Official Current Affairs & Politics Thread II

[Rich Rane]

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Kavanaugh remembers he wasn't at a party that was 35 years ago and the woman in question can't possibly remember what happened at a party 35 years ago because lady parts. I'm sold, Senator Hatch. Put Kavanaugh through.

[MrDollarBills]

Orrin Hatch is exactly why there needs to be term limits for congress.

Also, Kavanaugh is on record for perjuring himself.

[MrDollarBills]

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....but any day now, I'm sure Hillary will be fitted for an orange jumpsuit.

[gigantes]

....but any day now, I'm sure Hillary will be fitted for an orange jumpsuit.

I really don't have the stomach to watch something like Fox News, but I gather from people like Mark Evanier that a huge part of Fox New's M.O. is to create a bad guy / bogeyman to represent the 'opposite side' of an argument. An argument which was probably nonsense in the first place, but perhaps I quibble.

In particular he was saying Hillary is *still* being used to represent the trope of the 'reckless, power-mad, liberal gone wild', years after she's even held public office. Apparently it's the best they can come up with to keep the whack jobs hatefully motivated, and yet it keeps working.

Not to mention, AFAIK based on stuff like Factcheck.org, Politifact.com and/or a working familiarity with reality, very little of Hillary's actual conduct has been wrong or worth attacking in any real way. From Benghazi, PizzaGate, the email server, the Clinton Foundation and other stuff, most of the attacks seem to amount to BS and hysteria.

Truly, Hillary's a rather unlikeable speaker to me. I don't like the sound of her voice nor her general demeanor, and I guess most people feel about the same. And that's fine within the sphere of that, but at the end of the day, it seems like the bigots and the propaganda-heads have pretty much turned her in to a comic book supervillain for the clueless. Particularly the clueless determined to stay clueless, no matter what.

[MrDollarBills]

I'm not a fan of Hillary because of her support of her husband's atrocious policies in the 90s that led to mass incarceration of black and brown people and what the Obama Administration did to Libya. Those are some serious transgressions that led to families being torn apart and people being killed. This is why I thought that she was not a good candidate. But I still voted for her because she is sane and has common sense. She would have stood up to Russian aggression, she wouldn't have signed off on tax cut bills that would tank the economy, and would not commit crimes against humanity at the US/Mexico border. On top of the fact that she wouldn't embolden white supremacists. Hillary is a corporatist center-left politco true and true but I would rather deal with Obama Part 2 over Trump who is an authoritarian nutjob who actively works to subvert the rule of law and actively puts people in danger on our own soil with his pandering to far right extremists.

That being said, the way that she's been depicted by the far right and far left (I will continue to beat this drum until people understand: Bernie Sanders' hardcore supporters are a counterproductive, closet racist liberal faction that would rather tank the movement to get the GOP out of power instead of agreeing to common sense compromise with everyone else who opposes what is happening) is a bunch of crap. The emails, benghazi, pizzagate, all of that stuff is garbage. At this point, anyone who talks about jailing Hillary Clinton is a nutjob.

[gigantes]

I'm not a fan of Hillary because of her support of her husband's atrocious policies in the 90s that led to mass incarceration of black and brown people and what the Obama Administration did to Libya. Those are some serious transgressions that led to families being torn apart and people being killed.

Hmm, what is the Clinton incarceration stuff you're talking about? Hopefully I know what you have in mind but am just having a brain fart right now.

As for Libya, I'll have to refresh myself on that one, but wasn't it nominally a coalition effort as opposed to something like Iraq?

[Rich Rane]

I'm not a fan of Hillary because of her support of her husband's atrocious policies in the 90s that led to mass incarceration of black and brown people and what the Obama Administration did to Libya. Those are some serious transgressions that led to families being torn apart and people being killed.

Hmm, what is the Clinton incarceration stuff you're talking about? Hopefully I know what you have in mind but am just having a brain fart right now.

Pretty sure he's talking about the 1994 Crime Bill that she lobbied for as First Lady (and a bill that Bernie Sanders actually voted for). It didn't start the problems (crime had been growing since the 70s, hitting its peak in the late 80s), but it sure as hell didn't fix the problem of mass incarceration of black people.

