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
Regarding the "Trump is appealing to racism" meme I think that article Aszur linked ages ago titled "The brutal economic truth behind the rise of Donald Trump" is a bit more accurate.
That is, while Trump's racist pandering is clearly getting him some support since more-or-less open bigotry is more effective than dog whistles at getting out bigots, his key constituency is something I'd call the Republican proletariat, that is folks who vote Republican for some reason or another and are not plutocrats or economically well off. This group includes the Dixiecrats and folks like Jeff Sessions which are strongly motivated by bigotry but also folks (which I wager are the bulk of Trump support in places such as Michigan) which think the GOP is shafting them (which is true) but are not mainly motivated by bigotry and xenophobia and will not vote Democrat. I'd count pro-Trump congresscritters from New York into this group, perhaps.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman"Fox News terrorism pundit pleads guilty to faking CIA ties" - http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL2N17W1FI
The original article I came across also pointed him out as a significant player in the Bengazi stuff, but that article
struck me as too blatantly Left to take at face value, given its headline is "Benghazi Nut And Conservative ‘Security Expert’ Pleads Guilty To Fraud "
Seeing the word 'nut' in the headline makes me skeptical of their neutrality, so I'll leave it to the more knowledgeable here to fill in that particular blank.
edited 2nd May '16 8:31:49 AM by sgamer82
That's an old story, but the new part seems to be that he pled guilty. Interesting.
Cruz to young heckler: You'd get spanked in my house
. Did I say that Cruz seems to have a problem with boys? I think I did. Seems like more evidence along that line.
I dunno about him having problem with boys, but he does have only daughters so he has more experience dealing with that. I'd consider that jackassed and unsolicited parenting advice, though. I'm more disappointed that the crowd cheered him.
Though this may partly be a generational thing; my parents certainly didn't have a problem with spanking.
Face it your gonna miss Obama's comedy
I can't see Hillary being nearly as funny. And Trump's would just be him standing at the podium calling all the guests losers.
This. Trump and Cruz's philosophies are the inevitable result of years of Republican pandering to Southern racist Bible-thumpers, but Trump's specific success within the party is the consequence of the modern audience's infatuation with snappy sound-bites and epic burns. In stark contrast to the politicians he's competing with, Trump is an expert at telling someone to go f*ck himself in 140 letters or less, and that means more to a lot of people today than twelve pages of comprehensive tax law.
It's a consequence of the perspective that the person who shouted the loudest "won" the argument, a belief we see all the time on the internet.
The sad thing is, Trump's about the only person campaigning right now who would be able to match Obama's snappy wit during speeches. But when he's standing at the podium making cracks at everyone he crushed to get this far and all the civil liberties he's trampling, it wouldn't be funny.
God, I'm going to miss Obama. Can we do a write-in campaign for "Make Obama King"?
edited 2nd May '16 10:40:08 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Sick of Bernie bros? There's a subreddit with your name on it
>tfw your shitposting makes national news
Speaking of comprehensive tax law
"Conservatives in Congress urge shutdown of IRS" - http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0XT0TF
I gotta say, I've never really understood this view. Like, I saw one video of a Trump rally where Trump has a guy with a t-shirt saying "Legal Immigrants for Trump" get up on the podium with him, and the guy is going on about the hell his father had to go through to come to the US and tearing up over it, and then using that as a reason not to pass immigration reform and make immigration. Now, assuming for a second that it's not complete BS and the guy is sincere, the whole thing just made me want to say "Look, if your father went through hell and suffered so much to legally immigrate, maybe that's a that the process to legally immigrate needs to be easier. That way more immigrate legally instead of illegally and families do it without going through hell."
I mean, unless what you want to implicitly be saying is "My father went through Hell to come here legally, and after having seen and heard how he and my entire family suffered, I think that if he had to come here now and do it all over again... he absolutely should suffer all over again! Him, and everyone else from my family, and every single family like us should suffer!"
Exactly how angry do you have to be over dad screwing up your 6th birthday party to implicitly say that about him? Look, I can perfectly understand having issues with your family over their screwups, but lets not go overboard here.
So, yeah, aside from petty, childish vindictiveness, (and racism/xenophobia) I've never been able to understand that argument. Unless you're more or less going to argue that suffering has to be a rite of passage, and new generations have to go through exactly what old generations did, in which case why did we bother with doing things like ending child labor in factories, reducing childhood hunger/death, creating vaccines for diseases like polio, etc.? Is that just robbing people of the suffering rite of passage,? Don't they have to go through what past generation went through or it just cheapens the experiences of the past generation?
