Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Lord Liaden]

He thinks this will win him votes. Assuming he even knows what he thinks.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

31 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

He thinks this will win him votes. Assuming he even knows what he thinks.

 

Sadly, it probably will.

[unclevlad]

3 hours ago, Dr. MID-Nite said:

 

Sadly, it probably will.

 

I doubt he'll pick up any new support from these.  Those who'd approve of them, were very likely in his camp already.

 

The true measure of the state of politics, to me is...it probably won't cost him that much either.  The stances?  They're common enough.  The delivery borders on incoherent.  That might make some folks question his fitness...but not many.  And to echo what I said above...they were probably *not* voting for him.

 

Elsewhere...at this point, I don't think we can separate Twitter news from politics.

https://theintercept.com/2022/11/22/twitter-allows-russian-officials-share-antisemitic-cartoon-zelenskyy/

 

The head of ad sales was fired today, because she refused to lay off even more staff.  This, 10 days after Musk begged her to stay.  The echoes of Trump resound....

 

WaPo has a story that over 1/3 of the top 100 advertisers, including 14 of the top 50, have stopped advertising on the site.  It's paywalled, but...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/22/twitter-advertiser-exodus-musk/

 

I got it through the stock market news app on my iPad...Mars candy, Merck, Kellogg's cereal (and lots of other stuff, I believe), and Verizon are all mentioned by name.  Jeep, IIRC, came up in a separate story.  

 

And, last...for today at least:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/technology/elon-musk-twitter-cost-cutting.html

 

Quote

As Elon Musk Cuts Costs at Twitter, Some Bills Are Going Unpaid

Mr. Musk and his advisers are examining all types of expenses at Twitter. Some of the social media company’s vendors have gotten stiffed.

 

This sounds like Disney's claim that they don't owe royalties to authors whose books they acquired.

 

 

 

 

OMFG........................................  I just saw this.

UNM and NMSU play home and home in basketball, done it forever.  The games were called off because of a shooting up in Albuquerque.  

 

I'll just warn ya.  There's nothing graphic, crude or offensive...except the motivation and the act itself.  It's...bloody sick.  

https://www.krqe.com/news/albuquerque-metro/new-details-emerge-in-university-of-new-mexico-homicide/

 

 

 

[unclevlad]

y'know what makes for a really awful, terrible way to start one's morning?

 

finding out there's been ANOTHER!!!! mass shooting event.  6 more dead because some messed up, unhinged, imbalanced whackjob got his hand on a gun and blasted away.

 

God it hurts.  I am sooo damn tired of it....

[Dr. MID-Nite]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

y'know what makes for a really awful, terrible way to start one's morning?

 

finding out there's been ANOTHER!!!! mass shooting event.  6 more dead because some messed up, unhinged, imbalanced whackjob got his hand on a gun and blasted away.

 

God it hurts.  I am sooo damn tired of it....

 

It will never end. The nation lacks the political will to do anything about it. And those who have the will...lack the power.

[Old Man]

3 hours ago, unclevlad said:

y'know what makes for a really awful, terrible way to start one's morning?

 

finding out there's been ANOTHER!!!! mass shooting event.  6 more dead because some messed up, unhinged, imbalanced whackjob got his hand on a gun and blasted away.

 

God it hurts.  I am sooo damn tired of it....

 

There's been enough of those the past few days that I'm having trouble keeping track.  I went to google the Virginia Wal-Mart shooting and got a lot of hits about the UVA-Virginia Tech shooting from the day before, as well as the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting.  At what point just it all just devolve into a perpetual nationwide gunfight?

[BoloOfEarth]

18 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

He thinks this will win him votes. Assuming he even knows what he thinks.

 

I think you may have had some extraneous words there.  Specifically, "knows what he".

[unclevlad]

53 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

There's been enough of those the past few days that I'm having trouble keeping track.  I went to google the Virginia Wal-Mart shooting and got a lot of hits about the UVA-Virginia Tech shooting from the day before, as well as the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting.  At what point just it all just devolve into a perpetual nationwide gunfight?

 

And the Colorado Springs shooting.

 

And the UNM shooting...which was planned, premeditated, and targeted.  Which only had 1 death...one of the attackers, but still.

 

It already has devolved.  It is still only intermittent, but perpetual doesn't require continuous...but these incidents are all within 10 days of each other.

 

And that doesn't begin to touch those that don't make the wider news.

