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

Bee

Trailing in Ohio, Iowa, and Arizona, which she previously had.  She still barely has Florida, Nevada, and North Carolina by less than 2 percent each, well within polling error.

538 currently has Clinton down to about 75% chance of victory -- down from just under 90% during the debates.

Also looks like she's losing black voter turnout.

glennmagusharvey

Meanwhile it seems Maine residents are voting on whether to adopt Instant Runoff Voting statewide.

Bee

YES

PLEASE DO THAT

Serocco

Imagine if Trump wins Ohio, but Clinton wins Florida.

What a clusterfuck that would be.

glennmagusharvey

Something I've heard, but not confirmed:

The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives need not be an elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives.  As such, Paul Nehlen -- Paul Ryan's Republican primary opponent for Wisconsin's second congressional district, who lost said primary election -- has put his own name into consideration.

Serocco

Glenn's right. The Constitution only says the House must choose their Speaker, not that the Speaker should be a House member. You can have a nonpartisan Speaker running the House for as long as humanely possible, since they'd never have to deal with party politics (in theory) and wouldn't need to run for their seat every two years as a result. The Speaker is basically a quasi-Prime Minister given its power.

Governor Kate Brown, whatever you think of her personally (especially as State Secretary), has turned Oregon into a progressive laboratory similar to Colorado, if not more so. This includes automatic voter registration, phasing out coal-fired power plants, passing mandatory background checks, and enacting paid sick leave as well as banning employers from asking about workers' (or recruits') criminal history.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kate-brown-oregon-governor_us_58064071e4b0b994d4c184d7

Bee

I'm still sour over how she fucked with Republican elections as SoS, but she's got some stuff passed as governor that very desperately needed to be.

Serocco

I checked TVT, specifically the OTC, and I saw an avid Democrat say prosecuting the Bush administration for "war crimes" (yes he used scare quotes) is an awful idea that would've set a "terrible" precedent.



So according to Democrats on the OTC, and Clinton supporters at that, prosecuting war criminals is bad.

lrdgck

Kinda hard to prosecute the guy with the biggest stick on the block. Especially as compared to the next in line, he's more like horrifyingly clumsy than actively criminal.

Serocco

Cheney and Rumsfeld tho

lrdgck

Honestly, I'd like to see that, but I don't see ever seeing that. Heh heh.

glennmagusharvey

Someone once commented that the best idea wouldn't be to prosecute them, but to pardon them, because that would be damning with faint praise.

BassFishing

Something to tide us over through the Trump presidency: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1313881651/grand-old-academy-a-satirical-dating-sim

Bee

lol not even the spoof dating sim can say anything good about Cruz or Trump

Serocco

On the Florida ballot, three State Supreme Court Justices will be on the ballot on a "yes" or "no" vote to retain them.

All of them are Republicans. One, Charles T. Cannady, was on Trump's short list for Supreme Court. If anyone lives in Florida, vote "no" on each of them, but especially Cannady.

glennmagusharvey

How have they voted in recent cases of political controversy?

BassFishing

Bee wrote: »

lol not even the spoof dating sim can say anything good about Cruz or Trump

The game itself really doesn't spare anyone. The protag constantly forgets Kasich's name, Carson dozes off constantly, Jeb gets bullied relentlessly, Rand is tiny and Rubio falls into repeating the same lines when he's nervous. 

Bee

Well yeah but at least it's painting them as adorably silly.  Trump and Cruz are just outright described like "yeah these guys are sleaze and maybe criminals".

lrdgck

You are Mori America

Makes me wonder. What do you think, did they choose that name for a pun about Republicans just wanting to fuck America? (edit: I mean, if the pun was intentional.)

Also, I am told the Klan issued an official statement that they are backing Trump.

glennmagusharvey

Oh this Google search is just wrong.

Gimme a moment to explain this.

The Democrat running for Florida State Senate District 32 is named Lauren Book.  (She is the only candidate running for this seat, so is basically guaranteed to win by default.)

If you look up her name in Google, you'll get pointed to a portrait of an older woman with dark hair and a frown.

If you look up her campaign website, you'll find a young-ish-to-middle-aged woman with blond hair.  (And a smile, because that's a campaign website, of course.)

