Election 2016

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Thu Nov 03, 2016 8:28 pm

Longes wrote:Publically advocating assassination. Lovely.

Dude, I sympathize with your disgust, but you DO realize that assassination is current US policy, right?

We're assassinating US citizens, without trial, in countries we're not at war with, using drones, and occasionally killing indisputably innocent people we weren't even aiming at.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Nov 03, 2016 8:32 pm

Looks like somebody doesn't understand what words mean.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Nov 04, 2016 11:24 pm

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-zero-ou ... .93ebjevzo

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Nov 05, 2016 4:54 am

Map of polling places closed since Shelby:

But sure Scalia, Congress was lying when they found evidence of continued southern bias against minority voting.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Nov 05, 2016 5:04 am

deaddmwalking wrote:The only reason there's as much consternation is because of how one-sided things looked two weeks ago.

Well, that and it's Donald fucking Trump.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Nov 05, 2016 5:21 am

Whipstitch wrote:
deaddmwalking wrote:The only reason there's as much consternation is because of how one-sided things looked two weeks ago.
Well, that and it's Donald fucking Trump.

I continue to maintain that Rubio or Cruz winning the election would be just as terrible. Donald Trump kind of special in that he can be terrible losing.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Nov 05, 2016 6:45 am

I agree with you wholeheartedly on the second point but I think the first bit is debatable. All three are terrible--the bar you need to clear in order to be anointed a "respectable" Republican is demonstrably located somewhere below sea level--but with Trump I feel like we get all of the usual conservative bullshit plus a live feed of the president brazenly fucking the Overton window in the ass every week. You may very well be right given that his vainglorious bullshit probably cost him the election in the first place but I still get why people are so viscerally disgusted by him.

SlyJohnny · Post by **SlyJohnny** » Sat Nov 05, 2016 10:41 am

So Wikileaks just cited r/the_donald on it's "study" that the Clinton foundation is linked to some crazy Christian lady who was abducting Haitian children under the guise of adoption. The proof of this link is that I guess the crazy lady sent a few emails trying to solicit donations?

Well, it could've been something really great, but I'm done with these assholes now. I thought maybe there wasn't enough data to conclusively say they were a tool of Putin (even if the way they handled information made them ripe for being used as a propaganda tool from whoever was releasing the most information, or simply just creating it), but I was so wrong. The U.S. can poison Assange's omelette and dronestrike the rest of these assholes into oblivion for all I care.

https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/st ... 7756860417

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Nov 05, 2016 10:59 am

Assange is either a rabid dog or a Russian asset. There's no third option where he is actually the "enlightened" anti-state activist he professes to be. I mean, Donald Trump threatened to sue the media outlets who ran the Access Hollywood tape. Donald Trump clearly believes it is the role of civil courts - if not law enforcement - to protect the rich and powerful from embarrassing news coverage. He is not actually a friend of any "whistleblowing libertarians" except insofar as he can sick them on people he doesn't like and they never bite the hand that feeds them.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Nov 05, 2016 11:42 am

SlyJohnny wrote:So Wikileaks just cited r/the_donald on it's "study" that the Clinton foundation is linked to some crazy Christian lady who was abducting Haitian children under the guise of adoption. The proof of this link is that I guess the crazy lady sent a few emails trying to solicit donations?

Well, it could've been something really great, but I'm done with these assholes now. I thought maybe there wasn't enough data to conclusively say they were a tool of Putin (even if the way they handled information made them ripe for being used as a propaganda tool from whoever was releasing the most information, or simply just creating it), but I was so wrong. The U.S. can poison Assange's omelette and dronestrike the rest of these assholes into oblivion for all I care.

https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/st ... 7756860417

People who run wikileaks twitter account are crazy and have previously rambled about jewish conspiracies and parentheses bracketing being a secret sign.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 1:13 pm

A guy with a sign that said "Republicans Against Trump" was at a Trump Rally, and so some random Trumple yelled "He's got a gun" and then they jumped on him and beat him up.

Trump tweets about Democrat violence and his supporters crow about how he survived another assassination attempt. Because you know, maybe he would have thrown the sign really hard...

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 1:14 pm

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 6:26 pm

Mainly to Kaelik: Got any feelings about PA's referendum on judicial retirement age ?

Personally I'll admit to incomplete understanding of the issue, but the really deceptive wording rankles me.

Asking "Should judges have a mandatory retirement age of 75?" is deceitful when what you mean to ask is "Should the current mandatory retirement age for judges be raised from 70 to 75?"

