Is there a politics thread? Guess I'm making one

[Captain K]

Are the rosters of colleges public info or is this a hacking thing?

*or perhaps the most likely answer, a racist staff member at Penn gave out the info to someone out of state so he wouldn't get caught doing it himself

[OblivionKnight]

Really need to come up with a stronger phrase that expresses my confusion and exasperation better than "what the fuck"

What the butt fucking Christ nuggets?

[Pyro]

I expect the conservative base to be all testoaterone filled and talk about "Put protestors down HARD!" "Dominate them!". One would not expect it from people floated as homeland security chiefs.

Although with the campaign I guess that isn't really surprising.

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fivethirtyeight-gave-trump-a-better-chance-than-almost-anyone-else/

Nate Silver trying not to be a smug bastard.

"Tuesday’s results were similar. We strongly disagree with the idea that there was a massive polling error. Instead, there was a modest polling error, well in line with historical polling errors, but even a modest error was enough to provide for plenty of paths to victory for Trump. We think people should have been better prepared for it. There was widespread complacency about Clinton’s chances in a way that wasn’t justified by a careful analysis of the data and the uncertainties surrounding it."

[Cmdr_King]

I remember going to a movie with my lefty former coworker Sunday, and one of the things we talked most about was the election.  I pulled up the 538 estimates on that day so we could look at the map and summarized "Clinton is ahead in JUST ENOUGH places to win, but if anything goes wrong it goes Trump."  It indeed turned out that every X-factor (slightly elevated non-major party vote, somewhat lower vote totals, minor hit from Bernie-bros that followed through, almost all last-minute voters breaking for Trump) went against Clinton.  It's a huge data point in my ongoing Demiourgos theory.

Unrelated, but saved for "shaming the family" purposes- a substitute teacher decided to tell his primarily-hispanic students all their parents were going to be deported: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/busted-teacher-caught-taunting-students-their-parents-will-be-deported-now-that-trump-is-president/

[Luther Lansfeld]

Just saw a montage video of Michelle's awesomeness. Almost cried. Gonna miss having her as FLOTUS.

[The Duck]

All of Trump's White House staff decisions are nightmarish.

[Cotigo]

This day in "self proclaimed liberals yell at people (mostly millenials)":

https://www.facebook.com/viralthread/videos/598130190359668/

I realize this guy is a satirist but this is mostly a useful video to watch for it's rhetoric: He proved that yelling and insulting people to change their minds doesn't work by yelling and insulting people, and I didn't change my mind. If that was on purpose it's actually quite brilliant. However, given that it seems like the rest of his work is the same damn shit, I'm pretty sure that was by accident.

Drawing attention to what is actually being said, this guy is an enormous fucking tosser. No, sorry, all opinions are NOT valid, and while he is right that yelling at people won't change their minds, L O fucking L at changing assholes like Mike Pence's minds about shit like gay conversion therapy.

Heck, discussion barely got people on this forum to agree on the results of fictional character fights. Then a few rambling sentences later he tells people to "fuck off to their safe spaces" and lost all credibility.  Also turns out he works for RT, which normally doesn't factor into my opinions but he has so much else going against him that it's like a shit-flavored icing on a bollocks cake. NEXT!

https://www.facebook.com/notes/christopher-planeaux/open-letter-to-democrats-and-anyone-else-who-considers-themselves-leftists-or-le/10154804973263083

This one's actually a fairly solid article, and would have been a lot better without the condescension toward millenials that makes him come off as a crusty old fuck from the era of politics where liberals actually couldn't get anything done (post-CRA) and begs the question of "Why should we listen to him?" He also falls into the trap that most people trying to tell themselves everything will be OK do: saying "we've been here before, the Republic will survive." Fuck off, mate. Sure, the nation survived Reagan. The hundreds of thousands of AIDS victims did not.  I think that's what bugs me most about this article, and most others like it (all, I'll note, from old white men): Politics does not happen in a vacuum, and the results of this and every election have real impacts on marginalized peoples and ...

no actually don't read that article, the more I talk about it the more garbage it becomes. I probably should have put these two articles in IotD.

