US Politics April: A Series of Fantastically Bad Ideas

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Politics April: A Series of Fantastically Bad Ideas

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Redeye Flight posted:

Hey, named the thread! That's kinda cool.

So, what's the good news? I figure we might as well start off a new month with some good news first.

Gay marriage, Weed, and the ACA. SCOTUS will probably get to legalizing gay marriage nationwide before 2016. People are seeing that the sky isn't falling in Colorado, so a lot of states are going to want all that sweet, sweet tax money now. The ACA hit 7 million people signed up.

That's about all I've got right now. :v:

Also, the ACA thing is a bit tainted by rear end in a top hat Republican governors blocking the Medicaid expansion. Seriously, go gently caress yourself Perry, there are a shitload of uninsured Texans at or just above the poverty line who need that Medicaid expansion. :argh:

fade5 fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Apr 3, 2014

# ¿ Apr 3, 2014 02:30

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 23:54

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Chris Christie posted:

Ugh these freaking people are impossible to reason with.

Am I allowed to join the Democratic party but still vote for Jeb Bush in 2016??? Or would I just be swapping RINO derision for DINO derision???

To give a semi-serious answer, yes, it's called "ticket-splitting" or "Split-ticket voting". In the recent Virginia election, the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor were elected by margins of greater than 4%, but the Attorney General race between Obenshain (R) and Herring (D) was won by only about 900 votes (by Herring) due to ticket splitting.

Thanks to Herring winning, Virigina is no longer defending its same-sex marriage ban, and said ban was struck down shortly after, with a stay pending appeal. (No Utah moment, unfortunately, they wised up after that happened.)

I'm not being sarcastic when I say this, please join the Democratic party and vote however you want on the Presidency and gun issues; it's the down-ticket races that are really important, not just the second round of Clinton v Bush. Voting for 70% Democratic/30% Republican is a hell of a lot better than voting 100% Republican.

fade5 fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Apr 7, 2014

# ¿ Apr 7, 2014 22:17

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Evil Fluffy posted:

Winning Florida while still losing Virgina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, among others, does not make it a race. Jeb might win Florida thanks to Florida being America's Taint, but if Romney couldn't win a bunch of battleground states the only way Jeb will is through some next level voter fraud.

Florida might be interesting if Charlie Crist wins against Rick Scott in 2014. Even back when Crist was a Republican, he signed an executive order that automatically restored felon voter rights upon release from prison. Rick Scott has of course reversed that order; can't have all those released prisoners ~~voting for Democrats~~ voting again after paying their debt to society.

Not only that, since Crist is an actual Democrat now, there won't be a bunch of attempts to cut early voting hours, voter ID crap, bullshit "voter purges" right before the election, super long voting lines on election day, or any of the other crap Republicans love to do to suppress the vote.

What I'm trying to say is welcome to the Democratic party Mr. Crist, we're happy to have you.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2014 18:32

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

ColoradoCleric posted:

What about the Libyan regime change?

Whiskey Sours posted:

Enforcing a no fly zone and providing air support to one side in an active civil war is not the same as invading a sovereign nation based on faulty intelligence.

I'm just gonna flat-out say I supported what we did in Libya, for a few reasons.

1. It wasn't just the US, it was a joint effort with NATO.
2. Said joint effort only started after the US agreed, we didn't just charge in head first without thinking.
3. We actually had a plan going in and what to do when the war was over.
4. Our "intervention" was more putting our thumb on the scale, while the Libyan forces took on Gaddafi.
5. We didn't send in ground troops, air and naval support only, which means US casualties were very minimal. (Hell, possibly even non-existent?)
6. Since we didn't send in ground troops, once the war was over, withdrawal was much easier than any other middle east conflict we've gotten involved in.
7. The whole thing was over in eight months, compared to almost 9 years for Iraq and 13 loving years for Afghanistan.
5. Afterwards the Libyans actually liked us because we helped them out. (I remember someone posted a poll that showed something like 76% of Libyans supported the intervention)

I realize that Libya is still having problems post-civil war, and that things aren't sunshine and roses just because Gaddafi's gone, but I really don't see what else the US could do (besides not intervene, but for once I think that was a bad option). Our track record on rebuilding is not good, and in the end it was a civil war, we just helped out a bit. Basically, to me that was the perfect example of "how to successfully intervene in a Middle Eastern country". The irony that Obama managed to pull off what I'd call a successful Middle Eastern intervention while Bush started two failures has got to grate on Republicans something fierce.

