All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[Tendrin]

Remember when Obama's 'sagging approval ratings' made Democrats run away from him in 2010 and so on? And how many pundits were SURE Romney would win in 2012?

They still weren't as low as Trump's are now, if my memory is not mistaken.

[Mister Mets]

Other countries do not have gerrymandering and they do fine:

https://www.vox.com/2014/4/15/560428...ow-to-fix-them

I am not saying gerrymandering is a silver bullet that will always get Republicans elected, but I do think it can disfranchise people sometimes and I think there is no good way to justify it.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/201...gerrymandering

http://www.fairdistrictsohio.org/blo...ling-democracy

https://www.denverpost.com/2017/02/1...can-democracy/

I defy you to come up with a moral justification for gerrymandering because if you're the only argument is to say ''Meh, some other way to make districts may not work either'', is not a real argument.

Also, why would I trust The National Review to be objective on Georgia issue, it's their interest to underplay this, so the Republicans do this in other states.

I can find articles that say the opposite:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ams-brian-kemp

Also if the EC was supposed to keep radicals out of office, how is that working when race-baiting demagogues like Trump win? To me, that means the EC serves no real purpose anymore.

Trump is a deeply flawed President, but he's still a step above the likes of Mussolini, so he remains better than the worst-case alternative. The Electoral College does still force candidates to demonstrate wide support. Trump won majorities in 30 states, as well as Maine's second congressional district.

The main justification for gerrymandering is that the alternative can be worse. This is the main justification for taking it slow with most changes. I support efforts to reform the system because the best solution can not be one in which elected officials get to determine the playing field either to protect their side or the incumbents. We should be careful about it, to avoid situations in which an unaccountable body gets a veneer of respectability when changing things for partisan advantage. A lot of the discussion about gerrymandering comes from Democrats worried their side was losing, but the consensus among political scientists seems to be that the Republican advantage came down to a handful of congressional districts.

My biggest concern was that different people passionate about this topic wanted different things when determining the ideal district. I think there should be some kind of independent commissions and judicial review of those commissions, but that also requires establishing clear standards and we haven't gotten that yet.

On the Georgia story, I used the National Review article because it dealt with objective facts (IE- who is in charge of determining local polling place closures, under what circumstances can a voter be turned away.) The Guardian piece was light on facrs, and heavy on opinion from activists and campaign staff.

The local news suggested that the votes just weren't there for Abrams.

https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/ge...9NXH8NxXcovbM/

Crime has been going down since the 90s, why does the US need the largest prison population on the planet? Heck, why is the majority of this prison population made up of minorities?

It seems like you do not want to acknowledge how prisons became big business:

https://www.economist.com/united-sta...ns-for-inmates

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...omplex/304669/

This is why I think this small government argument is a sham, they say there is no money for a better health care system, but there always money for these endless wars, putting people in prison and upper-class tax cuts. How is throwing nonviolent drug offenders in prison good for anyone except for a private prison CEO?

Also, I do not care if corporate Democrats like Biden or the Clintons supported the mass incarceration movement and the prison industrial complex, that just proves they are part of the problem, not the solution.

Also, you think any of Sanders supporters would abandon him over this? What's the worse that's going to happen, serial killers and terrorists will elect politicians that will just release them on them en mass?


I do not have to agree with everything with Sanders on everything, does not change the fact I think someone like him or Warren would be the best choice in terms of policy. Do you agree with conservative politicians and media pundits on everything?

There is the argument that crime decreases coincide with prison population increases because it means the people more likely to commit crime get locked up.

http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levi...yCrime2004.pdf

I'll note that the incarceration rate has been declining a bit recently.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...wo-decade-low/

I hadn't addressed the point on prisons becoming big business because the specific goal post was "For all this talk of conservative small government, it seems like conservative politicians want to increase the prison population, probably because they get money from the private prison industry."

There are bad incentives involved with the prison industry. It's difficult to get rid of entrenched interests (which isn't limited to money , and voters could be sold on "tough on crime" attitudes while the crime wave of the 80s was on their minds.

And it is important to note that crime was really bad in the US. It takes a while for voters and politicians to accept that things have changed and earlier solutions are no longer required.

