U.S. Politics: Having a Good Time

[Dr. Pepper]

2 hours ago, Sword of Doom said:

And birth control coverage is reversed. I just want to thank along the whiny bernie or busters, the purity seekers, the ones who couldn't "get excited" for allowing Trump to win.

 

Way to allow a generation of people to be under a conservative SCOTUS and progress to actually stop and regress. Thank you for allowing the civil rights of others to be attacked, privileged fools.

I seriously just can't.  

And of course they are also attacking all the social programs that would help support the babies that will now be conceived because women can't afford birth control.

[Morpheus]

1 minute ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I seriously just can't.  

And of course they are also attacking all the social programs that would help support the babies that will now be conceived because women can't afford birth control.

Right to life ends once you exit your mother, after that its fuck you entitled babies, get a job, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, healthcare is not a right......

[Zorral]

42 minutes ago, Sword of Doom said:

This is an important read.
http://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck-into-seattles-super-secret-white-nationalist-convention

This is not a surprise, considering how so many male techies think that women are unfit to be in the industries, and this should scare all decent thinking people:

Quote

According to my observations, the standard Seattle Nazi is a white male under 30 who either works in the tech industry or is going to school to work in the tech industry.

Quote

Much bleaker is Dr. Johnson’s Seattle-suitable, “secret agent” racism plan. Basically, white nationalists meet in secret at conventions like Northwest Forum while paying “lip service to diversity” at their day jobs. They move into positions of power where they can hire other racists and keep non-whites from getting into the company. Two years ago, this method would have seemed like a total joke, but these guys really do mostly work in tech, and they were doing a lot of networking. When talking about the people he has counseled on the “secret agent” method, Dr. Johnson has written that they include “college professors, writers, artists, designers, publishers, creative people working in the film industry, businessmen, and professionals, some of them quite prominent in their fields.” When I told Dr. Johnson I was reluctant to use my super film editing skills 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Hahahaha:

Quote

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), the embattled anti-abortion lawmaker who allegedly encouraged his lover to terminate a pregnancy, on Thursday announced his plan to resign from office later this month — just a day after announcing his plan to retire following the 2018 election.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/05/tim-murphy-resigns-from-congress-243510

[Darth Richard II]

Karma's a bitch.

[Bonnot OG]

40 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I seriously just can't.  

And of course they are also attacking all the social programs that would help support the babies that will now be conceived because women can't afford birth control.

Lauren Duca had a really good tweet about this. Said they don't want people to get abortions or have birth control so babies can get gunned down by assault riffles. 
 

 

22 minutes ago, Zorral said:

This is not a surprise, considering how so many male techies think that women are unfit to be in the industries, and this should scare all decent thinking people:

 

Yup. The tech community is really filled with some scumbags. 

This is this is also an important paragraph. 

"Virtually every time I use the word “Nazi” I’m using it as an insult. In the world of millennial white nationalism, there aren't a ton of people who actually self-identify as Nazis. Despite usually agreeing with everything the Nazis did and believing the Holocaust is just “anti-white propaganda,” they always claim a technical reason for why they aren’t “National Socialists.” None of these reasons would ever make sense to anybody outside the community and “I’m not a Nazi, but” is one of the most common white nationalist recruitment tricks to have people hear them out."



BTW, this Wolfenstein ad / tweet has pissed off so many Trump supporters and white supremacists lol. 

The game does look interesting as well. 

[Red Tiger]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hahahaha:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/05/tim-murphy-resigns-from-congress-243510

Yeah I read that one. It's pathetic. Reminds me of that Scott Desjarlais guy.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Yeah I read that one. It's pathetic. Reminds me of that Scott Desjarlais guy.

It shocking how often this actually occurs. It's what lets you know that Republicans often don't even buy there BS. This is a personal favorite:

Quote

“It doesn’t matter what I do,” Gingrich once said to Marianne Gingrich, the second wife he dumped after 18 years to marry his mistress Calista Bisek.   “People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say.  It doesn’t mater what I live.”

This was said in private while he was trying to impeach Slick Willy.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

@Kalbear, it's pretty much exactly what we thought it would be, nation wide voter suppression:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/hardline-voting-plan-landed-trump-s-desk-last-year-now-n808371

This little bit really stood out to me, though it's not shocking at all:

Quote

The documents give a glimpse into the hardline plan Kobach, a strict voter ID advocate, proposed to the president regarding voting rights, before Kobach joined the president's Election Integrity Commission to examine nationwide voting issues.

As expected, the EIC is a sham. 

[Red Tiger]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

It shocking how often this actually occurs. It's what lets you know that Republicans often don't even buy there BS. This is a personal favorite:

This was said in private while he was trying to impeach Slick Willy.