Unfortunately, anything related to Libya is tainted by loving BENGHAZI! :byodood:

and Vilerat's death. :smith:

fade5 fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Apr 10, 2014

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 02:37

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

AATREK CURES KIDS posted:

Not including Benghazi, there were 0 US casualties and 1 NATO casualty, a Brit who died in a traffic accident in Italy on the way to his deployment.

I'm sorry for the British dude, but that is hilarious and shows exactly why

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

The republicans had to distract everyone from Obama's success in Libya.

Yep. Can't have Democrat have better foreign policy on Middle East intervention than a Republican. :v:

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 03:13

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Nah, I think if we can make it through to 2016 we have a good chance of long-term Democratic control again after that. 2014-2016 looks to be a slough of despond though.

Nessus posted:

The Blue Dog sorts seem to have either switched sides or been run out in favor of a Tea Party death commando, so if the Democrats have gotten 'more extreme' it's in the sense that they've lost some moderates.

I'm curious how well Hillary Clinton (assuming she's the nominee) will be able to pull in votes from some of the more southern/suburban white/Blue Dog Democratic areas since ~~that black guy~~ Obama won't be running again. Or course, you're trading racism for misogyny, but that's a bit of a tougher road to walk since more than half of the population is female, and the Republicans have also shown they really, really can't keep their mouths shut about ~~rape~~ ~~abortion~~ ~~equal pay~~ ~~birth control~~ every single women's issue ever, and that's before we get to their burning hatred of Hillary Clinton.

richardfun posted:

I don't mean to be 'that guy', but Libya is not in the Middle East. It's in Africa...

Sub-Saharan Africa isn't part of the Middle East, but Northern Africa has ties to both Africa and the Middle East, and Libya's kind of on the border of both; given that the Libyan Civil War was part of the "Arab Spring" I sort of group it more with the Middle East than Africa.

TL;DR: "Middle East" is a really vague term.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 21:43

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

VitalSigns posted:

Carving up the state into smaller states controlled by those major cities is just going to give you one or two small-population Republican states (like Lubbockland), and several battleground states (Dallasland, Houstonland) or outright Democrat bastions (San AntAustinland, El Pasoland)

I'd love to live in the Democratic bastion of San AntAustinland, rather than just plain old San Antonio now. San Antonio's great, but we're still controlled by the Texas legislature, with all the Republican poo poo that comes with that. :sigh:

# ¿ Apr 13, 2014 02:20

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

VitalSigns posted:

But at least your city gets to send actual representatives to Congress. I'm represented by that shitbag McCaul because my district goes all the way to the borders of Houston. Even just a Houston-anchored separate state would mean I suddenly get national representation as all that countryside is no longer available to submerge our votes.

Yep, to give those not familiar with Texas some perspective, San Antonio contains parts of five Representative Districts, four of which are Democratic Districts:

Congressional District 20: Joaqu�n Castro (D)
My representative, also the twin brother of San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, who I also voted for. Castro brother supremacy! :getin:

Congressional District 21: Congressman Lamar Smith (R)
Lamar Smith basically gets all the rich, white, Republican areas of San Antonio and Austin.

Congressional District 23: Congressman Pete P. Gallego (D)
Gallego's a bit of a Blue Dog, but this is a swing district, and it contains a lot of rural West Texas as well, so Gallego's pretty much perfect for it.

Congressional District 28: Congressman Henry Cuellar (D)
Also a bit of a Blue Dog, but he's been in this district since 2004.

Congressional District 35: Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D)
I've mentioned this before, but Doggett's old district (District 25) was gerrymandered to all hell to try and out him, so Doggett just came down to San Antonio and campaigned in the new District 35 and won re-election. gently caress you Perry, you can't gerrymander Doggett out of a seat no matter how hard you try. And I can now claim Doggett as a San Antonio Representative. :getin:

# ¿ Apr 13, 2014 02:47

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Job Truniht posted:

There's no way they could ever pay engineers enough to relocate to loving Dallas.

Raenir Salazar posted:

What about Austin? Roosterteeth seems fine there.

It's not just the pay, the cost of living is a lot cheaper here in Texas than in California; a few online calculators estimated that the average cost of living is about 46% cheaper if you're moving from San Francisco to San Antonio.

A big thing is comparing the cost of renting an apartment (in the same vein of property stuff, as Fired Chicken was talking about). You can easily rent an apartment in San Antonio for less than $1000 a month, and if you're single and willing to slum it, you can probably find a single apartment for around $500 or even less, depending on what you're willing to put up with. The minus is that it's Texas, with everything run by Republicans, and all that implies.

Job Truniht posted:

Texas also has pure dogshit for an education system.

