General politics thread (was: General U.S. politics thread)

KilgoreTrout

Yeah, pretty sure it wouldn't take long for me to get tired of saying "Excuse me, would you mind smoking that somewhere else?" if I had to do it with every single smoker I encountered.

Noimporta

for example, I am not going to just turn a blind eye to those less fortunate than myself

Well, you don't have to, the "libertarian" point of view is that it shouldn't be state enforced. Hell, that's not even necessarily true, because "Libertarian" isn't (necessarily) "Anarcho-Capitalist". They hardly agree about how small the state has to be, and it's context sensitive, because the size of the governemnt is different in different places: I map to Libertarian within my country, but would probably vote someone like Jim Webb if I were american.

Hell, Milton Friedman, who is considered one of the faces of Libertarianism, proposed an alternative form of welfare.

Bee

KilgoreTrout wrote: »

Yeah, pretty sure it wouldn't take long for me to get tired of saying "Excuse me, would you mind smoking that somewhere else?" if I had to do it with every single smoker I encountered.

And it wouldn't take long for me to get tired of smokers saying "lolno go fuck urself" and doing it anyway.  Nor do I think it would take long for the restaurant staff to get tired of the lung cancer they got entirely from secondhand smoke.

I understand and sympathize with the desire to solve as many of these problems as we can with communication and sense rather than law.  But ultimately, laws are written for a reason.

InsanityAddict

Even with laws in place indoor smoking is sometimes allowed if it's raining really hard and the establishment has no separate room to store the peeps. Lawls are a last resort for when communication and sense don't work, problem is the people who use it as an excuse not to learn those skills.

Bee

Honestly what bugs me even more is when smokers leave unextinguished butts and non-empty matchbooks and lighters on the ground.  In summer.  During one of the worst droughts on record.  Inches from dry wood chip landscape.  For an apartment complex.  Which I happen to live in.

Like, if your vice only hurts you that's one thing.  And if it causes long-term problems for other people who have to be around your cloud of cancer that's worse and laws are nice.  But when I average at least one case every few weeks of some asshole leaving litter that can burn my fucking house down, I don't tend to have much faith in communication and sense because I'm pretty sure at that point I'm already dealing with the walking bane of humanity and civil means aren't going to go anywhere.

glennmagusharvey

10:58 AM PT (Jeff Singer): MI State House: Some people just cannot take a hint. The Michigan state House recently expelled
Cindy Gamrat, with fellow Republican state Rep. Todd Courser resigning
just before he was also about to be expelled. The two representatives,
who are both married to other people, had an affair and tried to cover
it up by concocting an insane scheme: Courser would craft rumors that he
solicited a male prostitute so that when his actual scandal
leaked, it would seem mild in comparison. GOP leaders hoped that once
Courser and Gamrat were gone they could put this whole embarrassing
chapter behind them, but both former representatives have other plans.
Courser and Gamrat have each announced that they'll run in the special elections that were called to replace them.

The primaries will be held Nov. 3 and the GOP usually has little trouble in either state House seat. Romney won Gamrat's southwestern seat 58-41,
and took Courser's Thumb district 55-44. Several Republicans are
running for each district so it's not completely impossible for either
scandal-tarred politician to slip through: In fact, it might be the
least insane part of this story. If that happened it might give Team
Blue a shot in the March generals. At the very least though, Michigan
Republicans won't be happy to learn that Courser and Gamrat won't make
like a tree and get out.

slowclap.wav

To be fair, they might have been encouraged by former Virginia state delegate Joe Morrissey (formerly D, now I - HD74), who was involved in a sex scandal involving a 17-year-old aide.  He resigned, then ran for his own seat in the subsequent special election...and won.

(He's gone now; a few other developments happened and then he tried to run for a state senate seat and had to move out of his state house district and thus had to resign again, because apparently Virginia House of Delegates rules say that you have to live in the district you represent, unlike the U.S. House of Representatives where you only need to live in the same state.)

lrdgck

My newspaper says there's been some intra-Republican TV debate recently.

glennmagusharvey

12:24 PM PT (Jeff Singer): LA-Gov: Republican David Vitter's foes have not been shy about invoking his 2007 prostitution scandal, but a new spot from Gumbo PAC goes where no ad has gone before.
The commercial starts with the narrator decrying outgoing Gov. Bobby
Jindal before hitting Vitter's record in Congress. The narrator then
invokes the prostitution scandal, while the viewer hears the sound of a
baby crying the whole time: We finally see the crying baby is wearing a
diaper.