Or maybe I'm just some freak pollyanna goody two shoes who also happens to be a child from an immigrant family. What do I know? [/end rant]
edited 2nd May '16 10:57:03 AM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |![]()
That article actually points something out that most people don't think about; the IRS would essentially be replaced by itself, only smaller and supposedly with less ability to enforce tax laws. Unless they're planning on abolishing taxes entirely, someone's got to process all that paperwork and money.
People like to wear their hardship as a badge of pride. The idea of special privileges being rewarded to people for arbitrary milestones intended to prove how they're better than other people is a very popular one.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Franjly it sounds more like "I paid my dues and played the game, why are they allowed to cheat?"
The same I feel about stowaways in public transit when they sneak right after me after I scan my subscription pass. Only, it lasts a few seconds at worst.
edited 2nd May '16 11:04:44 AM by Medinoc
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."But what I'm arguing for isn't "Why are they allowed to cheat", it's about "The rules were really unfair, screwed up, and caused a lot of heartbreak... maybe it's time to update or change the rules." Except that the very people who suffered because of the rules then turn around and defend them, no matter how clear it becomes that the rules don't work.
It's like watching Stockholm Syndrome at work, or someone who was abused as a child defending their abuser and declaring that everyone should go through the same experience.
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |So apparently Fox News had to disable comments on an otherwise innocuous article about President Obama's eldest getting into Harvard and taking a year off before attending. The reason: massive racism.
Because they succeeded, which takes precedent in people's minds over how ridiculous and/or unnecessary the task was. They succeeded where others failed. They're special. They're talented, gifted, exemplary. They can then turn around and say, "Well, anyone can make if it they try hard enough."
Their identity becomes entrenched in the fact that they succeeded at the pointless endeavor. Efforts to remove the endeavor become unconscionable to them because they see it as an attempt to strip them of their accomplishment.
Consider: Bob and Alice both have to wrestle an alligator and they get a shiny rock if they succeed. Alice defeats the gator and claims her rock, while Bob is forced to give up because, seriously, it's a f*cking alligator, man! Years later, Bob still hasn't gotten his apple but there's new people in charge and those people are at a loss for why we're making people wrestle gators for rocks.
They want to remove the pointless challenge and just give Bob a rock, but Alice is offended at the notion. She fought hard to defeat that gator and get her rock. She doesn't even care about whether or not the gator wrestling is important; the idea that Bob should be given a rock when he's never been as good at gator wrestling as she is infuriates her. That rock is her trophy. It identifies her as exceptional. It makes her feel good about her personal accomplishments. She can't even fathom the idea that someone who can't even wrestle one gator should deserve it.
It's the bootstraps logic train rearing its ugly head from a different perspective. The same logic as the GOP's favorite line, "I made my fortune so anyone can do it."
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.In other news:
West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin (D) endorsed Hillary Clinton.
In California, Ted Cruz picks up endorsement from former governor Pete Wilson (R).
edited 2nd May '16 11:28:44 AM by Demonic_Braeburn
Any group who acts like morons ironically will eventually find itself swamped by morons who think themselves to be in good company.Also many Hispanics who side with Republicans are specifically Cuban Immigrants or Cuban-Americans. If you do not know, the standing policy in regards to Cuban immigrants is that all a Cuban has to do to legally immigrate to the United States is put their foot on United States soil. There are no illegal Cubans in the United States because all Cubans are accepted as refugees of the Castro regime. Cuban-Americans make up the third-largest Hispanic group.
The second largest Hispanic group are the Puerto Ricans, which are considered American citizens because of Puerto Rico's status as a commonwealth of the United States. As such, there are no illegal Puerto Ricans, either. All Puerto Ricans are Americans.
Of course, the largest Hispanic group in the United States, by far, are the Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans. Of the top three groups of Hispanics in the United States, it is the Mexicans specifically who actually even have illegal immigrants, since all Puerto Ricans are Americans and all a Cuban has to do to become an American is to step on American soil.
It is quite unfair to tell Mexicans to go through this long agonizing process of citizenship when the Hispanics telling them to do this are generally the Cubans who became citizens by surviving a boat ride from Cuba to Florida or the Puerto Ricans who were always citizens because they live in Puerto Rico.
edited 2nd May '16 11:30:43 AM by GameGuruGG
Wizard Needs Food Badly

If you recall, Trump at one point stirred up a birther controversy about Cruz, and there have been some challenges, but nothing that ever stood up in court. So at least they are being somewhat consistent.
edited 2nd May '16 8:02:45 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"