So, this, among many other not so great things.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2014 21:07

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

menino posted:

Thanks, I've heard nothing but good things about the place besides that it's a sprawlish labyrinth.

That pretty much describes Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio. Texas doesn't build upward like New York, we go outward. San Antonio has flat out eaten like six or seven smaller towns/municipalities; they're now completely surrounded on all sides by San Antonio proper, and San Antonio shows no signs of slowing down. The end game is when San Antonio and Austin eventually just flat-out meet up.

computer parts posted:

It's probably also good to note that it's hot as balls during the best of times and basically at 100% humidity at the worst.

We hit loving 99 degrees in some parts of San Antonio today. There is no Spring, we basically go straight to Summer.

fade5 fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Apr 29, 2014

# ¿ Apr 29, 2014 00:28

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Fried Chicken posted:

AP is saying a judge just struck down Wisconsin voter ID law
https://twitter.com/ap/status/461210558268977152

Nice. Also, crosspost from the right wing media thread (I'm borrowing Tatum Girlparts's post):

Tatum Girlparts posted:

So, Sterling lost the Clippers.

Who's yet to record a show, Rush and Hannity? I imagine that'll be a focus.

loving awesome. Here we go!

CNN (Yeah, yeah CNN) posted:

The National Basketball Association has banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling from basketball for life and fined him $2.5 million racist remarks attributed to him in recordings posted online, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced Tuesday.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2014 19:36

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Magres posted:

I don't even care that he's going to make money off it, the fact that someone with that much money has actually suffered any consequences for being a racist piece of poo poo makes me happy. I figured he would get fined and scolded and nothing else. The fact that the NBA is forcibly kicking him to the curb is great.

Yeah, if you are racist enough to get the national discourse to actually call you a racist, then you get loving hammered. It's an aggravatingly high bar to clear (since America doesn't like to admit that there are still racists who aren't KKK/Nazi members), but both Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy managed to clear that bar, and are now persona non gratas for the foreseeable future.

Joementum posted:

He's currently telling Fox News that he's not planning on selling the team.

Oh hell yes, please drag this out as long as you want you rear end in a top hat. :allears:

fade5 fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Apr 29, 2014

# ¿ Apr 29, 2014 20:23

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

zoux posted:

Here's your first look at the monument the Satanic Church is going to request be installed at the Oklahoma State Capitol under their new religious freedom law:

You know, it really stuck me just how religious this looks. I realize that sounds kinda dumb considering Satanism is a religion, but without the pentagram I'd think this was some sort of Greek or Roman statue.

Thinking about it, it makes sense, going balls out on the whole "Satanism" thing would be counterproductive to the cause/point they're making, but it really is striking to me that when I first looked at that stature I immediately thought "Wow, that looks like a religious statue."

fade5 fucked around with this message at 22:42 on May 1, 2014

# ¿ May 1, 2014 22:25

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

greatn posted:

Thomas is an uncle Tom. That congressman has read the book and loving knows what one is. He's not some loony idiot throwing around words he doesn't understand.

The Warszawa posted:

"Fun" Fact: "Uncle Tom" in the sense that he used it doesn't come from the book, it comes from the minstrel show "adaptations" that missed the point of the book. Well, I say missed the point, when really they looked at the point and ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction.

Uncle Tom (the book character) was a martyr/Christ figure whose pacifistic non-resistant be-an-emblem-of-good approach was a positive - not without its own unfortunate implications, to be sure, but not the apologist-participant of the modern phrase.

Yeah, it'd be more accurate to say that Clarence Thomas isn't an Uncle Tom, he's an Uncle Ruckus. :v:

# ¿ May 2, 2014 02:37

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Yeaaaahhh not gonna happen, though.

The "game plan" is "make drat sure nobody ever says Obama and Hillary did a better job in Libya than Bush did in Iraq."

This. I can't be stated enough how much it burns their asses that (under Obama :argh:

) we helped institute a regime change in Libya with zero American troops sent in, zero American lives lost, and in the space of eight months. The comparison of Libya to Iraq and Afghanistan writes itself, and foreign policy is the one thing Republicans like to pretend they're still better than the Democrats on, and Libya completely destroys that delusion.

So they have to flog Benghazi, because otherwise Libya becomes another success* under Obama where Bush failed, and they can't have that.