It's not new for politicians to compare their opponents to babies (Georgia Republican David Perdue made great use of this theme during his successful Senate race last year), but Gumbo PAC is making a very unsubtle reference to rumors that Vitter had a diaper fetish. While 2010 Democratic opponent Charlie Melancon aired ads referencing Vitter's scandal and the Louisiana Water Coalition
has been brining the story back to the airwaves this year, no one has
gone this far. There's no word on the size of the buy but Gumbo PAC said
the spot would air during Thursday's gubernatorial debate before the
buy is expanded.

Ooooooh.  It's on now.

KilgoreTrout

Yeah, if I were him I'd have gotten out of politics entirely after that and hoped everybody eventually forgot about it.

Not that I'm saying it's okay to use a person's sexual history to attack them publicly, mind you, but that's kind of what people do in elections. There's an excellent chance that your opponent will try to beat you by airing all of your dirty laundry, or by re-airing previous aired dirty laundry.

glennmagusharvey

Thanks to the GOP's stranglehold on both Congress and the majority of
state legislatures around the country, one of the few venues for
progressive reform these days is the ballot box itself. In recent
elections, progressives have successfully organized at the state level
to increase the minimum wage, legalize marijuana, and even expand
background checks for gun buyers.

But Republicans have grown wise to this approach and have descended
to new lows to prevent liberal ballot measures from passing into law,
even when voters back them. And two measures in two states that are on
the ballot next week offer good illustrations of the kinds of scummy
tricks the GOP is only too happy to deploy to thwart the will of voters.

In Ohio, organizers petitioned to place Issue 3, which would legalize both medical and recreational marijuana, on the ballot. Issues 3 would also allow just 10 farms to grow pot as a means of carefully regulating the plant's production, a system proponents call a "structured oligopoly."

But Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted, no friend of the legalization movement, insisted on calling this setup a "monopoly"
in the text of the measure that voters will see on their ballots,
because he "figured that 'monopoly' was the most easily understandable"
term. This bit of chicanery was in fact a deliberate move to sabotage
Issue 3, because opponents also succeeded in getting the GOP-controlled
legislature to include a competing measure, Issue 2, on the ballot as well.

Issue 2, on its face, has nothing to do with marijuana but rather
styles itself as the "anti-monopoly amendment" and would purportedly
outlaw "monopolies" like the kind Husted claims Issue 3 would create.
Despite the public's general fondness for the board game of the same
name, voters typically aren't too fond of monopolies, and scattered
polling shows more support for Issue 2 than Issue 3 (which seems to be a
tossup). It's a diabolically clever move: Opponents of legalized
marijuana want to try to stop any trade in pot by posing as defenders of
commerce.

It's possible that both measures will pass, though it's not clear what would happen
in that event. Husted insists that Issue 2 would block Issue 3, but
legalization supporters obviously disagree. The only thing that's
certain is that litigation would ensue, but given the conservative
nature of the Ohio Supreme Court, there's a good chance progressives
will lose in the end—which is exactly what Buckeye State Republicans
have in mind.

Meanwhile, in Mississippi, organizers collected enough petitions to put Initiative 42
before voters, a measure that would amend the state constitution to
require "adequate and sufficient funding" for all public schools. The
story here is similar to Ohio's: Prominent Republicans have come out
against Initiative 42, and the legislature added an extra obstacle to passage by putting Alternative Measure 42A, which would preserve the status quo, on the ballot as well.

Here, though, it's not just a matter of competing proposals. Under Mississippi law, the ballot voters will see is an absurd mess. For Initiative 42 to pass, supporters have to answer both parts
of a two-part question. They must first vote on a ridiculous
preliminary question that asks whether they want to vote "for approval
of either" 42 or 42A, or want to vote "against both." Then, on a separate question, voters need to pick between 42 and 42A.

So for progressives to win, a majority of voters need to vote "for approval of either" on the first question, and then vote for Initiative 42 on the second question. Conservatives, though, only need the "for approval of either" question to fail or
for Initiative 42A to pass. Alternately, if enough voters are confused
and fail to fill out their ballots fully, that would suit Republicans
just fine, too.