Didn't he serve divorce papers to his ex-wife while she was battling cancer?

[Week]

9 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Didn't he serve divorce papers to his ex-wife while she was battling cancer?

Yes, he's a real peach.

eta- Really ME? I'll have to look - I had not heard it had been debunked.

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/12/the-gingrich-divorce-myth/

So, she was passed fighting cancer -- though still in the hospital. Not quite as ghoulish. He's still a garbage person even though he is innocent of that allegation.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

5 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Didn't he serve divorce papers to his ex-wife while she was battling cancer?

I choose to continue to believe that story despite the fact that is had been sort of debunked. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

28 minutes ago, Week said:

Yes, he's a real peach.

eta- Really ME? I'll have to look - I had not heard it had been debunked.

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/12/the-gingrich-divorce-myth/

So, she was passed fighting cancer -- though still in the hospital. Not quite as ghoulish. He's still a garbage person even though he is innocent of that allegation.

Yeah, that was one of my favorite bits from Al Franken's first book Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. Apparently, both Newt and his wife deny that it happened in the manner that Franken described. It seems that it's about half true. He did have her sign divorce papers when she was in the hospital recovering from surgery, but the divorce had been all but finalized at that point, and she was more or less out of the woods in terms of the cancer diagnosis. Still a pretty shitty thing to do, especially for the architect of the whole "Family Values" thing. 

[Red Tiger]

2 hours ago, Week said:

Yes, he's a real peach.

eta- Really ME? I'll have to look - I had not heard it had been debunked.

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/12/the-gingrich-divorce-myth/

So, she was passed fighting cancer -- though still in the hospital. Not quite as ghoulish. He's still a garbage person even though he is innocent of that allegation.

 

2 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I choose to continue to believe that story despite the fact that is had been sort of debunked. 

I was honestly asking, I wasn't sure if it was real.

[OldGimletEye]

On 10/6/2017 at 10:59 AM, Mother Cocanuts said:

Dominance implies some form of action.

Oh, that’s very profound. It must have taken months, no, years to think up this one. Anyway.
 

On 10/6/2017 at 10:59 AM, Mother Cocanuts said:

If we are just dealing in generalizations, then what does "dominance" matter to the individual white person?

Is Jim Crow just a “generalization” to you. Or how about the institution of slavery? Seriously?

You know, I didn’t think I would have to bring up the most obvious and egregious cases of prejudice and power, in this discussion, as I didn’t want to be like Biff going McFly! McFly! Anybody home! Think McFly, think.

But, I guess we’re going to have to do this by the numbers and break it down like kindergarten style.

If you go back to way back when, right before the Civil War, you might have had a group of African Americans who hated all white people. But, what of it? I mean it’s fine to say, I suppose, that they shouldn’t have hated all white people as at least some of them were abolitionist and you had Jim Brown, but really what could a group of people in bondage do with their prejudice. Little. They had no power to do anything. White people on the other hand could cause all types of damage.

Or go to after the Civil War during the era of Jim Crow. Say you have a group of African American sharecroppers that hate all white people. What of it? It’s not like their prejudice really gets translated into any type of meaningful policy action because they have little political or economic power.

This is the essence of the prejudice + power idea.

Now I didn’t use the examples and of the institution of slavery or Jim Crow to make the point because I didn’t think I had to. But, it looks like were going to have to back to basics here.

Anyway, I used the example of redlining (and not because its the only example) because I was trying to  show how that this stuff doesn’t always operate in the most in your face manner, but often happens at a lower level. I mean lots of people know about slavery and they know about Jim Crow, but may not always be aware of bad policy actions taken at a level that isn’t as visible. And secondly, I did it because I wanted show that bad policy actions can have a detrimental effect that can last a very long time, even after the policy has ended. I mean, from what the authors state, the policy of using race explicitly ended in the 1940s, but they still were able to find it’s effects until 2010.

You know its almost like your are trying to say that examining how policy is made and how it affects minority groups isn’t even a worthy line of scholarly inquiry because that would be a “generalization” according to you. But, we do know, or should know that how majority groups make decisions often impact minority groups in negative ways because the policy was designed specifically to do that or maybe the reason was because the interest of a minority group, with less political or economic power, was overlooked. 

And we should look into this stuff and see how it works. Often because sometimes it may not be case the policy action or decision was made with overt prejudice in mind, but it operates more subtlety.

The point of this isn’t about making all white people feel bad. It’s largely about before you take policy action X have you really thought through how this action might adversely affect some minority group that historically has lacked both politic and economic power? Now we can quibble whether policy action X does or does not in fact adversely impact some minority group, but the idea that a rule, policy, action, law or whatever might, should be you know, front and center in our radar screen.

