U.S. Politics - pre-election ballot hijinx

[awesome possum]

Don´t forget US air force requiring everyone to swear religious allegiance.

Looks like the Air Force backed down on this one

After an airman was unable to complete his reenlistment because he omitted the part of a required oath that states “so help me God,” the Air Force changed its instructions for the oath.

Following a review of the policy by the Department of Defense General Counsel, the Air Force will now permit airmen to omit the phrase, should they so choose. That change is effective immediately, according to an Air Force statement.

“We take any instance in which Airmen report concerns regarding religious freedom seriously,” Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said in the statement. “We are making the appropriate adjustments to ensure our Airmen’s rights are protected.

To which I say: freaking duh!

[lokisnow]

I love this post by Berstein:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-17/angels-have-no-place-in-politics

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

What distinguishes humans from angels in that formulation isn’t that angels are perfect and people are sinners, but that angels don't have the human capacity for action -- for creating and changing their own worlds. Angels are in heaven, which is already perfect and needs no change; humans live in a world that is improvable and constantly changing, and we have the capacity to control change. Moreover, as Madison and the others discovered in the Revolution and the subsequent rounds of Constitution-writing, involvement in politics -- fulfilling the human capacity to effect change -- was a pleasurable activity (thus “public happiness”).

In this reading, Madison was hardly attempting to restrict political action through the Constitution, as has often been alleged. Instead, he was concerned about a crisis of democracy in which citizens worn out from the Revolution would retreat into purely private happiness, eschewing politics. The goal of the Constitution, then, was to re-engage people with politics, and one reason for making the system so convoluted was to ensure that voting alone would never be enough: The system of checks and balances guaranteed that the only way for people to get what they want out of the political system is for them to become actively engaged. And Madison’s hope was that once engaged, many citizens would discover the joys of public action.

If this is correct, the Constitution is neither liberal or republican. It is both. But critically, it is intended to encourage participation. And it seems to have worked. There is overwhelming evidence, from Tocqueville’s observations to modern surveys, that Americans are far more actively involved in politics than people in other large democracies.1

So if you want to celebrate the Constitution, you must get involved in politics.

[Inigima]

No, no...Rand Paul never supported anything like that! In fact, he is shocked -- shocked! -- that anyone would think so. Rand Paul loves the Civil Rights Act. He writes it letters. He brings it lunch. He loves it more than you.

This is my favorite TN post in all my years here

[Commodore]

hopefully it's not a wedding

[awesome possum]

Some idiot kid who was running for State Assembly in Wisconsin had to drop out of the race because, hey, maybe being racist and homophobic on social media isn't a good idea. Want to dare to guess what party he represented?

A Wisconsin Republican dropped out of the race for a seat on the state assembly on Tuesday after he admitted that he made offensive comments about gay and black people on social media, according to The Gazette.

Jacob Dorsey, a 19-year-old candidate challenging Democratic state Rep. Deb Kolste, apologized last week for referring to gay people as "fags" in a tweet.

In December 2013, Dorsey tweeted "fags need 2 leave my favorite state alone" after a judge decided not to stay the ruling that struck down Utah's gay marriage ban, according to theNOManiancs blog.

Now, Dorsey admitted that he made other offensive comments on Twitter and YouTube, which were discovered by the NOManiacs blog.

In comments on YouTube videos, he used the words "fags" and "niggers." In one comment he said "Niggers trash cars. I'm not selling my town car to one..." according to NOManiac's screenshots, which were also posted on the Janesville Community Facebook page.

But really, this is just another completely isolated case that in no way represents an underlying culture or acceptance of racism and bigotry in the Republican party.

[Suttree]

Despite the extremely limited threat they present, IS appears to be successfully trolling America.

So why are you in such a hurry to give them exactly what they want? Beating your chests and threatening to spend a billion-trillion-zillion dollars? That's not scaring terrorists. That's empowering them by treating them like a much more serious threat than they actually represent. Threatening to drop more Americans right there where they can be killed by the thousands? Please. You're making them drool.

Understand, they don't care if they lose on the battlefield. Winning the battle means nothing. Khe Sahn was a battlefield victory. Hell, every battle of the Iraq invasion was a victory. How'd that work out for you? Going to war in this situation only shows that you've surrendered the only thing that is an actual weapon against terrorists: reason.