And that sums up conservative tactics perfectly. Despite controlling
so many levers of power, they can't bear to lose when progressives
approach voters directly, so they resort to chicanery and deceit. If
their believed their concerns about legalized marijuana or fair school
funding were truly meritorious, then they'd have no problem making that
case to the public. But it's obvious they don't, which is why they're
resorting to cockamamie ballots and bogus posturing.

This is what we can and should expect, though. The only thing our
side can do is to remain alert and work harder than ever to make sure
voters are heard at the ballot box.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/29/1442314/-Republicans-are-using-scummy-tricks-to-stop-progressive-ballot-measures-from-winning-nationwide

MillerCross

so how about that debate, huh?

At this point, it's kinda surreal to think that the two most viable GOP nominees are both Latino white guys with a hard rhetoric against immigration of all things. Although I still don't see Carson and Trump losing their lead anytime soon. 

Noimporta

>with a hard rhetoric against immigration of all things

It's pretty easy to understand, when you're stuck in a traffic jam in the highway, there's nothing you wish more than an asteroid falling on the guys driving on the shoulder.

Bee

Except both of them already passed the traffic jam ages ago when it wasn't nearly as prohibitive.  And the guys driving on the shoulder are disproportionately preteen children fleeing a country practically ruled by drug cartels with a murder rate something like six times ours, carrying such charming stories as gangs leaving chopped-up bodies in their homes.

Noimporta

>And the guys driving on the shoulder are disproportionately preteen children

A google search tells me this is wrong. Where are you getting this number?

> fleeing a country practically ruled by drug cartels

While Mexico certianly has a drug cartel issue, I'm guessing most people would object to this characterization.

> with a murder rate something like six times ours

More like 3 times, though yes, it's bad.

Hell, I'm just explaining the rationale. I'm in favour of immigration (my country has open borders), but it's nice to understand where other people are coming from, and not exaggerating facts for an emotional response

MillerCross

Noimporta wrote: »

>with a hard rhetoric against immigration of all things

It's pretty easy to understand, when you're stuck in a traffic jam in the highway, there's nothing you wish more than an asteroid falling on the guys driving on the shoulder.

I understand the appeal. It's just bizarre that it's coming from an immigrant and the son of an immigrant. 

Bee

Noimporta wrote: »

>And the guys driving on the shoulder are disproportionately preteen children

A google search tells me this is wrong. Where are you getting this number?

That's currently residing in the US as of 2012, which says little of current influx.  Birthright citizenship and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act will skew that kind of measurement toward adults, and 2012 was too early to catch the immigration crisis in full blast.  The number of unaccompanied children crossing the border roughly doubled annually for several years in a row until it peaked in 2014.

I'll concede that while Mexico typically makes up the bulk of immigrants, it was coming from pretty much all over Central America.  Guatemala and Honduras probably had the most urgent of the problems.

Of course, that led to a pretty mind-bogglingly stupid moment when Congressman Steve Pearce went to Honduras just so he could say it was safe for kids, but refused to leave the hotel except for a heavily-guarded day trip to the capitol.

vandro

If I were a republican I'd vote Kasich, If I had been a republican aide on the eearly 2000, I'd retool the party into cathoolic and conservative, and lax borders, like a hispanic voting bloc is a sure anti gay political presence. Why focus so much  on WASP donors.

MillerCross

Simple. Money and they're the Party base after all. 

Also Kasich would probably not win a General Election, although he's probably the only candidate with whom I agree on like anything (and it's mostly that all of the other tax plans presented so far are utter nonsense)

I'd probably go for Rubio if I was a Republican but we're imagining a universe where dinosaurs still roam the earth and we're best friends with them, practically speaking (and also one where I'm not stuck in the USA's hat)

glennmagusharvey

Candidate types, for legislative seats, from best to worst, rough guide:

* Hard-working/charismatic campaigner who connects well with locals and does tons of outreach and has very good constituent services (if incumbent), and also diligent fundraiser.
* Hard-working/charismatic campaigner who connects well with locals but not good at fundraising.
* Partisan ideologue on the side of the district's political lean.  Likely to be able to bring in money for this.
* Good fundraiser, boring person.
* Non-corruption-scandal-tarred incumbent.
* Corruption-scandal-tarred incumbent.
* Carpetbagging politician.
* Partisan ideologue against the side of the district's lean.
* Perennial (but sane) candidate.
* Scandal-tarred challenger.
* Warm body, a.k.a. "some dude".
* Lunatic.

