1. #18046
    Astonishing Member Timothy Hunter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JackDaw View Post
    Not sure what you mean by “advanced” but I really doubt she would have really transformed American society that much.

    If you look at health care systems in many Scandinavian countries and the social welfare systems they have in place...I don’t think there is any realistic chance she would have brought them about..for several reasons.

    First..the President alone doesn’t have the powers to do that...the united support of the two houses would be needed.

    Second...she didn’t stand on a platform saying she would do something like that.

    Third...taxes would need to go up very substantially to pay for it all.

    Turning to social attitudes on things like race, abortion, general tolerance...those sectors of society that are bigoted wouldn’t disappear just because Hilary was in charge.
    Presidents matter. If Obama wasn't elected we would have had 8 years of Trump

  2. #18047
    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    Indiana is appealing a decision to the US Supreme Court that recognized lesbian mothers as parents to their children

    The state of Indiana is asking the newly conservative Supreme Court to strip same-sex couples of their parental rights.

    Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill asked the High Court to rule that states have the authority to deny married same-sex couples the right to be legally recognized as parents to their own children.
    I want to thank those who assured us that Trump was totally a social liberal and didn't have any real problem with gay people and shouted at those of us who told them the judiciary matters. I'm sure gay couples everywhere in indiana who now have to wonder if their rights are going to remain in place really appreciate you. <3

    And a special thanks to the Republicans who back these monstrous nominations. <3

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/indiana-a...201000259.html

  3. #18048
    Astonishing Member Timothy Hunter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tendrin View Post
    I want to thank those who assured us that Trump was totally a social liberal and didn't have any real problem with gay people and shouted at those of us who told them the judiciary matters. I'm sure gay couples everywhere in indiana who now have to wonder if their rights are going to remain in place really appreciate you. <3

    And a special thanks to the Republicans who back these monstrous nominations. <3

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/indiana-a...201000259.html
    Republicans are not americans.

  4. #18049
    Astonishing Member JackDaw's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Timothy Hunter View Post
    Presidents matter. If Obama wasn't elected we would have had 8 years of Trump
    But that’s not what you said before...I take it you’ve decided your earlier statement was wildly optimistic?

  5. #18050
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    Quote Originally Posted by Timothy Hunter View Post
    If Hillary was elected president of the United States 4 years ago America would be as advanced as any other European country.
    Quote Originally Posted by JackDaw View Post
    But that’s not what you said before...I take it you’ve decided your earlier statement was wildly optimistic?
    I think JD is right, the Presidential System doesn't really favour progressivism in that you have to win (the Presidency, and...a regional controlled senate, and...the House) to pass significant legislation to put you on course with European welfare states.

    (In the British Parlimentary system you just have to win a majority in a election to pass whatever you want. ie stimulus bill, gay marriage or whatever is on the slate)

    Anglophone culture also tends to be more rooted in classical liberalism than continental Europe. The United States is one step to the right of the UK, and the UK is one step to the right of Canada, and the only reason Canada is further to the left of the UK is because we have the French in Quebec who tend to be traditionally more socialist.

  6. #18051
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    Off-topic: Happy Corona thanksgiving, Americans!

    "I love mankind...it's people I can't stand!!"

    - Charles Schultz.

  7. #18052
    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    I'm so exhausted by the selfishness.

  8. #18053
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    Splitting 5 to 4, Supreme Court Backs Religious Challenge to Cuomo’s Virus Shutdown Order

    The Supreme Court late Wednesday night barred restrictions on religious services in New York that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had imposed to combat the coronavirus.

    The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s three liberal members in dissent. The order was the first in which the court’s newest member, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, played a decisive role.

    The court’s ruling was at odds with earlier ones concerning churches in California and Nevada. In those cases, decided in May and July, the court allowed the states’ governors to restrict attendance at religious services.

    The Supreme Court’s membership has changed since then, with Justice Barrett succeeding Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September. The vote in the earlier cases was also 5 to 4, but in the opposite direction, with Chief Justice Roberts joining Justice Ginsburg and the other three members of what was then the court’s four-member liberal wing.
    Thanks to Amy COVID Barrett, the faithful in the Big Apple can now gather, praise Jesus and spread the virus. Wonderful.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Amadeus Arkham View Post
    Off-topic: Happy Corona thanksgiving, Americans!

