All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[aja_christopher]

Hard to even call this news outside of the statistics.

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"Black drivers in America face discrimination by the police"

"A study released this week by researchers from Stanford University and New York University finds “widespread discrimination” in police officers’ decisions to stop and search drivers. The authors used data from nearly 100m traffic stops carried out by state and municipal police departments across America between 2011 and 2017.

They find that blacks are about 38% more likely to be pulled over by state patrol officers than white drivers. For local officers, the figure is 35%.

At least some of this gap can be attributed to racial bias. Using a “veil of darkness” test, the authors show that black drivers account for a significantly higher share of traffic stops during the day, when it is easier for an officer to determine a driver’s race, than they do at night, when a driver’s skin colour is harder to ascertain (see chart). The variation in sunset times during the year, three of which are shown in the panels above, allow the researchers to control for other factors such as when the most police officers are on patrol.

State and local lawmakers can help combat such discrimination by gathering and analysing information on it. In 1999, North Carolina became the first state in America to require police agencies to collect and report data on traffic stops. Other states, including Connecticut and California, have followed, but some do not yet do so. The authors of the study argue that such data-collection efforts will help police officers to do their jobs better.

“Collecting, releasing, and analysing police data are essential steps for increasing the effectiveness and equity of law-enforcement practices,” the authors write, “and for improving relations with the public.”

https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...-by-the-police

[aja_christopher]

"2020 Dems Warm to Expanding Supreme Court"

"A series of White House hopefuls are expressing new interest in remaking the courts — payback for Republican aggression during the Obama presidency.

After watching Mitch McConnell transform the judiciary over the past four years, liberals are demanding a bold response. And Democrats are listening.

Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand told POLITICO they would not rule out expanding the Supreme Court if elected president, showcasing a new level of interest in the Democratic field on an issue that has until recently remained on the fringes of debate. The surprising openness from White House hopefuls along with other prominent Senate Democrats to making sweeping changes — from adding seats to the high court to imposing term limits on judges and more — comes as the party is eager to chip away at the GOP’s growing advantage in the courts.

“We are on the verge of a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court,” said Harris (D-Calif.). “We have to take this challenge head on, and everything is on the table to do that.”

Expanding the Supreme Court would amount to a historic power play by the next Democratic president and Congress, requiring an intense legislative fight and the abandonment of many judicial and congressional norms. But Democrats say that after Republicans blocked Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland and other lower court judges during President Barack Obama’s final term only to quickly fill those vacancies, the party needs an equally bruising response.

Gillibrand said in an interview that she believes Justice Neil Gorsuch essentially possesses an illegitimate seat after Garland was denied even a committee hearing. The New York Democrat added that the Senate should move swiftly to impose strict ethics rules on the Supreme Court.

“It’s not just about expansion, it’s about depoliticizing the Supreme Court,” said Warren (D-Mass.), who mentioned bringing appellate judges into Supreme Court cases as an option.

“It’s a conversation that’s worth having,” she added.

Their comments come after South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke suggested they might expand the high court as part of their bids to win the Democratic nomination..."

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...-court-1223625

[Mecegirl]

Lincoln also existed during a time when phrenology was a respected science. His views regarding equality were the norm. What was ok in the 19th century socially isn't in the 21st.

Also depends on the color of your skin...but folks don't think much of what enslaved/ recently freed people felt about racial inequality back then. Imagine if we judged men and women back then by Harriet Tubman's standards for instance.

[Mecegirl]

I think they made him sign a "loyalty pledge" this time around but you shouldn't have to be forced to join the party that you are using as your political platform.

You should share that party's values enough to want to be a member of said party -- and not have supporters that try to tear it down from within.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...20/3074461002/

Till we get ranked choice voting that's gonna have to be how it is. Otherwise it is weird if someone not affiliated with a party were to win that parties nomination and thus access to resources that that party has built up.

[BeastieRunner]

This is probably my last post in here for a bit. But I'm with you. This thread is toxic as ****. One person, in particular, is amazingly trollish, F- that guy/gal. I've noticed how much happier I was just posting links and videos. I'm even happier not having posted in days. Gonna stretch it out to weeks and see how it goes.

#blackkidfromphilly #Phillyboyout #bernie2020 #bernietulsi2020 #berniewarren2020 #ncrepublicanscheat

My only gripe with this thread is it goes really fast and if you miss posting a day or 2, it takes you 2-3 days to catch back up.

We'd do well to have an Election 2020 thread, a Mueller thread, a Let's Whine about 2016 again thread etc.

But then that reeks of a new sub-forum and I don't think there's enough traffic to warrant that.

I hope you don't disappear, I enjoy your thoughts.

[numberthirty]

Till we get ranked choice voting that's gonna have to be how it is. Otherwise it is weird if someone not affiliated with a party were to win that parties nomination and thus access to resources that that party has built up.

Nothing about it is even remotely weird.

The big two have created and maintained a status quo where the only realistic path to the Presidency is through them.

[Dalak]

So it seems Devin Nunes is suing Twitter and such celebrities as Devin Nunes' Mom!

[4saken1]

Nothing about it is even remotely weird.

The big two have created and maintained a status quo where the only realistic path to the Presidency is through them.

