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

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Comments

  • "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    I've been recently thinking about the stuff that's been for some time unfolding around the Korean Peninsula. What is your stance, let me know if I asked this question before (I honestly don't remember if I did or not), on Trump vs. North Korea? Because I'm mildly optimistic. I find it quite possible that Kim shat his pants realizing that unlike about every single US prez before, Trump actually is crazy enough to do something to him. You know, that Nixon idea about cultivating an insane persona to make everyone else think you're "the guy who can actually do this", except less cultivated and more for real. So overally, I'd be glad to see something good (like dismantlement of the North Korean regime) coming out of Trump's presidency.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    I think obviously it's nice having a battering ram but that's much less effective as a real strategy.

    I mean, Donald Trump seems heavy on the "hard negotiating" part of... literally everything, hence things like the USMCA just being NAFTA but heavier on the Republican-ness plus a few concessions that seem like his entire master plan was to get "US" in the name (and for it to be first).

    So the actual negotiating is probably what Moon Jae-in has been doing for like, the past few months*. I'd like to put Mike Pompeo in there, but he seems to suck at his job. Not in terms of being a "hard negotiator" or whatever, but actually genuinely sucking at being somebody who can make concessions because of a long-term goal. That might be the White House line pressuring him, but I'm pretty sure Mike Pompeo also just sucks at being Secretary of State.

    Anyways, the "battering ram" is a good tool to have in your arsenal, but you need to work out the details of the thing unless you want to end up with a deal where North Korea just stagnates. That would leave the people way less better off (yes, even more so), because then their President would have even more legitimacy to push people around with.

    *If it doesn't work out for him, at least he got some super epic dogs out of it.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    Bye-bye, Nikki.
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Gerrymandering is a well-known problem, but it's still a bit of a shock to hear one of them Republican jerks actually say this out loud.

  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    A thought I genuinely had today:
    Forget all this online pundit stuff, I'll just watch the Mid-Terms on TV with no expectations like a nerd.

    The point being, of course, that cool people read 5-7 deep-dive analyst pieces on the US Mid-Terms a day.

    I need to re-learn what a cool person is.
  • "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    Eh, I can live with that sort of cool.
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    I don't even do that.

    Honestly, after a while, all the analyses are either just providing profiles of various voters, or the following:

    assumptions on voting preferences and turnout -> extrapolation/inference as to election results

    And if there's anything we've learned in the past two years, with regards to trying to read electoral politics in the United States, it's that it's not easy to read it with any level of certainty.

    After reading a few analyses I just sorta stop caring to read speculation after speculation and just prefer to (1) understand people, (2) try to reach out to people I know and remind them to vote, and (3) let the chips fall where they may.
  • "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    assumptions on voting preferences and turnout -> extrapolation/inference as to election results

    Well yeah basically, which is why I'm way over it.
    understand people

    Good luck with that.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    *cue funeral march*

    Well, there go Beto and Gillum.

    I'm not okay with what Abrams is up to right now. Like, voter suppression is definitely a serious issue, but be gracious and move on. I don't think I'd even eat my words if the recount did come up in her favor.
  • edited 2018-11-09 02:05:22
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Y'know they're not even done counting the votes yet in both Florida and Georgia, right?

    In fact, they're not done counting the votes in most places, just that many of them either are in races that have a far larger margin or races that you're probably not paying attention to.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    Y'know they're not even done counting the votes yet in both Florida and Georgia, right?

    Yeah but I'm not too hopeful about either one.
    or races that you're probably not paying attention to.

    Probably true <_<
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Right now I'm hoping for GA-Gov to go to a runoff because that'll increase the chance that the Dem wins Georgia's Secretary of State election, which we already know is going to a runoff.

    And the GA-SoS gets to manage how elections are conducted.

    As for Florida, the final first counts will be done by tomorrow. Then there will be machine and hand recounts.

    Current standings:
    FL-Gov R by 36002
    FL-Sen R by 14848
    FL-AgCommish D by 3120

    At the very least, the last two are getting hand-recounted, and the first one is getting machine-recounted.
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Meanwhile: meet the Republican who lost the governorship election in Kansas: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/election/article221350970.html
  • edited 2018-11-10 05:15:49
    There is love everywhere, I already know
    >when your strategy is Jill Stein-ing someone
    most of Kobach’s money came from his running mate, Wichita oil magnate Wink Hartman
    Well okay.

    By the way, Ocasio-Cortez can't afford her rent. The reaction this is supposed to elicit is apparently; "Oh my gosh that is the cutest millenial story ever."

    Actual reaction: "Why would you elect a person who can't even handle her own finances, considering she probably got a whole bunch of donations that nobody would really mind her putting up on a place to live for a bit?"

