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

[numberthirty]

And massive tax cuts that benefit almost wholly the rich while ensuring the government is less equiped to mitigate the effects on the middle and lower classes only makes the inequality worse.

I did not say these tax cuts are the reason for income inequality, they are part of the problem. The are a vehicle for wealth accumulation at the very top.

Is that so hard to understand?

Globalization happened to Europe as well, yet they do not have the inequality we do. And they have a better safety net including Universal Health Care.

Seems like there should be more emphasis there.

You have a President who is going buck wild over a ten percent tariff on American cars going into Europe.

That is peanuts compared to the way American care companies have to fork over to "For Profit" health insurance companies.

[TakoM]

Yes, can you? Inequity is higher in the US than in Europe and Europe has a better social safety net.

The problem is Europa isn't a monolith block there are one of the best in it but also one of the worsts.

[numberthirty]

He's also saying things like Roger Stone is like a surrogate dad, Muller totes won't put him in jail, says he hates Trump after minutes earlier saying he was a support, doing "WHAT ABOUT HILLARY", and he also said his lawyer won't return his calls. Can't imagine why.


Sooooooo, is he drunk or something?

I think that trying to tell yourself "I have figured out who in the Trump orbit is on the level." is pointless.

Let the investigations go forward, and decide who was(or was not) on the level once the dust settles.

[Kirby101]

Seems like there should be more emphasis there.

You have a President who is going buck wild over a ten percent tariff on American cars going into Europe.

That is peanuts compared to the way American care companies have to fork over to "For Profit" health insurance companies.

It is all of one part.

Tax breaks for the rich means there is no money for benefits to everyone else.

How many times will the GOP say we can't afford...

Well we could if they didn't give massive tax cuts to the rich and corporations. It is a giant transfer of wealth upwards.

[Kirby101]

The problem is Europa isn't a monolith block there are one of the best in it but also one of the worsts.

Show me which have higher inequity than the US?

Show me which has a larger percentage of wealth in the hand of the top?

[Gray Lensman]

Yes, can you? Inequity is higher in the US than in Europe and Europe has a better social safety net.

The issue is to figure out how to address those issues without getting the downside of Europe - which is needing that safety net much more than the U.S. does. Unemployment in the lower tier of the EU is pretty high.

Quick Google searches for unemployment rates. Looks like the data is from August 2017.

Portugal: 8.9%
France: 9.8%
Italy: 11.2%
Spain: 17.1%
Greece: 21.0%
Macedonia: 22.1% this is a record low btw.

Germany, Poland, and the U.K. (for now) are running quite well though, all coming in under 5%.

[numberthirty]

The issue is to figure out how to address those issues without getting the downside of Europe - which is needing that safety net much more than the U.S. does. Unemployment in the lower tier of the EU is pretty high.

Quick Google searches for unemployment rates. Looks like the data is from August 2017.

Portugal: 8.9%
France: 9.8%
Italy: 11.2%
Spain: 17.1%
Greece: 21.0%
Macedonia: 22.1% this is a record low btw.

Germany, Poland, and the U.K. (for now) are running quite well though, all coming in under 5%.

It is surely a wrinkle.

[Jack Dracula]

Not that I go to political rallies often, but the odds that an individual is a neo-nazi is pretty damn low. It's a bit like worrying that someone at a liberal event wants America to be a Muslim caliphate. The people exist, but the numbers are too small to come to useful conclusions about other voters.

If you don't go to political rallies often it invalidates your opinion about who shows up to support the party, also guesswork about how many racist organizations may or may not exist isn't relevant.
The fact still remains that the GOP is the party the KKK and others of their kind have openly and wholeheartedly displayed their support for and they've done so because many of their interests coincide.

[numberthirty]

An Emerson poll out on the Special Election for Pennsylvania's 11th Congressional District just came out today... for the first time, a poll on the race shows Democrat Conor Lamb in the lead. The poll also shows all of the enthusiasm and passion favors Lamb, and his campaign has raised more than 5 times the amount of campaign funding as his opponent, Rick Saccone.

A huge upset in a district Trump carried by 20 points might be in the works, and rumors are the GOP are pleading with Trump to skip campaigning on Saccone's behalf in the final weeks of the race as he'd planned, because that will only be a detriment.

While the "Upset" element there is certainly noteworthy, I think it winds up being yesterday's news versus the potential aftermath.

I could see even more current Republican members of Congress decide to hang it up or drop out for a cycle or two if that race is a disaster.

[Mister Mets]

If you don't go to political rallies often it invalidates your opinion about who shows up to support the party, also guesswork about how many racist organizations may or may not exist isn't relevant.
The fact still remains that the GOP is the party the KKK and others of their kind have openly and wholeheartedly displayed their support for and they've done so because many of their interests coincide.