On Sanders, I do suspect some of his voters didn't care for his comments on letting convicted terrorists vote. This is probably not a major part of his agenda, but voters aren't always that rational, and this is the type of thing that can taint everything else. There is also the possibility that much of his support just comes from name recognition, given how Biden is the leading second-choice candidate for many of them.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ratic-primary/

One thing I do have to say is that I'm relieved about Sanders' low numbers. I think a socialist would have been a poor fit for the country, and while he is likely one of the least electable Democrats, the last election showed that anything can happen once someone gets the nomination. It could still happen with Sanders, but he's weaker now than he appeared a few weeks ago.

[InformationGeek]

A badge of honor for Harris I suppose.

JUST IN: Trump accuses Kamala Harris of being "very nasty" to Barr

[The Overlord]

Trump is a deeply flawed President, but he's still a step above the likes of Mussolini, so he remains better than the worst-case alternative. The Electoral College does still force candidates to demonstrate wide support. Trump won majorities in 30 states, as well as Maine's second congressional district.

I still see no evidence that the EC is some sort of bulwark against the election of a Mussolini like figure.

Considering the GOP has become a far-right party, with a race baiter like Trump in power, I do not buy this argument. The modern GOP has more common with the xenophobic parties we see in Europe, rather than center-right parties.

The main justification for gerrymandering is that the alternative can be worse. This is the main justification for taking it slow with most changes. I support efforts to reform the system because the best solution can not be one in which elected officials get to determine the playing field either to protect their side or the incumbents. We should be careful about it, to avoid situations in which an unaccountable body gets a veneer of respectability when changing things for partisan advantage. A lot of the discussion about gerrymandering comes from Democrats worried their side was losing, but the consensus among political scientists seems to be that the Republican advantage came down to a handful of congressional districts.


My biggest concern was that different people passionate about this topic wanted different things when determining the ideal district. I think there should be some kind of independent commissions and judicial review of those commissions, but that also requires establishing clear standards and we haven't gotten that yet.

Again other Western democracies do not have a problem with gerrymandering and they seem to be doing fine.

If your own argument for gerrymandering is ''the alternative may be worse'', than that is a pretty weak argument, IMO. That's an argument that can prop any sort of status quo, its speculation not facts, you could apply this same argument to anything.

On the Georgia story, I used the National Review article because it dealt with objective facts (IE- who is in charge of determining local polling place closures, under what circumstances can a voter be turned away.) The Guardian piece was light on facrs, and heavy on opinion from activists and campaign staff.

The local news suggested that the votes just weren't there for Abrams.

https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/ge...9NXH8NxXcovbM/

She could have lost fair and square, but suggesting the process itself was fair seems dubious and I think the National Review tries to spin the information facts to fit their narrative, rather then being some objective fact based news source, I think conservatives use spin all the time to justify things, its a biased source, that does not always get the facts right?

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/national-review/

Why should I assume the facts the National Review presented in that article are correct? Do you have any other sources, just one biased one? I know Rich Lowery too, he is a right wing hack, I do not trust him to be fair.

The article said it's legal under Georgia's constitution for Kemp to run for office and be secretary of state at the same time. Okay, so that's legal, but how is that a conflict of interest, just because something is legal does not make it just, fair or democratic, you cannot say a process is good simply because a conflict of interest is legal, legality and morality are not always the same thing.

Another big thing, what was the makeup of the people who purged from the roles, because this article says seemed to be most minorities:

https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion...on-in-georgia/

How is the Seattle Times I just posted article less factual then the National Review one? Are you really using the best factual sources here?

If there is nothing to the story, why is Kemp being investigated?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/u...ppression.html

There is the argument that crime decreases coincide with prison population increases because it means the people more likely to commit crime get locked up.

http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levi...yCrime2004.pdf

I'll note that the incarceration rate has been declining a bit recently.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...wo-decade-low/

I hadn't addressed the point on prisons becoming big business because the specific goal post was "For all this talk of conservative small government, it seems like conservative politicians want to increase the prison population, probably because they get money from the private prison industry."

