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
The White House Holocaust Horror
. This article recounts the history of conservative antisemitism that manifested itself on Trump's Holocaust Remembrance Day statement.
Pretty much. Bannon's probably loving this but I can't imagine why the rest of them would. I would think they'd prefer if these executive orders were officially written by one of them with the knowledge and skill to actually work, with Trump just sending them the main points. "I don't like Muslims, ban all of them from entering the country unless they're Saudis."
After this, ICE won't have a leg to stand on and they'll be losing agents. Trump's pretty much shooting himself in the foot by being a whiny manchild who can't write an EO worth shit.
ETA: Why did they have to throw Caligula into the White House?
edited 29th Jan '17 5:11:43 AM by Journeyman
Washington Post: Republican redistricting is taking a beating in the courts, right now
. Scalia's dead, so maybe the conservative side of SCOTUS will be less galvanized?
edited 29th Jan '17 5:43:48 AM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV![]()
![]()
From the ones I know living in extremely impoverished areas of the Appalachians here, an almost sadistic sort of revenge is a common theme. The recession might as well have been another depression for a lot of them, but rather than coming out of it with a sense of "we can never let this happen again" they instead take the line of "It happened to me but not THEM. Damn them and the world to suffer through the same."
edited 29th Jan '17 5:43:11 AM by carbon-mantis
From the more moderate ones I've talked to, it was mostly stuff like: "They all lie, so of course he lied. But he's not a politician. Let's give him a chance." I got no responses when I said to look at his track record because he's barely made any jobs in the states to start with. Other than that it was stuff like "he's been bankrupt before. He has experience getting out of it." Neverminding the fact that his bankruptcies were generally his fault whereas the recession was the fault of many different people doing different things. The whole "women shouldn't be President" thing doesn't deserve a response. I never thought that particular woman should have been President but in the short term she would have been better than Trump. In the long term, worse. Because she would have been mediocre and the second minority President in a row. She probably wouldn't have made any great legislation that the Conservatives were happy to call hers, and the hatred would have peaked worse until we had someone who makes Trump look beneficial to the country. Could you imagine what Bannon could do with that kind of hatred?
It's good to see the courts overturning the things the GOP keeps pushing forward. Let's hope they can contain this mess and that the military has a higher number of good, sane people than violent ones. Remember all the horror stories we got out of the Iraq War? Sounded like a lot of them just wanted to kill people period back then.
Reposting because this is VERY important and it shouldn't get buried:
Washington Post: Republican redistricting is taking a beating in the courts, right now
.
Also, Run for Something
a site to try and get >35yo dems to run in 2018.
I'll just quote it:
On Friday, a federal court ordered Wisconsin legislatures to redraw their state House legislative districts after finding in November that the districts were unconstitutionally partisan. The order will essentially require lawmakers to redraw state Senate maps as well.
The November decision was the first time this decade that a court has thrown out legislative maps because they favored voters of one party over another. Subsequently, this will be the first time in a decade that lawmakers will have to redraw maps specifically to make them more fair for both parties.
Thirty-seven states allow their legislatures to draw their electoral maps, and what these lawmakers have come up with has had a profound effect on U.S. politics. After capturing 21 chambers in the 2010 elections, Republicans redrew nearly half of all congressional districts — four times as many as Democrats.
Over the ensuing years, control of state legislative chambers flipped from 2-to-1 Democratic-controlled to 2-to-1 Republican-controlled, and Democrats have been locked out of the majority in key swing states ever since. In many states, their only hope to make it back to the table to redraw maps after the 2020 census is by winning competitive governor's races.
Wisconsin Democrats, who are in the minority in the legislature, were hoping the court would redraw the maps itself, but having a second shot at these maps is better than nothing.
As such, they are demanding public hearings on the map-drawing process to try to keep a check on it.
“What we cannot and will not tolerate is another map drawn behind closed doors,” Wisconsin Assembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca said in a statement.
