The Politics Megathread

[ununseti]

UnitedStates2018MidtermElectionsBump

Well, only a few more days until November 6... FiveThirtyEight is currently forecasting a 6 in 7 chance of Republicans keeping control of the Senate, and a 6 in 7 chance of Democrats winning control of the House. Also, voter turnout looks like it may turn out to be a record high, so that's good, I guess.

How accurate are Nate's models? Will there be any upset victories? What about Russian hackers? Twitter bots? Voter suppression? And how about that migrant caravan? Will there be a blue wave or a red wave? Find out next time, on USPoliticsDramaShow Z!

 

[Thoraxe41]

I take the polls with grain of salt. But it's always interesting reading up on the candidates. Both sides have some decent people running but both also have some meh characters running. Only one I don't really like personally is that Beto guy. Just reeks of the classic corrupt politician.

Also another interesting race is the Missouri one. If she's legit, I like that Democrat Lady. She seem to understand and is trying to distant herself from the far left people of her party.

 

[Alraisen]

Oh, I'd like to ask what proof there is that Russia government meddled with American elections.
Two answers I don't give a fuck about: "Everything", or "Nothing". Please explain yourself, in any way or manner you prefer. Thanks.

 

[crazybars]

@Alraisen

There's a bunch of articles and people describing facebook ad manipulation from Russian funding etc. I don't know which news outlet you trust, but just do a google search and don't click on the Fox ones or the CNN ones
(spoilers, they're untrustworthy, there's no point to use them)

There's just so much, you're better off just digging.
------------------

Here's a sampling.

(Wikipedia in depth)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections

https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/10/russian-facebook-ads-house-intelligence-full-list/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2018/05/10/thousands-russian-bought-facebook-social-media-ads-released-congress/849959001/

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The head of the CIA and various U.S. inteligence agencies said there is evidence Russia tampered with the 2016 election.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-election/cias-pompeo-says-russia-and-others-trying-to-undermine-u-s-elections-idUSKBN1EW0TA

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There's also quite a bit of material about Trump and how the Republican party got Hilary Clinton's emails and such was manipulated by Russia to discredit Hilary Clinton.

Trump's son was caught asking a Russian Lawyer for dirt on Hilary.

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/635860399/trump-admits-his-son-met-with-russian-lawyer-to-get-dirt-on-clinton

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[BlackGeneral]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V80bBuLUcw4
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zQALcM_V04s

 

[zetsubouzanto]

Not that i hate USA , in fact as a personal capacity , i'm thankful for the existence of USA since i could lift my family's economy , but the fact that you people felt chaos because of another country's interference in election is factually Just Desserts , it's in the law of nature .

"The only ones who should kill, are those who are prepared to be killed" by Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass R1 ep2 and R2 ep 24 and 25 . It translated further the only one who should interfere , are those who are prepared to be interfered . It's as simple as that .

I'm not talking about USA and their decent people , since there are a lot of decent person in the USA , but their political elites who interfered with my country , Indonesia . They imprisoned our Founding Father Soekarno , Muhammad Hatta , and imprisoned our Guardian General Ahmad Yani . The final opening act is to replace the rightful executives with "Supersemar" , which in fact forged council's order by CIA , (discovered 2008 , by Syaikh Imran Hosein , an USA citizen) which led Indonesia back into United Nations and entering the debt-contract with IMF (iirc) . Which in fact led our country not a year not two not three , but 4 decades whole of fear , anxiety , and chaos , and half of them are contributed by Soeharto's reign (which in fact later discovered by Syaikh Imran Hosein from USA and Syaikh Asykari iirc from Balikpapan Indonesia , to be connected with CIA agent which connected with JFK's assasination) .

It began stabilize again at late 2008 and fallen again at 2010 because of USA's interference (the Freeport Contract) , and it lead to creation of "Bappenas" (this is a joint project of USA , China , and Australia , and at least 2 more) in mid 2011 (realized on 2015) which led our debt skyrocketing (literally doubled) .

That was a little piece of uncovered interference , who knows if there is more .

The same in fact happened to USA if you know your history in a nutshell , which in case your main culprit is the Federal Funding Reserve iirc , not that i care for it since we're in a deep shyt right now .

The main point is , i hate our foolish , stupid , greedy , elite politicians which sold our country for a meager profit and led our country into a world of pain . And you should hate your ... what to say , ah ! leftist elite politician that led your country into this current chaotic state . I don't wish to see the USA that helped me lift my family's economy in such sorry state . But who i am , but a weak person , i can do nothing for my Land and my Water Indonesia who is in deep shyt because of stupidity and greediness of elite politician .

