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U.S. Politics: Dining on Doritos with Derrida and Donald


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1 minute ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Well, your probabilities killed my boner.

LOL

1 minute ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

For the 1.5-2.0 million, I agree.  For the 4.0 million, I think they were voting against the major parties, not in favor of the minor ones.

Sure they certainly were voting against both parties.  The problem was a significant majority of those voters voted for Obama, or Democrat, or would have.

3 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

The smear was definitely real.  His involvement is less certain.  But, c'mon, yeah he totally did it.

Atwater at least had his deathbed "come to Jesus" moment, so that's something.  

His involvement is pretty damn certain.  And Atwater at his deathbed doesn't mean shit.  I don't believe in hell but he deserves to burn in it.

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This thread moves so quickly that I missed the discussion of Kuhn, but the point I really wanted to make there is that the scientists described by Kuhn might be influenced by their paradigm away from results which are true, but not consistent with the paradigm, but they would not deliberately lie. This is not the case with the institutions that are no longer trusted.

@OldGimletEye, regarding this comment:

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Which group or groups are we talking about here?
Are we talking about white people, and particularly male white people, that feel they are being screwed as they are losing status relative to other groups? Its hard to have a lot of sympathy with this one.
Or we talking about the average Joe and Jane that feel like they have gotten a raw deal over the last 30 or 40 years? This one is pretty much true and needs to be addressed.

We're talking about everyone. White people feel they're being screwed, yes, but so does every racial minority group. Even people who make 2-3 times the median family income quite often aren't happy because the most common way to make this kind of money is to live in a place where the taxes and rents are such that by the time you're done paying them, a low six figure income is barely middle class (in some places, low six figures is actually considered low income).

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5 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

"getting worse" doesn't change what's mainstream. It just means that mainstream US (and thus over time "Western") social norms are getting worse, according to the perspective of people who used to think of themselves as part of the mainstream a few years ago. Of course according to the Natsie among us, the mainstream is getting better. So even getting worse is a matter of perspective, which is where the car engine analogy falls down. 

Of course if the runaway hothouse becomes our new climate mainstream the survivors among us might be living in a post-apocalyptic hellscape for a while. So today's political worries might seem quaint by comparison within my (yet to be conceived) grandchildrens' lifetimes.

Yeah, no.  If you have a machine operating at some dynamic equilibrium, you twist one of the dials, the machine registers this and finds a new equilibrium.  This is not the moral equivalent of ripping the dial out of the panel and replacing it with a stick of dynamite.

You have a cavalcade of bullshit coming out of the Whitehouse, so fast and furious I can barely keep up with it.  Yet this barely gets a word of rebuke from people in his own party.  You have a supreme court justice die, and within days the Senate Majority leader makes a statement where he says "We aren't even going to have hearings to confirm any nominee Obama puts forward". These are not an examples of a machine working a little differently, this is an example of a machine that's broken.

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24 minutes ago, Altherion said:

This thread moves so quickly that I missed the discussion of Kuhn, but the point I really wanted to make there is that the scientists described by Kuhn might be influenced by their paradigm away from results which are true, but not consistent with the paradigm, but they would not deliberately lie. This is not the case with the institutions that are no longer trusted.

I can empathize with the thread moving too quickly - that's why I won't respond to anything that's been sitting there for a couple of days.  The rest of this is a way-too-long sentence I have a hard time following.  Honestly, get back when you clarify your thoughts, because the correlation between how Kuhn "might be influenced" to institutions is entirely unclear.

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So apparently it's necessary to take this time to declaratively say accusing Jill Stein of being a Russian operative is especially stupid.  I don't know nor like Stein and her politics.  But I have met and talked to Nader on multiple occasions, and he's a legitimate American hero.  In spite of the fact many people have a much more credible argument that he affected an election.  As for Stein's affect in 2016?  It's not much:

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The comparison to 2000 and Nader in particular doesn’t hold. In 2000, only a small fraction of Florida voters for Nader — about half of a percent! — would have needed to vote Gore to give Gore the election. This isn’t what we’re talking about in 2016: Based on Wasserman’s numbers, the margins suggest that more than 94 percent of Pennsylvania Stein voters, 72 percent of Wisconsin Stein voters, and 21 percent of Michigan Stein voters would have had to go for Clinton if Stein wasn’t on the ticket.

