US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3888

On May 27 2016 04:38 SK.Testie wrote:
He's kinda killing it tbh.
+ Show Spoiler +

On May 27 2016 05:52 LegalLord wrote:
I see explicit religious conservatism being a significant driving force for elections for about one more generation. It's not quite dead yet but the youth of today are less religious than most by a significant margin.

On May 27 2016 05:59 Mohdoo wrote:


I think it will keep being significant and will keep throwing a fuss. Gay wedding cakes? Trans women in bathrooms? These are still issues totally spearheaded by religious conservatives. It's just that they aren't winning anymore.

On May 27 2016 05:59 Mohdoo wrote:


I think it will keep being significant and will keep throwing a fuss. Gay wedding cakes? Trans women in bathrooms? These are still issues totally spearheaded by religious conservatives. It's just that they aren't winning anymore.

On May 27 2016 05:52 LegalLord wrote:
I see explicit religious conservatism being a significant driving force for elections for about one more generation. It's not quite dead yet but the youth of today are less religious than most by a significant margin.

On May 27 2016 06:35 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Or it's as mentioned above, an increasingly vocal minority, that needs to paranoid about something or other to get through their lives. It's how Ted Cruz thought he could clinch Indiana and it totally backfired.

Sanders fans have claimed that because caucuses have lower turnout the current national caucus and primary vote underrates how well Sanders is doing. In fact, the opposite is true. When we switch all caucuses over to primaries, Sanders actually does worse. Clinton’s lead in the popular vote would grow from 2.9 to 3.3 million votes. Moreover, her edge in elected delegates would expand significantly. Instead of her current lead of 272 elected delegates, Clinton would be ahead by 424. Some states that were won by Sanders in caucuses, including Colorado and Minnesota, would be won by Clinton in primaries, according to our calculations.[...]

In fact, if all states held primaries open to independents — instead of closed primaries, or caucuses of any kind — Clinton might have a larger lead in elected delegates than she does now. The model indicates that Clinton would have a lead of 294 elected delegates, compared with the 272 she holds now. [...] Realistically, if you throw everything together, the math suggests that Sanders doesn’t have much to complain about. If the Democratic nomination were open to as many Democrats as possible — through closed primaries — Clinton would be dominating Sanders. And if the nomination were open to as many voters as possible — through open primaries — she’d still be winning.

On May 27 2016 07:16 kwizach wrote:
To follow-up on my post explaining why the Democratic primary system isn't rigged against Sanders: 538 have actually just released an analysis of this exact matter, examining the impact of caucuses and closed/open primaries: see here. I'll quote them:

On May 27 2016 06:27 Naracs_Duc wrote:
For example, you could be born male, but you identify as female, but you're also a lesbian, who is a crossdresser.

So now you can be a guy, in a suite, who likes girls, who dresses butch, but should be called miss. There's nothing wrong with that. That is so fucking cool that one's personality is so fluid and flexible. But its also really hard for people who want some level of transparency in the way they want to see the world.

On May 27 2016 06:57 biology]major wrote:


People just want things to believe in as a distraction from their own problems, regardless if you are for or against these social issues. Irony is strong here. The absurd focus on these issues when they are so marginal is proof of that

The comments went over well with the Cruz crowd, but moderate Republicans watching Cruz’s comments on the local news later that night might as well have heard a record scratch—the amens replaced by sighs. “I don’t like any campaign that puts one class of humans against another,” a central Indiana Republican delegate to Cleveland who was turned off by Cruz’s comments, told me.

It was not supposed to go this way for Cruz. Indiana seems to be, at least from 30,000 feet, a barn-red bastion of Bible-believing IndyCar social conservatives—a place where a Washington Wiseman like Senator Richard Lugar can lose a primary to a bomb-throwing conservative like Richard Mourdock 60 to 40 percent.

On May 27 2016 08:16 SK.Testie wrote:


Doctor: "Congratulations, you have a brand new baby boy!"
Mom: "Check your privilege shitlord, we don't know what it identifies as yet."

Do you get to change your persona year to year or week to week? You know, as you learn about yourself and the world and grow?

President Obama came into office with a dream of a world without nuclear weapons, and he's sure to touch on this theme Friday when he becomes the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, site of the world's first atomic bombing.

Yet Obama also has put the U.S. on course to spend around $1 trillion on upgrading its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades, critics say.

Everything about nuclear weapons is extreme: the implications of their use, the costs involved, and the strategic and political paradoxes they create.

Although the world hasn't seen a nuclear attack since 1945, the U.S. "uses" its strategic weapons every day, advocates say, by having them on hand to deter potential enemies. The most destructive arsenals ever built kept the world from fighting a major war, supporters say.

And a president who has opposed nuclear weapons all his life has wound up asking Congress to fund a new class of ballistic missile submarine, a new stealth bomber, upgrades to the current stock of nuclear weapons, a new cruise missile and billions of dollars of other programs.

The world's other nuclear superpower, Russia, is rejuvenating its own nuclear arsenal and threatening to develop whole new weapons, including an intermediate-range missile and what it claims is a new nuclear torpedo.

China, Russia, India and the United States all are developing new missiles that travel at least three times the speed of sound. Disarmament activists say no country should have these weapons.

"Obama and his successor, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin, have a responsibility to pull back from a nuclear action-reaction cycle that would put both countries at greater risk and block further nuclear reductions for many more years to come," declared Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association.

Kimball has called on Obama to propose new negotiations on global restraint, urge China, India and Pakistan to freeze their nuclear stockpiles and call for "a new push for a world without nuclear weapons."

On May 27 2016 08:34 Naracs_Duc wrote:


Does it matter? Like, seriously, does it matter?

On May 27 2016 09:07 SK.Testie wrote:


"Hey, I talked to Geoff again. He wants us to call him Shaquanda now"
"Alright, np"

"Hey, I talked to Geoff, I mean Shaquanda again. She wants us to call him Lord Nibbly the third"
"Alright, np"

I'm fine with it, but I'll definitely find it amusing. ;p

On May 27 2016 09:07 SK.Testie wrote:


"Hey, I talked to Geoff again. He wants us to call him Shaquanda now"
"Alright, np"

"Hey, I talked to Geoff, I mean Shaquanda again. She wants us to call him Lord Nibbly the third"
"Alright, np"

I'm fine with it, but I'll definitely find it amusing. ;p