There are bad incentives involved with the prison industry. It's difficult to get rid of entrenched interests (which isn't limited to money , and voters could be sold on "tough on crime" attitudes while the crime wave of the 80s was on their minds.

And it is important to note that crime was really bad in the US. It takes a while for voters and politicians to accept that things have changed and earlier solutions are no longer required.

Except private prisons have not been around forever, they are fairly new and they have a vested interest in keeping the prison population huge. Why are these private prisons a good thing? It seems like the GOP supporting another corporate welfare scheme to me.

https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2018/0...payer-dollars/

How much money is spent maintaining this giant prison population cost? How is putting nonviolent drug offenders in prison good for anyone?

And that whole argument that ''mass incarnation'' lowered the crime argument is hardly the only one, that's opinion, not a fact:

https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/01...cities/549998/

On Sanders, I do suspect some of his voters didn't care for his comments on letting convicted terrorists vote. This is probably not a major part of his agenda, but voters aren't always that rational, and this is the type of thing that can taint everything else. There is also the possibility that much of his support just comes from name recognition, given how Biden is the leading second-choice candidate for many of them.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ratic-primary/

One thing I do have to say is that I'm relieved about Sanders' low numbers. I think a socialist would have been a poor fit for the country, and while he is likely one of the least electable Democrats, the last election showed that anything can happen once someone gets the nomination. It could still happen with Sanders, but he's weaker now than he appeared a few weeks ago.

Of course, because conservatives just want the same old status quo, they do not have any good solutions to income inequality, climate change, mass shootings and they have been using the Southern Strategy to play footsies with bigots since the 60s. Trump is not a bug in the conservative program, he is a feature, he is a logical conclusion of what the conservative movement has done since the 60s. Individual conservatives can be nice, but the overall ideology is not good, I think its intentionally contradictory and I think the overall goal is not the smaller government, but maintaining a hierarchy, big government is okay if it maintains the hierarchy.

Frankly, I think Social democratic countries like Norway do a lot of things right and tend to be happier than the US. Also, other Western democracies spend less GDP on health care than the US, so why is single payer bad again? The conservative movement is wasteful, by design, their massive spending sprees are not incompetence, they are part of a plan.

Just saying Sanders is a socialist and therefore all his ideas are bad, ignores the fact that people disliked the status quo, heck Trump won because he threatened to upset the status quo (but really hasn't, he said he would take on the corporate donors and he hasn't because his populism was lie, only the bigotry was real), so just saying he is socialist will not make stop making his supporters think the status quo sucks and needs changing and thinking that his ideas are ones that can change things. It's not the Cold War anymore, just saying socialism does not instantly win a debate.

You should be happy if the pick Biden, he's a shade or 2 away from being a moderate 70s era Republican. But frankly, why would left wingers want to vote for a moderate Republican? The fact is the Overton window is so messed up in the US, that Democratic party moving an inch to the left is considered too radical, but the GOP becoming a xenophobic far-right party is greeted with a shrug. That seems like playing a rigged game to me, I can see people would want to challenge a bunch of long-held assumptions at this point.

I think we real clash of ideas, rather then Dems being an ineffective centrist opposition to the increasing far right GOP. Time to shift the Overton window, I say.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

William Barr’s Mueller Report Testimony Has Everyone Wondering What Happened To Him

“The evidence was sort of staring us in the face that he got picked to land the plane for the president, and he did,” said one former Justice Department official. What happened? Trump ate his soul. See below....

**********

James Comey To William Barr: Trump ‘Has Eaten Your Soul’

"But more often, proximity to an amoral leader reveals something depressing. I think that’s at least part of what we’ve seen with Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein. Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive Mr. Trump and that adds up to something they will never recover from. It takes character like Mr. Mattis’s to avoid the damage, because Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites.

It starts with your sitting silent while he lies, both in public and private, making you complicit by your silence. In meetings with him, his assertions about what “everyone thinks” and what is “obviously true” wash over you, unchallenged, as they did at our private dinner on Jan. 27, 2017, because he’s the president and he rarely stops talking. As a result, Mr. Trump pulls all of those present into a silent circle of assent."

Whoa! Potent stuff to say the least!

