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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
In other news, update from NC - Grand Moff McCory is trying to stop the special elections from taking place.
The officials hired high-power Republican Supreme Court lawyer Paul Clement to ask the US Supreme Court to halt a district court's order from Nov. 29 that a special election be held for state legislative seats in North Carolina in 2017. The order came in a lawsuit brought against legislative, redistricting committee, and election board leaders.
North Carolina Gov. Pat Mc Crory, a Republican, is being succeeded on Sunday by Democrat Roy Cooper, currently the state's attorney general. After fighting his re-election defeat, Mc Crory signed into law several pieces of legislation passed in a special session of the General Assembly that diminish the power of the governor and alter the balance of power between the political parties in the state — including the state elections board. (Some of those new laws are subject to their own, unrelated lawsuits).
Now, the officials being sued are challenging the November court order, which followed up an August decision from the district court finding that the North Carolina legislative maps, as challenged, were unconstitutional, racially gerrymandered maps. Although the district court — given the timing of the August ruling — allowed elections to proceed under those maps, the November order called for the General Assembly to draw new maps and hold a special election in 2017 to remedy the problem.
North Carolina is appealing the August ruling, asking the Supreme Court to reverse the finding that the maps are unconstitutional. Despite that, Clement wrote for the state on Friday, "the district court has now ordered the most extreme and intrusive remedy possible: partial invalidation of an election and imposition of a special election that overrides multiple provisions of the North Carolina Constitution (not to mention the reasonable expectations of North Carolina voters)."
As such, the officials are now asking the US Supreme Court to put the order for a new election to be put on hold until the challenge to the August ruling can be resolved. The state had asked the district court to stay the order on Dec. 2, a request that the plaintiffs in the case opposed in a Dec. 23 filing. The district court is yet to rule on the request.
Nonetheless, the officials asked the Supreme Court to act now. "There is plenty of time for this Court to review the merits and ensure that the next regularly scheduled elections occur in districts that fully comply with the Constitution," Clement wrote for the state. "But even if this Court wants to preserve the possibility of a special election, it would still be preferable to grant the stay and expedite the appeal in this case."
The request was filed with Chief Justice John Roberts, who hears such requests out of North Carolina.
Aside from the obvious power move, it seems like a stall tactic to me. The gerrymandering that lets them stay in power is now imperiled, so they're trying to drag their feet on fixing it, probably hoping that once we're living in Trump's America things will be different. And they're probably right.
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."@Silas: Connecting the meager improvements in Somalia to an intervention which happened decades ago seems like wishful thinking. I'm not especially familiar with that situation though.
Also in Libya isn't the lead contender to win the ongoing power struggle a Russia friendly strongman?
As far as Yugoslavia, that ruffled a great many feathers over in Russia, which, had it not been in chaos in the 90s undoubtedly would undoubtedly have spoiled things to preserve its own interests.
So for liberal intervention not to just make matters worse, you need a geopolitical situation that's extremely simple; small population, small geographic area, and no regional powers that will retaliate. That's not especially common on a meaningful scale, so foreign policy ought to be guided by realism first, with liberalism as a secondary concern.
edited 30th Dec '16 9:48:24 PM by CaptainCapsase
That's the scary part. I don't think they have any intention of ever not cheating again.
"We're going to win the game - and then we're going to change the rules so we don't lose anymore."
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."Just a thing: Germany and Japan work in part because the population were sick of their goverments a that point and more or less roll over with the western powers to do their thing, while later the whole thing have been a Hit and run, with the civilizan suffer the worst of it.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"~Pushover Media Critic: I told you, this has happened before.
Somalian intervention working: See AMISOM
. It actually has worked in the sense that Mogadishu can actually project power beyond city limits, although al-Shebab tries to resist.
edited 30th Dec '16 10:32:26 PM by Krieger22
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiotIncriminating? No.
Unethical? Yes.
As I’ve shown repeatedly, that wasn’t the worst thing. At least, not if you care about having a free and adversarial press that will keep government in check. Besides, the DNC is supposed to be neutral. This is like the referee of a football game favoring one team over the other.
I think the DNC would’ve called out any false or deceptive info added into the e-mails.
I altered my position after discovering that article I linked to. I literally just found out about it tonight while Googling as I waited for responses on the thread. Then again, I suppose it’s possible that she was planning to squeeze Russia for as much money as possible and then turn against them……? Which might be Trump’s plan as well…….? I really don’t know what to believe about either candidate’s plans regarding Russia anymore. Not that it matters with regard to the leaks.
Like I said, it’d be easier for me to trust them if I thought the leaders of the other agencies would be willing to contradict the director if he was lying. I have a feeling they wouldn’t, though, because they don’t want to end up like Manning or Snowden.
Huh, I didn’t know that. Could you link me to a source on that?
I’m confused. I don’t remember asking you to defend Russia or Clinton. I’m certainly not defending anything else Russia’s done besides supposedly being behind the leak.
Do you have evidence that the leaked DNC e-mails were strategically altered in a similarly deceptive way?
The issue isn’t the DNC preferring a candidate. It’s the fact that they tried to help their preferred candidate, like a referee only calling fouls for whichever team he likes less regardless of what the other team does. They even made sure polls closed earlier in counties of New York that were demographically more likely to vote for Sanders.
As for the discussion about interventionism that seems to have started, I think military interventions are usually a bad idea, what with the unintended consequences that often result in something even worse filling the power vacuum caused by removing the dictator (ISIS was born from the toppling of Hussien, for example). Non-military solutions are better idea, although I confess that when neither military intervention nor economic sanctions work, I don't know what else to do.
edited 30th Dec '16 10:19:46 PM by SeriesOfNumbers
I'm not talking about the old US intervention, I'm talking about the ongoing African Union intervention that's responsible for the small improvements.
