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

[A True Kaniggit]

16 minutes ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s tiny Twitter fingers are attacking NFL players again. Honestly they should just go back to keeping the players in the locker room until the anthem is over. I know this nine year old tradition is so sacred, but it needs to be put to an end.@pony queen

So you're saying we should locker them up?

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

4 hours ago, SweetPea said:

That's not the goal of a base on Mars. The goal is to make the future of humanity safer. Big extinction events have happened in the past, and we cannot assume that another one won't happen that will wipe out humanity. If that happens, it would be very fortunate if humanity has already estabilished at least one self-sustaining colony on another planet. The next step is another solar system.

Backing up your important data on a secondary hard-drive will greatly decrease the chances of it being lost, but it won't help you if your house burns down. Unless you keep it somewhere else. In the case of humanity, that would be on another planet.

A base on Mars would not provide a safer future for 99.999% of the humans on Earth, but it would provide a much safer future for humanity. That is Elon Musk's goal.

Sounds like high tech hooey. 

This is the thing with futurists like Musk.  For them the issue means solving "critical path" technical problems and the smaller problems will just get sorted by lesser humans in parallel.  Going to Mars means there are no smaller problems.  We're not even close to being capable of a permanent, self sufficient colony on Mars and probably won't be in my lifetime.  I guarantee we won't get it on the first try.

 

 

[Ice Queen]

5 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Sounds like high tech hooey. 

This is the thing with futurists like Musk.  For them the issue means solving "critical path" technical problems and the smaller problems will just get sorted by lesser humans in parallel.  Going to Mars means there are no smaller problems.  We're not even close to being capable of a permanent, self sufficient colony on Mars and probably won't be in my lifetime.  I guarantee we won't get it on the first try.

 

 

I agree. The purpose of a base on Mars is to make money--to extract minerals and basically trash the planet. Any altruistic goals like sending humanity among the stars and giving us a Plan B take a backseat. People like Musk ultimately want a return on their investment. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

So you're saying we should locker them up?

The lolz are real.

36 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

I agree. The purpose of a base on Mars is to make money--to extract minerals and basically trash the planet. Any altruistic goals like sending humanity among the stars and giving us a Plan B take a backseat. People like Musk ultimately want a return on their investment. 

I see it being both, whenever it happens, kind of like in the movie Avatar. In theory there would be both mining colonies and research colonies. I don’t think it’s a feasible way to save the human species though if a catastrophe happens on Earth. We’re much better off figuring out how to re-terraform Earth and build systems to protect us from asteroids than holding out hope for life on Mars.

Frankly should also be spending more money to explore our oceans. There’s still a lot we need to learn about them, and global warming is destroying them.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

11 minutes ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

Frankly should also be spending more money to explore our oceans. There’s still a lot we need to learn about them, and global warming is destroying them.

So why throw money at something that's gonna be detroyed in a few decades anyway, duh. 

[Kalbear]

13 hours ago, Triskjavikson said:

AOCs line about "why is it that we have plenty of money for endless war but not for healthcare and education" is awesome, devastating, and unanswerable.  Why do the Dems sucks so much at coming up with messaging like this?  They need to find a handful of bombs like this and make those the talking points and just go to town.  

Because that is also the line that Fox et al are repeating over and over as an attack. You may not like it, but there is basically a majority of voting Americans who believe that the above is horrible, and people who support it are the true enemy of the United States. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

16 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So why throw money at something that's gonna be detroyed in a few decades anyway, duh. 

To see how we can either mitigate or reverse the damage, duh.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

24 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Because that is also the line that Fox et al are repeating over and over as an attack. You may not like it, but there is basically a majority of voting Americans who believe that the above is horrible, and people who support it are the true enemy of the United States. 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/01/fox-friends-poll-designed-discredit-medicare-all-explodes-their-face

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

40 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So why throw money at something that's gonna be detroyed in a few decades anyway, duh. 

To increase the nutritional value of toxic sludge?

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/08/09/devin-nunes-in-secretly-recorded-tape-tells-donors-gop-majority-is-necessary-to-protect-trump-were-the-only-ones/?utm_term=.0e74e6d56347

In plain English: "Fuck democracy, fuck the law, you need to vote Republican us so we can obstruct justice." 

