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

Serocco

Also, Trump immediately limited the press as he meets with Obama.



http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58249ef3e4b01019814dab06

glennmagusharvey

Serocco wrote: »

Anyone else concerned about net neutrality?

I am, and unfortunately the lack of direct major political discourse about it means I have to dig for it.

Gonna also forward this to friends I know who care about the issue.

Bee

Serocco wrote: »

Anyone else concerned about net neutrality?

I'm pretty sure we all are.  It's just a bit lower on our priorities compared to not being reduced to radioactive dust.

KilgoreTrout

I'm concerned about net neutrality, although possibly not as much as I ought to be, since I don't know as much about it as I probably should.

lrdgck wrote: »

I actually wonder what will be Trump's policy on stuff like war on terror. Been thinking of what Weaver would say. Hillary didn't really promise any change. The Donald at the moment seems to me as equally likely to escalate (which, if it actually rids the world of more than an occasional wedding party, definitely appears preferable) as to withdraw (which at least will make a few partygoers more avoid drone strikes).

 

He's contradicted himself so often that it's difficult to say for sure.

However, one of the things which gave me a sinking feeling was when I read in The Intercept that defense stocks were skyrocketing after he was elected.

lrdgck

Since you brought that up: I am told gun manufacturing stocks did the opposite, ironically enough. Trump won, so there'll be no frenzy of paranoid stocking up.

fourteenwings

Over the past few days, I've been increasingly concerned with the whole 'repeal Dodd-Frank' thing. I know the entire thing is mostly seen as a lame duck effort to keep Wall Street happy, but at the very danged least it existed. Sometimes I (probably irrationally) feel it's why tech stock hasn't imploded yet (though this coinciding with the downfall of Twitter, regulation efforts towards the de-regulated app-based labour market and basically underperforming overall could be what does that in).

Didn't gun stocks have a great rally pre-election, though? That's prolly why the fall was so noticeable.

@GMH: Re: United States, Turkey and the Philippines. It's no question that Duterte is crazy and China is only barely tolerating him because diplomatic lulz (and I guess probably the obsession with the South China Sea that I know nothing about so will not comment on), but Erdogan is on a real level of his own after the coup since it allowed him to just silence whoever, whenever he feels like it.

 

He's basically destroying any decent relationships with the majority of everybody so he can fight the PKK and attack former his former bestie (not an endorsement of the PKK or Gulen or anything but the country has way bigger fish to fry and it probably needs to not become a dictatorship first).

Serocco

Trump got his Twitter back and immediately complains about how "unfair" it is to see protesters.

Bee

Trump's just going to whine about everything.

"Waaah, the party's rigged and doesn't let outsiders run.  Oh wait, they just let me in."

"Waaah, the primary's rigged.  Oh wait I just won by a landslide."

"Waaah, the election's rigged.  Oh wait I just won again."

If you want to talk about not fair, maybe look at the swath of violent hate crimes and Nazi graffiti we've been watching the last two days.

BassFishing

The hijab robbery and klan overpass flagwaving turned out to be hoaxes, and some of that shit is from before the election. This dude's feed is a good collection of stuff: https://twitter.com/ShaunKing

Thank fuck most of this is highschool kids been tards and driveby nonsense by people in oversized cars. That Saudi student is the only kill so far if I recall correctly, but it's probably reading too much into this essay that makes me go "oh, coulda been worse": http://thebaffler.com/salvos/time-bandits-perlstein

Historical relativism is no solace for the victims. 

glennmagusharvey

The status of partisan control of state legislatures:

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/11/1595712/-Despite-harrowing-election-Democrats-make-net-legislative-gain-picking-up-4-chambers-to-GOP-s-3

TL;DR:
* TEAM RED gains Minnesota Senate, Iowa Senate, Kentucky House.
* TEAM BLUE gains New Mexico House, Nevada House, Nevada Senate, Alaska House.

Alaska is probably the one that was on no one's radar, and it's also technically still got a Republican majority on paper, but it's one of those odd cases.  Alaska's state legislatures have seen coalitions that cross party lines, and this is exactly what happened.

(Besides, this is why we count New York's State Senate as being in Republican control right now despite having a Democratic majority on paper.  A similar weirdness is likely to apply to the Washington State Senate soon, with one Dem caucusing with the Repubs for a Repub-controlled majority.)

That link has a rundown of stuff that happened state by state.  Note that some of those states where overall partisan control didn't flip saw changes with regards to whether one party has a veto-proof supermajority, which is another very important threshold.  NOTE THAT THIS THRESHOLD VARIES FROM STATE TO STATE -- typical thresholds are two-thirds or three-fifths, but sometimes (e.g. West Virginia) it's just a simple majority (i.e. half).  Also, legal requirements may vary based on the type of bill -- in California and Arkansas, budgetary bills require a supermajority of some sort.

glennmagusharvey

December 2016 and January 2017:

If I recall correctly, there are some runoff elections in these two months.  I don't remember which state uses what though.

November 2017 elections:

* Virginia - gov and other statewide offices in state government positions, entire state lower house (the House of Delegates).
* New Jersey - gov and other statewide offices in state government positions, entire state lower house (the New Jersey General Assembly).
* and probably some assortment of special elections.

Also Daily Kos Elections is now calculating the 2016 presidential results by congressional district: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/11/1596920/-Daily-Kos-Elections-kicks-off-our-project-to-calculate-presidential-results-for-all-435-House-seats
Presumably they'll later calculate 2016 presidential results by state legislative district as well, like they've done with past results.

Serocco

Trump picked Reince Priebus to be his Chief of Staff. Steve Bannon, the head of Breitbart, will be Chief Strategist.