As such, your analogy here is about as useful as saying that white people, as a group, really like mayonnaise. What you are doing here is basically saying,”Looky there fire!!!” and then hoping we will get distracted enough to not pay attention to the subject under discussion, which is whether the prejudice + power concept is a viable concept. It’s not remotely helpful here.
 

On 10/6/2017 at 10:59 AM, Mother Cocanuts said:

No, it's no secret. But this does not absolve the decisions of poor black people especially since the government no longer sanctions these practices.

Look, I’m not saying personal decision making isn’t important. But, it isn’t enough. Lots of these particular problems are linked to a long and sorry history of racism.

What you are doing here is the simple old conservative “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” shtick. It simply doesn’t cut it. For one, there is growing evidence that social mobility in the US simply isn’t what conservatives say or think it is. Whatever class you are born into, there is a good chance you are going to stay there.

And conservatives love the simple old “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” story because they think they can say, “uh well we passed some civil rights bills back in the 1960s (which many conservatives opposed, I’d point out), so I guess we can wash our hands of that!!!” The pull yourself up by the bootstraps story has always been beloved by conservative sorts of people because they think they simply wash their hands of the issue of racism. And then conservative sorts people sit there and wonder, “golly how did these alt right guys into the Republican Party!!!”.

On 10/6/2017 at 10:59 AM, Mother Cocanuts said:

I already know of the practices you mentioned.

Did you really? Then why are you talking about “generalizations”. Why is the prejudice + power concept so controversial to you? I’m thinking maybe you didn’t know about this stuff or spent little time thinking about it.

On 10/6/2017 at 10:59 AM, Mother Cocanuts said:

Yes it does. The issue as I pointed out is not about whether white people care about fairness but their assuming responsibility for some "dominance" of which they are not apart. That's why I brought up the murder rate and created an analogy involving some random black person. I could just as easily say to said random black person, "if you care about life, then acknowledge that black people are the perpetrators of nearly half of all murders in this country." Why would that black person's interest in protecting life be affected by a racial inequality then a white person's interest in fairness be affected by a racial inequality?

Looky there guys fire!!!! If you’re lucky lots of people will turn there heads and take their eyes off the ball.

Anyway, I've already addressed this.

On 10/6/2017 at 10:59 AM, Mother Cocanuts said:

No, what you explained is that researchers controlled for a variety of factors that explained 82% of the gap, and that 18% remained unexplained. The researchers then deduced that the unexplained portion could be a result of discrimination, differences in school quality, or career opportunities. Your assumption is that it's racism. And I've asked you to support it. You think historical context provides some form of weight, but it doesn't. Your assumption is still no less an assumption. I don't need to provide an alternative theory because I never said that it wasn't racism. I only posited that you considered that it may not be racism. At the end of the day, you have little support for your assumption.

Now you should be damn well aware that we are not going to have variables that directly measure racism in wage setting or hiring decisions. It would be nice if we had such a variable to throw into a regression, but we don’t have it for several reasons.

So you do the best you can, with the data you have. If all your covariates that should explain most the wage gap, as suggested by economic theory, doesn’t, then something really strange is going on. And when you have a history of racism, the leading explanation is likely racism in some form.

And explain to me just how exactly a history of racism doesn’t support the inference of racism. Explain that one. It should be interesting to say the least.

I think what you are trying to pull here is basically garbage. You’re basically saying, “well golly it could be anything, it could libertarian fairy dust, it could be because of  phlogiston, it could be because of little green mean or gnomes, or maybe it’s gremlins, golly it could be lots of things, but whatever it is, I’m not going to suggest any theory that could plausibly explain the data cause I don’t have one.”

I believe a lot in empricism. I believe it’s truly useful in separating out the crap from the non crap. But, I also know, we never have as much data as we would like. Given the sorry history of racism in this country, a history that we’ve only recently began to grapple with, we should have a very strong prior that is what is at play here. The researchers put in about every covariate they could to explain the wage gap and still got a lot more variance than they should have had.

And I think it’s a load of horseshit for you to sit here and say, “nope, nope no racism at all cause, cause we don’t have any direct measure of it.”

You say, I’m making assumptions here. No I am not. I am looking at what the data says, controlled for a variety of variables, seeing a good portion of wage gap unexplained, and then piecing together the general historical record here and putting things together. I’m not doing assumptions. Its more like making reasonable inferences off what is known. No assumptions for me.  You however are grasping for straws here by saying, “golly it could be gremlins, philogiston, or something.”

Also, just as an aside, I have to wonder if things like length of education or industry/occupation are truly exogenous here and not affected by racism as well. If they are, then the potential effect of racism could be biased downward.