**********

Democratic Lawmakers Call On William Barr To Resign

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) called the attorney general a liar, and told him to his face that he had “betrayed” Americans’ trust. Also strong stuff. Rep. Hirono certainly pulled no punches.

**********

Taxpayers Picked Up A $1,000 Liquor Bill At Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Resort: Report

The president’s staffers reportedly helped themselves to top-shelf liquor and then had the White House foot the bill, a receipt and emails indicate. Well, that was sure revolting!

**********

Hillary Clinton Trolls Trump’s GOP Supporters: ‘China, If You’re Listening...’

The former presidential candidate wonders how Republicans would react if a Democrat asked China to hack Trump’s tax returns.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of John Bennett, a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives first elected in 2010 who has spent three terms in office sponsoring some horrendous legislation from his first day in office, when he submitted both a 20 week abortion ban as well as a Birther bill. Bennett has since submitted nullification bills to try and negate the Affordable Care Act, Federal Firearm Laws, as well as the United Nations Agenda 21 Environmental Treaty (probably because like a lot of paranoid conservatives, he thinks it's a plot to take over the planet). Now, what truly makes John Bennett a despicable individual is his anti-Islamic rhetoric, fearmongering by falsely spreading the lie that the Quran calls for all non-Muslims to be killed, and insisting any Christian or Jew that refuses to convert will be decapitated on the spot. He has called Muslims "a cancer that needs to be cut" out of America, and that Islam is "not even a religion", but a method to execute a plan of global domination. In February of 2015, Oklahoma's chapter of the Council of American Islamic Affairs hosted the first Muslim Capitol Day in Oklahoma, where the small community of practitioners of Islam in the state opened themselves up to the rest of the state, in a gesture of kindness, acceptance, and understanding, only to see John Bennett turn it into a holy war and show up to with protesters carrying signs that said things like "Allah is a pedophile", or "Mohammed is in Hell" to pass out Bibles and harass attendees with surveys asking them if they would "denounce the terrorist organization Hamas". Adam Soltani, the head of Oklahoma's chapter of CAIR was as chill as someone could be about being demonized to his face by a bigot, saying he had no problem with the bibles being passed out, and that they have repeatedly condemned terrorists of any faith. Fast forward a few months to November 2015, and Bennett began fearmongering, again, and citing that there were already Syrian refugees in Jenks, Oklahoma, and that there should be an immediate halt to more being accepted into Oklahoma, before giving way to a more homophobic display of anger, where he grew irrationally angry about the rumors that someone would place a non-secular, rainbow-colored "Festivus Pole" at the Oklahoma capitol around the holidays, viewing it as a "hostile attack on his Christian beliefs". Bennett, during the build-up to the 2016 election, posted a story on his Facebook page about Hillary Clinton and Benghazi with only the commend, “2 words…firing squad”. The Oklahoman newspaper followed up for an explanation, and at first, in a text message saying the post was meant to be sarcastic, but then added that Clinton “has committed nothing less than treason by leaving fellow Americans to die in Benghazi. If anyone else had done that they would be charged with treason and thrown under the jail at a minimum, and a firing squad likely.”

Now, in August of 2017, after Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia terrorized the town for most of a weekend, leading to the attempted mass murder of counter-protesters in a vehicle attack that did take the life of Heather Heyer… well, there were some terrible reactions from quite a few members of the GOP, and guess what? John Bennett was among their number. He posted a message indicating that he sympathized with the folks who claimed to be there to “support Confederate monuments”, and while he was at it, called for the removal of mosques from the United States:

“If we’re removing confederate monuments after the civil war, I think we should also be removing mosques after 9/11.”

Why, we dare say John Bennett is a bigoted ***hole. We’re sad to report that in November of 2017, Bennett went on record to compare state agencies in Oklahoma to “terrorists”, because they had the gall… the chutzpah, to expect the state budget to have funding so they continue operating. The nerve of ‘em, right?

You also may have heard the story last month about how teachers in Oklahoma were sick and tired of having some of the worst education funding in the nation, and how they went on strike and eventually their demands were met for a pay raise. Well, one of the worst reactions by Oklahoma Republicans to that strike might have been the one from John Bennett, who during debate on the education bill, argued that money wasn’t really what the teachers needed. What they needed was the right to return to corporal punishment, because apparently they’re just sadists at heart, or something:

“Money is not the number one issue. Maybe if we spanked our kids at home a little better with a paddle, made them mind and be good kids, the teachers wouldn’t have it so hard in the classroom.”