If you look at her bio on her campaign site, it reads as follows:

Lauren Book is a nationally acclaimed advocate for survivors of
childhood sexual abuse. As a child, Lauren experienced years of
unspeakable sexual abuse and has fought to overcome the tragic impact of
that abuse. For 7 years she has used her personal strength to become a
nationally recognized leader in the fight to stop childhood sexual
abuse. As a strong and active voice for abused children she has worked
for tougher laws to make sure repeat violent offenders are kept off the
streets and away from their intended victims.

Turns out...
http://www.dreamindemon.com/community/threads/lauren-book-was-raped-and-beaten-by-the-nanny-waldina-flores.52916/

Google shows Ms. Flores's picture when I search for Ms. Book's name.

Really now.

Serocco

The majority of the Florida Supreme Court ruled against gerrymandering, but I really don't like how Canady was Trump's pick for the US Supreme Court.

glennmagusharvey

if you need to prod intransigent liberals who plan to sit out or vote third party just because they object to Clinton over the e-mail scandal, here's a handy article:

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/4/13500018/clinton-email-scandal-bullshit

glennmagusharvey

Also, if you know of people who might care about racial violence, there's a video on facebook going around that very clearly illustrates the similarities between the kinds of behavior and rhetoric Trump supporters have done and the kinds of behavior and rhetoric segregationists have done.

Serocco

Rogue FBI agents are intentionally trying to sabotage Clinton and give the election to Trump.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fbi-election_us_581d07c8e4b0e80b02ca27a7

Serocco

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-seven-broken-guardrails-of-democracy/484829/



That's Trump and the seven broken guardrails of democracy

glennmagusharvey

Serocco wrote: »

The majority of the Florida Supreme Court ruled against gerrymandering, but I really don't like how Canady was Trump's pick for the US Supreme Court.

One thing I'm concerned about is that if these justices are voted out -- and these are all Charlie Crist appointments -- they'll be replaced by Rick Scott appointments.

I don't know about the appointees themselves but Rick Scott is rather obviously strictly worse than Charlie Crist.

Serocco

Three Florida Justices will face mandatory retirement in 2019. All of whom were appointed by Democrats. The next governor election is 2018. We REALLY need a Democratic Governor in Florida by then.

glennmagusharvey

The Republican recommended ballot actually had a bunch of opinions on the justices up for election.

They specifically flamed one of the FL Supreme Court justices for helping out Obamacare, and praised the other two for being "conservative".

I decided to do exactly the opposite of what they recommended.   Same goes with the Appeals Court judges, which meant voting down four judges they supported, voting up a Chiles appointment, and voting up the last one on whom they had no opinion (a Crist appointee).

Also picked some county judges in their nonpartisan runoffs by contradicting them too.  Lol, so long and thanks for all the suggestions.

Oddly enough, the Democratic recommended ballot had no opinions on the justices.  Meanwhile, the Repub recommended ballot had recommendations on some county questions but not the state constitutional amendments, while the Dem recommended No on 1 (against subsidizing solar) and Yes on 2 (expanding medical marijuana), and no county initiative recommendations.

glennmagusharvey

FYI here's the Repub recommendations on the FLSC:
"Charles T. Canady - Vote Yes, Conservative Judge"
"Jorge Labarga - Vote No, Has made liberal decision not allowing Florida voters to vote on Obamacare"
"Ricky L. Polston - Vote Yes, Conservative Judge"

Their blatantly tribalistic labeling people "conservative" as a stamp of approval and "liberal" as an insult screamed at me to run with No Yes No.

Thanks for the help!

glennmagusharvey

Election day today!

So I'm just gonna copy-paste a message I left on another board.

If you haven't voted early, or if your state doesn't offer early voting,
today (November 8, 2016) is Election Day in the United States.

For election-day voting, you will need to vote at your polling place. Find out its location and hours here: http://www.vote411.org/

You can also see what races will be on the ballot and see the candidates' profiles on that site, as well as on https://ballotpedia.org/ .

If
you are still undecided on who to vote for for the presidency, here are
a couple entertaining videos from John Oliver on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Lfd1aB9YI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3O01EfM5fU

Of
course, there are many other races other than the presidency to vote
on. My ballot had US Senate, US House, state senate, state house,
county officials, state constitutional amendments, local initiatives,
and statewide and district judges.  Don't forget to place your vote in
them; Ballotpedia and Vote411 can help you get information on them.