US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9512

On December 14 2017 02:33 LegalLord wrote:

It's always a combination of factors. But the thing is, there are lots of bad Republican candidates all over the place and it's not hard to find one of those that could potentially be unseated. The real problem is that the Democrats are stupid enough to think that drawing attention to that badness - generally in a fashion akin to identity politics circlejerking - will influence voting in any meaningful way. When the reality is that you need to offer some sign of change to actually get anywhere.

On December 14 2017 02:33 LegalLord wrote:

It's always a combination of factors. But the thing is, there are lots of bad Republican candidates all over the place and it's not hard to find one of those that could potentially be unseated. The real problem is that the Democrats are stupid enough to think that drawing attention to that badness - generally in a fashion akin to identity politics circlejerking - will influence voting in any meaningful way. When the reality is that you need to offer some sign of change to actually get anywhere.

Half of voters find sexual misconduct accusations against President Donald Trump to be credible, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll conducted against the backdrop of a national discussion on sexual harassment.

Fifty percent of registered voters think the allegations against Trump are credible, more than the 29 percent who think they are not credible. The remaining 21 percent of voters don’t know if the allegations are credible.

Trump, during last year’s presidential campaign, was accused of sexual abuse or harassment by more than a dozen women — some of whom have resurfaced in recent days in hopes that a renewed focus on sexual harassment would lead their claims to gain more traction. Six Democratic senators have seized on those allegations this week, calling on Trump to resign.

The new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll surveyed 1,955 registered voters from December 8-11, with most of the interviews completed before three of those women held a press conference on Monday to tell their stories.

Trump has denied their claims, both through the White House press office and on his widely read Twitter account, tweeting that they are “false accusations and fabricated stories of women who I don’t know and/or have never met. FAKE NEWS!”

Democratic voters believe the allegations are mostly credible, however, by a 62 percent to 25 percent split. Independents find the claims of misconduct credible by a 2-to-1 margin, 50 percent to 24 percent.

Republican voters are split evenly: 38 percent find the charges credible, but the same percentage thinks they are not credible. Similarly, self-identified Trump voters in 2016 are also divided: 39 percent think the charges are credible, and 37 percent think they are not credible.

On December 14 2017 03:21 ticklishmusic wrote:
Oh, this is pretty insane. The 7th district includes basically all 3 major urban areas plus the Black Belt in AK. Probably like 40% of the population and over half the state's economic output.

https://twitter.com/leonardocarella/status/940953688071462915

On December 14 2017 03:23 brian wrote:

idk if i’m a total idiot or anything but that doesn’t really shout ‘gerrymandered’ to me. of course the biggest cities are going to vote democrat. and i mean there’s only so many ways to draw a map. that the rest of the map was so evenly split, to me, speaks to some very equitable lines. the only questionable piece is that odd leg through 6, and just *how* red 4 is (knowing nothing of the area though there might be an explanation i’m i aware of.)

On December 14 2017 03:27 Plansix wrote:

That 40% of the population does not make up 40% of the seats the states gets. 40% of the population gets 12% of the political power in the state. Of course I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that all the black people in the state live in the city.

There’s been some confusion about Omarosa’s precise role in this White House. She is formally the communications director for the Office of Public Liaison, the same office where Kal Penn of Harold & Kumar fame worked. But I wanted Omarosa to help me understand what keeps her busy during the workday and how one of the biggest reality stars of the early aughts—apart from her own boss—was reshaping the administration.

Before Ivanka, before Jared, before even Melania, Omarosa was the most prolific one-named celebrity in Donald Trump’s orbit. Her role as a surrogate on his campaign was the reward for 13 years of unshakable devotion, beginning as America’s favorite villain on The Apprentice, where she curried favor with Trump for her bombast. She returned later as a contestant on the spin-off Celebrity Apprentice, where she dumped wine on Piers Morgan’s head.
...

But on this particular Friday morning, Omarosa simply does not have the time to explain what, exactly, it is that she does. She can give me 15 minutes at most, she says, despite the hour-long appointment. It’s a very, very busy day, she tells me, and asks if I’d rather shadow her for the morning. “You can see me in action,” she says.
...
It’s tough to sneak in a question to Omarosa—about her job, her life, her goals, about where exactly we are heading at this precise moment—because we are always walking, quickly and seemingly aimlessly across the West Wing, and in and out of rooms at the EEOB. At some point we are looking for a certain Josh, though we don’t ever locate him, and I never find out why he’s needed. As we knock on the door to one office, she finally muffles an answer as to what we’re doing: “… the faith communities, does anyone need to be blessed…”

Many of her answers go this way, with sentences accomplishing the syntactical feat of never seeming to begin or end. Or they begin and end at the same time: “Everything,” she says when I ask about the contents of her job portfolio right now.
...
After the abrupt end to our day in March, I called a Republican source in constant contact with the White House and asked what they thought Omarosa’s job entailed. “No clue,” the source said. I told the source about our whirlwind of a morning.

“Wait, Hope [Hicks] let you follow [Omarosa] around?” the source asked. No, I hadn’t spoken with Hope, who now serves formally as the White House communications director. “So Sean [Spicer] let you?” Ditto. “Christ,” the source said. “No one in the comms department knew a random reporter was walking around the West Wing. This is why people think we’re a shit show.”And while she does pop up in White House press briefings from time to time, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to which ones. During our morning together, for example, she toyed with whether or not to attend that day’s session. “I may go, I may not,” she said.
...
If Omarosa’s White House sounds less like a storied institution than a personal playground, well, that’s precisely because she intends it to be. As she writes in The Bitch Switch, a woman in control—of her life, of her relationships, of her career—“determines her own rules of engagement for every situation.”

On December 14 2017 03:34 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:


It's gerrymandered because it means that seats (what you are trying to win) are assigned to the regions people vote in such a way that as many democratic voters are looking to vote for 1 seat as possible. So even if you theoretically were to have dems somehow take ~70% of the vote (with most of it in district 7), they'd still get only 1/7 seats.

Basically, let all the dems take 1 district uncontested, but claim all the others.
"Fair" representation would be where the number of seats assigned to each party matches the vote percentages, or something to that effect (say, if 40% of people vote Dem, then ~3/7 seats should be blue).

The entire electoral college system favours republicans in this way ("state" as well as headcount contribute to EC votes per state, so more people in a state actually means those people have less EC representation).

On December 14 2017 03:27 brian wrote:
yea sorry i must’ve edited that in too slowly. but again that it’s just so equitable elsewhere(in a deeply red state) seems to say the opposite. perhaps i am just too unfamiliar with the state. maybe i need a district map with the cities specifically highlighted. which would be pretty useful when talking about gerrymandering i suppose.


i think this still speaks to my point though. in an otherwise deeply red state, that the only district that gets the blue vote is the one with the biggest city and highest population should be wholly unsurprising?

District 1: 3R 2D
District 2: 3R 2D
District 3: 3R 2D
District 4: 3R 2D
District 5: 3R 2D
District 6: 0R 5D

On December 14 2017 03:26 Sermokala wrote:
If anything is to be learned its that the dnc should wake up to the very real value they can get by championing black voter issues and the turnout the black community can produce even in an special election.

Granted they need to show a competence to hold white blue colour union voters at the same time.