If this doesn’t seem like an overall pattern of extremist lunacy, we’ll also add that it wasn’t so long ago that Bennett voted to expand Oklahoma’s “Stand Your Ground” laws, so that a person is not only justified in shooting someone they THINK is a threat to them, but he wanted that law to expand so that a person could shoot anyone who they just perceive to be a threat of anyone who attends their church with them. (Presumably, this is some nonsense about how “victimized” Christians are that they’d like to gun down people who look at them funny, but thankfully it didn’t pass.)

We’ll remind everyone, however, that he did only pull down 54% of the vote in 2016, so with in an expected Blue Wave coming, we are ecstatic to report Bennett opted to not run for re-election. One less deranged Republican in Oklahoma, but there’s still a long, long way to go.

[BeastieRunner]

[Malvolio]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of John Bennett, a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives first elected in 2010 who has spent three terms in office sponsoring some horrendous legislation from his first day in office, when he submitted both a 20 week abortion ban as well as a Birther bill. Bennett has since submitted nullification bills to try and negate the Affordable Care Act, Federal Firearm Laws, as well as the United Nations Agenda 21 Environmental Treaty (probably because like a lot of paranoid conservatives, he thinks it's a plot to take over the planet). Now, what truly makes John Bennett a despicable individual is his anti-Islamic rhetoric, fearmongering by falsely spreading the lie that the Quran calls for all non-Muslims to be killed, and insisting any Christian or Jew that refuses to convert will be decapitated on the spot. He has called Muslims "a cancer that needs to be cut" out of America, and that Islam is "not even a religion", but a method to execute a plan of global domination. In February of 2015, Oklahoma's chapter of the Council of American Islamic Affairs hosted the first Muslim Capitol Day in Oklahoma, where the small community of practitioners of Islam in the state opened themselves up to the rest of the state, in a gesture of kindness, acceptance, and understanding, only to see John Bennett turn it into a holy war and show up to with protesters carrying signs that said things like "Allah is a pedophile", or "Mohammed is in Hell" to pass out Bibles and harass attendees with surveys asking them if they would "denounce the terrorist organization Hamas". Adam Soltani, the head of Oklahoma's chapter of CAIR was as chill as someone could be about being demonized to his face by a bigot, saying he had no problem with the bibles being passed out, and that they have repeatedly condemned terrorists of any faith. Fast forward a few months to November 2015, and Bennett began fearmongering, again, and citing that there were already Syrian refugees in Jenks, Oklahoma, and that there should be an immediate halt to more being accepted into Oklahoma, before giving way to a more homophobic display of anger, where he grew irrationally angry about the rumors that someone would place a non-secular, rainbow-colored "Festivus Pole" at the Oklahoma capitol around the holidays, viewing it as a "hostile attack on his Christian beliefs". Bennett, during the build-up to the 2016 election, posted a story on his Facebook page about Hillary Clinton and Benghazi with only the commend, “2 words…firing squad”. The Oklahoman newspaper followed up for an explanation, and at first, in a text message saying the post was meant to be sarcastic, but then added that Clinton “has committed nothing less than treason by leaving fellow Americans to die in Benghazi. If anyone else had done that they would be charged with treason and thrown under the jail at a minimum, and a firing squad likely.”

Now, in August of 2017, after Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia terrorized the town for most of a weekend, leading to the attempted mass murder of counter-protesters in a vehicle attack that did take the life of Heather Heyer… well, there were some terrible reactions from quite a few members of the GOP, and guess what? John Bennett was among their number. He posted a message indicating that he sympathized with the folks who claimed to be there to “support Confederate monuments”, and while he was at it, called for the removal of mosques from the United States:



Why, we dare say John Bennett is a bigoted ***hole. We’re sad to report that in November of 2017, Bennett went on record to compare state agencies in Oklahoma to “terrorists”, because they had the gall… the chutzpah, to expect the state budget to have funding so they continue operating. The nerve of ‘em, right?

