US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2288

On September 11 2015 11:07 Plansix wrote:

We've read up. She is a terrible person and didn't ask for a reasonable accommodation. She wanted to repress gay couples through her office. You're lying.

Also, yesterday Davis’s lawyers asked the Sixth Circuit for relief pending appeal; after reading that, I got in touch with the lawyers to make sure I fully understood the accommodation that they are currently seeking. They confirmed that Davis would have no religious objections to her office handling the marriage licenses and certificates if a judge applying Kentucky’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (or, as they argue is possible, the Governor, under certain authority that he has) held that:

the licenses would be issued, as a matter of Kentucky law, under the authority of someone other than Davis or the County Clerk, for instance the County Judge Executive or a deputy clerk who was willing to put his name on them, and
the licenses reflected that accommodation, by including the name and office of the authorizing person (again, the Judge Executive or deputy clerk or whoever else) instead of Davis’s name and office.

From the outset of this case, Davis
has proposed numerous simple options that resolve the parties’ conflict, and protect
Davis’ sincerely-held religious beliefs. These less restrictive solutions are
readily available, and easily accomplished by Gov. Beshear and the KDLA, the state agency
responsible for designing the revised marriage form at issue in this litigation.

It is hard to exaggerate the damage inflicted on AIPAC by the congressional defeat of its efforts to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal. It is not as if AIPAC won’t live to fight again, because it will, but this defeat has ruptured the status quo, possibly forever.

The extent of its efforts to defeat the deal was unprecedented even for a lobby known for its no-holds-barred wars against past White House initiatives it considered unfriendly to Israel, going all the way back to the Ford administration. AIPAC, and its cutout Citizens For A Nuclear Free Iran, reportedly budgeted upwards of $20 million for a campaign that included flooding the airwaves with television spots; buying full-page newspaper ads, arranging fly-ins of AIPAC members to Washington, organizing demonstrations at offices of AIPAC-friendly members of Congress who were believed to be wavering, and ensuring that problematic legislators were officially warned by precisely the right donor. Rank-and-file AIPAC members were largely irrelevant to the process. Money did the talking, and also the yelling and the cursing when necessary. As one congressional staffer put it to me, “Taking money from AIPAC is like getting a loan from the mob. You better not forget to pay it back. They walk into this office like they own it.”

AIPAC is not a mass-membership organization. It claims 100,000 members, which probably means it has fewer than that. But no matter, it is, or was until now, viewed as speaking for all 6 million American Jews. In fact, whenever it testifies on Capitol Hill, it says it is speaking for the entire organized community. The truth, however, is that 82 percent of American Jews belong to no Jewish organizations at all, meaning not only that there is no organization that speaks for them, but that no organization even knows exactly who they are.

Legislators believe that AIPAC is the Jewish voice because (again, until now) that is what they heard from their Jewish donors. Although only 4 to 6 percent of American Jews cast their votes based on Israel policy, and even though Jews have voted consistently Democratic since 1928 (about 70 percent voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012), the donor class led by AIPAC has convinced politicians both that Jews are primarily interested in Israel and that their votes are in play, when, in reality, Jews are the most unwavering of Democrats, second only to African-Americans. And much the same dynamic is at play when it comes to Iran. In fact, the one scientific poll of Jews on attitudes toward the Iran deal showed 49 percent for it, with 31 percent against. (Writing in the September 9 Washington Post, Harold Meyerson explains exactly where the Jewish community stands today, a picture that is very different from the one painted by AIPAC.)

So why don’t politicians know this?

On September 12 2015 06:56 IgnE wrote:
I like Trump's email to CNN. Hardly "despicable".

On September 12 2015 13:44 writer22816 wrote: But then again, we already know Trump is an asshole.

On September 12 2015 14:04 Yoav wrote:


Whaaaaat.....?

On September 13 2015 02:44 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Can we officially say that Bernie is currently the frontrunner over Hillary?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6mVQ4PLCc8

On September 13 2015 03:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


I don't get it.

But to be fair, I'm sure Bernie knows what T-swizzle says about the haters

On September 13 2015 03:08 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


Why wouldn't minorities vote for him?

On September 13 2015 03:46 TheTenthDoc wrote:


Because he has 0 name recognition in edit: large, relatively uninformed or politically disinterested portions of the demographic, mostly (though his numbers there are steadily improving from what I have heard).

On September 13 2015 03:31 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


Yeah but she's not in any relevant political polls... obviously. Did you watch the video? It's not about crowds; it's about the polls.