 

[crazybars]

@zetsubouzanto

Our current regime is Republican. Trump, the Senate, and the previous House majority was a Conservative Republican MAJORITY. They are THE OPPOSITE OF LEFTIST, the current batch is INSANELY CONSERVATIVE. . . . . and Trump is just disgustingly nuts so....

Give me an outside source for your claims on CIA interference beside Sheikh Imran Hosen said it. I don't trust my own religious leader's claims because they mix in what they want to be true, why should I trust the claims of a Religious Leader of your country?
Btw, are you sure he's a U.S. citizen? Why can't I find his U.S. citizenship online?

Syaikh= Sheikh

-----------------------
Lastly a lot of what you went over was covered by the Cold War, where the United States was panicking and fighting the Cold War against Russia. That was could have ended with everyone dying in nuclear war, you do understand that right?

The more recent stuff in your country is unfortunately, corruption on both our countries part, I say both our politicians and corporations on both sides share blame. You can't have corruption with only one corrupt party after all.

 

[totallynotmike]

More about culture running rampant than politics, but since it's hard to dismiss what Breitbart was fond of saying (whether you liked him or not):

World is a wonderful place and you can't tell me otherwise.

One ring thing to rule them all. Good luck carrying that shit to Mordor - two gay hobbits won't cut it this time.

 

[BirchJuice]

Drumpf:

Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!

Source: Drumpfs Twitter

Only semi related: I link real fear of vaccines to scientific illiteracy.

 

[ununseti]

Drumpf:

Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!

Source: Drumpfs Twitter

Only semi related: I link real fear of vaccines to scientific illiteracy.

That Tweet is a bit old, but I'm not surprised that he would have said something like that at some point.

That reminds me:

 

[BirchJuice]

10/10, I've seen that somewhere, like a bunch of other comics from this dude/gal (I had a chuckle at the genitalia size race@genetic engineering xD)
Vaccines cause adults... And 95 year old, deaf, demented, incontinent diaper wearers. Bless modern medicine, bless modern science!

 

[sevenpointsix]

Trump:

Healthy young child goes to Mangadex, gets pumped with massive shot of many Isekai, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!

 

[Samhill]

@crazybars From what I can see Ahmad Yani wasn't imprisoned and he was shot and killed by his own people (fellow Indonesians). "...Yani, who was strongly anti-communist..."Hell, the US government loves this guy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Yani#Final_years

Unless there is some other Ahmad Yani.

 

[Thoraxe41]

Curious. What is opinions on this France situation right now. Honestly I am amazed Macron managed to piss of everyone. Not just one side.

 

[VoidR]

@thoraxe41 wide spread worker revolt due to goverment fucking around with working classes lifes? dont see how its anything but Gucci.

also bootlickers getting mad that its getting violent; get bent

 

[crazybars]

@Samhill

Yeah that's what annoys me. In that post from Zetsubouzanto, there's so much that's historically and factually wrong. Ahmad Yani was murdered in the 30th September Movement Coup. Sheikh Imran Hosein as far I can tell, is not a U.S. citizen, Sukarno lost most of his support BY SUPPORTING COMMUNISTS in the PKI party.


Sukarno also backed a Communist and probably a Soviet backed coup that failed, and somehow it's the United States fault that Indonesia and the CIA were forced to back Suharto at the time. Oh really? It wasn't caused by the failed communist takeover and the fear and support it gave Suharto to take over as dictator huh? Sukarno backed the coup and got his ass handed to him by Suharto for it.

Once Suharto the jackass took over, how did Indonesians expect the world to remove him from power? What? Invade Indonesia?
Hahaha, no, Indonesia kicked out all foreign powers. The politicians at the time were probably like, hey they kicked us out, it's their problem now.

The United States didn't actually back Suharto until after the Soviets made their move and messed everything up. And yet the United States gets all the blame in Indonesia instead of the Soviets. Like really? Not the actual Communists who forced the situation, historical revisionism at it's best?

 

[ununseti]

Here we go, new record! The United States partial government shutdown is now the longest one in U.S. history, at 22 days and counting: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46848435

Trump and Schumer/Pelosi are digging in their heels and just not budging at all. It's just such a clear case of WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT for both sides, and I really don't see how this is going to end up being resolved any time soon.

Everyone agrees that the shutdown is bad. It's bad that the federal workers aren't getting paid, it's bad that all those government services are shut down, and so on and so forth.

