u.s. politics: sundowning on the american empire

[all swedes are racist]

old thread over 400

[Bonnot OG]

Some people showed up at the fascist rally held by trump with signs that said immigrants built America, of course the red cap klan freaked the fuck out. 

[Bonnot OG]

 

[all swedes are racist]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-big-ideas-may-re-elect-trump-11564613802

goddammit

[drawkcabi]

After the title of last thread, this one should have been "Kamala Chameleon".

 

Anyway, I'm still dealing with living in Trump country, people telling me what Trump said about Baltimore was not racist, what Kamala Harris said about needing more black voices was racist, and I'm disheartened as Hell. I need to pick my battles or I'm not going to make it to the election and this sucks.

[all swedes are racist]

14 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

After the title of last thread, this one should have been "Kamala Chameleon".

lol that’s pretty good

[DMC]

47 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

After the title of last thread, this one should have been "Kamala Chameleon".

I would sign this petition.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

   10 hours ago,  Bonnot OG said: 

It does have an impact on SCOTUS positions. 

What do you mean?  Gerrymandering doesn’t impact US Senate elections and impacts only two states out of 50 in Presidential Elections.

[Martell Spy]

Is there going to be a Texas earthquake? It does look like Republicans are fleeing. 

 

Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) announced late Thursday night that he is stepping down from Congress.

“I have made the decision to not seek reelection for the 23rd Congressional District of Texas in order to pursue opportunities outside the halls of Congress to solve problems at the nexus between technology and national security,” Hurd said in a statemen

Hurd had a tough re-election campaign in the Democrat-held House ahead of him in 2020. He is one of only three districts Hillary Clinton won in 2016 that is still in Republican control. The three-term congressman was slated for a rematch with Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, a veteran.   

Hurd has been a rare vocal Republican critic of President Trump. In the past several weeks, he said publicly that the president’s tweets attacking four progressive congresswomen of color, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), were “racist and xenophobic,” making him one of the few members of Trump’s party to criticize his remarks.

 

Will Hurd Is the Latest House Republican to Sprint for the Exits
The House’s only black Republican says he’s not seeking re-election, and the announcement comes as a slew of other GOP members said they will step down.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/will-hurd-is-the-latest-republican-to-say-he-will-not-seek-re-election?ref=home

 

Quote

The Democratic debates this week demonstrated that change isn’t just coming: It’s here. To watch Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders dominate onstage against their more moderate foils was to realize that their positions are no longer marginal. CNN’s questions Tuesday night seemed designed to challenge the left-leaning proposals. That those positions were well-defended—and not unique to a single candidate—is a sign they may be more robust than conventional models suggest. Conditions have changed. During the exchanges over health care, it was clear there wasn’t an outlier “Medicare for All” proponent who could be treated (or dismissed) as a kook. The proposal was closer to the default position. It’s supported by a majority of candidates, and this time the dissenters were on their heels. Time and again the audience heard a Democrat decrying a system that honors the profit-seeking desires of private insurers over Americans’ desire to avoid medical bankruptcy. This is new, and the valorization of bipartisan compromise has been similarly flipped on its head: Mitch McConnell has made the idea of governing by reaching across the aisle not just unworkable but fantastic; no serious person can entertain the possibility that Democratic priorities can be achieved with Republican cooperation.

We Should No Longer Doubt What the Democratic Party Is Today

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/democratic-debates-williamson-yang-progressive-priorities.html

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Rough opening for the markets. We might drop below 26,000 if this continues.

[Fragile Bird]

There are now more Republicans named Jim in Congress than there are women who have announced they will be running for the Republicans. 

eta: that came from CNN

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

25 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

There are now more Republicans named Jim in Congress than there are women who have announced they will be running for the Republicans. 

eta: that came from CNN

Another fun fact highlighting the lack of diversity in the Republican Party. The only black Republican in the House is retiring. It’s a shame too as Rep. Hurd was one of the few sane Republicans left.

[Fragile Bird]

20 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Another fun fact highlighting the lack of diversity in the Republican Party. The only black Republican in the House is retiring. It’s a shame too as Rep. Hurd was one of the few sane Republicans left.

Lol, that Jim comment was made in the context of a discussion about Hurd announcing he would not run again/

[all swedes are racist]

speaking of texas politics, pretty wild store here: https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/did-house-speaker-dennis-bonnen-really-try-to-bribe-michael-quinn-sullivan-an-investigation/

far right boss michael quinn sullivan allegedly has video of texas house speaker (a popular, less uh zealous, republican) offering him a bribe in the form of favorable access

[Wethers]

5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

   10 hours ago,  Bonnot OG said: 

It does have an impact on SCOTUS positions. 

What do you mean?  Gerrymandering doesn’t impact US Senate elections and impacts only two states out of 50 in Presidential Elections.

I am definitely not Bonnot.

But might there be a way for gerrymandering to indirectly affect things it does not directly affect, especially if you have a swing state that can go either way for state-wide votes?

In swing states, might gerrymandering make it easier for a party (usually Republicans) to get full control of the state legislature that they might not otherwise have had, which, if combined with a governor or other state-wide executives of the same party, allow accelerated targeted voter suppression measures in that state which otherwise would not have happened?

This targeted voter suppression would then affect subsequent Senate and Presidential elections, which would in turn affect the SCOTUS.

(Edited to add:  and also cement the state-wide control by the gerrymandering party so that voter suppression and other such measures become effectively permanent).

Certainly not my area of expertise so someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, Wethers said:

But might there be a way for gerrymandering to indirectly affect things it does not directly affect, especially if you have a swing state that can go either way for state-wide votes?

It really doesn't take a Glenn Beck-esque chalkboard to draw the link between gerrymandering and the problems with SCOTUS, and the courts system in general.  Gerrymandering foments polarization in the House.  There's a pretty famous work that shows polarization in the House feeds into polarization in the Senate, namely via the "Gingrich Senators."  That polarization in the Senate (and those Senators) can be directly attributed to the courts problem.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 minutes ago, Wethers said:

I am definitely not Bonnot.

But might there be a way for gerrymandering to indirectly affect things it does not directly affect, especially if you have a swing state that can go either way for state-wide votes?

In swing states, might gerrymandering make it easier for a party (usually Republicans) to get full control of the state legislature that they might not otherwise have had, which, if combined with a governor or other state-wide executives of the same party, allow accelerated targeted voter suppression measures in that state which otherwise would not have happened?

This targeted voter suppression would then affect subsequent Senate and Presidential elections, which would in turn affect the SCOTUS.

(Edited to add:  and also cement the state-wide control by the gerrymandering party so that voter suppression and other such measures become effectively permanent).

Certainly not my area of expertise so someone correct me if I'm wrong.

That could be achieved via internal Gerrymandering of State Legislative districts, but, again, you cannot Gerrymander US Senate elections because Senators are elected on a state wide basis.  The same is true for Presidential elections with the exception of Nebraska and Maine who both aportion some of their electoral votes based on districts.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Gerrymandering can also directly affect turnout. Many people don’t vote because they’re in a district which makes them think their votes don’t matter.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Gerrymandering can also directly affect turnout. Many people don’t vote because they’re in a district which makes them think their votes don’t matter.

If they think their votes don’t matter in US Senate and US Presidential elections then they don’t understand how Gerrymandering is actually accomplished.

[sologdin]

cannot Gerrymander US Senate elections because Senators are elected on a state wide basis

am not recalling anything in art. I that prevents state-wide representatives. you know any attempts to make representatives at large, or any cases on it? it seems plausible, considering that small states have only one representative.