BassFishing

Extremely looking forward to Milo getting electrotherapy. 

lrdgck

^^ I read that as Prince Riebus. For a while wondered when did America turn into an evil monarchy from a pulp story.

BassFishing

The best response to the success of a black man everyone believed was a Muslim is to pick an actual black Muslim: http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/appoint-keith-ellison?source=s.icn.tw&r_by=563241

Make meme magic work for you. 

Serocco

Keith Ellison as DNC Chair would be good. We need his grassroots activism.

glennmagusharvey

http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

I don't agree with this guy's tone, though his perspective on what happened in the Democratic primary -- with regards to allegations that it was "rigged" to favor Clinton -- is interesting to read.

But beyond that, more importantly, at around 3/4 of the way down the page, he reveals what he claims he's seen in the Republicans' oppo research file against Sanders.  I don't know how true how much of that is, but then again, we've already seen that the truth is less convincing than whatever someone makes a convincing picture of even if it isn't true...

It's possible that Sanders could have won against Trump.  But it's not a complete certainty by any means.

h/t to an HH user for bringing this article to my attention.

It seems, the fundamentals going into this election -- an economic recovery, but an uneven one -- turned out to be the most important piece.

Meanwhile, I'm glad that we will still have Sanders, and Warren, and Merkley, and Kaine, and many other allies in the Senate.  We will need their help in these coming four years.

Serocco

Watch as McConnell removes the filibuster.

glennmagusharvey

The implicit filibuster or the actually-standing-and-talking filibuster?

Meanwhile: The U.S. is already seeing climate refugees within its borders, in the form of its own less-well-off.
Another article on the same subject.

glennmagusharvey

Meanwhile, speaking of Bloomberg.

Damnit, Bloomberg, your PAC just had to help Toomey, did it?

Earthlight_Ray

Buncha liberals in here. The leaked emails prove the primary was rigged, a fact that already had a mountain of evidence and popular belief to begin with. xD Even if we pretend she's not a mass murderer and crook, Clinton deserved to lose because her platform was weak and primarily consisted of ignoring gigantic problems that people have been suffering from under her administration and saying "at least I'm not that guy" and "that guy is a bigot." Try harder, democrats.

Bee

I mean I don't disagree.  But given that Johnson's a moron, Stein is nuts and humors every conspiracy thrown her way, and Trump is both, she was still the best option by the time we got a general ballot.

glennmagusharvey

A rundown on ballot measures that passed or failed in the November 8, 2016 election.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/15/1599746/-Despite-Trump-s-win-progressives-scored-victories-on-minimum-wage-marijuana-gun-safety-and-more

I'd type them all up but I'm tired of typing everything up and taking forever to do so.

That said they're missing a bit about Florida's anti-solar Amendment 1 (basically greenlighting utilities to force solar power user to pay more) which failed 51-49.  It required 60% to pass.

glennmagusharvey

@Serocco:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/sfl-state-federal-election-results-florida-2016-htmlstory.html
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/sfl-broward-county-election-results-florida-2016-htmlstory.html

That's the stuff we here had on our ballot.

BassFishing

>no Gloria LaRiva
This is erasure.

Also, Eichenwald has some points but a lot of it is junk. Saying the DNC isn't powerful when it puts the platform together (literally what can make or break a campaign depending on what your platform caters to) is absurd. Debates costing money that could be spend in the general election is a poor argument when Clinton put more cash into the election and still got owned. Plus, while he can cite the 2012 R primaries as reason that they lost the election, the 2016 R primary was an even bigger circus. 

>thinking rape story is a problem with Trump in charge

>thinking socialism and healthcare are a problem when that was already used against Obama

>thinking unemployment is a problem with Rust Belt people

>bitching about third party voters when those actually helped give Trump less of a landslide

The final note of letting the adults handle it is hilarious given how he himself bumbles: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2007/03/times_prostitute_rescuer_eiche.html

Serocco

Good to see the end of the anti solar amendment.



Trump now has four different factions within his department of deplorables. You got the reactionaries (alt right, Breitbart, Bannon), the Republican establishment (Chamber of Commerce types, the religious right, the party apparatchiks like Priebus, and Neocons), the pro Trump oligarchs (Sheldon Adelson and the Mercer clan), and Trump's family (including son in law Jared Kushner, the unofficial chief of staff).



Oh, bonus fifth faction: Donald Trump himself. He has a track record of encouraging infighting within his campaign, and it's now affecting his administration in waiting, let alone his Presidency.

BassFishing

Carson won't be a part of it (hilarity ensues): http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/306045-carson-turned-down-offer-to-serve-in-trump-administration-report

glennmagusharvey

If you know someone who agrees with the idea of "running the government like a business" as a general point, but are willing to consider arguments to the contrary, here's a useful article I just ran across -- as opposed to having to make your arguments on the fly.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obama-silicon-valley-20161017-snap-story.html

h/t to my school's alumni on LinkedIn for bringing this article to my attention

Meanwhile, does anyone have a good piece on why national debt and private debt are different?

Serocco

Fascinating development from the DNC. Keith Ellison, the Iraq War opponent and single payer advocate, could be challenged by Ilyse Hogue, who directed Move On.org to target centrist Democrats in the Senate, was arrested for civil disobedience, and forced Wall Street banks to pay back for their anti conservation efforts.



So I want Ellison over Dean, but if she decides to run, I would back Hogue. http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_582c8863e4b058ce7aa86623

Serocco

There's also rumblings that Pelosi might be challenged for Minority Leader. Most of the chatter is going to Tim Ryan, but Xavier Becerra is also a possibility.



I want Becerra, for sure.