Wisconsin is one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation. In 2012, Democratic candidates for the Wisconsin state legislature received more votes than Republicans in November but won just 39 of 99 districts.
Republicans plan to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, and it's anyone's guess how the justices will decide, said Doug Johnson, a redistricting expert at Claremont Mc Kenna College. He said justices have shied away from declaring partisanship because they haven't agreed on a way to specifically measure what constitutes disproportionately burdening one member of a party over another.
In Maryland, a federal court is preparing to hear arguments that several congressional districts were drawn by Democrats to unfairly benefit their party.
“There's certainly a lot rolling toward the Supreme Court,” he said. “We just have no idea whether the court will get on board or continue to avoid this question.”
The news Wisconsin lawmakers will have to redraw their state legislative maps comes almost exactly a week after a federal court found a dozen state legislative districts in Alabama were unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered. (The Democratic judge on that panel wrote that he would have thrown out 24 districts.) All 12 of the districts thrown out were represented by Democrats, and 10 by African American legislators.
This court also left it up to the state legislature to redraw the districts, but because there are so many in question, the order would likely require lawmakers to redraw all state House and Senate districts. Here too, Democrats are thankful for a second chance.
“We’re thankful for the opportunity to look at this,” Alabama Senate Minority Leader Quinton Ross (D) told the Montgomery Adviser. North Carolina is no stranger to legal jousting over gerrymandering; lawmakers had to redraw two congressional districts last year after a federal court found them racially gerrymandered.
This time, they're awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court about whether to redraw and hold special elections this spring for 28 of its state legislative districts, which a federal court found last summer were unconstitutionally gerrymandered, again because of race.
The three-judge panel made the unusual decision to let the election go forward because it decided it was too late to redraw the maps. After the election, the court ordered the legislature to redraw the lines by March and hold special elections later in 2017.
Republican legislative leaders successfully managed to get the Supreme Court to pause those elections until it decides whether the districts were indeed gerrymandered.
Over the past few years, courts have been litigating a steady stream of gerrymandering claims. But as the 2020 census nears — and brings with it a new chance to draw district maps — their decisions will be more closely watched than ever.
Whoever gave control of districting to the incumbent politicians was a moron.
Like, here in Canada, districting is done by Elections Canada, a non-partisan group that also oversees the elections. Harper did a couple things to try and erode Elections Canada, but it didn't work because they need orders to be confirmed by the courts to prevent a government from subverting them.
![]()
To play the devil's advocate, I'm pretty sure the idea of giving them control came with an assumption that elections would be based on comparing the positions of each candidate and choosing the most rationally sound option, without accounting for political parties, much less a two-party system. The ones who made the system were probably expecting districts to be drawn so each has more or less the same amount of people living close to each other, not the current BS made to intentionally minimize the voice of particular groups.
I keep talking to people who insist that rural states should have a greater per-capita vote than urban states. I can't parse their logic; they seem to exalt the rural lifestyle as somehow being "more American". They honestly believe that Californians shouldn't have their vote count as much as people from Montana. They still believe in the sovereignty of states, such that Idaho and New York should be equal, 1/50 partners in deciding the fate of the Union.
edited 29th Jan '17 7:54:23 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"A Mosque in Texas burned down last night, cause is under investigation/
Odds on this being arson, anyone?
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
I can't speak for the way history is taught everywhere, but in my region things like the Electoral College are often talked up as equalizing measures and necessary compromises, so it doesn't surprise me that a lot of people feel that the small/rural states getting a leg up on the big/urban states is not only fair, but the system working as intended.
edited 29th Jan '17 8:21:28 AM by Mio
People are reportedly still being detained at JFK, in flagrant defiance of the judge's order.
Somebody get down there and light a fire under their asses already. The rule of law doesn't need any more people making a mockery of it than it already has.
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."

They're the sort of people who play The Last Of Us and agree with everything Joel does.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.