US Politics: Let's Arm All the Teachers! 30 Pieces of Silver to Shoot a Student!

[A True Kaniggit]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Blackmail is a reason not to get a security clearance, or, at least, the potential you'll be blackmailed.

Yep. I remember this Airman I worked with turned out to have problems with debt. He got his security clearance revoked for an amount of money that only numbered in the 5 digits. 

[Ivan Tsarevich]

33 minutes ago, WinterFox said:

Joe Arpaio just won a Senate seat in Arizona.

Also, the Governor of said state just announced that they need federal funds to help hold the 19% of the population that has been declared of 'dubious' legality. 

Could I get a link/s?

[Darth Richard II]

46 minutes ago, WinterFox said:

Joe Arpaio just won a Senate seat in Arizona.

Also, the Governor of said state just announced that they need federal funds to help hold the 19% of the population that has been declared of 'dubious' legality. 

Wait what?

[Fragile Bird]

Huh? Joe Arpaio is running for US Senate, but the election isn't until November.

[Sivin]

It was a joke about how R's are gonna round up all the brown people and put them in concentration camps.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

27 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Yep. I remember this Airman I worked with turned out to have problems with debt. He got his security clearance revoked for an amount of money that only numbered in the 5 digits. 

Once upon a time the top 3 reasons for people with security clearances betraying the US were #1 financial gain, #2 blackmail, #3 ideology

When people with major financial problems were denied clearances, it often wasn't so much the debt itself, but the causes of the debt that was the red flag.

 

[LongRider]

6 hours ago, Shryke said:

It doesn't appear he had much of a choice. The picture that seems to be emerging is that he was scalp deep in debt and then it was basically suggested that he go work for Trump and not for money.

Asking because I really don't know, who 'suggested' that Manafort work for Trump for free? 

[Inigima]

Manafort did himself, I believe. 

[Shryke]

2 hours ago, Paladin of Ice said:

The Supreme Court ruled that immigrants, even asylum seekers and those with permanent legal residence, do not have the right to periodic bond hearings if they are held on charges. So immigrants have no rights against indefinite detention, and the Sixth Amendment (which notably does not have the word citizen in it, only "the accused" isn't worth the paper it's printed on. (Note: Since I'm not a lawyer, I'm sure one will be along shortly to tell me how due to some technicality I'm wrong.)

Text of the 6th Amendment:

Man, I hate to see what will happen when this country votes for an true authoritarian for president as opposed to a petty, narcissistic racist whose ego can't deal with people criticizing him. The institutions supposed to stand up to tyranny are a joke and would roll over in favor of a tyrant president in a heart beat, as long as he's from the right side. If such a person gets into office, liberties and rights will be stripped away and people will be thrown into camps in no time.

It's really not as bad as a few of the headlines are making it seem. It's not the SCOTUS saying immigrants have no right to a bond hearing, period. It's basically SCOTUS telling the 9th the reasoning behind their decision was bad and to come back with a different justification. It's basically SCOTUS yelling at the 9th about a procedural issue and telling it to do it properly next time. But more complicated and nuanced then that.

[Shryke]

3 hours ago, Mudguard said:

Your assertions are meaningless because the only way Trump gets removed early is if Mueller actually indicts Trump, or at the very least strongly condemns him in his report. 

Even worse, if nothing comes of Mueller's exhaustive investigation, Trump can credibly assert that he's innocent of all charges and it backs up his narrative that the investigation is just a witch hunt, that it's all fake news, blah blah blah.  It's naive to believe that what we already know about Trump is enough to bring him down, when much of your allegations were already known before Trump was elected.  Mueller needs to find the smoking gun, and I hope he does, or else we could have 8 years of Trump.

No, they are not as I literally pointed out in the post you are quoting. A court of law is not the only standard.

There are things we know to be true, which is a much wider net then things Mueller currently has the evidence to prove in court to such an extent that it could take down Trump. There's a ton of room between those two ideas.

We know Trump is balls deep in Russian money. We are waiting on people to finish digging it up.

[Shryke]

42 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Asking because I really don't know, who 'suggested' that Manafort work for Trump for free? 

Whoever the Russians with a hand up his ass are is most likely.

Manafort is tied up in Cyprus and that means Russian money.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Hey wait, I thought we were arming the students cause of bear attacks.

Perhaps you should have grizzlies guarding the schools and trained to attack someone who is holding a gun. Clearly if Trump can run in unarmed and end a shooting spree, a trained grizzly would be even more effective. And there would be no need for any trial nonsense, since the attacker (and only the attacker) would be bear pooh within about 48hrs of the event.

[DMC]

On 2/26/2018 at 5:06 PM, Kalbear said:

I'm not talking about either actually; I'm talking about state governments, not federal ones. Not that it matters much. States can obviously pick and choose how they want to take their proportionality and how they want to vote, without any real federal interference. Start there, show that it works, and move on. 

