our Presidential candidates, I have to acknowledge that it has a certain value in weeding out potentially dangerous mavericks. As amusing as it would have been to see Cain, Bachmann, or even Perry curb-stomped at the polls in November, that they could be front-running candidates at all betrays the disaster that the GOP primary system has become.
Paul's "economic liberalism" is nothing of the sort. He's an old school proponent of classical economics who believes in the gold standard and unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism, which failed abjectly in the 1930s and is failing just as badly in the present day.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The Classical rebuttal to "But the Great Depression!" seems to be the recession of 1920, where the initial drop was sharper than in 1929, but the government stood firm and prices bounced back quickly. The blame I've heard from hardcore libertarians (ironically) falls on Herbert Hoover, because his very attempts at intervening to help the economy (loudly blamed by liberals then and now for being too little too late) are being blamed by libertarians now as the thing that turned 1929 from another blip on the radar of prosperity into an endless grind (exacerbated by FDR's meddling)
We should move that discussion to the General Economics thread if you want to pursue it further.
Oh you big pussy, it's a naso-pharyngeal airway, we have to do something similar to someone when we do pre-deployment training, and have it done to us.
Yeah, it really is uncomfortable as fuck, but if the prisoners decide they can just hunger strike to get whatever they want, what's the point? Religious extremists who often thought they would go out in a blaze of glory rather than be captured often don't have much of a will to live in the first place, and would rather just die.
You know, that's a rather large assumption to be making, Barkey: that all or even most of the Gitmo prisoners are religious fanatics, jihadists, terrorists, etc. In fact a significant portion of them likely are not, and given that we can't get trials for them, we may never find out.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Not all of them, no.
But I'm just not as horrified about the whole Gitmo thing as most of you. There's more accountability to having them in a known location such as Gitmo. If we close Gitmo, we'll never know what happens to these people, because we'll scoop them up and send them to black sites in foreign prisons where the CIA rents out space, such as Yemen and certain places in Eastern Europe.
Not that I'm all that sympathetic. If those bastards ever took me in, I'd pretty much just tell the whole truth straight from the start and sing like a canary. Most of these guys do their whole "You can't do shit to me because my faith in Allah is strong!" bit. Ideological extremism of any stripe can hold up to torture for some time, way more than personal resolve.
I think they threatened that a few years ago when Ontario bumped up the minimum wage actually, as in threatening to pull out of Toronto. The problem was that at the time, they didn't actually have a location in the city of Toronto so their threat was meaningless. Even now, they only really have one location and it's a pain to get to for most people.

What is this "nuclear option"?
It was an honor