    Awww, what the ****! /lol

  10. #18055
    Horrific Experiment JCAll's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WestPhillyPunisher View Post
    Splitting 5 to 4, Supreme Court Backs Religious Challenge to Cuomo’s Virus Shutdown Order

    Thanks to Amy COVID Barrett, the faithful in the Big Apple can now gather, praise Jesus and spread the virus. Wonderful.
    I guess murder is okay, as long at it's religiously motivated.

  11. #18056

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    On this day in both 2014, in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted its first two profiles of Ira Hansen, of the Nevada House of Representatives, who was quickly forced out of being Speaker of the Nevada House after people actually realized he had a staggering history of making outrageously ugly comments… including his time as a radio talk-show host where he made anti-Semitic remarks, made sexist arguments against women in the military, advocated for a “masturbation tax”, and that he once said the Oklahoma City Bombing was a “false flag” attack that the Clinton administration was actually responsible for.

    He also writes columns from an office with a Confederate flag hanging on the wall, slanders Martin Luther King Dr.’s legacy, refers to President Obama as a “negro”, a term he’s fond of, makes arguments as to Hispanics and African Americans of being of lower intelligence than whites, and blames illegal immigrants for tuberculosis cases without any evidence to support that racist claim. Hansen’s bigotry also expands to gays, as he likes to conflate homosexuality with child abuse, including him blaming the abuse of children by Catholic priests on gays. Of course, when Hansen’s past as an author and talk-radio figure came back to force him to pass and not accept his role has Nevada House Speaker, he gave a non-apology apology where he said his remarks were only being “taken out of context”. What can’t be taken out of context is Hansen’s staunch pro-gun attitude, his support for transphobic bathroom laws, or the fact that he mentioned President Eisenhower’s “Project Wetback” as a model for what the United States should implement to handle undocumented immigrants (without remembering how deadly that campaign proved for those Mexicans, with up to 88 deaths resulting in a single day.

    And, wouldn’t you know it, even though Ira Hansen is a pretty clear racist and a bit of a paranoid conspiracy theorist, he managed to be re-elected to a fourth term in the 2016 elections by having the benefit of running unopposed. In 2018, decided to divide and conquer, as he has decided to make a run for Nevada State Senate to replace the retiring Don Gustavson, and Ira’s wife Alexis ran for his seat in the Nevada House. So… now Nevada has two loony Hansens in their ranks. Ira won to enter the Nevada State Senate with 60% of the vote, and Alexis managed to pull down 70% to join him in the Nevada State Assembly.

    That means Hansen won’t be up for re-election until 2022, and in the meantime, Hansen has continued being an extremist, voting against expanding background checks on firearm purchases, and even for measures as modest as increasing the minimum wage in Nevada during the greatest period of income inequality in our nation in a century.

    Oh, and he popped off on the floor of the Nevada State Senate on an anti-choice rant where he compared abortion to slavery:

    Nevermind that it’s twenty years into the TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, he just compared abortion to slavery, which fits into the sorts of views he expressed on his radio talk show but claimed were “taken out of context”. The sooner Nevada is rid of this moron and his wife from the legislature, the better off the state will be.

    Wouldn’t you know it, since our last update, where the Covid-19 pandemic has struck, Ira Hansen has gone into the “covidiot” category, as we would have thought he would. Hansen waited until as late as MAY before he was complaining about restrictions on businesses by Nevada Gov. Sisolak and demanding they “take the handcuffs off. Too many people must have been surviving.

    There isn’t an issue that this schmuck doesn’t have a horrible take on.
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  12. #18057

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    Quote Originally Posted by JCAll View Post
    I guess murder is okay, as long at it's religiously motivated.
    Or if it's a cop killing a minority, per the past year.
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  13. #18058
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    Quote Originally Posted by WestPhillyPunisher View Post
    Splitting 5 to 4, Supreme Court Backs Religious Challenge to Cuomo’s Virus Shutdown Order



    Thanks to Amy COVID Barrett, the faithful in the Big Apple can now gather, praise Jesus and spread the virus. Wonderful.
    Whatever happened to 'The Constitution isn't a suicide pact'?