[MrDollarBills]

I'm not a fan of Hillary because of her support of her husband's atrocious policies in the 90s that led to mass incarceration of black and brown people and what the Obama Administration did to Libya. Those are some serious transgressions that led to families being torn apart and people being killed.

Hmm, what is the Clinton incarceration stuff you're talking about? Hopefully I know what you have in mind but am just having a brain fart right now.

As for Libya, I'll have to refresh myself on that one, but wasn't it nominally a coalition effort as opposed to something like Iraq?

Bill Clinton's 1994 Crime Bill led to mass incarcerations that heavily impacted black and brown inner city communities, where people ended up serving ridiculous sentences for crimes that did not even warrant it (read up on the three strikes rule).

Clinton admitted however, that his crime bill was a mistake: https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/15/politics/bill-clinton-1994-crime-bill/

But decades later, Clinton believes the results of the law were mixed, at best.
"In that bill, there were longer sentences. And most of these people are in prison under state law, but the federal law set a trend," Clinton said. "And that was overdone. We were wrong about that. That percentage of it, we were wrong about. "
He added: "The good news is we had the biggest drop in crime in history. The bad news is we had a lot people who were locked up, who were minor actors, for way too long."

The decimation of Libya was a NATO coalition effort led by us and The French/British if I recall. Reasons vary but I personally think a lot had to do with Gaddafi trying to create an African gold dinar to sell oil globally which pissed off the big players in the petrodollar oil market. It always comes down to money. Always.

Libya was a thriving African country under Gaddafi's rule (now let me be clear. Gaddafi was brutal dictator who did some terrible things during his life, where his violent death could be viewed as karmic retribution). The country wasn't perfect due to the lack of civil liberties like freedom of speech and there wasn't a free press among other things, but it wasn't a **** hole either, as Trump would say, by any means. Now? Widespread secretarian violence and a severe lower standard of living. Men and women being sold off as slaves. It did not have to come to that at all.

Obama admitted that how his administration handled mistake: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36013703

President Barack Obama said the worst mistake of his presidency was a lack of planning for the aftermath of the 2011 toppling of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

“Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya,” he said in a Fox News interview aired Sunday.

In a profile published last month in The Atlantic, the President told author Jeffrey Goldberg that British Prime Minister David Cameron became “distracted by a range of other things” after the operation. Cameron, along with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, took the brunt of Obama’s criticism. Although Obama said he thinks the intervention went as well as it could, he views Libya today as a “mess.”

Privately, according to the article, he refers to the troubled state as a “sh*t show.”

is it fair for me to pin the decision making of two men on her?? I don't think so. But she was in support of Bill's crime bill and she helped to craft Obama's foreign policy when it came to military intervention in Libya. I think it's fair to be critical of her over that. That being said, that didn't prevent me from voting for her nor does it justify the lunacy coming at her from the far right who want to throw her in jail over her emails and conspiracy theories.

[MrDollarBills]

I'm not a fan of Hillary because of her support of her husband's atrocious policies in the 90s that led to mass incarceration of black and brown people and what the Obama Administration did to Libya. Those are some serious transgressions that led to families being torn apart and people being killed.

Hmm, what is the Clinton incarceration stuff you're talking about? Hopefully I know what you have in mind but am just having a brain fart right now.

Pretty sure he's talking about the 1994 Crime Bill that she lobbied for as First Lady (and a bill that Bernie Sanders actually voted for). It didn't start the problems (crime had been growing since the 70s, hitting its peak in the late 80s), but it sure as hell didn't fix the problem of mass incarceration of black people.

Bingo. Especially when it comes to black people who rotted in jail for a ridiculous amount of time for non violent offenses. Violent offenders like murderers and rapists can be tossed under the jail for all I care, but some dude who was selling drugs or stealing cars needs to be rehabilitated and led on a path to become a productive member of society, not serving 20 years in prison.

And +1 for noting that Bernie voted for that bill.

[gigantes]

Thanks for explaining all that.

Bill Clinton's 1994 Crime Bill led to mass incarcerations that heavily impacted black and brown inner city communities, where people ended up serving ridiculous sentences for crimes that did not even warrant it (read up on the three strikes rule).

This sounds a lot like the continuation of "War on Crime" which started under Reagan IIRC. I wouldn't think the picture would have changed much under Bush Jr., but what about with Barry Obama?

...