Yeah I wasn't really considering state governments, particularly as the conversation was in relation to gerrymandering in the House, but also due to my general lack of interest in state politics.

On 2/26/2018 at 5:06 PM, Kalbear said:

As to the Federal House, I'm talking about doing it on a state-by-state basis. There's no way to pass this at the federal level, and I wouldn't want to try. Instead, I'd want to do something similar to it for congress. My understanding is that house members are simply awarded based on the census and the total remaining at 438, and it is up to the states to decide how they want to divvy up their systems. In that case, the state can do whatever it wants so long as it elects its appointed members every 2 years. Heck, given all the arcane rules of replacements for someone who resigned at a state-by-state level this is cake. 

Yeah, this is the problem, or actually two interdependent problems, based on the assumption that each state still has a finite number of seats in the US House as apportioned by the census.  First, what is the threshold for the party vote?  If it's at 5%, it's quite likely a number of third parties will reach that threshold in many if not most states.  The general disdain many hold for both parties will see to that - hell, Gary Johnson received 3.3% of the popular vote in 2016 despite running a campaign in which his main platform seemed to be making voters wonder whether he should be institutionalized.  On top of the libertarians, due to how polarized many states are right now (e.g. Clinton received < 40% of the vote in 18 states while Trump did in 10 states), it's very likely Green parties and perhaps even socialist parties would rise in heavily Democratic states and, well, I don't even wanna know what type of parties that would rise in red states. 

Yet, none of these third parties are likely to win a plurality of any constituency seats, which leads to the second problem:  overhang.  Due to incumbency and the above, (at least one of) the two main parties would be very likely to win more constituency seats than they are proportionally entitled to under the party vote.  If each state has a set number of House seats, there's no way to rectify these discrepancies; you'd have to take away a constituency seat in order to give third parties their proportionally earned seat, and you could not add balancing seats to deal with the proportional entitlements in the case of overhang among the mainstream parties.  

On 2/26/2018 at 5:06 PM, Kalbear said:

MMP does indeed require a district vote and a party vote, though how picking your party is all that hard is really beyond me.

This is why I think you have a tenuous grasp on the rules.  There is no regard to any of the above endemic problems to introducing MMP to the US House; indeed it still appears as if you're merely referring to each state distributing their allocated House seats simply through PR.  If "picking your party" simply meant the district vote would be aligned to the party vote (as you seem to suggest), then that invalidates any impetus to change the rules:  the constituency vote is sufficient.  If not, and the seats allocated to each state are at a rigidly set proportion of 435 voting members (which is indeed federal law), then each state would necessarily be forced to choose between the party vote and the constituency vote.  The appeal of MMP is to combine these two, but it requires flexibility in the overall composition of the legislative body, a crucial aspect you do not appear to have considered in the slightest.

[all swedes are racist]

On 2/26/2018 at 6:07 PM, GAROVORKIN said:

Has anyone been watching the Supreme Court  deliberations on the labor case Janus vs AFSCME ?

yes, following it and it’s fucking terrifying. this will (and i have no doubt they will soon hand down a 5-4 decision in favor of Janus) essentially making right-to-work the law of the land. yall may cry about the norms and “way its done”s trump wipes his ass with, but this is the type of shit that actually kills america

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, unpaid comintern said:

yes, following it and it’s fucking terrifying. this will (and i have no doubt they will soon hand down a 5-4 decision in favor of Janus) essentially making right-to-work the law of the land. yall may cry about the norms and “way its done”s trump wipes his ass with, but this is the type of shit that actually kills america

Yep.  This was poised to happen then Scalia died.  So, I guess it's nice it got delayed two years.

[Paladin of Ice]

47 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

So, Democrats seem to be leading in early voting in Texas. Doesn't mean much this early, but still... Think this might be the year they flip the whale?

Nah, it's far too big a task, and the state is too gerrymandered for it to have any effect besides at the margins for this cycle.

Now, I'm hoping that in Arizona, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, (plus maybe a few others) Republicans will get a major slap in the face. I have fond hopes that Arizona might flip to slightly blue, or completely embrace being a purple state this cycle, but that's very much up for grabs and the state could just as easily turn to the hard right of the Republican party. We'll have to see.

[A True Kaniggit]

3 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Perhaps you should have grizzlies guarding the schools and trained to attack someone who is holding a gun. Clearly if Trump can run in unarmed and end a shooting spree, a trained grizzly would be even more effective. And there would be no need for any trial nonsense, since the attacker (and only the attacker) would be bear pooh within about 48hrs of the event.

Not sure how feasible this plan is. Don't grizzlies hibernate for a significant percentage of the year? 

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Not sure how feasible this plan is. Don't grizzlies hibernate for a significant percentage of the year? 

Soon we will be a land of always Summer, and there will be nowhere to hibernate.