Bee

vandro wrote: »

If I were a republican I'd vote Kasich, If I had been a republican aide on the eearly 2000, I'd retool the party into cathoolic and conservative, and lax borders, like a hispanic voting bloc is a sure anti gay political presence. Why focus so much  on WASP donors.

Kasich is pretty much the only one of the crop that if he wound up in office I wouldn't be completely terrified.  He's shown a decent willingness to call quits on topics he personally supports/opposes but has been defeated by the electorate or judiciary.  I've caught him outright flip-flopping on a few things, but he's also shown willingness to genuinely reevaluate some of his positions over time, and TBH I think a lot of that is a result of being in office long enough to see the rest of his party going completely apeshit.

Of course, there's like zero chance he'll ever make it to the primary, so I'm probably going to wind up writing in Princess Celestia or something because fuck everyone else, goddamn

glennmagusharvey

> Princess Celestia

I know you're talking about the MLP character, but the name makes think of the eXceed 3rd character, and incidentally how that game's cast is all basically in a primary (s)election round for an open seat in the Cardinal Lords of Pandemonium.

At least in that selection process we'd get to see a spectacular magical battle.

Alternative ideas for selecting political leaders:
1. Score-attacking shmups.
2. Speedrunning Fire Emblem games.  Their playthroughs will be public, so you will get to flame them for leaving your favorite characters to die.
3. Judges evaluate performance at reading library books to children.

glennmagusharvey

2015 general election day here in the United States!

Useful page if you need to know what is being voted on: http://ballotpedia.org/

Varies from place to place, obviously, but overall, it's a bunch of state and local elections.

glennmagusharvey

Summary:

Team Blue loses Kentucky governorship to an idiot, and a few other statewide races.

Team Blue gains three seats in New Jersey State Assembly to get 51-29 majority now.

Team Blue does not completely crater in Mississippi despite the state being blood red and nominating a "some dude" for the governorship.  The lone statewide-elected Dem in all of the Deep South states keeps his job (Attorney General Jim Hood), and Dems net lose six house seats where four were expected due to redistricting changes, but +1 and -1 in the state senate canceled each other out.  A number of Dems win elections in territory that is horribly red at the presidential level, and one of them gains a seat where Ole Miss is located (which is not horribly red).

Team Blue fails to capture the Virginia state senate -- Dan Gecker falls short in senate district 10; senate stays in control of Team Red 21-19.  However, Team Blue does gain two seats (HD-86 and HD-87) and lose one (HD-02) in the House of Delegates, for a net +1 (I think it's 34-66 Dems to Repubs now).  Perhaps most worryingly for people interested in responsible governance, all 122 incumbents who run for re-election in Virginia's state legislature have won re-election.  Many of them were unopposed for re-election, even.

A proposed city ordinance in Houston (called "HERO") that prohibits discrimination on the basis of a variety of things, including gender identity, was voted down by a wide margin.  Some people seem to be blaming church groups for this.

Team Blue wins a majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, as well as a couple other court elections I think.  Lose a house or senate seat though, but that was an isolated special election.

In Colorado, some school board members who claimed that the AP US History exam wasn't pro-American enough were successfully removed by recall election.

In Ohio, marijuana legalization was voted down, following some weird policy fuckery.  A suspiciously weak redistricting reform proposal was voted in.

And just because it's local to me, my old hometown elected a Repub town council 6-3.  Previous council was Dem 5-4.  Note that neither party can nominate more than 6 candidates to this.  Also, the mayor is simply chosen from the majority, not separately elected.

A few other things aren't yet decided -- e.g. state house race in Washington and some stuff in Seattle (they have vote by mail so it takes longer to get results counted).

glennmagusharvey

San Francisco voters seem poised to reject two measures, one limiting rentals of private property (basically an anti-AirBnB measure), and the other limiting development of new housing units (basically to slow gentrification and the increase in the cost of housing).

Houston mayor runoff is going to be between a Dem and a Repub, rather than a Dem and a person who has been described by one commentator as a DINO.

Dems pick up mayorship in (I think) Nashua, NH, and fall short in Manchester, NH, by 75 votes.  Portland, ME rejects $15/hr minimum wage.

State amendment in Mississippi to fund education seems likely to fail at about 49-51.

Also, Mississippi Dems gain the Public Service Commission with a 2-1
majority.  Was previously a 1-2 minority.  Fun fact, the re-elected Dem
is a relative of Elvis Presley.

A few updates show that Team Blue
might be losing one more state legislature seat in Mississippi (not
sure which house), but might be gaining one more state assembly seat in
New Jersey.