 If you are holding onto the belief that Jill Stein, or Gary Johnson for that matter, intentionally affected the outcome in 2016, you are very very stupid.

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More normalized election fraud from split 'voters' for a independent:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/special-prosecutor-investigating-possible-election-fraud-in-rep-scott-taylors-race/2018/08/07/e95e6fac-99c2-11e8-843b-36e177f3081c_story.html?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_term=.33c301e5f7d7

 

And if by some miracle it's proven... well, you didn't expect congress to do its job and impeach did you? Cutoffs at  every point, that's the Russian/GOP MO.

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Well, I understand the disappointment in Ohio. Lets look at a great result in Missouri, a solid defeat of their Right to Work Law:

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Missouri voters on Tuesday solidly rejected the state’s right-to-work law, which would have allowed workers to opt out of paying mandatory union fees as part of their contract. 

The Associated Press called the results shortly before 11 p.m., with 63 percent of voters opposing the state law that had not yet gone into effect. Roughly 37 percent of voters supported the law, with 54 percent of precincts reporting as of 10:50 p.m. EST.

The state’s general assembly passed the law last year, according to The Kansas City Star. Then-Gov. Eric Greitens (R) later signed the measure, but it was not enacted because a coalition of labor groups petitioned to put it to a vote.

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/400836-voters-reject-missouri-right-to-work-law

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I don't think Ohio was a disappointment considering the margin.  Then we have:

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The top prosecutor in St. Louis looks likely to be defeated. Bob McCulloch, criticized by activists for not pushing hard enough for an indictment of the officer who shot Michael Brown, is down by 10 percentage points to a challenger named Wesley Bell. Activists involved in Black Lives Matter had been campaigning to defeat McCulloch. About 90 percent of the vote is in, so Bell is very likely to win.

And...

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We have over 100,000 votes now in both the 3rd and 5th districts of Washington, and boy howdy, are they not what Republicans wanted to see.

In the 3rd District, which was supposed to be Likely if not Solid Republican, Democrats combined vote totals are outpacing Republicans’, 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent. It looks like that contest will be between GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Democrat Carolyn Long in November.

And in the 5th District, a Republican-leaning seat, Republicans only lead Democrats by an aggregate of 50.5 to 47.1 percent. That race will be between GOP Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (the highest-ranking Republican woman in the House) and Democrat Lisa Brown.

 

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2 hours ago, Serious Callers Only said:

Jill Stein is a documented Putin plant, as is the Green Party in this current situation sadly. A good way to vote fraud for Putin though.

 

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Ah, so you're willing to believe bullshit akin to the right's habitual absurdity.  Also, Jeremy Scahill is a pathetic voyeur at best, he's not a legitimate journalist.

I don't believe Jill Stein is a Russian asset, though these days I might not even be surprised if that turned out to be true.  At worst she, and the Greens in general are useful idiots for reactionaries.  What the hell was she doing on that Russian field trip anyway?

I'm probably harder on the US Green party than I should be but here's why.  If you're a Green party voter, you obviously care about certain issues: The environment, social justice, gender issues, the military industrial complex, you get the picture.  Now, the Democrats might not be great on these issues, but the Republicans are fucking horrible on these issues, as has been amply demonstrated by the current administration.

So, if your reluctance to pull the lever for a Dem you don't like means a Republican you hate wins an election, what exactly has your social awareness accomplished?  Like I said before, in a state that's up for grabs, decide which candidate you fear more and vote for their opposite number.

Before the election, Jimmy Dore made the comment that for progressives there was no difference between Trump and Clinton because they will have to fight them all the same.  He was fantastically wrong about this.  Yes, Progressives would have to do battle with Hillary to advance their agenda.  Trump? With a Republican congress and the courts up for grabs?  Progressives don't even get invited to the rumble.  They simply get ignored. 

The Tea Party people, for all their faults, got this right.  They could have broken away from the Republican party and been relegated to irrelevance.  Instead, they co-opted a big chunk of it.  Now they have their people in congress.  They get a seat at the table and have influence in decision making, to the joy of all.  Progressives seem to be tuning into this.

But this presents another problem. Those "corporate democrats" that many progressive rightly criticize are still going to be in the frame.  Is the resurgent left wing of the party willing to make common cause  with these people to defeat Republicans?  

Note: the link has some strong sentiments and, ah, poorly chosen language.