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 6:43 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:Mainly to Kaelik: Got any feelings about PA's referendum on judicial retirement age ?

Personally I'll admit to incomplete understanding of the issue, but the really deceptive wording rankles me.

Asking "Should judges have a mandatory retirement age of 75?" is deceitful when what you mean to ask is "Should the current mandatory retirement age for judges be raised from 70 to 75?"

Well actually, I vote in NJ. But honestly, as a lawyer who practices in Penn, you should definitely vote no, because every single judge that wins a second election is always garbage, so might as well keep the turnover as high as possible.

Probably not objective, but PA judges are fucking terrible, and the ones that win elections are the ones most offensive and corrupt. So I'd rather just keep teaching new judges and hoping I don't catch the old ones, can't imagine 70-74 year old judges are going to be appreciably better than young corrupt ones.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 7:07 pm

Thanks.

I was of the opinion that any real case to be made for raising the retirement age could have been sold on its merits instead of sneaky ballot wordings -- but figgered it was worth asking the Denner who (likely) has the most interaction with PA judges.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 7:13 pm

Are bar association ratings usually reliable?

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Nov 06, 2016 8:16 pm

I'm considering voting for a libertarian for county sherriff. Not because I like libertarianism but because the current sherriff is so terrible.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 8:25 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:Are bar association ratings usually reliable?

Reliable in the sense that better people are usually better rated. But somewhat unreliable in that it's part of the same system, and they never want to say anything bad about judges.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 10:26 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I'm considering voting for a libertarian for county sherriff. Not because I like libertarianism but because the current sherriff is so terrible.

I dunno about your county, but in all the ones I've lived in, party affiliations don't matter much because they don't set foreign policy, most social issues are decided at least one level over their heads, and if any important economic decisions slip past the state level the county will usually let mayors figure it out. When you're voting for your county sheriff, party affiliation probably matters less than whether or not he's corrupt, a bully, or both.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 6:08 am

Having only read bits and pieces of this entire thread, (it is really big), I find the aversion to Trump hilarious. I honestly can't understand why you all don't get why people like him. The reason people like him is for several reasons:

1. The right has lost every major conflict for the last 30 years. Abortion, gay marriage... shit like that. And don't even try jumping on me for that. I know most of you think its the "woman's body and therefore her choice" but it is simply a matter of who you think needs to be protected more.

2. People like Trump because he doesn't give a fuck if people call him racist. Conservative leaders have been looking to the left to see if things that they say are okay for too long. It isn't fucking racist to say that Islam causes problems. Its a religion, not a colour.

3. Trump supports limiting illegal immigrants. he once said that they are all criminals, which they all fucking are, because they are ILLEGAL immigrants. Apply and get your papers like I did you fucks.

4. Trump supports tariffs on foreign businesses, which would make it cheaper to run a factory here... I shouldn't have to explain why this is a good thing.

5. EVERYONE IS RACIST. This idea is bullshit. It is a legitimate concern of people that their way of life might change. It does not make some one racist to be worried about that. And considering what I have come across with minorities telling whites they should learn "shit so they don't get beat" when they aren't the majority anymore... Again, shouldn't have to explain myself here.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 6:21 am

When you wonder why you have someone on ignore. And then you click on their post, and you don't wonder anymore.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 6:35 am

Kaelik wrote:When you wonder why you have someone on ignore. And then you click on their post, and you don't wonder anymore.

This just helps to prove my point. I haven't actually said anything about my personal political stance, but because I could be a Trump supporter my post is dumb.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 6:39 am

AndreiChekov wrote:
Kaelik wrote:When you wonder why you have someone on ignore. And then you click on their post, and you don't wonder anymore.
This just helps to prove my point. I haven't actually said anything about my personal political stance, but because I could be a Trump supporter my post is dumb.

No, your post is dumb because you start by phrasing it as "How can you guys not know why people like Trump!!!!?" when we all know why people like Trump, and then follow it up by saying that the patently racist reasons people like Trump totally aren't racist at all.

Also you randomly throw in support for Tariffs that let's everyone know you are weird idiot who doesn't understand even the basics of the modern economy. You can make an intelligent case for "less free trade" but it looks nothing like what you wrote there.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 7:09 am

Kaelik wrote:
AndreiChekov wrote:
Kaelik wrote:When you wonder why you have someone on ignore. And then you click on their post, and you don't wonder anymore.
This just helps to prove my point. I haven't actually said anything about my personal political stance, but because I could be a Trump supporter my post is dumb.
No, your post is dumb because you start by phrasing it as "How can you guys not know why people like Trump!!!!?" when we all know why people like Trump, and then follow it up by saying that the patently racist reasons people like Trump totally aren't racist at all.