Have they created it, though, or is that just what they inherited - an antiquated system with failsafes designed into it which make it very hard to change. Why would Democrats want to keep a system which clearly does not favor their Party?

[zinderel]

Have they created it, though, or is that just what they inherited - an antiquated system with failsafes designed into it which make it very hard to change. Why would Democrats want to keep a system which clearly does not favor their Party?

Because 'both sides are equally bad' is a narrative that demands a lack of objective logic and basic payinga ttention, and has become easy shorthand for ''Politics is hard, here's some doublespeak'.

[Tami]

‘It’s Probably Over for Us’: Record Floods Bring New Toll When Farmers Can Least Afford It

VERDIGRE, Neb. — Ice chunks the size of small cars ripped through barns and farmhouses. Baby calves were swept into freezing floodwaters, washing up dead along the banks of swollen rivers. Farm fields were now lakes.

The record floods that have pummeled the Midwest are inflicting a devastating toll on farmers and ranchers at a moment when they can least afford it, raising fears that this natural disaster will become a breaking point for farms weighed down by falling incomes, rising bankruptcies and the fallout from President Trump’s trade policies.

“When you’re losing money to start with, how do you take on extra losses?” asked Clint Pischel, 23, of Niobrara, Neb., whose lowland fields were flooded by the ice-filled Niobrara River after a dam failed. He spent Monday gathering 30 dead baby calves from his family’s ranch in this northern region of the state, finding their bodies under huge chunks of ice.

“There’s no harder business to be in,” Mr. Pischel added. “But with death and everything else, you’ve got to answer to bankers. It’s not our choice.”

[Tami]

Trump Plans to End the AIDS Epidemic. In Places Like Mississippi, Obstacles Are Everywhere.

JACKSON, Miss. — “I come from the smallest town in Mississippi, in the buckle of the Bible Belt,” said Gerald Gibson, outreach manager at Open Arms Healthcare Center, the only clinic created to serve gay black men in this state.

“Growing up, I didn’t know anybody like me,” he added. “I come from a culture that says you’re going to hell for being homosexual and AIDS is God’s wrath.”

President Trump’s plan to end America’s epidemic of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, within 10 years is not going to succeed easily in places like this.

Medically, AIDS experts agree, the plan he announced in his State of the Union address in February is sound. It has twin goals: First, to get every American who is infected with the virus — an estimated 1.1 million people — onto three-drug cocktails that, if taken every day, suppress the virus, keeping patients healthy and reducing almost to zero the odds that they will infect anyone else.

The second goal is to get every American who is at risk — an estimated one million people — onto pre-exposure prophylaxis (called PrEP), a pill that, if taken daily, protects almost completely against infection.

But reaching those goals will take a huge amount of money — far more than the $291 million Mr. Trump requested in his 2020 budget proposal. Moreover, it will require courageous political leadership, not just from the White House, but from every statehouse and city hall in the nation.

In the last 15 years, the epidemic has shifted into groups that are hard to test and even harder to keep on daily medication: men who are closeted, drug injectors, the homeless, the rural poor, the mentally ill and those with little income and no health insurance.

But the group most at risk comprises gay and bisexual black men and transgender women in the Deep South — Mr. Gibson’s peers and his clientele. More than half of new H.I.V. infections in the country each year now occur in the South, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and often in rural areas.

[numberthirty]

Have they created it, though, or is that just what they inherited - an antiquated system with failsafes designed into it which make it very hard to change. Why would Democrats want to keep a system which clearly does not favor their Party?

Because 'both sides are equally bad' is a narrative that demands a lack of objective logic and basic payinga ttention, and has become easy shorthand for ''Politics is hard, here's some doublespeak'.

If you are looking at a situation where only two groups have a realistic shot at the Presidency and still talking about that it doesn't favor those two groups?

I'm gonna have to just politely disagree.

Things favor you because you are one of those two groups. That the whole thing doesn't just get handed to you on a silver platter every single time?

That doesn't mean that the existing system does not favor you.

[numberthirty]

One interesting thing that someone I know pointed out about O'Rourke's fundraising numbers elsewhere...

Good headline for Bob! However: small-donor apples to apples comparison and donor count are conspicuously not present in this announcement, and I suspect that's with good reason, as Bob's habit has always been to take cash from way more institutional and corporate sources than does the old man.

When 1Q FEC reports arrive, we shall see what this $6.1 mil and all following "online" sums are made of.

[Malvolio]

If you are looking at a situation where only two groups have a realistic shot at the Presidency and still talking about that it doesn't favor those two groups?

I'm gonna have to just politely disagree.

Things favor you because you are one of those two groups. That the whole thing doesn't just get handed to you on a silver platter every single time?

That doesn't mean that the existing system does not favor you.

There's also the fundraising factor. The two party system makes it a lot easier for each of those two parties to raise money than for any third party to do so.

[numberthirty]

Man, the plot thickens on the entire Jussie Smollett case. What a mess.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/re...t-to-kim-foxx/

Records: Former Michelle Obama aide, Smollett relative reached out to Kim Foxx

http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/loc...-smollett-case

Chicago police union wants federal investigation into Kim Foxx's handling of Smollett case