ETA: Forgot to address:

Quote

especially since the government no longer sanctions these practices.

Well I’d like to believe this. But, you know, with the Orange monster getting elected and all, I have my doubts we're done with this stuff.. I mean we just had the Orange monster pardoning Arpaio, who went out and violated the civil rights of Latinos and was told to stop by a federal court and ignored it. And then you have the orange monster making all types of unfair and inaccurate statements about minorities.

But a lot of this stuff doesn’t necessarily have to be about having a vindictive intent. A lot of it just can be about simple oversight and not asking lots of questions about how a policy, rule, procedure, or course of action might negatively impact some minority group. Again, this isn’t about just making every white person feel bad. A lot of it is about asking them to think about and try to spot this stuff.

[Bonnot OG]

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/whitehall/mc-nws-whitehall-daycare-racist-letter-20171006-story.html

This is disgusting. A daycare in PA received an anonymous letter that said this. 

"Hello I am writing this as a concerned parent and friend!

So most of us noticed you have a black girl working for the daycare. Our problem is she’s too dark most of the kids is scared of her. I am only telling you this because some of us are planning to pull our kid form the daycare shes an eye sore. I see you’re trying to touch all of the nationalities but maybe hire a light skinned black she would blend more and not look like a “NANNY”. She’s not the first thing a child nor the parents want to see soon as they walk in the daycare. So the choice is yours! Choose wisely remember WE THE PARENTS PAY YOUR MORTAGE. I hope you make her aware shes not wanted. I’m sending her a copy as well. However if she needs a job Mcdonalds is always hiring her kind. So work your magic and make it disappear!!!

P.S. Just trying “TO MAKE YOUR DAYCARE GREAT AGAIN”

 

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah things like that make me understand where Ultron was coming from.

[Bonnot OG]

So anytime we have talked about the danger of nazis (which the alt right very much are) I have constantly forgotten to say just exactly what they do when they dox someone. Besides trying to intimidate people by showing up to their house, stalking them, slipping a person a drugged beverage when they are out at public events, they also do something called swatting.

Swatting, for those of you that don't know, is when someone calls the police on someone eles and lies about them being armed, having drugs, or having hostages in their home, or that they (the caller) is a hostage in the person's home they are swatting. This is done with the hope that who ever answers the door is met with that shoot first ask questions later mentality, or at the very least hurt for being uncooperative. 

Gamergate assholes have done this since that shit became a thing, (a shit "movement Milo Yiannopoulos very much helps/helped perpetuate), and many of those gamergate pricks are alt right nazi scumbags. There are also a ton of popular youtube "skeptics" that help push this bullshit as well that also are gateways to Richard Spencer and other alt right neo nazis. 

[Darth Richard II]

Ugh, I didn't know Swatting had become a thing outside the gamer community but I'm not surprised.

[DireWolfSpirit]

So as shitty as learning about the extensive Russian tampering in American elections has been this year, a part of me has been reminding myself "What goes around, comes around."

I googled- "Examples of America tampering with foreign elections". Apparently there are 81 cases where the U.S. has pretty much exhibited the same shitty behavior Russia has. Heres just a snippet of the reporting on this from a quick google- 

Government's Own Data Shows US Interfered In 81 Foreign Elections

MintPress News › governments-own-data...

---

Mar 22, 2017 · Ask an average American who makes a habit of following government- mouthpiece corporate media ... Asked for examples where this tampering tangibly altered results, Levin stated,.

 

 

The long history of the U.S. interfering with elections elsewhere ...

Washington Post › news › 2016/10/13

---

Oct 27, 2016 · U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shakes hands with Chilean Foreign Minister Ismale Huerta ...

 

 

Americans can spot election meddling because they've been doing ...

The Guardian › ... › US elections 2016

---

Jan 5, 2017 · ... that's an outrage. But then so is the long US record of foreign interference. ... Very strange!” Did Putin intervene in the US election? .... There are more recent examples too. Take the ...

 

 

The U.S. Has Been Meddling In Other Countries' Elections For A ...

Huffington Post › entry › the-us-has-bee...

---

Jul 27, 2016 · Indeed, meddling in foreign politics is a great American pastime, and one that Clinton has .... An assessment was done, but if the agency found any examples, none have ever surfaced.

Noam Chomsky on the Long History of US Meddling in Foreign ...

Truth Out › opinion › item › 39159-noa...

---

Jan 27, 2017 · US efforts to tip foreign elections have gone far beyond hacking -- including financial support and assassinations. ... Yet it is true that there have been cases where the US was directly ...

 

 

Pretty rephrehensible behavior by the Russians in the 2016 elections, But Americans should realize that their own government has several examples where theyve sank just as low.