You also may have heard the story last month about how teachers in Oklahoma were sick and tired of having some of the worst education funding in the nation, and how they went on strike and eventually their demands were met for a pay raise. Well, one of the worst reactions by Oklahoma Republicans to that strike might have been the one from John Bennett, who during debate on the education bill, argued that money wasn’t really what the teachers needed. What they needed was the right to return to corporal punishment, because apparently they’re just sadists at heart, or something:



If this doesn’t seem like an overall pattern of extremist lunacy, we’ll also add that it wasn’t so long ago that Bennett voted to expand Oklahoma’s “Stand Your Ground” laws, so that a person is not only justified in shooting someone they THINK is a threat to them, but he wanted that law to expand so that a person could shoot anyone who they just perceive to be a threat of anyone who attends their church with them. (Presumably, this is some nonsense about how “victimized” Christians are that they’d like to gun down people who look at them funny, but thankfully it didn’t pass.)

We’ll remind everyone, however, that he did only pull down 54% of the vote in 2016, so with in an expected Blue Wave coming, we are ecstatic to report Bennett opted to not run for re-election. One less deranged Republican in Oklahoma, but there’s still a long, long way to go.

If you tore up that mailer and tossed it in a recycling bin, would Bennett brand you as un-American for tearing up five American flags?

[BeastieRunner]

If you tore up that mailer and tossed it in a recycling bin, would Bennett brand you as un-American for tearing up five American flags?

You're not supposed to wear the flag like that anyway.

[BeastieRunner]

Call your Rep.

In the House, there's a resolution directing the Judiciary Committee to open an impeachment investigation.

Call, call, call!

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Hitler Was Incompetent And Lazy—And His Nazi Government Was An Absolute Clown Show

Remind you of anyone?

[Mister Mets]

I still see no evidence that the EC is some sort of bulwark against the election of a Mussolini like figure.

Considering the GOP has become a far-right party, with a race baiter like Trump in power, I do not buy this argument. The modern GOP has more common with the xenophobic parties we see in Europe, rather than center-right parties.

I'm enjoying the discussion but I can't respond to every point (IE- you brought up single-payer a bit out of the blue.)

Trump's weird. He's not that right-wing in policy and centrist in some stuff. It's more about rhetoric and tone. Despite years as a member of other parties (there was periods when he was a registered Democrat, as well as a registered Independent and member of the reform party) is making an effort to adapt to the Republican party after essentially winning an independent campaign for the party's nomination.

Again other Western democracies do not have a problem with gerrymandering and they seem to be doing fine.

If your own argument for gerrymandering is ''the alternative may be worse'', than that is a pretty weak argument, IMO. That's an argument that can prop any sort of status quo, its speculation not facts, you could apply this same argument to anything.

The issue isn't whether gerrymandering would be a good idea if we were coming up with a political system from scratch. That ship sailed in 1812 when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry came up with a method for redrawing districts for partisan advantage, and was nominated as James Madison's Vice President. Comparisons to other western democracies don't quite work, since we've got to shift away from the existing system at a contentious partisan time. This poses new challenges.

The question is about what we replace gerrymandering with, and my main point is that we need some kind of clear standards for the ideal method of dividing districts, so that whatever independent commissions are formed have a clear idea of what to do, which will also help with the inevitable and necessary judicial review process.

She could have lost fair and square, but suggesting the process itself was fair seems dubious and I think the National Review tries to spin the information facts to fit their narrative, rather then being some objective fact based news source, I think conservatives use spin all the time to justify things, its a biased source, that does not always get the facts right?

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/national-review/

Why should I assume the facts the National Review presented in that article are correct? Do you have any other sources, just one biased one? I know Rich Lowery too, he is a right wing hack, I do not trust him to be fair.

The article said it's legal under Georgia's constitution for Kemp to run for office and be secretary of state at the same time. Okay, so that's legal, but how is that a conflict of interest, just because something is legal does not make it just, fair or democratic, you cannot say a process is good simply because a conflict of interest is legal, legality and morality are not always the same thing.