Glenn Greenwald made the same point but better:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/11/glenn-greenwald-trump-will-have-vast-powers-he-can-thank-democrats-for-them/

Less to say on this because it didn't make me want to punch a Boomer. It is a good thing for us to keep in mind the next time the presidency flips, whenever that happens, and we're all guilty of it. Conservatives are guilty of letting it happen during the Bush years, and us liberals are guilty for letting it continue under Obama.

[superaielman]

One of my biggest beefs with Obama was his about face on that issue re executive power. I would love to see it reigned in regardless of who is in office, but good luck putting the genie back in the bottle now.


E: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/14/politics/unprecedented-chris-christie-donald-trump/index.html Fuck off forever, Chris Christie.

[Grefter]

http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2016/11/16/a-bill-to-restrict-the-wearing-of-muslim-burqa-and-veil-in-georgia/

Remember this.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/16/gop-senator-to-propose-bill-criminalizing-illegal-/

Remember this.

http://jezebel.com/trump-surrogate-cites-japanese-internment-camps-as-prec-1789074483

Remember this.

https://www.facebook.com/ASUCDadvocacy/posts/1431356550215780

Remember this.

[Grefter]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-ford-motor-idUSKBN13D08J

I would say "Remember this." but this really deserves an actual bit of swearing.

Fuck Reuters.  This shit is fucking disgusting horrible journalism.  You should be stringing Trump up for this bullshit nonsense, not publishing a headline like Ford tells Trump no Lincoln SUV production going to Mexico when your headline should be

Trump lies again about Ford factories, claims he stopped  Lincoln SUV production going to Mexico

Over half the story is about how Trump's claims do not line up to Ford's plans for their domestic US plants.

But Ford has repeatedly said it has no plans to close any U.S. plants and likely could not do so under the terms of the current United Auto Workers contract that expires in 2019.

You either have a story of "NOTHING IS FUCKING HAPPENING" or you have a story of Trump claiming shit that didn't fucking happen.  When that is your two choices it is dishonest to publish it in the way that is giving Trump any fucking credit here.

[Cmdr_King]

There hasn't been good journalism in the US in... god.  10 years?  15?

No small connection between that and the Twilight of Western Civilization we find ourselves in now.

e:  another archived link for myself  http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/11/donald-trump-white-male-fragility/

[dunie]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-ford-motor-idUSKBN13D08J

I would say "Remember this." but this really deserves an actual bit of swearing.

Fuck Reuters.  This shit is fucking disgusting horrible journalism.  You should be stringing Trump up for this bullshit nonsense, not publishing a headline like Ford tells Trump no Lincoln SUV production going to Mexico when your headline should be

Trump lies again about Ford factories, claims he stopped  Lincoln SUV production going to Mexico

Over half the story is about how Trump's claims do not line up to Ford's plans for their domestic US plants.

But Ford has repeatedly said it has no plans to close any U.S. plants and likely could not do so under the terms of the current United Auto Workers contract that expires in 2019.

You either have a story of "NOTHING IS FUCKING HAPPENING" or you have a story of Trump claiming shit that didn't fucking happen.  When that is your two choices it is dishonest to publish it in the way that is giving Trump any fucking credit here.

Reuters, yeah. Thought we could trust them, right? It's interesting, because that point is in fact objective. They're choosing, however, a safe line to shield themselves from any Trump blacklisting.

I say stick to Alternet & The Real News for better quality, and for news-news, Washington Post. Those are just my few cents.
This is a headline you'd find hope in from WaPo:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/17/trump-just-took-credit-for-stopping-ford-from-moving-a-plant-to-mexico-but-it-was-planning-to/

Trump just took credit for stopping Ford from moving a plant to Mexico. But it wasn’t planning to.

edit* I want to add that my WaPo nod is post-Bezos, and that this is useful too: http://fair.org

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/marine-le-pen-poll-election-odds-latest-french-presidential-lead-sarkozy-a7428126.html

 

[Fenrir]

This is not as bad as it sounds because
1) Sarkozy was a populist douche who talked about immigration more than Le Pen in the last years. Think typical Tea Party jerk.
2) He's already out of the presidential race because he got third place in the right's primaries on the first round. He can't be a candidate anymore, France really doesn't want him (or Hollande) back.
3) le pen will most definitely win the first round, only the second counts. And people who didn't vote for her on the first are not likely to vote for her on the second.