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting

 

Just to point out one:  Richmond.  The 19th.  Mother, 3 kids.  Incident categorizes it as both home invasion and domestic violence;  the shooter was the father of 2 of the kids he shot.  Just because we don't hear about it, doesn't make it any less sickening.

[Cancer]

Two weeks ago there was a fatal shooting at the high school four blocks from my house.

[Lord Liaden]

TBH we in the rest of the world look at these examples and wonder, "Why is doing something about gun violence even questioned in America?" I would hate to have to live with this in the back of my mind every time I step out my door. Back in grad school I had an American woman friend who would marvel that men and women would just walk around downtown Toronto alone, even at night, and not think twice about it. (To be fair, there are places and times when you have to be careful in Canadian cities, too, especially as a woman.)

[Tom]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

TBH we in the rest of the world look at these examples and wonder, "Why is doing something about gun violence even questioned in America?" I would hate to have to live with this in the back of my mind every time I step out my door. Back in grad school I had an American woman friend who would marvel that men and women would just walk around downtown Toronto alone, even at night, and not think twice about it. (To be fair, there are places and times when you have to be careful in Canadian cities, too, especially as a woman.)

 

Firearms are arguably very much a part of the US's cultural mythology.  Attacking 'guns' is attacking many people's sense of identity as 'Americans', which is something the Republican party is willing to play to in order to keep their base riled up...

 

 

(and you can safely bet there is someone else off panel 'advising' their wannabe sovereign to convince the torch people that the pitchfork people are out to take away their torches...)

 

The other part of the problem -  "Why is doing something about gun violence even questioned in America?" - is the assumption that only one side has the 'right' answer.

 

Everybody (probably) wants to 'do something' about gun violence.  They just don't agree on what or how - or who.

 

 

[Pariah]

I'm a teacher. We are discouraged (but not yet completely forbidden, at least not where I am) from talking about gender identity, but we do have mandated active shooter drills.

[Tom]

My favorite part of US politics.

 

The two primary parties spend so much time and energy trying to control some aspect of somebody else's life, mostly, it seems, as a means of ensuring their own positions.

 

 

[TrickstaPriest]

15 minutes ago, Tom said:

My favorite part of US politics.

 

The two primary parties spend so much time and energy trying to control some aspect of somebody else's life, mostly, it seems, as a means of ensuring their own positions.

 

 

 

pretty sure abortion is still fully illegal in AZ right now.  I pity all the women who have to use period tracker apps or go to the doctors for... any reason, and might have their conditions reported on to the government 😕

[Lord Liaden]

5 hours ago, Tom said:

 

The other part of the problem -  "Why is doing something about gun violence even questioned in America?" - is the assumption that only one side has the 'right' answer.

 

Everybody (probably) wants to 'do something' about gun violence.  They just don't agree on what or how - or who.

 

 

What I see is one side proposing various controls, and/or an improved mental health approach, which may or may not work; while the other side either doesn't want to talk about it all, or their answer is to put guns in the hands of even more people.

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Tom said:

My favorite part of US politics.

 

The two primary parties spend so much time and energy trying to control some aspect of somebody else's life, mostly, it seems, as a means of ensuring their own positions.

 

 

 

Genuinely curious: Which aspects of life are the two parties trying to control? Gun control? Abortion restrictions? Gay marriage bans, or bans on transgendering? Voter restrictions? Or did you have in mind other or more aspects of lives that one party or the other is trying to control?

[Tom]

54 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Genuinely curious: Which aspects of life are the two parties trying to control? Gun control? Abortion restrictions? Gay marriage bans, or bans on transgendering? Voter restrictions? Or did you have in mind other or more aspects of lives that one party or the other is trying to control?

 

I'd say you hit the highlights, though you should probably add religion to the list and there does seem to be one or more subsets of people who are trying to more narrowly define what it means to be an 'American'.

[Lord Liaden]

Well, most of those are on one party.

[Tom]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

What I see is one side proposing various controls, and/or an improved mental health approach, which may or may not work; while the other side either doesn't want to talk about it all, or their answer is to put guns in the hands of even more people.

 

I'm not sure that's an entirely accurate perspective.  I generally see one side suggesting various (additional gun) controls and the other side pointing to mental health (with a substantial contingent trying to ignore the problem and suggesting more guns).  This may be a matter of which bits of the picture we happen to see, so I'm inclined to put it down as our individual perspectives not perfectly aligning.