Re: Libya,
So, I'm just reading through the WP article, and the whole situation sounds honestly kind of fascinating, as tragic and chaotic as it also was.

For one thing, I hadn't realised that Qaddafi had been retired for show since 1977, not that that changed his being a dictator. But it did massively define the specific way he spread his supporters, rivals and family around various institutions, plus how the whole local and national govt was structured and functioned. It seems in some ways he was even quite liberal and dedicated to human rights, particularly through his Green Book bible.

Anyway, if I'm understanding things right (so far) the trigger points for his overthrow started with his desire to route a bunch of national oil profits right past corrupt govt officials and directly to the people, which the system he himself established tried to slow way down or stop. It was like an anti-Venezuela move, and even shades of Louis XVI encouraging peoples' representatives to start meeting as a counter to the lords and clergy. I.e., it seems to have backfired in a sense, in that it helped incite people to react to how the govt was doing things.

Also, yeah... I can totally understand the destabilising effect of bringing down an Iraq and then a LIbya, and all the balance and structure they brought to their regions. Particularly without much of a plan for what to do next. The article summary states that the UN first ordered an intervention, which of course the US typically leads as the world's policeman. But I haven't come to the specifics yet in the body of the piece, so maybe there's complications and caveats...

[gigantes]

So, obviously there's a bunch of crap that drifts through Reddit, but IMO there's real gems of various sorts to be found on a daily basis. I saw this last night on the "Best Of" sub...

--Accused pedophile Roy Moore has come to Brett Kavanaugh’s defense--

I have a theory.

It's that the GOP is comprised of power hungry people that are willing to compromise morals in the pursuit of their power hungry agenda.

People like that are simply more likely to also be rapists.

The GOP Is the party of family values, i.e. gender roles. Families with strong gendered roles are often correlated with use of power and control, strong religious beliefs, and authoritarian conflict styles.

Power and control is the number one reason that subjects engage in sexual assault. They usually have access to consensual sex, but it's about domination.

The GOP craves domination. Just click on any R-leaning media. It's all about winning, owning, crushing, nailing, slamming, smashing, etc the opponent. Not surprisingly, this is all the same language used to describe sex in modern culture in additional to destroyed, annihilated, wrecked, etc. Again, power and control.

In my professional opinion, the GOP is the way it is because it supports moral models that condone power and control, violence, and vanquishing of any and all threats/enemies. Those models cannot easily be pried apart from politics, because as feminism has famously argued: the personal is political. That pendulum swings both ways.

Also, human beings are naturally prone to triangulation-us versus them plus a mediator. A triad is the most stable unit of relationships, but it is plagued by conflict that threatens homeostasis. We live in a two party political system. When tension runs too high, individuals vote third party or triangulate topics and individuals to redirect focus (e.g., buttery males). It temporarily redirects energy and focus, but doesn't solve the problem. And then the conflict is more explosive when resumed.

Edit: they aren't comrpomising their morals so much as living them, in my opinion and a few words for clarity and spelling.

I have degrees in psychology, marriage and family therapy, and organizational leadership. I've been a practicing clinician for 10 years working primarily witht law enforcement, military, and victims of crime. And I am a behaviorist and neuroscience nerd.

https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/9i2nt4/accused_pedophile_roy_moore_has_come_to_brett/e6gr5hh/

Not bad, huh?

[MrDollarBills]

Thanks for explaining all that.

Bill Clinton's 1994 Crime Bill led to mass incarcerations that heavily impacted black and brown inner city communities, where people ended up serving ridiculous sentences for crimes that did not even warrant it (read up on the three strikes rule).

This sounds a lot like the continuation of "War on Crime" which started under Reagan IIRC. I wouldn't think the picture would have changed much under Bush Jr., but what about with Barry Obama?

...

Re: Libya,
So, I'm just reading through the WP article, and the whole situation sounds honestly kind of fascinating, as tragic and chaotic as it also was.

For one thing, I hadn't realised that Qaddafi had been retired for show since 1977, not that that changed his being a dictator. But it did massively define the specific way he spread his supporters, rivals and family around various institutions, plus how the whole local and national govt was structured and functioned. It seems in some ways he was even quite liberal and dedicated to human rights, particularly through his Green Book bible.

