US Politics Thread for May: Everything is fucked, emphasis on everything.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Politics Thread for May: Everything is fucked, emphasis on everything.

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

I can speak to the Rutgers commencement situation because I went to the school and had friends who participated in the protests. The main issue is not having a reprehensible war criminal on campus (they have free speech rights too) but what was so offensive was paying her 35K to come and giving her an honorary degree. It was just beyond offensive. I was very happy to see someone like that pay a social cost (albeit tiny) for their crimes.

# ¿ May 28, 2014 22:00

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 04:37

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

SALT CURES HAM posted:

Reagan, Nixon, W Bush

As far as actual policy outcomes Nixon wasn't even close to one of the worst.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 15:20

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Amused to Death posted:

The economy contracted last quarter, prepare for conservative howling(and leader McConnell)

Is it going to make Tom Cotton gain 10 points on Mark Pryor? Because if that doesn't happen they aren't winning the senate.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 15:29

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Pfirti86 posted:

If someone told me a college invited Ted Cruz to give a commencement address, I think the word "Hillsdale?" would be the first coming out of my mouth.

Or Liberty, or Bob Jones, or George Mason, or Wichita State.... There are enough crazy conservative colleges to keep Ted busy.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 15:39

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Amused to Death posted:

Republicans don't need to win every single competitive seat to win the Senate
-Alaska
-Arkansas
-Montana
-West Virginia
-Louisiana
-North Carolina
-South Dakota

They can afford to lose one of those and still gain the Senate. This isn't even counting Colorado, Michigan, Virginia, and Iowa where they still have a small chance.

Maybe, but this data helps set an early narrative and makes potential Republican voters more seething mad at how much Obamacare has ruined the economy, ect.

Begich is about as likely to lose as Pryor is. He's consistently ~8 points up.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 16:03

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Bunleigh posted:

God drat it would be nice to see McConnell go down to Grimes. The dude has always been a worthless toolbag but his shameless prevaricating and goalpost-moving on Obamacare lately has really been superb.

I love his "get rid of Obamacare for everyone else but keep it for Kentucky" plan.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 17:49

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Alexzandvar posted:

Actually Kerry is pretty right in this, for Snowden to run to a country literally run by a dictator who throws his political enemies in jail for decades with out trial and is known for using massive amounts of illegal surveillance on his enemies is like moving to nazi germany because you disagree with the death penalty.

He's only in Russia because the US won't let him go anywhere else.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 20:45

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Alexzandvar posted:

This would be awesome but then he went on a Russian talk show and gave Putin a fake interview to make Putin not look bad for invading the Crimera and funding terrorists in eastern Ukraine.

Snowden only cares about the attention and Russia is more than willing to give it to him to make the west look bad.

You honestly think he did all that he's done for attention?

# ¿ May 29, 2014 20:55

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Alexzandvar posted:

He obviously isn't doing it for moral reasons as Putin has such a massive history of corruption and abuse of power if he actually gave a poo poo about his message he would face US punishment rather than help prop up one of the most corrupt and power abusing governments on the planet.

I don't think you're giving the gulf between "asking a question on a talk show" and "propping up a government" the respect it deserves.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 21:00

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Fried Chicken posted:

And you are ignoring that he pretty clearly has a deal with Russia for asylum. Vox lays out the evidence here: http://www.vox.com/2014/5/29/5761048/snowden-says-he-has-no-relationship-with-the-russian-government

There is whole lot of speculation and circumstance in there. Not much by way of facts. I'm not even sure what "relationship" means in that context.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 21:14

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Mr Interweb posted:

So...if you're a Christian, Obama's going to somehow take away your Christianity? How would that even work?

I know, I know. Conservative humor isn't supposed to make sense, it's just supposed to be used to attack Democrats, but still.

To them, taking away your right to impose your religion on others is the same thing as taking your religion away.

# ¿ May 30, 2014 03:25

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

It's pretty awesome that John McCain's political legacy is going to be Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber.

# ¿ May 30, 2014 04:04

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

You know the VA could be both underfunded and mismanaged at the same time right? That's probably the closest to the truth.

# ¿ May 30, 2014 16:59

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Fried Chicken posted:

the Alabama Legislature is bringing back voucher tests for voters who don't have photo id

Voucher tests, along with literacy tests, are explicitly banned by the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Gosh, it is so weird that voter I'd laws are being paired with Jim Crow laws used to suppress the vote. How could that happen since they are about voting integrity and not a transparent attempt to keep black people from voting?

Because it's definitely worth making black people all over the country hate your party to win elections in Alabama by 47% as opposed to 45%.

# ¿ May 30, 2014 18:44

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Joementum posted:

Andrew Cuomo managed to secure the Working Families Party ballot line with 58% of the vote after reaching an agreement with the party leadership whereby they would endorse him in exchange for him endorsing the idea of having a Democratic State Senate.

This is just depressing as all hell and it's why, as the left in this country we can't have nice things because we just can't hold our elected officials accountable the way the right can. Andrew Cuomo governs like a republican, a pretty conservative republican and apparently he has no pay literally no political price from his base for that.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2014 14:43

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

ThirdPartyView posted:

But his base are Rockefeller Republicans...?