Guesswork about the number of people who belong to racist organizations is significant in determining their influence.

From the link earlier, which is analysis from someone who really hates Trump...

1. Is Trump getting a lot of his support from white supremacist organizations?

No, because there are not enough organized white supremacists to make up “a lot” of anyone’s support.

According to Wikipedia on KKK membership:
As of 2016, the Anti-Defamation League puts total Klan membership nationwide at around 3,000, while the Southern Poverty Law Center puts it at 6,000 members total
The KKK is really small. They could all stay in the same hotel with a bunch of free rooms left over. Or put another way: the entire membership of the KKK is less than the daily readership of this blog.

If you Google “trump KKK”, you get 14.8 million results. I know that Google’s list of results numbers isn’t very accurate. Yet even if they’re inflating the numbers by 1000x, and there were only about 14,000 news articles about the supposed Trump-KKK connection this election, there are still two to three articles about a Trump-KKK connection for every single Klansman in the world.

I don’t see any sign that there are other official white supremacy movements that are larger than the Klan, or even enough other small ones to substantially raise the estimate of people involved. David Duke called a big pan-white-supremacist meeting in New Orleans in 2005, and despite getting groups from across North America and Europe he was only able to muster 300 attendees (by comparison, NAACP conventions routinely get 10,000).

My guess is that the number of organized white supremacists in the country is in the very low five digits.

2. Is Trump getting a lot of his support from online white nationalists and the alt-right?

No, for the same reason.

The alt-right is mostly an online movement, which makes it hard to measure. The three main alt-right hubs I know of are /r/altright, Stormfront, and 4chan’s politics board.

The only one that displays clear user statistics is /r/altright, which says that there are about 5,000 registered accounts. The real number is probably less – some people change accounts, some people post once and disappear, and some non-white-nationalists probably go there to argue. But sure, let’s say that community has 5,000 members.

Stormfront’s user statistics say it gets about 30,000 visits/day, of which 60% are American. My own blog gets about 8,000 visits/day , and the measurable communities associated with it (the subreddit, people who follow my social media accounts) have between 2000 – 8000 followers. If this kind of thing scales, then it suggests about 10,000 people active in the Stormfront community.

4chan boasts about 1 million visits/day. About half seem to be American. Unclear how many go to the politics board and how many are just there for the anime and video games, but Wikipedia says that /b/ is the largest board with 30% of 4Chan’s traffic, so /pol/ must be less than that. If we assume /pol/ gets 20% of 4chan traffic, and that 50% of the people on /pol/ are serious alt-rightists and not dissenters or trolls, the same scaling factors give us about 25,000 – 50,000 American alt-rightists on 4Chan.

Taking into account the existence of some kind of long tail of alt-right websites, I still think the population of the online US alt-right is somewhere in the mid five-digits, maybe 50,000 or so.

50,000 is more than the 5,000 Klansmen. But it’s still 0.02% of the US population. It’s still about the same order of magnitude as the Nation of Islam, which has about 30,000 – 60,000 members, or the Church of Satan, which has about 20,000. It’s not quite at the level of the Hare Krishnas, who boast 100,000 US members. This is not a “voting bloc” in the sense of somebody it’s important to appeal to. It isn’t a “political force” (especially when it’s mostly, as per the 4chan stereotype, unemployed teenagers in their parents’ basements.)

So the mainstream narrative is that Trump is okay with alienating minorities (= 118 million people), whites who abhor racism and would never vote for a racist (if even 20% of whites, = 40 million people), most of the media, most business, and most foreign countries – in order to win the support of about 50,000 poorly organized and generally dysfunctional people, many of whom are too young to vote anyway.

Caring about who the KKK or the alt-right supports is a lot like caring about who Satanists support. It’s not something you would do if you wanted to understand real political forces. It’s only something you would do if you want to connect an opposing candidate to the most outrageous caricature of evil you can find on short notice.

3. Is Trump getting a lot of his support from people who wouldn’t join white nationalist groups, aren’t in the online alt-right, but still privately hold some kind of white supremacist position?

There are surprisingly few polls that just straight out ask a representative sample of the population “Are you white supremacist?”.

I can find a couple of polls that sort of get at this question in useful ways.

This poll from Gallup asks white Americans their support for school segregation and whether they would move out if a black family moved in next door. It declines from about 50% in 1960 to an amount too small to measure in the 1990s, maybe 1-2%, where it presumably remains today.