Please, people, root through your old VHS tapes and unearth your copy of Wargames. Now, fast forward to the end where you can hear the wisdom of a computer with the brain power of an old Atari cartridge: the only winning move, is not to play.

& RR weighing in:

Is the war against ISIS that we’re now entering an intentional distraction from domestic problems Republicans don’t want to deal with and Democrats would rather we disregard? Median household incomes are down over 8 percent from where they were in 2000, and still falling. The percent of working-age Americans in jobs is the lowest in over three decades. More of the nation’s income is going to corporate profits and less to wages than we’ve seen in over sixty years. Almost all the gains from economic growth are flowing to the top. Congress is so gridlocked it won’t raise the minimum wage (now 25% below its real value in 1968), or put people to work repairing our crumbling infrastructure, or raise taxes on the rich to pay for better schools for our kids.

Yet all we’re hearing about is ISIS (or ISIL), our bombing raids, and whether we should send in more “advisors." In the late 1960s, when Lyndon Johnson’s “war on poverty” stalled, attention turned to Vietnam. In 2003, when George W. Bush couldn’t move his domestic agenda, he decided to invade Iraq. Is there a pattern here?

[awesome possum]

Did we lose a bunch of posts here or is this upper respiratory infection making me hallucinate? I swear I thought I saw more just a few minutes ago.

Nevermind, looks like they got swiped into the education thread.

Possum: Uh, I'm not sure you want to climb on that horse just yet. He's 19. I'd really rather not have stuff I said when I was 16 on the internet dragged up into the public consciousness either, since, well, I've grown up a lot since then. I didn't use racial slurs, but I'm sure I used gendered ones at some point. I don't remember a lot of it, possibly as a defense mechanism, but just knowing mid-teen males makes me sure I was a little shit.

I both agree and disagree. Yes, everyone does and says stupid things when they're a teenager - I could write an entire book about the stupid shit I did as a teen - but racism just doesn't seem like the kind of thing that you can wave away with, "Oh, those hateful, racist things I said a couple years ago? Yeah that was just me being a male teen on the internet. No biggie."

If he were in his 20s or 30s and had a body of evidence to show he wasn't that same person, then maybe I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. But I don't really know anyone, especially teenagers, whose entire world views would change within two or three years. Especially when they start out so vitriolic.

[all swedes are racist]

I think they just moved to the new US Higher Ed thread

[TrackerNeil]

So depressing:

Of course, the question is if these security concerns will actually motivate voting. 2014 is not 2002.

[aceluby]

So depressing:

What I find most depressing is that they turn to the party that let 9/11 happen, blamed all the wrong people, invaded sovereign countries for basically no reason, and cost us trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives.

How in the HELL can a party do this and still 'seem' like it's better on foreign policy. Makes zero sense.

[TerraPrime]

What I find most depressing is that they turn to the party that let 9/11 happen, blamed all the wrong people, invaded sovereign countries for basically no reason, and cost us trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives.

How in the HELL can a party do this and still 'seem' like it's better on foreign policy. Makes zero sense.

Cod piece on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

[Paladin of Ice]

The fact that this "Republicans are the party of foreuign policy and security" bullshit is making any kind of comeback is a testimony to how quickly people forget the lessons they should have learned and how effective Republican propaganda is. I mean, somehow the party that took their eye off Osama, knocked over a country, killed millions of civilians, made said country into a training and breeding ground for terrorism, helped to form ISIS in the first place and got thousands of our own people killed and spent trillions doing it is the part of foreign policy, while the party that killed Osama, overthrew dictators without boots on the ground and found a way to avoid becoming entangled in foreign wars is not.

I mean, the average Democrat has at best a flawed and often a flat out dumb understanding of dealing with foreign powers and events, but that's still light years ahead of Republicans. What the actual fuck, people?

[BloodRider]

Despite the extremely limited threat they present, IS appears to be successfully trolling America.

This so completely sums up my feelings on this. Why would we let them control us and set our national agenda.

[Paladin of Ice]

Also, the court system, especially for anyone who uses a public defender, is becoming more and more broken in my home state every year.