Yeah. But those aren't Rockefeller republicans who nominated him last night.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2014 16:49

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

For being the party that projects american strength, the GOP sure does treat every Taliban fighter like they are Lex Luther or some other hilarious super villain...

# ¿ Jun 1, 2014 23:09

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 14:20

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

FAUXTON posted:

Except unlike John Walker Lindh or that Adam "Azzam The American" Gadahn totally-not-a-goon, Bergdahl was taken and held prisoner by the Taliban for years. Sure, maybe he said something wrong or maybe it was the uniform, but the guy "joined" the Taliban in the sense that Woody Harrelson's father "joined" the friendly community of peers residing in ADX Florence and became a friend for life. The US rescued a prisoner and now the usuals are making GBS threads on a guy kept in captivity by a bunch of people who execute rape victims in soccer stadiums because he walked off post in the middle of a goddamn quagmire.

The GOP want "deserters" shot in the head in front of all the other troops and then they have to bury them as an example because this is World War 1.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 18:54

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Republicans: "Lets mentally torture a guy and then prosecute him for breaking from that mental torture."

# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 01:47

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Fried Chicken posted:

That is the business line.

Politically, the conservative line is those fines are paid by the shareholders, not the people who committed the crime, making it completely unethical to fine the business at all.

The neoliberal one is current one of paying back 20% or less of what was stolen because we need moral hazard, but the fine can't be too big because it is the shareholders who pay, not the ones who committed the crime

I'm not even joking either, you can cruise over to forbes or fortune or bloomberg and see op eds debating it exactly on those lines. Barry Ritzholtz had a column about it the other day

This is actually a good argument though. Provided we were robustly prosecuting the individuals in the organization who were responsible. Having the company pay fines doesn't hurt the wrongdoers.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 15:57

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Fried Chicken posted:

No it isn't.

One, shareholders appoint and empower the people committing the crimes. They pick the management team, say the goals, and set up the incentives. They have a hand in setting it all up.

Two, ownership means potential losses as well as the potential gains. It is completely ethical to expect them to eat the loss of malfeasance, that is part of the risk they took when they bought in.

Together this means that if we won't fine the shareholders then they can keep putting people in place to do the poo poo the banks have been up to like laundering cartel money and manipulating aluminum prices and have a giant loving "get out if jail free" card

Absolutely the people committing the acts on the management team should be in jail. But the shareholders are responsible as well, particularly for the stuff that isn't illegal but is drat well in the wrong (eg manipulating aluminum prices)

Do you really think these tiny fines they hand out work as any kind of disincentive to bad behavior? They view it as a cost of doing business. Frog-walking CEO's out of their offices would have a much greater impact.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 16:52

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Mister Bates posted:

You're delusional if you honestly believe the wealthy or the politically powerful are ever drafted. It's nowhere near as much of an equaliser as people think.

It's an equaliser over large portions of the country that would never think about joining the army though. That's something.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 17:58

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Where can I get my #Bergdhal tote bag to go with my #Benghazi tote bag?

# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 18:24

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Fried Chicken posted:

people are talking about increasing corporate fines to at least being equal to the profit they made through the illegal actions, not changing the law.

I don't think anyone is against that... At least those not in our political class owns by said corporations.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 19:07

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

I think it's perfectly OK for Bergdahl's ex-team members to hate him and for it still to be the right thing to exchange prisoners for him.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 22:49

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Radish posted:

Your average GOP voter is voting massively against his or her interests anyway so I don't know why being gay should be THAT different. They are just more upfront with the gay hate than the not-rich-white-guy hate.

Most of those people are just guys who want lower taxes and care more about money than not being a second class citizen.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2014 15:51

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Radish posted:

Yeah but they typically aren't getting the real tax cuts and are getting screwed when the government services they use get cut. GOP policies are only good for a very small part of the population, they are just more up front with how they gently caress over minorities.

I'm pretty sure most of the GOProud members are in that population.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2014 15:56

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Amergin posted:

If a majority of white Americans favor same-sex marriage and a majority of black Americans don't, then sure.

Also again, factor in recent history here. I could draw conclusions about white people in general given their history of discrimination and I wouldn't be surprised by the result, but again the fact that ~~black people~~
the black community
is by-and-large against gay marriage is surprising, especially their bristling when you try to make the case that LGBTQ equality is a "civil rights" issue.

If you had a Republican politician who was progressive and agreed with Democrats in every way EXCEPT wanting to keep marriage hetero I bet you the black vote would largely flock to that ticket, everything else being equal.

I'm pretty sure Obama singlehandedly dragged the black community into that position over like a 2 month period. Those polls are striking.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2014 20:58

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 04:37

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Nybble posted:

We should pay everyone reparations, then pack up the Republic and go home.

http://pando.com/2014/05/31/paying-reparations-to-everyone-america-has-wronged-would-bankrupt-us-so-lets-do-it/

Coates isn't calling for anyone to be written a personal check and countries that print their own currency can't go bankrupt.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2014 22:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Politics Thread for May: Everything is fucked, emphasis on everything.