All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[lancerman]

"Wah, I don't have anything to vote for!"

I guess, looking at all the states currently doing things like anti-transgender and LGBT laws, all the people suffering due to lack of access to expanded Medicaid, overtime and environmental regulations, the behind the scenes changes to payday lenders, corporate inversions, and more really just don't count. We shouldn't bother to protect them.

I don't see how anyone can look at the abject insanity going on in places under Republican rule in this country and then say 'I have nothing to vote for!'.

Micro vs Macro.

Edit: Oh and I am voting. Just not for one of the two major party candidates. I just happen to know what I want to vote for and it is a different priority than you.

[Tendrin]

And thousands/millions of people will die when Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump continue the exact same archaic foreign policy agenda that has led us into pointless wars and opened us up to terrorists who want us out of there, and thousands/millions more will be further marginalized as poverty and economic in equality continue to grow at the same rates they have been. So don't pretend you're taking the moral high ground either.

Libya Isn’t Hillary’s Fault, Says Libyan

Deciding who to blame for Libya’s descent into chaos after the 2011 ouster of former strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi has become something of a big power parlor game. Was it British Prime Minister David Cameron, ever eager to reassert London’s great power status? Bernard-Henri Lévy, the perma-tanned French philosopher who coaxed then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy into backing Libya’s revolutionaries? Or, as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders argue, was it Hillary Clinton, who persuaded President Barack Obama to enter a war he never really believed in?

Amid the recriminations, no one ever points the finger at the Libyans themselves — except, that is, for Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations, who bluntly faulted a succession of post-Qaddafi leaders he served for squandering a historic opportunity to lead the country toward a better future. Libya’s post-revolution governments, Dabbashi said, have been so incompetent that even the simplest of tasks, like delivering the mail, were beyond their meager administrative abilities.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/01/...t-says-libyan/

Ugliness is going to continue to happen. This is life. The 'archaic foreign policy' which you decry will not be better under a President Trump. In fact, I'd say 'WE should proliferate nuclear weapons' is a lot worse than the status quo. The guy is instability writ large. By all means, fight for the change you want to see in our foreign policy, but I will point out, over and over again, that one of two people will be President. Which one of those people is going to do more harm to your interests?

And you're quotes are stupid, because you have no way to quantify what is a stone and isn't a pebble. Like I said it's macro vs micro. When Bush was still President the country was becoming more progressive as far as LGBT rights. Had nothing to do with the President. It's something that is continuing. Hell at this point it's not even sustainable for the GOP to be against it for much longer, they want that issue to go away.

Odd. For a party that wants it to go away they sure do seem to be passing a lot of anti-gay legislation and taking the government to court over the protections of transgender people.

[Tendrin]

Micro vs Macro.

Edit: Oh and I am voting. Just not for one of the two major party candidates. I just happen to know what I want to vote for and it is a different priority than you.

Oh yes. If only I could see the big picture like you.

And t he Republicans (who presently run a majority of our states) have a different priority too.

[Tendrin]

The Dallas Morning News reports that Texas state prosecutors built a $4.5 million fraud case against Trump and Trump University. But the case never went forward because it was deep-sixed by then-Attorney General and now Governor Greg Abbott (R). The former deputy director of Abbott's Consumer Protection Division, John Owens, tells the DMN: "“The decision not to sue him was political. Had [Trump] not been involved in politics to the extent he was at the time, we would have gotten approval. Had he been just some other scam artist, we would have sued him.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/it-grows

Shocking. :P

[lancerman]

Ugliness is going to continue to happen. This is life. The 'archaic foreign policy' which you decry will not be better under a President Trump. In fact, I'd say 'WE should proliferate nuclear weapons' is a lot worse than the status quo. The guy is instability writ large. By all means, fight for the change you want to see in our foreign policy, but I will point out, over and over again, that one of two people will be President. Which one of those people is going to do more harm to your interests?



Odd. For a party that wants it to go away they sure do seem to be passing a lot of anti-gay legislation.

And I'm not voting for Trump, so tough. But as far as which one will do more harm to my interests? Probably Trump. Marginally though. Not enough to make me switch my vote to Clinton.