A new report from the New York Civil Liberties Union reveals that defendants who can’t afford a private lawyer routinely appear at arraignments without a court-appointed counsel in several counties, despite a New York court ruling that held the right to a lawyer applies at that phase of the case. When lawyers do enter an indigent defendant’s case, they have felony caseloads up to five times the maximum loads recommended by experts and bar associations. In Suffolk County, appointed lawyers did not consult experts in a single case they handled. And in Onondaga County, the funds spent on prosecutor investigations is nearly 35 times the money devoted to investigations for criminal defendants.

For Lane Lozell, accused of stealing $20, time in jail meant losing his job. Not having a lawyer at his arraignment meant he was sent to jail pending trial when he was not able to afford the $2,500 bail. And being in jail pending trial meant he could not even make contact when his lawyer when he had one. After months of not hearing from his lawyer, he pleaded guilty to three months in jail to end his incarceration.

James Adams also lost his job. He had a lawyer in a case accusing him of stealing deodorant from a drug store, but he couldn’t reach him from behind bars. When he used his jail phone calls to try to reach his attorney, his voice mailbox was full, and his office did not accept collect calls. Even after hints from the judge that Adams had been overcharged with felony burglary and robbery, Adams’ lawyer did not file a motion to dismiss — until the judge ordered him to do to so.

Ray Robinson was arrested after his girlfriend reported that she had threatened to kill him. After getting a call from the police, he voluntarily appeared at the police station because he knew he was innocent. But when he got there he was arrested and placed in a holding cell, his phone confiscated. Robinson’s lawyer urged him to plead guilty to a felony, but for months, Robinson urged his lawyer to just look at the text messages on his phone. When Robinson finally convinced the judge to review the evidence, both the prosecutor and public defender looked at his text message, and agreed that Robinson was guilty of nothing more than a violation warranting a fine. “Half a year of court proceedings could have been avoided if Robinson’s attorney had looked at one single piece of evidence — the text message on Robinson’s phone,” the report explains.

Lawyers in several of these cases arguably fell short of their constitutional duty to provide effective assistance of counsel. But they don’t have the time or the resources to do otherwise. Cagnina recalled numerous times when a client sat in jail for days because no one contacted her office to tell her about an arraignment before a long weekend. “If a person had a private attorney, they’d be able to get ahold of them right away,” she said. Cagnina, who worked in Onondaga County, said it was “next to impossible” to get investigators who would work on her cases because of the “miserably low compensation rate.”

“I was never able to represent people the way I wanted to or the way the Constitution required,” she said. The NYCLU’s Corey Stoughton said lawyers are “overwhelmed by hundreds more cases than any person, even a superhuman lawyer, could handle.”

[Wee baby Shamus]

Despite the extremely limited threat they present, IS appears to be successfully trolling America.

& RR weighing in:

It seems that you are mistaken.

New York Man Charged With Trying to Recruit ISIS Fighters in US

http://abcnews.go.com/US/york-man-charged-recruit-isis-fighters-us/story?id=25552426

[Suttree]

It seems that you are mistaken.

Yawn. That in no way invalidates anything that was said.

Nice work keeping this alt around so long btw. Good luck with that.

[Wee baby Shamus]

Actually it does validate what was said. If you follow the guys advice in the link you provided then you would be like an ostrich by burring your head in the sand.

There are many Muslim Americans who support organizations that the US government has deemed to be terrorist organizations.

Here is one example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuNva3j12X0

At the end of the video she says that she for Hamas.

One doesn't need to be scared but you should keep your eyes open.

[TerraPrime]

Actually it does validate what was said. If you follow the guys advice in the link you provided then you would be like an ostrich by burring your head in the sand.

There are many Muslim Americans who support organizations that the US government has deemed to be terrorist organizations.

Here is one example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuNva3j12X0

At the end of the video she says that she for Hamas.

One doesn't need to be scared but you should keep your eyes open.

I would think that given the diversity of people's life experience, that you will find supporters of extremist groups in the U.S., even without YouTube evidence. I mean, Tim McVeigh was home grown and he blew up a Federal building. People who need reminders that there are Americans who support these organizations are naive at best.

[Wee baby Shamus]

I would think that given the diversity of people's life experience, that you will find supporters of extremist groups in the U.S., even without YouTube evidence. I mean, Tim McVeigh was home grown and he blew up a Federal building. People who need reminders that there are Americans who support these organizations are naive at best.

Agreed with everything you said Terra or they are apart of said terrorist organization or wish to be.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

SYC,

Should the US be concerned about Orthodox Christians who unquestioningly support Valdimir Putin?