[Zorral]

Quote

 

"Trump Will Fold if Mueller Calls His Bluff. Giuliani Is the Tell."

The president’s lawyer puts more preconditions on an interview that the special counsel will never agree to meet. It’s meant to make the eventual cave-in look magnanimous. by ELIE HONIG

 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-will-fold-if-mueller-calls-his-bluff-giuliani-is-the-tell?ref=home
 

Quote

 

. . . . Executive privilege does exist. The bad news: You can’t use it here. The court ruled that executive privilege is intended to protect the nation’s military and diplomatic secrets, not to insulate individuals against potential criminal liability . . . .

. . . . Mueller of course knows about these cases and likely has concluded that, as a legal matter, he will prevail in a subpoena battle. Giuliani must know the same. As much as he has become a cartoonish buffoon, Giuliani still must have a grasp of basic tenets of legal principle. The Trump team may be counting on newly nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to make good on his prior writings indicating hostility to the notion of enforcing a subpoena against a sitting president. But even if Kavanaugh is confirmed in time to rule on a Trump subpoena battle, it seems unlikely that even the most partisan court can contort itself to get around the Nixon and Clinton precedents. . . .

. . . .Ultimately, then, Mueller just may get what he wants—the ability to sit directly across from the president and ask questions as he sees fit. At the same time, Trump and Giuliani seem very likely to get what they want—the ability to cry foul and to benefit at the polls in November.

 

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

40 minutes ago, Zorral said:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-will-fold-if-mueller-calls-his-bluff-giuliani-is-the-tell?ref=home
 

 

What about Jared?  Is there any news on Jared?

Do you think Donald and Jared will end up in the same cell?  Near... far...

I hope no one forgot about about Jared...

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/01/fox-friends-poll-designed-discredit-medicare-all-explodes-their-face

 

Positions that Democrats take are typically more popular than the positions Republicans take, especially over time. The problem is Democrats are bad at marketing them. Take the 1972 election for example. The polling data I found while writing my honors thesis showed that George McGovern’s positions were typically more popular than Richard Nixon’s, and sometimes by a staggering amount, but Nixon enjoyed the fourth largest popular vote landslide. It’s why in part people, specifically Democrats, wonder why people vote against policies they like and against their best interests.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

2 hours ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

I agree. The purpose of a base on Mars is to make money--to extract minerals and basically trash the planet. Any altruistic goals like sending humanity among the stars and giving us a Plan B take a backseat. People like Musk ultimately want a return on their investment. 

This is just plain wrong.

Going to Mars is for Elon Musk as the America’s Cup was for Sir Thomas Lipton - something he’s passionate about and willing to spend his money on. There is no plausible way of getting any return on investment from a Mars colony. Mining on Mars and shipping to Earth wouldn’t be worth it even if there were heaps of pure gold there. The cost of interplanetary space travel is enormous. 

The SpaceX thread might be a better place for this discussion though. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

Positions that Democrats take are typically more popular than the positions Republicans take, especially over time. The problem is Democrats are bad at marketing them. Take the 1972 election for example. The polling data I found while writing my honors thesis showed that George McGovern’s positions were typically more popular than Richard Nixon’s, and sometimes by a staggering amount, but Nixon enjoyed the fourth largest popular vote landslide. It’s why in part people, specifically Democrats, wonder why people vote against policies they like and against their best interests.

Some of them are weak but mostly I think they are outnumbered.  It's not like they have a propaganda arm funded by billionaires that calls itself a "news channel".

The rest of the corporate media has internalized the whole "liberal bias" thing to the point it overcompensates to show how impartial they.  Plus, they're so hungry for ratings they basically created the cult of Trump.

 

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

Positions that Democrats take are typically more popular than the positions Republicans take, especially over time. The problem is Democrats are bad at marketing them. Take the 1972 election for example. The polling data I found while writing my honors thesis showed that George McGovern’s positions were typically more popular than Richard Nixon’s, and sometimes by a staggering amount, but Nixon enjoyed the fourth largest popular vote landslide. It’s why in part people, specifically Democrats, wonder why people vote against policies they like and against their best interests.