(this graph also seems relevant to the stories of how Trump’s father would try to keep blacks out of his majority-white real estate developments in the late 60s/early 70s – note that at that time 33% of white families would move out if a black person moved in next door)

Here’s a CBS News poll from 2014 asking Americans their opinion on the Civil Rights Act that legally prohibited discrimination. Once again, the number of whites who think it was a bad thing is too small to measure meaningfully, but looks like maybe 1-2%. Of note, whites were more convinced the Civil Rights Act was good than blacks were, though I guess it depends on the margin of error.

Another Gallup graph here, with the percent of people who would vs. wouldn’t vote for an otherwise-qualified black candidate for President. It goes from 54% in 1968 to 5% in 1999; later polls that aren’t included on the graph give numbers from 4% to 7%, which sounds probably within the margin of error.

This is a Vox poll asking how many people had favorable vs. unfavorable views of different groups. 11% admit to “somewhat unfavorable” or “very unfavorable” views of blacks, which sounds bad, except that 7% of people admit to unfavorable views of heterosexuals by the same definition. This makes me think “have an unfavorable view about this group” is not a very high bar. If we restrict true “white supremacists” to those who have only “very unfavorable” views of blacks, this is 3%, well in line with our other sources.

(of note, 1% of respondents had “never heard of” blacks. Um…)

Maybe a better way of looking for racists: David Duke ran for Senate in Louisiana this year. He came in seventh with 58,000 votes (3%). Multiplied over 50 states, that would suggest 2.5 million people who would vote for a leading white supremacist. On the other hand, Louisiana is one of the most racist states (for example, Slate’s investigation found that it led the US in percent of racist tweets) and one expects Duke would have had more trouble in eg Vermont. Adjusting for racism level as measured in tweets, it looks like there would be about 1 million Duke voters in a nationwide contest. That’s a little less than 1% of voters.

So our different ways of defining “open white supremacist”, even for definitions of “open” so vague they include admitting it on anonymous surveys, suggest maybe 1-2%, 1-2%, 4-7%, 3-11%, and 1-3%.

But doesn’t this still mean there are some white supremacists? Isn’t this still really important?

I mean, kind of. But remember that 4% of Americans believe that lizardmen control all major governments. And 5% of Obama voters believe that Obama is the Antichrist. The white supremacist vote is about the same as the lizardmen-control-everything vote, or the Obama-is-the-Antichrist-but-I-support-him-anyway vote.

(and most of these people are in Solid South red states and don’t matter in the electoral calculus anyway.)

It is a two party system so political crazies won't have that many choices. Bigots of various stripes will go towards Republicans since a position that is wary of affirmative action is still closer to what they want than the Democratic policies, just as crazies from other groups (religious minorities, eco-nuts, communists) are more likely to be drawn to the left.

[4saken1]

The problem is Europa isn't a monolith block there are one of the best in it but also one of the worsts.

.....which makes it all the better to cherry pick the data.

[Mister Mets]

This will put another GOP seat up in November, with Roger Wicker's seat up as well. Expect any Republican looking to challenger Wicker to back out, and let the incumbent win and instead, enter an open primary for the seat to finish Cochran's term. This would make the front-runner in that race super-racist white nationalist Chris McDaniel, who if he wins the nomination, could potentially choke it away against a Democrat.

McDaniel's currently running against Wicker.

The expectation is that the Governor will select someone to run as an incumbent. That would still be an easier primary for McDaniel or any other conservative challenger to win, but it's not an open primary.

As an interesting technicality, it would be a first two past the post type jungle primary, so it would technically be possible for two Democrats to win if enough Republicans split the vote.

An advantage for Democrats is that they do have a top-tier potential candidate in state attorney general Jim Hood.

None of this is "complex" -- everyone here knows that Democrats are currently the ones in support of things like gay marriage, the woman's right to choose what happens to her body, reasonable gun control laws, and ensuring that every American citizen has the right to vote without unnecessary complications.

That said, it's fine, for example, if you think lower taxes are more important than making sure every American has access to affordable health care, but let's not try to pretend that these issues are "complex" because they are not.

Meanwhile, your party is currently in flames and dealing with yet another one of the largest scandals in American history due to their own corruption and ineptitude: Trump is your monster -- a monster of Republican "conservative" creation -- no matter how much you try to deny it.

The same applies to Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfield -- yet another Republican triumvirate travesty who were responsible for the waste of trillions of taxpayer dollars and the loss of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-i...92D0PG20130314

And that's without factoring in the global recession that came as the result of Republicans allowing businesses to operate with little to no regulation or oversight -- and when the "dumb" left put regulations in place to prevent it from happening again, the first thing the Republicans do is remove them once they get into power.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-bl...eating-history

The audacity of someone calling the "left" dumb when it's the "right" who keeps driving this nation into a ditch would be comical if it wasn't so tragic.