As far as LGBT laws. They pass it in the few states that have behind on every relevant social trend of the last 70 years, where they can still siphon voters from them. And guess what? That's not going to change no matter who is President. Obama is the President now and they are doing it. You think that changes with Clinton? Keep dreaming. It's going to change the same way it always has. When it becomes so overwhelmingly one way that the Supreme Court as a whole is pretty much forced to make it the standard.

[lancerman]

Oh yes. If only I could see the big picture like you.

And t he Republicans (who presently run a majority of our states) have a different priority too.

I mean I could be more blunt about it, but yeah if only you could.

[Kevinroc]

And I'm not voting for Trump, so tough. But as far as which one will do more harm to my interests? Probably Trump. Marginally though. Not enough to make me switch my vote to Clinton.

As far as LGBT laws. They pass it in the few states that have behind on every relevant social trend of the last 70 years, where they can still siphon voters from them. And guess what? That's not going to change no matter who is President. Obama is the President now and they are doing it. You think that changes with Clinton? Keep dreaming. It's going to change the same way it always has. When it becomes so overwhelmingly one way that the Supreme Court as a whole is pretty much forced to make it the standard.

So you're totally fine handing the Supreme Court to the GOP? Got it.

[Dipper]

I knew there was a reason I didn't like Greg Abbott.

[Tami]

I knew there was a reason I didn't like Greg Abbott.

AP: Greg Abbott Given $35K Campaign Donation by Trump after Trump University Probe Dropped

WASHINGTON -- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott received a $35,000 donation to his successful gubernatorial campaign from Donald Trump. This after a Texas probe into Trump University was dropped in 2010, according to the Associated Press.

The AP reported that Abbott, a Republican, was serving as Texas Attorney General at the time, and opened a civil investigation of "possibly deceptive trade practices" into Trump University, but quietly dropped it when the organization agreed to end its operations in Texas.

Trump subsequently donated $35,000 to Abbott's successful gubernatorial campaign, according to records obtained by the AP.

The AP reported that a spokesman for Abbott declined to comment.

That is a good reason not to like him.

[Tendrin]

I mean I could be more blunt about it, but yeah if only you could.

People who think they see clearly the 'macro' state of the world almost never do.

Moreover, people who assume progress will continue regardless 'because reasons' tend to subscribe to a fallacious mythology of human history. Things like gay rights have had advances before and then fallen to the wayside through out time, again and again. The rights of minorities too have been tossed aside, again and again. Jim Crow didn't magically appear, after all. It was a constructed artifice, bit by bit, that appeared over time state by state, empowered by a resentful, wrathful populace and allowed to persist by a supreme court. It took decades of work to undo it, decades more to even make a dent.

There is no human progress that is inevitable. Things can always be sent backwards, and you have people fighting like hell to do it.

[lancerman]

So you're totally fine handing the Supreme Court to the GOP? Got it.

LOL they are replacing Antonin fucking Scalia. They could nominate Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh's love child and it wouldn't sway the court anymore conservative than it was. And the two newest justices are the most liberal on the court.

[lancerman]

People who think they see clearly the 'macro' state of the world almost never do.

Show me how you're point of view is less short term and micro than mind. Lets have a discussion on it.

[Tendrin]

LOL they are replacing Antonin fucking Scalia. They could nominate Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh's love child and it wouldn't sway the court anymore conservative than it was. And the two newest justices are the most liberal on the court.

You can't assume that is the only one they'd get.

[lancerman]

You can't assume that is the only one they'd get.

You'd have to first assume that it would be a liberal justice who would pass and second that the replacement would be closer to Scalia or Thomas than to a Roberts. Point is it's an assumption either way. They could put the most conservative Justice in the world to fill Scalia's spot and it would have no bearing on any of the most recent decisions.

[Kevinroc]

You'd have to first assume that it would be a liberal justice who would pass and second that the replacement would be closer to Scalia or Thomas than to a Roberts. Point is it's an assumption either way. They could put the most conservative Justice in the world to fill Scalia's spot and it would have no bearing on any of the most recent decisions.

You claim you see the "Macro" and then argue that the Supreme Court isn't something we should spent a lot of time really thinking about.