 

What I seldom see is more than a rhetorical question asking how we have a society that can produce young men (mostly) who think attacking a school room full of children is a life goal.

 

(Disgruntled employees going off in the work place probably have a longer history (which is my initial impression on the latest Walmart shooting), even if still doesn't make sense to the vast majority of us.)

 

I'm old enough that 'active shooter drills' weren't a thing when I was growing up, but I do remember the signs that indicated where the fallout shelters were located in the school.  I graduated High School in 1983.  Columbine happened in 1999.  I remember thinking back then that the kid I used to be in would have probably been on a watch list - loner, into military history, violent fantasy (AD&D - I discovered Hero while I was in the service), liked guns/weapons...

 

Interestingly enough, the Assault Weapon Ban was in place back then.  It ran 1994-2004.

 

The backbone of most of the restrictions that currently govern firearms sales date to the Gun Control Act of 1968.  The majority of the controls regulating machineguns, destructive devices, short barreled rifles/shotguns, and silencers/suppressors date back to the National Firearms Act of 1934.

 

It's not like there aren't any restrictions currently in place.

 

The additional controls usually brought up that I'm recalling off hand are red flag laws and universal background checks.

 

The issue with red flag laws, from a practical sense, is the same issue with something like restraining orders.  Law enforcement is reactive.  It generally can't 'do' anything until after the fact - if then.  Colorado has red flag laws, and the shooter there apparently should have run afoul of them - except the family wouldn't cooperate and the prosecutor apparently just let the matter drop.  If anyone has any additional (or better) information, feel free to correct me.  On principle, they sound like a good-enough idea, and gun groups generally oppose them on 'due process' concerns.

 

Universal background checks sound good in theory, but is probably impractical to implement - and once again, is only enforceable in the reactive sense.  It would also only likely be possible with universal gun registration (which gun groups are rather vehement in their opposition to) and would require a massive infrastructure to attempt even token enforcement.  It's not impossible, but it would require a huge investment - especially since the estimated number of firearms in private hands ranges between 370-400+ million from what I'm recalling off the top of my head.

[Tom]

13 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Well, most of those are on one party.

 

I won't entirely disagree with you there.

 

I will note that both parties engage in gerrymandering.  People could also argue that both parties try to set the election rules to their own advantage, but it would seem to be only one party that focuses primarily on restricting access to voting.

[TrickstaPriest]

Yeah.  Even when two people are using tactics, two tactics aren't created equal.  Making use of parties to the populace's advantage means recognizing which tactics help us and protecting them. 

 

But I don't give any of them a loose leash.

[Lord Liaden]

41 minutes ago, Tom said:

 

I'm not sure that's an entirely accurate perspective.  I generally see one side suggesting various (additional gun) controls and the other side pointing to mental health (with a substantial contingent trying to ignore the problem and suggesting more guns).  This may be a matter of which bits of the picture we happen to see, so I'm inclined to put it down as our individual perspectives not perfectly aligning.

 

 

And that is fair.   I do have to point out that while the GOP often talk about improving mental health, over at least the past half decade that I'm aware of, they've consistently voted against legislation that would expand access to and/or increase funding for mental health care, while putting forward no legislation or proposals of their own for dealing with it.

[Tom]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

And that is fair.   I do have to point out that while the GOP often talk about improving mental health, over at least the past half decade that I'm aware of, they've consistently voted against legislation that would expand access to and/or increase funding for mental health care, while putting forward no legislation or proposals of their own for dealing with it.

 

Yeah.  Health care feels like a social program type thing.  Not the Republican's strong suite...

[Matt the Bruins]

The only problems I can recall the GOP proposing and enacting solutions for in recent years are border control and corporations/higher tax bracket individuals being expected to pay taxes.

[Iuz the Evil]

It’ll be interesting to see what can be accomplished in the lame duck session remaining. Probably the debt ceiling, maybe electoral college protections, maybe Manchin’s energy bill. There’s talk about attaching some desired legislative action to bills that have already passed the House (firearms regulation, DACA reform) but I think that’s a mistake. Probably would kill the items they want to pass, don’t see much incentive for the Republicans to play along and it’ll probably result in dead bills. They should, in my opinion, get as much as they can out of this before what’s likely a period of gridlock.

 

Which won’t bother me much, at this point. Better than I’d hoped and maybe it’ll compel some compromise and civility. 
 

…

 

Ha!