I didn't say the left was dumb; just some of their ideas.

I referred to abortion as a complex issue, and I'll stick to that. There are competing rights in that debate. The fetus has a value as a living thing, even if someone believes it is more important for society to prefer the woman's right to choose.

With voting rights, one person's "right to vote without unnecessary complications" isn't a purely liberal or Democratic discussion. Democrats have a lot of power in New York state, and made it pretty difficult for independents to join the Democratic party, and vote in the presidential primary, so there is an element of self-interest in the fight (Democratic voters are more likely to live in areas with popular density, and to benefit from rapid voter drives.) There's going to be further debate on what count as unnecessary complications, and when the system creates an opening for organized abuse. There are going to be some necessary complications. Voter fraud does not currently appear to be a serious problem, but it has been in the nation's past, and we should avoid creating an opening for it in the future.

The gay marriage debate has rapidly shifted, so that it's no longer about whether gay people should be allowed to get married but about how rapidly the minority that disagrees with gay marriage should be legally compelled to support it.

[InformationGeek]

Oh boy, Devin Nunes is back in the news again and this time, it ain't for a memo he shat out. His feel-feels got hurt by mean old Colbert you see!

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said Saturday that Stephen Colbert’s jokes about him are a “danger” in this country.

Colbert traveled to the Capitol on Friday’s episode of “The Late Show” in a spoof mission to tease information out of congressmen about possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. Colbert was armed with his own memo stating: “Devon Nunes is a [redacted].”

Colbert managed to crack a smile from stone-faced Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) when he asked him if he was “jealous” that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) gets to work with Nunes.

“This is the danger that we have in this country,” Nunes said when Fox News’ Neil Cavuto asked how he felt about the jokes.

“The left controls not only the universities in this country, but they also control Hollywood in this country, and the mainstream media, so conservatives in this country are under attack ... they attack people who are trying to get to the truth,” the head of the House Intelligence Committee added.

Checking the archives, for some reason, I don't think WBE has profiled Devin yet. I think he's more than ready for a good profile overview.

[aja_christopher]

I didn't say the left was dumb; just some of their ideas.

I referred to abortion as a complex issue, and I'll stick to that. There are competing rights in that debate. The fetus has a value as a living thing, even if someone believes it is more important for society to prefer the woman's right to choose.

With voting rights, one person's "right to vote without unnecessary complications" isn't a purely liberal or Democratic discussion. Democrats have a lot of power in New York state, and made it pretty difficult for independents to join the Democratic party, and vote in the presidential primary, so there is an element of self-interest in the fight (Democratic voters are more likely to live in areas with popular density, and to benefit from rapid voter drives.) There's going to be further debate on what count as unnecessary complications, and when the system creates an opening for organized abuse. There are going to be some necessary complications. Voter fraud does not currently appear to be a serious problem, but it has been in the nation's past, and we should avoid creating an opening for it in the future.

The gay marriage debate has rapidly shifted, so that it's no longer about whether gay people should be allowed to get married but about how rapidly the minority that disagrees with gay marriage should be legally compelled to support it.

Again -- these aren't complex issues -- they are simply divisive issues.

The Democratic party and "liberals" (like Obama) -- generally speaking -- support gay rights, abortion rights, the Voting Rights Act, affordable health care for all, and gun control legislation.

Republicans and "conservatives" (like Pence) -- generally speaking -- do not.

https://www.diffen.com/difference/De..._vs_Republican

Even Trump recognizes this simple truth, which is why he was able to play the Republican party like a fiddle last election.

Moreover, I notice that you failed to address how the Republican party wasted trillions of dollars and destroyed thousands of lives with the Iraq War while simultaneously presiding over one of the worst recessions in our nation's history the last time they were in power, and how Republicans paved the way for Trump to take office and are now doing nothing to prevent further Russian meddling in our elections.

[Jack Dracula]

Guesswork about the number of people who belong to racist organizations is significant in determining their influence.

From the link earlier, which is analysis from someone who really hates Trump...

It is a two party system so political crazies won't have that many choices. Bigots of various stripes will go towards Republicans since a position that is wary of affirmative action is still closer to what they want than the Democratic policies, just as crazies from other groups (religious minorities, eco-nuts, communists) are more likely to be drawn to the left.

As I stated earlier, the point I'm making is not about the number of white supremacist organisations or how many people would actually self identify as members. The point is that those groups have identified the GOP as their party of choice for definite reasons and it seems few of the "average Republicans" see that as a reason to examine current policy decisions or their own ethics.
And personally, I take issues with your description of religious minorities and environmentalists as Democratic "crazies". As for Communists, they have their own party.