That's one faction but it's far from the only one, the current direction of power is for the unity government that the UN helped form to slowly gather legitimacy and establish itself. Libya is far from in a good place, but it's not an active war zone anymore and is trending towards unity and stability.
Roughly, or a bad enough situation that regional powers will put aside their differences, occasionally just a strait up forced situation can work if done right. If you take the regional power's first choice of the table they may opt for a second. Though I personally would say no global powers willing to retaliate, regional powers can be dealt with, Russia is a step above that.
That's how it is though, even under Bush and Blair it was still guided by geopolitical concerns first and a desire to do good second. Strategic interests will almost always take priority and that's something that may not be nice but is simply part of how International Relations works.
That doesn't mean we should scrap all interventions and never help anyone ever, as is often advocated for by people jaded by the realisation that strategic interests are always a factor.
Also I'd dispute what you call a meaningful scale, I get that you're a big picture guy but I just can't call the lives of even just a million people anything but meaningful.
Why would they though? Manning and Snowden were both low ranked people who actually leaked information, that's different from being a high level director who simply contradicts a statement.
They wouldn't end up like Manning or Snowden, they'd end up like Comey, who's doing pretty well for himself right now.
edited 30th Dec '16 10:23:00 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranYeah, the directors of those organizations aren't gonna need to run. The only person above them is the President so unless Obama personally orders their arrest then nothing is gonna happen.
The Russians hacked us and have been supporting the Republicans. It's a fact.
edited 30th Dec '16 10:26:18 PM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?The paragraphs explained what you thought Russia's reasons were but not why those reasons matter too you. I don't see how giving someone factual info counts as "fucking with" them. Yes, if Russia was behind it, it probably was to influence our votes. But that just means Russia did the right thing for the wrong reason.
It's like a fantasy adventurer killing the evil, man-eating dragon just so he can take the dragon's gold. Yes, the adventurer's motives were selfish, but they still resulted in something that's good anyway (I'm comparing the local village being safe from the dragon to the e-mails being revealed, not to Trump winning), so it makes no sense to wish the adventurer hadn't killed the dragon.
Surely, we can judge whether an action being taken is a good thing separately from whether the people who took the actions had noble motives, right?
Unless the truth of Russia having no involvement in the leak was considered classified information. Then the people who leaked it could be brought up on the same charges as Manning or Snowden.
edited 30th Dec '16 10:32:33 PM by SeriesOfNumbers
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Just another critical step in their plan to destabilize democracies around the globe and establish Russian domination, finally taking their revenge for the collapse of the Soviet Union. One step closer to Putin's new world order, free of humanitarian concerns or personal freedoms. And thus far, they are being successful on all fronts, with no meaningful opposition.
Looks like another sleepless night for me.
edited 30th Dec '16 10:30:51 PM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."The issue with Iraq and with Bush in general wasn't the underlying strategic concerns being pursued, it was the attempt to disrupt the balance of power in the region in order to expand American power.
Which caused the whole region to unravel.
In sub-Saharan Africa at least, the major powers' strategic interests in the region are relatively light. It's the same dynamic I suspect that allowed for a relatively amicable (it didn't start a World War) carving up of Africa during the scramble for Africa.
edited 30th Dec '16 10:32:55 PM by CaptainCapsase
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It was not a good thing because it pointlessly harmed the campaign of the only qualified, stable candidate, and gave rise to the regime of a terrifyingly incompetent, vindictive, and capricious wannabe dictator. The email scandal was complete horseshit from beginning to end, yet it was the only thing people wanted to talk about with regards to Clinton.
Also...I very clearly explain that Russia did it with the intention of throwing our nation into discord and placing their puppet in the White House, and you want to know why that matters to me? Seriously?
edited 30th Dec '16 10:33:28 PM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."30 years ago, Trump proposed an alliance between America and the USSR against Pakistan and France.
edited 30th Dec '16 10:34:30 PM by MadSkillz
X3 You can disrupt a balance of power and get away with it, it's not easy but it's possible, what you can't do is set an artificial construct on fire, run away with the loot then look confused when the entire thing collapses.
Iraq would have failed even if the entire region had been okay with it, because it was that badly managed and that short term goal focused.
edited 30th Dec '16 10:35:21 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran![]()
Although that would suggest that goals beyond "topple Saddam and the Baathists" existed in the pre-invasion planning
A DC restaurant is refusing to add Trump to a mural of theirs depicting every President since Eisenhower
. Freedom of Speech. Or painting, I guess?
The Daily Stormer is encouraging Twitter users to create fake accounts claiming to be black people in a bid to delegitimise social justice movements
. In other words, an even less sincere version of what appears to be going on here and previously in the Islamophobia thread.
Are you paid to do this or are you really overdue for a psych?
edited 30th Dec '16 10:39:28 PM by Krieger22
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot![]()
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I hope you realize that Putin and his new henchman Trump are probably the greatest threat to the state of global democracy in generations.
You know people, I feel like this is starting to get a tad heated. We should probably either drop it or at least reign it in a bit, because we don't want the mods to have to step in.
edited 30th Dec '16 10:40:25 PM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."
They should. It's overdue by now.
Enough Trump Spam thread by a former alt-right member on how the alt-right tries to delegitimise social justice movements
. Surprise, surprise, a lot of the "SJW" stuff that gets made into social media memes are cut from whole cloth by them...

Also i think it's not very realistic to expect people in the organization to NOT have a candidate they prefer. It's not as if working for the DNC prevents you from having opinions about the candidates.
edited 30th Dec '16 9:29:38 PM by Draghinazzo