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 was caught building a secret bunker a while ago. If you bring a satellite TV and a solar lamp you might get a space.
Chelsea Manning thanks Obama for prison release
Actually I don't plan on surviving the nuclear apocalypse. It's unlikely that video gaming will survive, and without that my life is largely without meaning. (I'm kidding, but only slightly. I'm a tech geek, and without the tech I have no useful survival skills other than a rusty black belt in tae kwon do.)
At a slightly deeper level, my fundamental moral faith is in humanity's ability to progress. It would shatter me to see that so conclusively disproven.
You have got to be kidding me...
edited 19th Jan '17 9:31:24 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"He has a black belt in Tai Kwon Do and is very bad.
edited 19th Jan '17 9:29:06 AM by RAlexa21th
Continue writing our story of peace.If MIT forms the the Institute before the nukes start flying, I might have useful skills After the End.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
x6 That's basically the attitude I've heard from people my work friend knows: "He's our president. We need to stop criticizing him and just support him." Okay, first of all, being able to criticize our president is protected under the first amendment, or are you against that too? And second, it's kind of hard to blindly support somebody if they say and do horrible things. Respect is earned, and Trump hasn't earned my respect with the way he behaves or the isolationist policies he wants to enact.
He may become president tomorrow, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
edited 19th Jan '17 9:48:04 AM by speedyboris
They'll change their mind when they (know they) are the one who suffers from his presidency.
Continue writing our story of peace."He's our president. We need to stop criticizing him and just support him."
Yeah, that would have been nice when Obama was in office.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Nah, this is how it works (according to Republicans): When a Democrat is president, criticizing him and the government is a patriotic duty and anyone who supports him is a freedom hating traitor. When a Republican is president, Führerprinzip goes into effect.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.Okay. So. Could you. Y'know. Fucking tell us?
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."Ted Roosevelt said that denying a man's right to criticize a President is flat-out unpatriotic and borderline treasonous to America's ideals.
Listen to Ted.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Lot of right wingers despise Teddy Roosevelt for his support of the National Park Service. antiquities act, and generally blame him for "planting the seeds of socialism" to quote one I know, so not gonna get much traction there. Thank The John Birchers and Glenn Beck for that one, they developed a massive hateboner for him a year or so after Obama's 1st win.
edited 19th Jan '17 10:16:49 AM by carbon-mantis
Rick Perry Recognizes Human Caused Climate Change, Disagrees with Measures that would Harm Industry
.
I don't know if this is a step in the right direction, or a step in the wrong direction.
In case anyone wasn't feeling depressed enough already - Our Kids May Never Get The Chance To Know America.
A deeply pessimistic look at our future.
We are days away from having a cabinet with men whose presence benefits Russia more than it does US citizens, and who often have a record of bigotry and cruelty so vile they were refused past appointments. Journalists are being threatened, protesters have been deemed "economic terrorists", intelligence agencies are on the verge of a purge, ambassadorships are being left unfilled; and wealthy international white supremacists - Le Pen, Farage - are being flown to a golden New York tower to hone their faux populism stateside.
There is no "That's just the way things were" to answer the question of what happened in 2016. It's "That's the way things became", as century-old norms were disregarded by a president-elect whose deepest loyalties appear to lie a foreign power. There is a difference between institutions weakening, as they have throughout the wars and economic turmoil of the 21st century, and institutions that protect personal freedom and national security being purposefully disregarded as irrelevant by the president himself.
We are living in a rupture, and we might not make it back.
The history of the US is riddled with leaders betraying in practice the laws sanctified on paper. Centuries-old injustices over race and class are frequently glossed over in textbooks that seek to inspire with tales of heroism instead of to scare with the truth of the disregarded.
But in the past and recent present, US leaders struggled to hide or justify their misdeeds, afraid of public accountability. They did not always uphold the values of our founding documents but they knew they were supposed to try. They knew there could be penalties if they were caught in immoral or criminal behavior, such as humiliation, a lost election, or even impeachment.
In contrast, bigotry is blatant; laws are broken; patriotism is sham that seems to amuse them. What is unprecedented is not that a president is doing bad things, but that he does not bother to pretend to be good. This malice is not an indicator of liberating honesty, as contrarians have framed it, but a signpost on the road to humanitarian catastrophe.
Policies Trump has embraced include eliminating healthcare for millions of Americans, using nuclear weapons, supporting Russian imperialism, rounding up ethnic and religious minorities, and making lists of federal employees who study climate change or gender equality, in seeming anticipation of a mass firing and an attack on science and freedom. These authoritarian moves do not benefit any US citizen, including those who voted for him. That these policies are being proclaimed openly, and in several instances blatantly favor Russian interests over those of the US, implies that traditional penalties for betraying the electorate are gone.
As anyone who lives in an authoritarian state knows, once authoritarians get in, it is very hard to get them out. Politicians looking at 2018 and 2020 fail to comprehend that authoritarians rewrite rules, that laws are only as good as the people who uphold them, that the constitution is a piece of paper unless it is honored in practice.
So long as the majority of politicians on both sides of the aisle continue to cower to the new administration, it becomes increasingly unlikely that democracy will hold.
I don't like to say it, and I know that hopelessness serves no purpose, but I can't really fault her logic.
edited 19th Jan '17 10:17:02 AM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."I will pull my "this is like my country" card again and said that...well, is pretty similar to venezuela, right now the electoral power is against the oposition and blame them for not being tolerant or open to "true" dialogue without conditions....this come from the party that used to control all the powers
This is because seen their own position as seen as rightious, they dont have to explain shit to anyone, whaat they do is what they do.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"The best way to describe the upcoming Trump presidency:
Replace Rob Schneider with Donald Trump, It's exactly the same.
edited 19th Jan '17 11:07:20 AM by Demongodofchaos2
Watch SymphogearThere's a live CBC news Q&A on right now. "Susan Ormiston is in Moscow's Red Square taking your questions on Russia, Trump and the new world order." Nice choice of words there, I guess. The next four years are going to be ...interesting?
This still doesn't feel like it's really happening.
edited 19th Jan '17 11:07:14 AM by Pseudopartition
Which is ironic since Theodore Roosevelt is generally considered the second-best Republican President and one of the top five best Presidents. Of course, the best Republican President is Abraham Lincoln, while the other three in the top five are generally George Washington, Franklin D Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson. Basically, Mount Rushmore with the addition of FDR.
Wizard Needs Food Badly"He's been great, he considers himself a friend of the president-elect, but it's not the venue." Kanye, who was born in Chicago and performs a style of music, hip-hop, that was invented in the United States on the streets of Trump's New York in the late 1970s, performed at MTV's Inaugural Youth Ball in honor of President Obama in 2009. "It's going to be typically and traditionally American, and Kanye is a great guy, we just haven't asked him to perform. And we move on with our agenda," Barrack added.
Like not even bothering to pretend.
New Survey coming this weekend!![]()
I meant in terms of the top five best Presidents regardless of political party. Those five are the top five Presidents period. Lincoln and Teddy are just the two Republicans on that list.

From that Wikipedia article:
Before hearing about Rick Perry: "All these fears of nuclear war are unfounded. It's called Mutually Assured Destruction for a reason, the situation will never escalate that far."
After: "So, do I start preparing for the nuclear apocalypse now, or can I afford to wait until the end of the semester?"
...I don't even know if I'm kidding or not.
edited 19th Jan '17 9:07:46 AM by Pseudopartition