Anyway, if I'm understanding things right (so far) the trigger points for his overthrow started with his desire to route a bunch of national oil profits right past corrupt govt officials and directly to the people, which the system he himself established tried to slow way down or stop. It was like an anti-Venezuela move, and even shades of Louis XVI encouraging peoples' representatives to start meeting as a counter to the lords and clergy. I.e., it seems to have backfired in a sense, in that it helped incite people to react to how the govt was doing things.

Also, yeah... I can totally understand the destabilising effect of bringing down an Iraq and then a LIbya, and all the balance and structure they brought to their regions. Particularly without much of a plan for what to do next. The article summary states that the UN first ordered an intervention, which of course the US typically leads as the world's policeman. But I haven't come to the specifics yet in the body of the piece, so maybe there's complications and caveats...

Gaddafi was a notorious human rights abuser...I think that despite him being a dictator, he did some really benevolent things which I think should be honestly recognized, but he also did some horrible things that earned him the brutal ending of being dragged through the streets by rebels, who sodomized him with a bayonet before shooting him to death. He brought that 100% on himself.

The issue really is how the US failed to properly prepare for a post Gaddafi Libya to ensure that the people weren't going to get screwed in the power vacuum once he was gone. This may be an oversimplification of some really complex stuff, but to be blunt The Obama Administration pretty much committed the same blunder that the Bush II Administration did after they took out Saddam.

[MrDollarBills]

So, obviously there's a bunch of crap that drifts through Reddit, but IMO there's real gems of various sorts to be found on a daily basis. I saw this last night on the "Best Of" sub...

--Accused pedophile Roy Moore has come to Brett Kavanaugh’s defense--

I have a theory.

It's that the GOP is comprised of power hungry people that are willing to compromise morals in the pursuit of their power hungry agenda.

People like that are simply more likely to also be rapists.

The GOP Is the party of family values, i.e. gender roles. Families with strong gendered roles are often correlated with use of power and control, strong religious beliefs, and authoritarian conflict styles.

Power and control is the number one reason that subjects engage in sexual assault. They usually have access to consensual sex, but it's about domination.

The GOP craves domination. Just click on any R-leaning media. It's all about winning, owning, crushing, nailing, slamming, smashing, etc the opponent. Not surprisingly, this is all the same language used to describe sex in modern culture in additional to destroyed, annihilated, wrecked, etc. Again, power and control.

In my professional opinion, the GOP is the way it is because it supports moral models that condone power and control, violence, and vanquishing of any and all threats/enemies. Those models cannot easily be pried apart from politics, because as feminism has famously argued: the personal is political. That pendulum swings both ways.

Also, human beings are naturally prone to triangulation-us versus them plus a mediator. A triad is the most stable unit of relationships, but it is plagued by conflict that threatens homeostasis. We live in a two party political system. When tension runs too high, individuals vote third party or triangulate topics and individuals to redirect focus (e.g., buttery males). It temporarily redirects energy and focus, but doesn't solve the problem. And then the conflict is more explosive when resumed.

Edit: they aren't comrpomising their morals so much as living them, in my opinion and a few words for clarity and spelling.

I have degrees in psychology, marriage and family therapy, and organizational leadership. I've been a practicing clinician for 10 years working primarily witht law enforcement, military, and victims of crime. And I am a behaviorist and neuroscience nerd.

https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/9i2nt4/accused_pedophile_roy_moore_has_come_to_brett/e6gr5hh/

Not bad, huh?

I think that this is a good point to consider as we watch a morally bankrupt party in its last gasps become apologists for an alleged rapist. Some GOP reps and senators are literally telling on themselves as they try to rationalize that a 17 year old male attempting to rape a 15 year old female is something that is normal or common place when it is absolutely not.

All of this is doing is putting the nails in their coffins as November quickly approaches and you see Lindsey Graham on television telling the country that he doesn't care if a Supreme Court nominee tried to rape a woman while he was in high school. I hope that Dr. Ford (the alleged victim)'s testimony and questioning is on live television because I have a feeling that the Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans are going to all but guarantee that they lose their majority in both the house and senate by attempting to bully and intimidate a white woman accusing their nominee of sexual assault.

[gigantes]

Gaddafi was a notorious human rights abuser...I think that despite him being a dictator, he did some really benevolent things which I think should be honestly recognized, but he also did some horrible things that earned him the brutal ending of being dragged through the streets by rebels, who sodomized him with a bayonet before shooting him to death. He brought that 100% on himself.