Another big thing, what was the makeup of the people who purged from the roles, because this article says seemed to be most minorities:

https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion...on-in-georgia/

How is the Seattle Times I just posted article less factual then the National Review one? Are you really using the best factual sources here?

If there is nothing to the story, why is Kemp being investigated?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/u...ppression.html

There are some different arguments here. It is one thing to say that the process is unfair and should be changed in the future. It's another to argue it was stolen.

My impression of Lowry and the National Review is that they act in good faith. There are similarly plenty of the left who have their own blind spots, and will present more positive spin on stories, but won't try to actively mislead readers. I'm open to any piece that suggests Lowry was making arguments that were objectively wrong, and am aware that there are many on the left who would be eager to highlight the inaccuracies of a prominent Republican. I'm unaware of it happening in this case.

His comments do match the local reporting I've checked out on the race.

It may be a bad idea for the person in charge of state elections to be a statewide officeholder who can run for other offices as well, but we can't change that after the fact. We can make a new effort at it going forward.

I do think the focus on Kemp being Secretary of State ignores that Democrats did nominate the Secretary of State for Georgia relatively recently, the Secretary of State of Kansas lost the race for Governor, and that even if the Secretary of State were not allowed to seek another office, they would still have a preferred outcome in the election.

You may sometimes be arguing against points I'm not making (I don't think I said the process is good.)

I'm currently not taking the investigation of Kemp seriously since the explanation of why the Democratic controlled House would investigate a Republican Governor can come down to simple partisanship.

I didn't say anything about the Seattle Times piece because it hadn't been mentioned or linked yet. The writer doesn't pretend to be neutral, as a poll watcher for the Democratic party. He does note that the problems weren't fraudulent or illegal, and that the solution is to fix things going forward.

Except private prisons have not been around forever, they are fairly new and they have a vested interest in keeping the prison population huge. Why are these private prisons a good thing? It seems like the GOP supporting another corporate welfare scheme to me.

https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2018/0...payer-dollars/

How much money is spent maintaining this giant prison population cost? How is putting nonviolent drug offenders in prison good for anyone?

And that whole argument that ''mass incarnation'' lowered the crime argument is hardly the only one, that's opinion, not a fact:

https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/01...cities/549998/

I haven't said I'm in favor of private prisons. I'm not sure opposition to that fixes the problem. The idea that the GOP's main reason for supporting incarceration is donations suggests that if prison reform types offered more money, the problem would go away. But if every prison was state-run, we'd still have major incentives to keep things going (prison employees would be a major voting bloc, voters don't like crime.)

Of course, because conservatives just want the same old status quo, they do not have any good solutions to income inequality, climate change, mass shootings and they have been using the Southern Strategy to play footsies with bigots since the 60s. Trump is not a bug in the conservative program, he is a feature, he is a logical conclusion of what the conservative movement has done since the 60s. Individual conservatives can be nice, but the overall ideology is not good, I think its intentionally contradictory and I think the overall goal is not the smaller government, but maintaining a hierarchy, big government is okay if it maintains the hierarchy.

Frankly, I think Social democratic countries like Norway do a lot of things right and tend to be happier than the US. Also, other Western democracies spend less GDP on health care than the US, so why is single payer bad again? The conservative movement is wasteful, by design, their massive spending sprees are not incompetence, they are part of a plan.

Just saying Sanders is a socialist and therefore all his ideas are bad, ignores the fact that people disliked the status quo, heck Trump won because he threatened to upset the status quo (but really hasn't, he said he would take on the corporate donors and he hasn't because his populism was lie, only the bigotry was real), so just saying he is socialist will not make stop making his supporters think the status quo sucks and needs changing and thinking that his ideas are ones that can change things. It's not the Cold War anymore, just saying socialism does not instantly win a debate.

You should be happy if the pick Biden, he's a shade or 2 away from being a moderate 70s era Republican. But frankly, why would left wingers want to vote for a moderate Republican? The fact is the Overton window is so messed up in the US, that Democratic party moving an inch to the left is considered too radical, but the GOP becoming a xenophobic far-right party is greeted with a shrug. That seems like playing a rigged game to me, I can see people would want to challenge a bunch of long-held assumptions at this point.