    This is especially bad when you consider she couldn't even explain how she'd fund the programs she'd promised to implement to (the super democrat friendly) CNN.

    So like, um... that's not good.
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Rent is hella expensive in the DC metro area.

    I've lived in Northern Virginia, where even if you go all the way out to Fairfax, you're still starting out at around $1000/mo for even the most basic accommodations unless you get lucky and can share a house or live in someone's basement.

    As for campaign money, I'm not sure if she can legally use that to pay for her rent, but I have very little knowledge of campaign finance law in that regard, aside from knowing that you can't spend money on some stuff (e.g. Duncan Hunter's son spending it on Steam games).

    Anyway, vote counting will be first finalized on Saturday, though I've read somewhere that military ballots may be counted even if they arrive by November 16, as long as they were postmarked by election day.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    Duncan Hunter's son spending it on Steam games

    what
    I'm not sure if she can legally use that to pay for her rent

    I think it's funny that you can pay for innumerable TV commercials but probably not the rent.

    homeless guy x for [whatever]
  • edited 2018-11-11 07:49:46
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    updates on FL elections: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-recount-q-and-a-20181110-story.html
    Duncan Hunter's son spending it on Steam games

    what
    https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/mb4nnv/heres-all-the-insane-stuff-vaping-congressman-duncan-hunter-charged-to-his-campaign-credit-cards

    https://kotaku.com/congressman-spends-1300-of-campaign-money-on-steam-gam-1769260047
    I'm not sure if she can legally use that to pay for her rent

    I think it's funny that you can pay for innumerable TV commercials but probably not the rent.

    homeless guy x for [whatever]
    The main thing is that campaign funds have to be used for campaign expenses, and I don't know whether the law can be stretched to include "I just got elected and now I need to rent a pad in the DC area". Or maybe it already has a provision for that? Dunno.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    I feel like the only reason it doesn't is because it never happens.

    She should have maybe put some thought into that because that's a weird lack of foresight for a person whose entire job is to have some to make sure their ideas that seem good now are actually good ideas in the long run.
  • "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    Around here we have a hotel for PMs, and they have allowances for travel expenses, which occasionally leads to scandals when one or another uses them to pay for, like, a trip to Ibiza. I am told this hotel is one big den of debauchery.
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    I feel like the only reason it doesn't is because it never happens.

    She should have maybe put some thought into that because that's a weird lack of foresight for a person whose entire job is to have some to make sure their ideas that seem good now are actually good ideas in the long run.

    To be honest though, if someone might have to resign from elected office they haven't even yet served in just because they can't afford the rent in DC, that says more about (1) the problem of high rents in DC, and (2) the difficulty of actually serving in elected office in what is supposed to be a representative democracy.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    In theory, I can't disagree with you.

    In practice, she still has to move to DC.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    Ivanka Trump used personal email for White House business

    This is several levels of hilarious and also something else that I can't exactly put down.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    So, George Bush Sr. just died.

    I don't have anything to say, really. Just thought I should acknowledge it.
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    State%20Legislative%20Chamber%20Election%20Year%20Calendar.png?1546970355
  • "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    After a while of looking at it I realized it's not as bizarre as it seemed at first glance.
  • There is love everywhere, I already know
    I don't know if I've just officially lost my mind or it's just general human nature to accept the new normal but I don't feel like U.S. politics has reached any truly new levels of complete insanity since I started following it.

    I mean, Things have happened, definitely, but it's not so bad that I've completely lost all hope over things.

    Social media discourse though, that's been a mess since possibly an hour after it first started.
  • Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Trump%20Stump.jpg?1547234541

    Vandals have chainsawed Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National Park due to lack of supervision by park rangers during the government shutdown.
  • "you duck spawn, refined creature, you try to be cynical, yokel, but all that comes out of it is that you're a dunce!!!!! you duck plug!"
    Is this some exceptional singular tree, or just a protected species? Around here, a few years ago we've had an unknown vandal set fire to a seven-hundred-years-old tree officially declared as a natural monument. Luckily, it seems to have survived.
  • edited 2019-01-12 17:47:36
    Creature - Florida Dragon Turtle Human
    Currently, it is not a protected species (though some people have been asking that it be listed as such due to climate change shifting its range faster than it is likely to be able to disperse). However, they are particularly distinctive and the namesake attraction of that park (which is a major tourist destination, naturally), and park lands are meant to be natural areas with minimal anthropogenic disturbances to the ecosystems, in order to maintain them for generations to come, as scenic beauty that attracts tourists, for educational purposes, and other ecosystem services.

    FWIW, apparently the trees were cut down in order for some people to make new roads. What they were trying to reach isn't exactly clear, but presumably it's views or campsites that they wanted to use/establish.
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