All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[jetengine]

Maybe you guys just need to hire professionals and not random chumps for grassroots ?

[SquirrelMan]

Maybe you guys just need to hire professionals and not random chumps for grassroots ?

The last professional Sanders hired was Paul Manafort's right hand man, so...

[Superbat]

Do you have a point?

Bernie Sanders is scrutinized for everything any of his supporters say, but Warren hires a racist as a campaign surrogate and you never hear about it from the anti-Bernie people.

[Superbat]

Oh guess what, it was Bernie Sanders supporters who dug he troubled past up when she dared not stan him.

Drugs don't make people racist.

And she endorsed Warren, she is hardly a surrogate like Susan "yay Trump" Sarandon is for Sanders.

She's a campaign surrogate.

"Activist and Warren campaign surrogate Ashlee Marie Preston under fire for racist and misogynistic tweets"

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/a...9-10?r=US&IR=T

[SquirrelMan]

Bernie Sanders is scrutinized for everything any of his supporters say, but Warren hires a racist as a campaign surrogate and you never hear about it from the anti-Bernie people.

You're comparing tweets she made years ago while working as a sex worker with a major drug problem to tweets made right this week by a current Justice Democrat candidate and Sanders supporter.

[Superbat]

You're comparing tweets she made years ago while working as a sex worker with a major drug problem to tweets made right this week by a current Justice Democrat candidate and Sanders supporter.

Drugs don't make people racist but if you want to see the state of anti-Bernie people today.

[numberthirty]

You're comparing tweets she made years ago while working as a sex worker with a major drug problem to tweets made right this week by a current Justice Democrat candidate and Sanders supporter.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious here...

Unless she was still in the middle of this major drug problem when folks found those tweets, there should have been a point whee a freshly sober you should have thought "Man, I Seriously Need To Address What I Said There..."

If it didn't dawn on you to, at the very least, delete them before all of that went down, it's perfectly reasonable to ask "Why Not?"

[Superbat]

Some tweets aren't representative of a candidate's base when they have millions of supporters but if we're going to go after Bernie because of tweets made by his supporters, we have to do it for the other candidates too and the anti-Bernie people.

[Tendrin]

Oh brother.

[zinderel]

For those of you who, like me, are tired of rehashing the 2016 election for the imprint-billionth time, and wishing for ANYTHING to not have to sit through more lectures about Bernie/Hillary/Trump? Be grateful for boring and repetitive. Be careful what you wish for. You might learn about **** like this:

Just read about a twink porn star getting arrested for possession and intent to distribute ‘videos’ of himself and his nine year old brother...

Found out about it because said porn star’s boyfriend apparently has been posting videos of the arrest and surrounding drama to his social media and turning a horrific situation into a way to up his social media clout by playing the victim, while callously disregarding the ACTUAL victim or the victim’s family...

All I want to know is, what the HELL is wrong with people?!?! Why are humans like this...? ANY of...this!?!

[shooshoomanjoe]

Someone needs to tell trump US troops aren't mercenaries. Also, where did the money really to to?

“We have a very good relationship with Saudi Arabia—I said, listen, you’re a very rich country. You want more troops? I’m going to send them to you, but you’ve got to pay us. They’re paying us. They’ve already deposited $1B in the bank.”

[Tami]

Low unemployment isn’t worth much if the jobs barely pay

In a recent analysis, we found that 53 million workers ages 18 to 64—or 44% of all workers—earn barely enough to live on. Their median earnings are $10.22 per hour, and about $18,000 per year. These low-wage workers are concentrated in a relatively small number of occupations, including retail sales, cooks, food and beverage servers, janitors and housekeepers, personal care and service workers (such as child care workers and patient care assistants), and various administrative positions.

Just how concerning are these figures? Some will say that not all low-wage workers are in dire economic straits or reliant on their earnings to support themselves, and that’s true. But as the following data points show, it would be a mistake to assume that most low-wage workers are young people just getting started, or students, or secondary earners, or otherwise financially secure:

[Tami]

Pack the Union: A Proposal to Admit New States for the Purpose of Amending the Constitution to Ensure Equal Representation

Democracy, as they say, is messy.

But even when democracy is messy, a society’s commitment to the endeavor rests on the belief that giving power to the people is appropriate and fair.

Recent events have highlighted some of the ways in which federal elections in the United States are profoundly undemocratic and, thus, profoundly unfair.

The Electoral College — when it contravenes the popular vote — is an obvious example of this unfairness. But it is just one of the mathematically undemocratic features in the Constitution. Equal representation of states in the Senate, for example, gives citizens of low-population states undue influence in Congress. Conversely, American citizens residing in U.S. territories have no meaningful representation in Congress or the Electoral College.

Article V provides two mechanisms for amending the Constitution. Congress may propose an amendment with a two-thirds majority in each chamber, or two-thirds of the states may call for a constitutional convention and propose new amendments there.

In either case, three-fourths of the states must subsequently ratify any new amendments before they take effect.

These thresholds make it highly unlikely that the problem of unequal representation will be fixed through the normal amendment process.

An “easier” way to amend the Constitution would be for Congress to admit a large number of new states whose congressional representatives would reliably ally with the existing majority in sufficient numbers to propose and ratify new amendments fixing the problem of unequal representation. Because Congress can admit new states with a simple majority,

this would provide a more attainable political threshold.

The first step in the process is the addition of new states. Although new states could theoretically come from anywhere, for a few reasons, the District of Columbia is an ideal location to enact this proposal. First, Washington, D.C., is not currently part of any state, so creation of new states there would not require action by or dismemberment of any presently existing state.

Second, every measurable subdivision of D.C. voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic party in the 2016 election, so the Democratic caucus in Congress could be confident that new states

Third, the neighborhoods of D.C. provide a reasonable starting point for the new state boundaries; they are numerous enough to provide the votes necessary, but not so great that they would allow the new delegations to pass amendments or legislation on their own.

3. U.S. Territories. — The problem of unequal representation is especially severe for citizens of U.S. territories. Such citizens pay payroll taxes but, with few exceptions, are not eligible for Supplemental Security Income.
.
Nor are the territories reimbursed for Medicaid at the same rate as states.

They also serve in the military at higher rates than the national average, and yet, per capita healthcare spending on veterans in the territories is much lower than the national average.

Note this this got quite a lot of negative blow-back on twitter.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Drugs don't make people racist but if you want to see the state of anti-Bernie people today.

The best part is that dude Andy did in fact endorse a middle aged white dude not long after that. So it's okay for him to be critical of a young female POC doing essentially what he did. Nothing more than racist gaslighting

[Theleviathan]

Bernie Sanders is scrutinized for everything any of his supporters say, but Warren hires a racist as a campaign surrogate and you never hear about it from the anti-Bernie people.

Two pages of liberal purity bullshit! We clearly haven't learned a god damn thing about winning.