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

[Ragged Maw]

Antifa isn't running around assaulting people that aren't them

Not what I'm hearing.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of South Carolina State Senator Tom Corbin from the South Carolina State Senate, a misogynist extraordinaire who has referred to the only female member of the South Carolina State Senate and all women as a "lesser cut of meat", as well as repeatedly making cracks about how women should be in the kitchen and barefoot to get a rise out of the ladies. He also voted to nullify the Affordable Care Act in South Carolina, wanted to pass stricter voter ID laws that would disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters if not more, voted for the concealed carry of firearms in bars, because alcohol does wonders for impulse control, and once sponsored legislation to force every citizen of South Carolina over the age of 17 not in the National Guard to be drafted into a state militia to battle any potential invasions from, as he theorized, the "Red Chinese".

Corbin barely survived a tough GOP primary in 2016 against John B. White, winning by a mere 300 votes. He has remained quiet since his re-election, but we’ll continue to monitor his voting record and social profile for any more brain-addled statements.

[ed2962]

Well, Trump is at Pennsylvania to promote a Republican candidate and it's insanity as per usual. Check out this tweet storm with video for the details.

Highlights include calling Chuck Todd a son of a bitch, calling Warren Pocahontas yet again, wanting to exceute drug dealers, and signalling out a black female congresswoman to say she has a low IQ. Poor WBE. So much insanity to report on in one single night.

Todd has Steven Mauchin on Meet The Press and tried to question him about Trump's behaviour at the rally and Mauchin kept dodging the questions. Todd seemed to get a little short with him and said something like, "Look if nothing he says matters, then maybe we should just stop covering him then?" Mauchin is like of course you should cover him be we should be talking about policies. Todd goes, "I'd LOVE to talk about policy, why can't he talk about policy?"

[Mister Mets]

Former Assoc. Dir. of National Intelligence: "it was entirely possible votes were tampered with."



But Hillary is at fault for only winning by 3 million votes. We can't look for the other reasons we have the baboon in the WH.

The election wasn't decided by the popular vote, even though the Hillary Clinton campaign spent resources on getting out the vote in places that didn't help them. So she would be at fault for piss-poor strategy in losing the electoral vote while doing well in the popular.

It's also a leap from one guy saying that it's possible votes were tampered with to declaring it a certainty.

Antifa isn't running around assaulting people that aren't them

that's what racist white a-holes do

Antifa seems to be doing it in the West Coast.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.172f1c637efa

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/09/10...-arrested.html

In the short term: Register more people to vote, and vote in the people not suppressing the votes.

Long Term: Vote for those who bring up voter suppression and popular vote initiatives when their party is in power rather than a minority.

I'm generally in agreement here about the ways to fight voter suppression.

It would mainly make a difference in close elections, so the activists should do what they can to make sure elections aren't close (IE- be involved in Ger out the Vote initiatives.)

Getting candidates to agree to specific policy proposals would also be a way to go, so there can be an open debate on the merits, and that when legislators are in office, they'll know what to do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...=.c7e621b8ffd2


Decent WaPo article.

It's a bit vague on the exact effects, saying that one myth is that "GOP dominance has more to do with geography than gerrymandering." without giving any comparison to how many congressional seats are the result of the former, and how many are the result of the latter, which means the myth isn't disproven.

The general consensus is that some Republican advantage is the result of gerrymandering, but not a lot of it (a further factor is that Republican advantage in gerrymandering in some states is offset by the Democratic advantage in their states.)

Nate Cohn of the New York Times had an interesting piece on decisions the Pennsylvania Supreme Court made that really favored Democrats in redistricting. They prioritize partisan balance when other standards (combining communities of interest, randomly selected geographic bodies) would favor Republicans.

Many of those choices are easy to spot on a map. Every potentially competitive Republican-held district juts out to add Democratic areas, like adding York to the 10th District, Lansdale to the First District, Reading to the Sixth District, Stroudsburg to the Seventh District, South Philadelphia to the Fifth District, or Mount Lebanon and Penn Hills to the 17th.

There are also subtle choices that are harder to see. They’re less about picking and choosing municipalities and more about how to group counties. These choices also often work to the advantage of Democrats, like the decision to center the 12th District in Beaver rather than in Butler County, or to have the Fifth District, rather than the Fourth or the First, take population in Philadelphia.

Any of these decisions can be justified. It is also possible, although unlikely and unproven, that only this combination of choices yields the absolute minimum number of split counties or municipalities, the key criterion of the court order.

But in all of these cases, there were Republican-leaning alternatives of seemingly comparable merit. Collectively, it’s a pattern of augmenting Democratic strength, inching the statewide map closer to partisan parity.

This does not necessarily mean the map amounts to a “Democratic gerrymander,” as some have suggested. Over all, it admirably adheres to traditional nonpartisan redistricting criteria, like compactness and the avoidance of unnecessary county splits. But the map makes Democratic-tilting choices so consistently that it is hard not to wonder whether it was part of an intentional effort to achieve partisan balance in a state that is fairly evenly divided.

It would be somewhat surprising, at least to me, if the court drew this map without that goal in mind. Nathaniel Persily, the Stanford professor who helped draw the map, has been barred by the court from discussing it.

A series of pro-Democratic choices would be necessary to create statewide partisan balance, since lopsided winning margins in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh put Democrats at a considerable disadvantage in translating their votes to seats statewide. In fact, the new map still slightly advantages the Republicans with respect to the statewide popular vote.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise if the court strove for partisan symmetry in the context of a partisan gerrymandering case. But the court order did not say that the maps should strive for partisan balance, and it seems that’s the reason Democrats did not strive for it, either.