The problem is that for the most part people don't vote based on policy decisions, and it has very little to do with marketing. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

4 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Because that is also the line that Fox et al are repeating over and over as an attack. You may not like it, but there is basically a majority of voting Americans who believe that the above is horrible, and people who support it are the true enemy of the United States. 

Yeah, so it seems like a great message to run with.  Like you said, the people that buy that as an attack are already voting.  This is the kind of message the Dems need to hammer on to get out the young vote and to reach out to people of color and let them know that they give a shit beyond lip service.  

[A Horse Named Stranger]

4 hours ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

To see how we can either mitigate or reverse the damage, duh.

I should really find a way to increase the noticeability when I am making a bad joke.

Anyway, I will just run with it now...

 

4 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

To increase the nutritional value of toxic sludge?

That's what Elon Msuk will do on Mars, duh.

[DMC]

4 hours ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

Positions that Democrats take are typically more popular than the positions Republicans take, especially over time. The problem is Democrats are bad at marketing them.

While perhaps true in the aggregate, this is an overly broad interpretation - and it's not because Dems are "bad" at marketing them, but rather a number of contextual factors:

• First and foremost, the public gives contradictory answers on government spending.  Throughout time, more people have almost always favored "small government and fewer services" over "big government and more services."  Concurrently, the majority wants to either keep spending the same or increase it when you ask about specific programs:  "a majority of the public wants to either keep funding the same or increase it for 18 of 19 federal programs the poll asked about."
• Most polls asking policy preferences are not looking at likely voters.  In fact, many aren't even looking at registered voters, but rather a random sample of adults.  It is unsurprising that as you increase the share of nonvoters, Democratic policies will increase in popularity.
• Support (or opposition) to policies fails to account for the salience of the policy.  Trump's litany of unpopular immigration policies is a perfect example of the asymmetric effect of salience:  Most oppose his policies, but those that are in favor of them are strongly in favor - and the latter are far more likely to be motivated to the polls while the former are unlikely to base their vote (or whether to vote) on the policy area.
• What Kal said - the relationship between candidate popularity and the popularity of her policy positions is tenuous at best.

1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

Yeah, so it seems like a great message to run with.  Like you said, the people that buy that as an attack are already voting.  This is the kind of message the Dems need to hammer on to get out the young vote and to reach out to people of color and let them know that they give a shit beyond lip service.  

Again, I'm wondering what kind of message you guys think the Democratic party has been making for years.  Here's the Obama administration's general agenda:

Quote

Revive the economy, provide affordable and accessible health care to all, strengthen our public education and social security systems, define a clear path to energy independence and tackle climate change, end the War in Iraq responsibly and finish our mission in Afghanistan, and work with our allies to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Now, is AOC's statement more biting?  Sure, but content is very similar.  Moreover, the Democratic primary and almost the entirety of the 2008 campaign was on increasing social spending and ending unpopular wars.  In 2016, Hillary could have repeated AOC's line at a rate akin to Guiliani saying 9/11, and it still wouldn't have made even the slightest dent in the media's obsession with her emails and the horserace.

To be clear, I'm not saying Dem candidates shouldn't use the line - maybe it will work in certain congressional and state races and if people want to try it, more power to them.  I'm just (highly) skeptical it's going to have the type of effect some of you think it could, because (1) Dems have been saying pretty much the same thing for a very long time and (2) the coinciding nationalization of politics and media has made policy appeals even less significant than the already were.

[Martell Spy]

DeVos rolls back rules aimed at low-performing for-profit and career colleges

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/10/devos-low-performing-for-profit-colleges-772302

Quote

 

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos moved Friday to completely eliminate Obama-era regulations that were meant to cut off federal funding to low-performing programs at for-profit schools and other career colleges.

The Education Department unveiled a proposal to rescind the “gainful employment” regulation, which was a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s crackdown on for-profit education companies.

The goal of the rule, which took effect in 2015, was to make sure that students who graduate from for-profit schools or other career-oriented programs make enough money to repay their student loans