I think we real clash of ideas, rather then Dems being an ineffective centrist opposition to the increasing far right GOP. Time to shift the Overton window, I say.

You brought up a lot of topics that haven't been addressed.

My comments about Sanders were more about my views than anyone else's. I do suspect the country's best chance of getting a nominee like him in is enough voters dislike the Republican, so I'm happy that situation seems less likely.

On party shifts, it can be complicated. I'm unaware of 1970s moderate Republicans backing late-term abortion and gay marriage. In what ways have conservatives become more far-right?

[Xheight]

I don't believe that's intended to be posted as news. Jumping to conclusions seems like a poor quality for an alleged journalist.
If it quacks like a duck.

Too funny almost to reply. But really while I catch my breath here what is one to make of such lengthy posts of blather sprinkled with supposedly relevant hyperlinks. So before you talk about me earning the right to criticize maybe you want to talk about earning the right to publicize. Quack.

[aja_christopher]

Trump's weird. He's not that right-wing in policy and centrist in some stuff. It's more about rhetoric and tone.

There's nothing "weird" about it, Mets, in fact it's pretty straightforward -- he used racism, sexism, and xenophobia to revitalize the Republican party.

And now many of those same Republicans are doing everything in their power -- including distorting and destroying our Democracy -- in order to keep this corrupt, lying, racist, sexist, xenophobic individual in power because he has proven through both rhetoric and action that he is one of their (and your) own.

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"A NEW STUDY CONFIRMS (AGAIN) THAT RACE, NOT ECONOMICS, DROVE FORMER DEMOCRATS TO TRUMP"

Research on Iowa counties that swung from Obama to Trump indicates that GOP success was driven far more by sexism and racism than by economic anxiety.

"Economic distress is not a significant factor in explaining the shift in Iowa voters from Democrat to Republican between 2008 and 2016," write Iowa State University sociologists Ann Oberhauser, Daniel Krier, and Abdi Kusow. "The election outcomes do not signify [a revolt] among working-class voters left behind by globalization."

Rather, in 2016, "the nativist narrative about 'taking back America' and anti-immigrant sentiment became stronger forces than economic issues," Oberhauser said in announcing the findings."

https://psmag.com/news/new-study-con...crats-to-trump

[Xheight]

There's nothing "weird" about it, Mets, in fact it's pretty straightforward -- he used racism, sexism, and xenophobia to revitalize the Republican party.

-----
"A NEW STUDY CONFIRMS (AGAIN) THAT RACE, NOT ECONOMICS, DROVE FORMER DEMOCRATS TO TRUMP"

Research on Iowa counties that swung from Obama to Trump indicates that GOP success was driven far more by sexism and racism than by economic anxiety.

"Economic distress is not a significant factor in explaining the shift in Iowa voters from Democrat to Republican between 2008 and 2016," write Iowa State University sociologists Ann Oberhauser, Daniel Krier, and Abdi Kusow. "The election outcomes do not signify [a revolt] among working-class voters left behind by globalization."

Rather, in 2016, "the nativist narrative about 'taking back America' and anti-immigrant sentiment became stronger forces than economic issues," Oberhauser said in announcing the findings."

https://psmag.com/news/new-study-con...crats-to-trump

Mets while I don't find myself in agreement with you most often I think you can give this "study" a pass. You can and should drill down into the study and see that "ISU researchers looked at three economic indicators - income, adults not working and employment change - all of which were not significant. Their work is published in The Sociological Quarterly." Yet ""In general, the counties that swung the most [from Obama to Trump] were those that were almost entirely white," Well if Identity matters so much how did they find themselves voting for Obama?

This study seems to be tripping over the same facts as analysis of the Mouvement des gilets jaunes (yellow vests) which can't find the income failure that they are supposedly complaining about. Thing of it is that is social scientists have a hard time nailing down relative shifts in income and opportunity which these "scientists" have as fixed measures. To call it just a perception thing is also inadequate as it still a materialist base that creates the perception. A good example might be an automotive union worker that makes more than a teacher yet when their wage is out of sync with entire economy then they feel or perceive it as such and yet no direct measure would be able to capture the effect.