  14. #18059
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    Quote Originally Posted by Timothy Hunter View Post
    If Hillary was elected president of the United States 4 years ago America would be as advanced as any other European country.
    For the wealthy, middle-class, and affluent, USA is as advanced and more advanced than any European country. It's only for the majority of the poor, the immigrants, the non-whites, that it isn't. And Europe is not so advanced for the latter sections as you assume. When you say "any other European country" you imply as if all European nations are on the same continuum. But in fact Western Europe is more economically advanced than Eastern Europe...and the majority of Europeans live in the far less advanced Eastern Europe (The Slavic peoples in fact constitute the majority of the total population of Europe and believe me the stereotypes about them aren't them coming from an advanced economy).

    I have no doubt that things would have been different/better had HRC defeated Trump in 2016, but somehow I never got a sense that HRC was a candidate of utopian expectations and she herself (to her credit on this) never sold herself as utopian. Obama, Mr. Hope and Change, that was the guy who went in office with utopian expectations, and he catered to those expectations in his platform to take office.

    Quote Originally Posted by JackDaw View Post
    Not sure what you mean by “advanced” but I really doubt she would have really transformed American society that much.

    If you look at health care systems in many Scandinavian countries and the social welfare systems they have in place...I don’t think there is any realistic chance she would have brought them about..for several reasons.

    First..the President alone doesn’t have the powers to do that...the united support of the two houses would be needed.

    Second...she didn’t stand on a platform saying she would do something like that.

    Third...taxes would need to go up very substantially to pay for it all.

    Turning to social attitudes on things like race, abortion, general tolerance...those sectors of society that are bigoted wouldn’t disappear just because Hilary was in charge.
    If HRC became President in 2016, she would take office with a Republican House and Senate. And she would have to bide her time until 2018's Midterms. With HRC in office would the 2018 Blue Wave still happen? Who knows? The big thing HRC would have control over is the SCOTUS, but McConnell would have obstructed another judge and you would have a 8 member Judiciary even split Dem-GOP and a Federal Judiciary that's understaffed because the appointments that McConnell blocked in Obama's final two years and which he hoarded for a GOP candidate would stay blocked under Hillary. Now HRC sold herself as bipartisan and an ability to cut deals but she's also a little shrewd so maybe she is able to magnify her popularity and have the Senate holding the bag which helps the Dems during the Midterms, who knows. If the Dems do well in 2018, in the AU, then maybe she gets to change the SCOTUS in time, and hopefully RBG retires in time and the Dems batten things down. The big thing is the Coronavirus, I have no doubt that if HRC won in 2016, more people would be alive today than are not.

    Quote Originally Posted by The no face guy View Post
    I think JD is right, the Presidential System doesn't really favour progressivism in that you have to win (the Presidency, and...a regional controlled senate, and...the House) to pass significant legislation to put you on course with European welfare states.
    That's an extreme and not at all interesting interpretation of political systems across two continents.

    (In the British Parlimentary system you just have to win a majority in a election to pass whatever you want. ie stimulus bill, gay marriage or whatever is on the slate)
    In a Parliamentary system you need to win a certain threshold to form a government, but to claim a mandate, you need to win a threshold of outright majority where you govern without a need for a coalition. The UK Labour Government achieved that in the '40s for a brief window which is why the Atlee Ministry passed this historic and consequential social democratic legislation that despite their brief time in power defined, shaped, and dominated UK politics since then.

    Anglophone culture also tends to be more rooted in classical liberalism than continental Europe.
    Again this kind of canard is ahistorical and not all grounded in any empirical research. For one thing France in the 19th Century had a big liberal tradition. Ever heard of Alexis du Tocqueville, Francois Guizot, Benjamin Constant...all of them were classical liberals. Italian Politics after the Risorgimento until World War I was also dominated by liberalism of the UK variety.

    The United States is one step to the right of the UK, and the UK is one step to the right of Canada, and the only reason Canada is further to the left of the UK is because we have the French in Quebec who tend to be traditionally more socialist.
    Where to even begin?

    The French in Canada are descendants of Pre-Revolutionary French settlers...in other words, French Canadian history has had a royalist, monarchist, and conservative tradition.

    This kind of essentialism and stereotyping in pol. sci. analysis even in an online forum bugs the hell out of me. Sorry I just have to say that. It's not a good argument, it's not true, and it's not useful.

  15. #18060
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    I disagree with the lockdowns, at least with the way they are being done. What's the point of a city going on lockdown its neighbor is letting the virus run rampant? These lockdowns are just killing people and businesses. They need to do a nationwide partial lockdown and enforce masks.

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