 

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6 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

I don't believe Jill Stein is a Russian asset, though these days I might not even be surprised if that turned out to be true.  At worst she, and the Greens in general are useful idiots for reactionaries.  What the hell was she doing on that Russian field trip anyway?

I don't know what that link was supposed to do, but it was old and grainy and began with Dan Savage trying to creepily convince me of something.  I love Savage, but no.

ANYWHO..the rest of the post is ultimately just another rendition of the 2016 election.  I honestly couldn't care less.

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

So apparently it's necessary to take this time to declaratively say accusing Jill Stein of being a Russian operative is especially stupid.  I don't know nor like Stein and her politics.  But I have met and talked to Nader on multiple occasions, and he's a legitimate American hero.  In spite of the fact many people have a much more credible argument that he affected an election.  As for Stein's affect in 2016?  It's not much:

 If you are holding onto the belief that Jill Stein, or Gary Johnson for that matter, intentionally affected the outcome in 2016, you are very very stupid.

Every time I see an interview or talk with Ralph Nader, I'm always impressed.  While not exactly political, there's video on C-Span of him as a guest speaker at an annual Corvair Society of America meeting.  Talk about the lions den.  It was mostly civil.  I learned a few things.

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5 hours ago, Altherion said:

Even people who make 2-3 times the median family income quite often aren't happy because the most common way to make this kind of money is to live in a place where the taxes and rents are such that by the time you're done paying them, a low six figure income is barely middle class (in some places, low six figures is actually considered low income).

I agree that the price of housing in places like San Francisco and New York have gotten out of control and it's a bad deal for lots of ordinary workers. And it is prohibiting lots of workers looking for jobs in those areas, where a lot of the job growth seems to be. And something needs to be done about it.
On the other hand, perhaps the truth is just always up for grabs and the narrative that the "rent is too damn high" is just one narrative among many. Now, perhaps I think I'll sit here awhile and cook up some conspiracy theory as to why the price of housing in San Francisico really isn't a problem.

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Interesting. The CEO Business Clowntable and Chamber of Commerce crowd's plans to weaken unions in Missouri didn't quite pan out.

https://www.vox.com/2018/8/7/17655690/missouri-election-proposition-a-right-to-work

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Missouri voters made history on Tuesday, blocking the state’s Republican lawmakers from enacting right-to-work laws to cripple labor unions. The state’s primary voters rejected Proposition A, which would have made it illegal for unions to charge fees to workers they represent who don’t want to pay them, by a two-to-one margin when the vote was called by Decision Desk around 10 pm Eastern.

 

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7 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Fred Koch, Father of Charles and David was one of the founding members.  Joe McCarthy was a Democrat. 

Edit: the first Red Scare predates McCarthy, to the 10's and 20's

No, drunk old Joe McCarthy was a Republican. But, getting to your broader point, yes there existed some pretty right wing Democrats. Larry McDonald for instance was a Democrat and a card carrying member of the John Birch society.

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Wilbur Ross, another Trump dirtbag, what a surprise. If ethics mattered in Washington, having such a murderer’s row of corruption in your cabinet might look bad for the guy at the top of the pyramid. Only a matter of time before Zinke gets the spotlight.

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The repeated argument I'm seeing in opposition to removing Alex Jones' Infowars from various social media sites is that they are "Utilities" and that they should be regulated as such.  

This is sketchy at best.  Utilities are heavily regulated entitled that provide essential public services (electricity, water, sewers) to specifically defined geographic areas.  They are Government endorsed monopolies.  Because they are monopolies they are subject to serious scrutiny of their business practices by various arms of the State.  

First, social media sites are clearly not monopolies.  Some are more popular than others but Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Instagram, Snapchat... are all providing similar services with no geographically defined limit upon where those services may and may not be provided.  Because there is competition, because there is no monopoly they are not "utilities" as we currently understand the term.

Second, they aren't providing essential services.  It may suck to lack access to social media but that doesn't mean it qualifies as essential like electricity, water, and sewer service.

Third, if they were utilities and subject to heavy government regulation the State telling them that they must host groups like "Infowars" would be a violation of the First Amendment just as much as the State telling them they may not host group X because of the content of their speech.  Telling private entities they have an obligation to host groups with whom they disagree would be a facial violation of the First Amendment.  

This argument should die a quick death.

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