Also you randomly throw in support for Tariffs that let's everyone know you are weird idiot who doesn't understand even the basics of the modern economy. You can make an intelligent case for "less free trade" but it looks nothing like what you wrote there.

Oh right. I forgot that EVERYTHING IS RACIST. As a white male I have no understanding at all of what racism is, which isn't wanting people to obey the law, or having criticism for a religion. Because only whites can be racist because we have all the power.

Modern economies are an idea that has failed us. I'm up for trying something that worked before. I mean, it worked when jefferson did it.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 7:46 am

AndreiChekov wrote:This just helps to prove my point. I haven't actually said anything about my personal political stance, but because I could be a Trump supporter my post is dumb.

The dumbest thing here is that you somehow don't think you said something about your personal political stance. You're accepting a bunch of trivially falsifiable conservative talking points at face value, immediately telling us that you are the exactly the kind of thoughtless idiot who believes these things truth-be-damned. I mean, let's just pick some highlights:

AndreiChekov wrote:4. Trump supports tariffs on foreign businesses, which would make it cheaper to run a factory here...

No it doesn't. The cost to run a factory in the U.S. is exactly the same before and after an import tariff on foreign manufacturing goods, because "foreign manufacturing is more expensive" does fuck all to make your labor or your raw materials cheaper. The cost to run a factory in the U.S. is higher after an import tariff on domestic raw materials. The cost to run a factory in the U.S. is higher after a retaliatory export tariff by our former trading partners on their exported raw materials. Import tariffs do not make domestic goods cheaper. That's fucking gibberish. They make foreign goods more expensive, which makes domestic goods more competitive by comparison. Those are very, very different things. There are two things that will happen when you do this:

1) Prices will go up. You made the cheapest option more expensive, so now things just cost more. That's how it works. The truth is that America's access to cheap plastic shit is maintained entirely by access to third world slave labor. That's... kind of depressing, but it's true. We will be a poorer nation - at least in terms of the material wealth of our citizens - without trade.

2) You might create some manufacturing jobs. I say might, because in all honesty we HAVE had a small manufacturing resurgence and it created basically fuck all jobs. Do you want to know why? Because the factories that are opening in the U.S. today are automated to hell and back and don't need a significant amount of labor to operate. The problem isn't just that Chinese labor is cheaper than U.S. labor; machine labor is cheaper than U.S. labor. So you can either declare that we're going to race both the Chinese and the robots to the bottom (in terms of wages) or you can accept that manufacturing has gone the way of the weaver and the loom; we have machines for that now and you can't reasonably expect to be able to do that for a living.

So it's not only that you fucking BUTCHERED the conservative talking point in the stupidest way possible, but even once I fixed it for you it's still a fucking stupid unrealistic pipe dream that falls apart at the first brush with reality.

AndreiChekov wrote:I know most of you think its the "woman's body and therefore her choice" but it is simply a matter of who you think needs to be protected more.

AndreiChekov wrote:It isn't fucking racist to say that Islam causes problems.

It's really weird to see someone 180 between empathizing with an "ethical" stance on abortion and empathizing with a "pragmatic" stance on Islam. Unsafe abortions kill about 69k women annually. Islamic terrorist attacks kill about 28k people annually. That's globally, so the numbers are a fuckton higher than someone like you is ever likely to experience. In the U.S., fatalities caused by lightning strikes outnumber fatalities caused by Islamic terrorist attacks almost every single fucking year. They are very, very small numbers and the only reason people care about them is because brown people are scary. And pragmatically, the anti-abortion, anti-Islam guy is going to kill more people than he saves - in that he probably won't save any, and a bunch of women will die attempting to induce abortions without medical supervision. Practically, banning abortions has never done anything except kill a bunch of women - and it's far more successful at it than Islamic terrorists are.

AndreiChekov wrote:Modern economies are an idea that has failed us. I'm up for trying something that worked before. I mean, it worked when jefferson did it.

... Our poverty rate is ~15%. In Jefferson's time, the percent of the population living as slaves was ~18%. For every five people living in poverty today, there were six people who were literally someone else's property when Jefferson was alive. On top of that, you had a bunch of indentured servants living in perpetual debt bondage, but weren't technically slaves, and then you had a bunch of free people who were just fucking poor. You know fuck all about our economic history. Absolutely fuck all. It's embarrassing.