The issue really is how the US failed to properly prepare for a post Gaddafi Libya to ensure that the people weren't going to get screwed in the power vacuum once he was gone. This may be an oversimplification of some really complex stuff, but to be blunt The Obama Administration pretty much committed the same blunder that the Bush II Administration did after they took out Saddam.

No arguments here. Pretty much what I was saying, or trying to say.


Funny. I came back for some quality Nets talk and found this bonus talk / real talk. Pretty damn impressive IMO.

[MrDollarBills]

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And the flood gates have been opened.

edit: Jesus CHRIST.

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oh hell no. The GOP is **** insane.

[gigantes]

So... there's sort of a meta-question that's been growing on my mind the last few months and years. I don't want to jump to any quick conclusions for the time being, but I think this one's worth asking / thinking about:

Is the USA's Republican Party actually a legitimate political party, anymore? i.e., are they legitimately concerned with the long-term health & welfare of the body of US citizens, and even the country as a whole?

Personally, the more I think about it, it's really hard for me to say "yes," at least at the national level. I would imagine at the state and county level there are plenty of times when the GOP is backing the more realistic / pragmatic issue, but that's just a theory as well.

Regardless, it does seem like we as a country have been absentmindedly sleep-walking the idea that there are 'two legit parties' to choose between. But I'm not really sure that's true, anymore.

Thoughts...?


[Note: Just for the record, YES! of course I'm STOKED for the start of the season, and sad about the Kavanaugh fiasco. Huzzah and meh, respectively.]

[Prokorov]

So... there's sort of a meta-question that's been growing on my mind the last few months and years. I don't want to jump to any quick conclusions for the time being, but I think this one's worth asking / thinking about:

Is the USA's Republican Party actually a legitimate political party, anymore? i.e., are they legitimately concerned with the long-term health & welfare of the body of US citizens, and even the country as a whole?

Personally, the more I think about it, it's really hard for me to say "yes," at least at the national level. I would imagine at the state and county level there are plenty of times when the GOP is backing the more realistic / pragmatic issue, but that's just a theory as well.

Regardless, it does seem like we as a country have been absentmindedly sleep-walking the idea that there are 'two legit parties' to choose between. But I'm not really sure that's true, anymore.

Thoughts...?


[Note: Just for the record, YES! of course I'm STOKED for the start of the season, and sad about the Kavanaugh fiasco. Huzzah and meh, respectively.]

the short awnser is no... the GOP's sole function is to create and maintain wealth for the 1%

[Rich Rane]

#MAGABomber is trending.

[MrDollarBills]

And now we've reached the point where Trump's incitement of the extremist elements of the right wing have attempted to assassinate two ex presidents, the ex secretary of state, the ex attorney general, a sitting congresswoman, and the governor of NY state. All of these people attacked personally by Trump repeatedly. This is 100% his fault.

Imagine if one of those bombs actually reached Obama's residence and exploded. What if his daughter was home when that happened? You see how sick this stuff is?

gratefully, no one was killed because of this, because if it did I can guarantee it would have been the beginning of a period of political violence in the United States not seen in decades. If GOP congressmen think that being harassed at restaurants is bad, I've got news for them: there's lots of crazies on the left too. In fact, I don't even think the bomb plot failed even matters anymore. Someone is going to escalate this.

Vladimir Putin is somewhere in Russia grinning from ear to ear, and he should be, because he has won. This country is **** ed and is careening towards tearing itself limb from limb.

[MrDollarBills]

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so now someone has tried to kill Biden and also Robert De Niro who has been outspoken against Trump.

This is being called the most wide scale assassination attempt in modern history.

GOPers better pray that none of these bombs that they have enabled by proxy due to them giving Trump free reign to incite whoever is doing this kill anyone. Because I'm telling you will it will not be a case of "if" the extremist element of the left gets emboldened by this crap and all of a sudden all hell will break loose. It won't be someone walking into a restaurant to chant and yell at a GOP congressman it will be someone armed looking to kill them. I'm not being hyperbolic either, I believe that the dam is about to burst.

I just hope that the most vulnerable people right now caught up in this, the US postal workers, do not die from one of these things going off.