What is bad is that the most likely winner of the right's primaries and most likely to go to the second round of the election vs le pen is a right wing Thatcher lover who will be seen as the establishment. The left is in shambles. And we got hit by way more terrorist attacks recently.

[Cmdr_King]

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2016/11/20/state-says-literacy-right-detroit/94193032/

Michigan attempts to stay competitive in the race to the bottom.

[Captain K]

3) le pen will most definitely win the first round, only the second counts. And people who didn't vote for her on the first are not likely to vote for her on the second.

Yeah we said that about Trump also.

[Fenrir]

Nah, the US election only has one round
And I was one of the people who said we shouldn't underestimate Trump early in this thread!

[Captain K]

Your rounds sound like our primaries.  You just described Trump (Le Pen) defeating Cruz (Sarkozy).

[Grefter]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system

To be honest I needed all look it up for how it worked myself.  Open voting for that first round and then second round if no one has a majority.  Works a bit like the two party preferred system here in Aus but your third party vote isn't automatically tied to another rep based on the party who got your primary vote.

[SnowFire]

Sarkozy didn't even get to round 2 of the UMP/Republican *primary*, so how he'd run against Le Pen isn't too relevant, he isn't even getting to round 1.  (What, did he shoot a dog or something?  OTOH, people clearly reacted way worse to Clinton being "establishment" than expected, so maybe best not to use a former Prez.)

But yeah, I almost hope the Repubs beat the Socialists in France, since they seem like they'd match up better to Le Pen.  (I'd certainly vote for, like, Marco Rubio over Trump if somehow the US election came down to those two.)

[Fenrir]

Yep.
There are a lot of candidates who still have a chance:
There's Le Pen, the winner of the right primary who's going to be either Fillon (Thatcher v2) or Juppe (a moderate), then Melanchon (Sanders-like, but more of a douche) and Macron (young liberal moderate progressive, somewhat Obama-like)
Socialists are pretty much already screwed.

Marine Le Pen also cut all ties to her horrible father and is trying to be generally nicer, unlike Trump who stayed fucking awful all the way. So she's like Brexit level bad news more than Trump level bad news IMO

[Dark Holy Elf]

Do you think Valls(/someone else) might have a chance if Hollande steps down or is forced out?

Your rounds sound like our primaries.  You just described Trump (Le Pen) defeating Cruz (Sarkozy).

The difference is that primaries are party-specific, and therefore have a very different electorate. The first round of the French election is just that, the first round of a national election. The second round is between whoever the top two finishers are in the first round (and France has more than two parties, so this is actually relevant unlike what a similar mechanic would be in the US).

[Fenrir]

Valls would probably have even less chances, he's the one on the government who tries the most to appeal to the right by being anti immigration / pro CEOs.
But he's still on the left so anyone who liked this will vote for someone else, and the left isn't inspired by him.
I don't see anyone else stepping in and carrying the torch right now.

The two rounds thing matters because
https://mobile.twitter.com/Snowden/status/789574275518828544
And Le Pen always gets really good scores on the first round (she'll be first this time) but hits a glass ceiling on the second round.

[Grefter]

Valls would probably have even less chances, he's the one on the government who tries the most to appeal to the right by being anti immigration / pro CEOs.
But he's still on the left

#notmyleft

And Le Pen always gets really good scores on the first round (she'll be first this time) but hits a glass ceiling on the second round.

Not sure if choice of words with Glass Ceiling is deliberate with how much that works?   But not going to say I would be super happy overall if La Pen breaking the glass ceiling is what gets women as Prime Minister (though there is still some social value from it)