This is gerrymandering, but for a defensible goal that does favor Democrats. It would be something that should be articulated so that the decisions can be made openly.

Fivethirtyeight has an interesting interactive on the effects various decisions can have on the composition of the House.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...ting-maps/#Dem

They compare eight scenarios, and the only one in which Democrats have the House is one in which things are gerrymandered in their favor. If districts were selected to be geographically compact (either following county lines or algorithmically) Republicans have 2-3 less House members than they currently do, which fits the idea that gerrymandering has helped them, but that geography is much more important.

[TheInvisibleMan]

so Im still trying to wrap my head around WHY the GOP in Kentucky basically stopped the legislature from changing the child marriage statutes

[Gray Lensman]

so Im still trying to wrap my head around WHY the GOP in Kentucky basically stopped the legislature from changing the child marriage statutes

Bigotry. The twisted logic is that by getting the government involved by banning child marriages, it would provide a legal leg for the federal government to stand on in forcing them to acknowledge gay marriages.

[Mister Mets]

so Im still trying to wrap my head around WHY the GOP in Kentucky basically stopped the legislature from changing the child marriage statutes

As of Wednesday, the bill passed the State Senate 34-3.

http://kycir.org/2018/03/07/bill-ban...passes-senate/

Is there an update?

[TheInvisibleMan]

As of Wednesday, the bill passed the State Senate 34-3.

http://kycir.org/2018/03/07/bill-ban...passes-senate/

Is there an update?

Governor still has to sign it

[TheInvisibleMan]

some non politics news

Fyre Festival founder ordered to pay $26 million back to investors

In June 2017, McFarland was arrested on charges of providing false financial information to potential investors of Fyre Fest. The 2017 Bahamas music festival was billed as an upscale boutique experience providing luxury villas and catered meals with performances from artists such as Migos, Major Lazer, Blink-182, and Disclosure. However, festival-goers instead arrived on the island in April to a post-apocalyptic tent city and little more than bread and cheese provided for their meals.

[Mister Mets]

Governor still has to sign it

Is there any indication he won't?

I don't see anything in the articles I found about the Kentucky vote that touch on major obstruction. It seems that everything's on track.

[InformationGeek]

So while Trump talks about wanting to get kill drug dealers, my senator, Ron Johnson, weighed in on that assessment.

During an interview on CNN, Johnson was asked if he agrees with President Donald Trump’s recent assertion that drug dealers should be executed like they are in China.

“Is that something you agree with?” CNN’s Jim Acosta asked Johnson. “Should we be following China’s lead when it comes to criminal justice?”

Johnson argued that “we should not be following China’s lead” but he wasn’t as sure when it came to the death penalty.

“I’m a supporter of the death penalty, but only in those types of incidences where we absolutely are a 100 percent certain that the person is 100 percent guilty,” the Republican senator opined. “I’m not sure it would be applicable to drug offenses.”

Soooooooooo weak and noncommittal.


Also, just for s**ts and giggles, a random video of Trump forgetting something.

[Gray Lensman]

So while Trump talks about wanting to get kill drug dealers, my senator, Ron Johnson, weighed in on that assessment.



Soooooooooo weak and noncommittal.

My own opinion on the death penalty is yes, but for extreme cases only.

Mass killers, absolutely. This includes serial murderers, school shooters and other spree killers.

If you can arrange the deaths of people outside of prison while you are inside of it. In such a case, I'd say one is enough. It's not about justice, it's not about vengeance, but simply the cold math that the only way to protect society from such an individual is by removing any and all chances they might have to repeat the actions. I think that also those with enough hold on followers to arrange others to do the killing for them, especially if there are multiple followers and/or murders (like Charles Manson) should probably be executed.

People who kill (or order) the deaths of trial witnesses. jurors, and judges.

Outside of that, simply life in prison should be enough to both punish and protect society from the overwhelming majority of criminals, even when the crimes are sickening to describe, much less have to go through. Life in prison can be alleviated if exonerating evidence comes to light, but death can't be taken back.

[Tazirai]

Bigotry. The twisted logic is that by getting the government involved by banning child marriages, it would provide a legal leg for the federal government to stand on in forcing them to acknowledge gay marriages.

Conservatives in America have the most twisted set of ideals around, and all around that silly Bible. I think if Conservatives would put that book aside for a moment and think of their fellow man. They'd be okay. I've said it before and I'll say it again.
If there was no death, there'd be no religion.

[Tazirai]

So while Trump talks about wanting to get kill drug dealers, my senator, Ron Johnson, weighed in on that assessment.



Soooooooooo weak and noncommittal.


Also, just for s**ts and giggles, a random video of Trump forgetting something.

I don't agree with the Death Penalty at all. If it actually served a purpose and stopped people from committing future atrocities then fine. But as it stands it's basically a Minimum 25 year sentence, and you sit and rot with no chance of getting out of jail. While we pay for it.

Conservatives mainly like it because they favour retributive acts as a whole. But even Liberals like it to seem strong on crime or they favour it also.

[Gray Lensman]

Conservatives in America have the most twisted set of ideals around, and all around that silly Bible. I think if Conservatives would put that book aside for a moment and think of their fellow man. They'd be okay. I've said it before and I'll say it again.
If there was no death, there'd be no religion.

I don't know know what Bible they are reading, because I have my grandfather's bible (he was a Pentecostal pastor) and I can't find the stuff evangelical conservatives are talking about in it anywhere. I have my grandmother's as well and I think it says the same stuff his does.