But this is basically what's happening:
- Trump: 'Just a little longer, and then they'll HAVE to agree to the Wall funds to end the shutdown!'
- Schumer/Pelosi: 'Just a little longer, and then they'll HAVE to agree to forget about the Wall funds to end the shutdown!'

And so there's a problem here...

To recap: To reopen the government, a continuing resolution to allocate funding needs to (1) pass the House, (2) pass the Senate, and (3) be signed by the President.

Senate Majority Leader McConnell has indicated that he won't consider any legislation to reopen the government until the Democrats and the President reach an agreement and the President's signature is assured.

And in response, the Senate Democrats have vowed to block all legislation not related to reopening the government.

In the last several days, the newly Democratic-controlled House has passed a number of mini-appropriation bills, with the votes split along party lines (all Democrats voting yes, almost all Republicans voting no, and only a few defecting Republicans voting yes). But the Senate's not going to consider these unless the President gives his support, so that's not going to get anywhere...

Welp. How are they going to get out of this mess...

 

[Natureboy]

Just to remember: These are funds that were supposed to be appropriated by the start of the fiscal year October 1--when there were Republican majorities in both houses of Congress and more than a month BEFORE the last U.S. election. Because of the Senate rules for reconciliation with bills passed by the House, they didn't need any Democratic votes to pass those bills. Still a large chunk of the federal government wasn't funded before the old fiscal year ended.

At NASA the people allowed to work now are security guards and mission controllers (unpaid). Nobody else. All new work, including launches, scientific research, technology development, etc. is on hold. If the shutdown lasts long enough, expect one or more Mars mission to miss their launch window. During the previous record shutdown I was a NASA scientist. If I'd try to go to work, the guards would have turned my away at the gate. Once it ended, we had an ice storm and the center was closed AGAIN. I got so frustrated with not being able to keep my commitments that I put on my boots, walked in, climbed over the fence--dodging security, and went to my office anyway. Couldn't do internal meetings, but at least I answered some work e-mail, wrote reviews, and did some writing and data analysis.

My niece's husband is a Coast Guard lawyer. He's not getting paid. Since he recently went back off active duty, he's not allowed to show up at work either--which leaves the cases he was working on in limbo. (He just finished a 2-year stint doing work helping victims of sexual abuse and assault. Not all of those cases are done.)

 

[Raycu]

Honestly expected worse from this thread, glad to see how it's developed so far. Different topics might get fractured with how forums work, but this should be fun until someone inevitably comes in with either too radical an opinion, or too annoying a demeanor.

Government shut down is fun, I'm surprised we haven't seen this level of political partisanship until the last decade or so. Before that there were clear party lines, but in my opinion it seemed less likely to end in completely halting government function. What do you guys think will be the final development? Will the Republican and Democrats manage to reconcile, or will there be an absorption of one party into the other, with either Democrats or Republicans becoming defunct. Or, will there be a new guard for both parties developing into a more powerful position and weakening partisan bias and strengthening government co-operation.

Tons of possibilities, what do you guys think the outcome will be?

 

[ununseti]

What will the outcome be, indeed. It's still not showing any signs of stopping anytime soon...

Some random possibilities:
1. Trump caves and signs the spending bill without the wall funding provision (very unlikely)

2. Schumer & Pelosi cave and allow the spending bill with $5 billion of wall money (very unlikely)

3. Trump declares a national emergency, secures funding for the wall, and then signs the spending bill without the wall funding provision because he doesn't need it anymore

4. Schumer & Pelosi put forward a bill that allocates $25 billion for border security, but none of it can be used for a border wall.

5. Enough Republicans defect to get the budget bill without the wall funding past the Senate + override the President's veto.

6. Enough Democrats defect to get the budget bill with the $5 billion of wall money past the Senate and signed into law.

7. After many months, both Democrats and Republicans put forward an enormous omnibus hodgepodge of a bill that includes various compromise provisions relating to wall funding, immigration, climate change, Medicare For All, DACA, Yemen, gun legislation, military, abortion, taxes, minimum wage, electoral reform, and 117 other topics. It passes, barely, and the government is reopened.

8. It becomes the United States federal government shutdown of 2018-2020. (John Oliver starts up his church again, renaming it "Our Lady of Perpetual Shutdown".) The 2020 election campaigning becomes a crap-slinging shitshow.

9. The readers get tired of the shutdown dragging on and on with no end in sight and so the ratings start tanking and the manga gets axed by the magazine, resulting in no satisfactory ending.