*I realize that Libya has had quite a few problems rebuilding so calling it a "success" is a slight stretch, but that's not a very good attack angle for Republicans either given that:
1. It was a loving civil war; painful rebuilding is basically the guaranteed outcome no matter what.
2. We're still loving rebuilding Afghanistan, and it's probably going to fall apart when we leave anyway.
3. Iraq, again.
4. The Libyans asked for our (and NATO's) help, we didn't just go in half-cocked with no plan afterward.

fade5 fucked around with this message at 01:45 on May 5, 2014

# ¿ May 5, 2014 01:30

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Sword of Chomsky posted:

At this point i'm convinced that a majority of people on the right want a civil war. they are begging for the opportunity to kill "lib-tards" and others they can't co-exist with. The rhetoric is there, the provocations are there, the propaganda is there. I just don't see how the rage gets dialed back at this point until something terrible happens.

Like Bundy's group getting into a shootout with Federal Agents? As horrible as it is, that may be what it takes to get the right wing to dial back some of the incendiary rhetoric.

Last time it went Ruby Ridge->Waco->Oklahoma City Bombing before the militia groups finally lost most of their support; the Bundy thing really echos Waco/Ruby Ridge, so maybe the sentiment of "oh poo poo we don't want to go down this path again" will get Fox to shut the hell up for a little while. They have already shifted back to Benghazi, at least.

E: I'm treating the Bundy thing blowing up as a very real possibility, since the only ones still there are the completely crazy guys who do want to get into a shootout. All it takes is one person firing, even accidentally, and everything blows up.

fade5 fucked around with this message at 22:58 on May 5, 2014

# ¿ May 5, 2014 22:55

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Berke Negri posted:

I think the only reason militias appeared to die down was because GWB was elected as their lord and savior. They never really really disappeared, they just cloaked thenselves in legitimacy or became border minute men.

I mentioned the Oklahoma bombings for a reason. This chart has been posted a couple of times in various topics:

Note the dip after 1996, that's because of Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma bombings putting militas in a bad light. Notice that 1999 to 2008 are basically identical, even though Clinton was in office for the first part of that. Obama being elected did indeed put the militia guys back into full :derp:

mode, and I think it'll take another horrible event (or a Republican being elected president, but that's redundant) to disillusion America's view of militas again. I am curious what happens to those numbers if Hillary's elected though.

We never loving learn. :suicide:

fade5 fucked around with this message at 23:17 on May 5, 2014

# ¿ May 5, 2014 23:15

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Nessus posted:

What's this "we" poo poo? "The kind of people who form little shitbag militias and jack off over the prospect of getting to LARP out Red Dawn" never learn, maybe. I think this is a place where it is OK to have exclusionary language.

I meant it more as a general "America never learns". Timothy McVeigh disillusioned the public with Militas in the 90's, now Cliven Bundy and his gang getting into a shootout with the Feds is what it's going to take to remind America that Militas are horrible. Since the theme of 2016 seems to be "the 90's redux"+Benghazi, complete with possible (Jeb) Bush vs (Hillary) Clinton rematch, I'm wondering just how many battles we'll end up re-fighting.

gently caress it, I'm in. The Republicans didn't win last time, and I've seen a hell of a lot of Clinton nostalgia. :getin:

# ¿ May 5, 2014 23:36

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 23:54

fade5: May 31, 2012; by exmarx

Axetrain posted:

It's pretty telling that people who want more government "efficiency" always try to do it by cutting social programs instead of corporate subsidies, tax breaks for the rich, or that 1 trillion dollar F-35 shitheap.

What kills me is is that the Air Force respond to the F-35 being a shitheap in a very simple way: service extensions for the F-16s that the F-35 was supposed to replace.

Wikipedia posted:

The F-16 was scheduled to remain in service with the U.S. Air Force until 2025. The planned replacement was to be the F-35A version of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, which would gradually begin replacing a number of multi-role aircraft among the program's member nations. However due to delays in the JSF program, all USAF F-16s will get service life extension upgrades.

Now let's take a look at the F-16 for a minute:

Wikipedia posted:

Over 4,500 aircraft have been built since production was approved in 1976. Although no longer being purchased by the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are still being built for export customers.

In addition to active duty U.S. Air Force, Air Force Reserve Command, and Air National Guard units, the aircraft is also used by the USAF aerial demonstration team, the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, and as an adversary/aggressor aircraft by the United States Navy. The F-16 has also been procured to serve in the air forces of 25 other nations.

F-16 cost per plane in 2013 dollars: $20.0-$23.5 million
F-35 cost per plane in 2013 dollars: $153.1-$199.4 million

Still in use today by the US, used by 25 other nations around the globe, and astoundingly cheap in comparison. Now that is a successful fighter jet. :patriot:

# ¿ May 6, 2014 22:57

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