Socialist Alternative incumbent on Seattle City Council is re-elected, defeating a Democrat.

glennmagusharvey

courtesy of my labmate's facebook feed:

http://www.theonion.com/graphic/socialism-vs-capitalism-51839

glennmagusharvey

Wednesday, Nov 18, 2015 · 11:51:33 PM +00:00 · David Nir

ME Ballot: In a fascinating and potentially
far-reaching development, organizers in Maine have succeeded in
obtaining enough signatures to place a measure on next year's ballot
that would require the state to adopt instant-runoff voting
for all federal and state elections. A number of critical races in
Maine in recent years have featured notable independent candidates, and
as a result, some victors in big races have won with relatively small
pluralities. The best example came in the 2010 governor's race, when
Republican Paul LePage prevailed with less than 38 percent of the vote,
thanks to a split on the left.

But under IRV, such splits would become irrelevant. Voters simply
rank the candidates in order of their preference, and if no one clears
50 percent in the first round, the second-choice votes of those whose
top pick was the last-place candidate are re-allocated accordingly. If
no one takes a majority at that point, the process continues until
someone does. While IRV might benefit Democrats, who've generally been
on the wrong side of those plurality wins, it simply gives more people a
voice and ensures that no one can win an election without the support
of a majority of voters.

Republicans might therefore come out against the measure, but they
could also benefit from it at the legislative level, so it remains to be
seen how the battle-lines will be drawn. While several municipalities around the country use IRV, Maine would become the first state to employ such a system in statewide or congressional elections.

Source: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/11/18/1449670/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Live-Digest-11-18 (I think you can just click that link at the top actually)

glennmagusharvey

Courtesy of Daily Kos Elections and a thread on political slogans:

New York Gov. Al Smith got
absolutely obliterated in the 1928 presidential election, losing in a
massive 58-41 landslide to Republican Herbert Hoover—who would, of
course, go on to lose to FDR in a similar tsunami four years later.
Quite the ignominious distinction for Smith, but his campaign did at
least grace us with one truly epic tagline, immortalized on the button
you see above.

Smith, as the History Blog explains,
had from the start been hostile to Prohibition, earning him recognition
as a “wet,” as opponents of the “noble experiment” were colloquially
known. And yes, a “wet dream” meant then exactly what it does now. But
the catchy slogan failed to help Smith win, and he had to wait five long
years until the passage of the 21st Amendment in 1933 before he was
able to enjoy a drink once again.

In comments below, please share with us some of your favorite political slogans, from the U.S. or any other country—any time, any place.

glennmagusharvey

In case you didn't have enough sex jokes in politics, here's more where that came from:

glennmagusharvey

And now for an innocent political slogan.  For your dirty mind.



But, this post is too innocent right now.  So here's another Dick joke.

glennmagusharvey

Very useful information, including commentary on turnout, from Steve Singiser at DKE:

By now, I imagine most of you have read about JoAnn Windholz, the Colorado Republican state legislator who felt compelled to blame Planned Parenthood for the terrorist attack on their office in Colorado Springs last week. But for those who have yet to read about it, here is a charming little snippet from her statement:

Violence is never the answer, but we must start pointing out who is the real culprit. The true instigator of this violence and all violence at any Planned Parenthood facility is Planned Parenthood themselves. Violence begets violence. So Planned Parenthood: YOU STOP THE VIOLENCE INSIDE YOUR WALLS.

Admittedly, when I was made aware of Windholz’s outrageous victim-blaming rant, I assumed she was safely ensconced in one of the deep-red legislative districts in Colorado’s reliably Republican rural stretches. Nope.

Folks, JoAnn Windholz represents Colorado’s 30th House district, a stretch of suburban Denver which in 2012 went for President Obama by a 58-40 margin. Windholz is in the midst of her first term, a term she earned after scoring an upset win by just 106 votes over incumbent Democrat Jenise May last year.

Turnout in that midterm election in the 30th district was 48.25 percent of registered voters. By way of comparison, when May easily defeated Republican Mike Sheely for the seat in 2012, turnout was 66.7 percent of registered voters. To put it in simple terms, over 7000 fewer voters cast ballots in the midterm election than cast ballots in November of 2012.

Whole article at: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/2/1456031/-That-horrid-GOP-state-legislator-who-blamed-PP-for-last-week-s-shooting-Obama-carried-her-district