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[EnigmaticHat]

I don't know, maybe I just have a skewed idea of democrats.  Like I read their platform and I agree with every point on it, but then they get into power and... some of those points seem to get a lot more attention than others.  Like, for example, I think its great that we don't hate the LGBT community, but I'm disappointed that the change there ultimately ended up coming from the supreme court rather than congress.  Granted we only had congress for 2 years, but I'm not convinced they would have pushed hard for marriage equality even with 8 years because multiple factions in our coalition aren't particularly pro gay rights.  Or environmentalism, Republicans really hate environmentalism but I'm not convinced democratic politicians actually give a shit.  Stuff like that.  Economically I admire that they're sane, normalish by worldwide standards, and not complete sellouts in terms of where their campaign funds come from.  But they still seem to care a lot more about promoting globalism than they do about student loan debt, tax reform, or the social safety net.  And like yes, I get the main problem there isn't dems, its republicans.  But like, they could do more to help?  And then there's things like, we need to get rid of property tax school funding, and we need to eliminate mass incarceration, since those are two of the big things keeping  people down.  And again maybe my perspective is skewed, but I don't feel democrats are as mad about this as a progressive party should be.  They just want to keep plugging in the same "if we hold all schools to the same standards they'll all perform the same" bullshit education reform in so they can pretend they did something.

Don't get me wrong I think Obama was a net positive influence but for a liberal archdevil he was pretty centerline IMO.  Obamacare was the most hyped up insurance regulation change ever, his policy in the Middle East was basically "like Bush but not dumb," his education reform was about what I'd expect from bipartisan education reform (AKA ass).  I liked him, but I didn't love him, which I think is about typical for dems talking about Obama.  The things I like about Obama go: his big level plans for the nation < the relatively small things he changed or tried to change, like closing Guantanamo Bay <<< the fact that he didn't fuck everything up massively and carried himself the way a president should.

Bernie always seemed different from Hillary to me.  Bernie's whole thing was to say "if we change this economic thing, everyone disadvantaged would be better off."  Which don't get me wrong, is a very very common message in US politics, but Bernie tied it down to a plan that stepped on a lot of people's toes.  He was also very specific about who he would help and how (for example, all the student loan stuff).  Hillary came at it from more of an identity politics angle, which I don't have a problem with, but it is different.  The best way I can summarize it is that Hillary is a very elite, but otherwise typical, democratic politician, while Bernie is a New Deal Democrat with a time machine.  I mean the guy has said things that could be paraphrased as "yeah if you elect me your taxes will go up, but you'll get all this great stuff and your wallet will be about the same in the end."  Which is what republicans think dems are but I don't think that's what the party actually is right now.  Too afraid to step on toes, can't get too crazy or the swing states will swing swing swing away.

Edit: This article about Trump's media consumption, well it contains some pretty angry stuff, but it also pretty much has a TL:DR of what I've been saying in my last two posts right here:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Democrats by and large are convinced that no one actually supports their agenda, and they devote a not insignificant amount of time and political capital to explaining to their own constituents why they cannot pursue goals that a majority of them support. (“I supported single payer since before you were born,” says Nancy Pelosi, who has the legislative and leadership record of someone who may support single payer but clearly doesn’t actually expect it to happen in our lifetimes.)

Conservatives, especially those who came up during the Obama era, have, more or less, the opposite problem: They’ve convinced themselves that their agenda is hugely popular and that everyone supports them.

There’s actually been some research on this: Politicians—both liberal ones and conservative ones—believe that the electorate is more conservative than it actually is. Conservative politicians believe the electorate is much more conservative than it actually is. Once you learn this, suddenly a lot of things about how elected officials act make more sense.

[smjjames]

Edit: This article about Trump's media consumption, well it contains some pretty angry stuff, but it also pretty much has a TL:DR of what I've been saying in my last two posts right here:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Democrats by and large are convinced that no one actually supports their agenda, and they devote a not insignificant amount of time and political capital to explaining to their own constituents why they cannot pursue goals that a majority of them support. (“I supported single payer since before you were born,” says Nancy Pelosi, who has the legislative and leadership record of someone who may support single payer but clearly doesn’t actually expect it to happen in our lifetimes.)

Conservatives, especially those who came up during the Obama era, have, more or less, the opposite problem: They’ve convinced themselves that their agenda is hugely popular and that everyone supports them.

There’s actually been some research on this: Politicians—both liberal ones and conservative ones—believe that the electorate is more conservative than it actually is. Conservative politicians believe the electorate is much more conservative than it actually is. Once you learn this, suddenly a lot of things about how elected officials act make more sense.

On the TL;DR thing, I wonder if that's just an American thing or it's a Human Psychology thing. Might be likely human psychology since the same phenomenon can be seen pretty much anywhere, just seems magnified here in the US maybe. Or maybe that's just because I live in the US and don't experience politics outside of the US, at least not with the same familiarity.

[Shazbot]

The core function of the Constitutional government is to not function by design without broad agreement. The filibuster rule existed for when the senate existed as a representation of state governments. Now that its democratized, a simple majority is the same threshold found in the other democratic house. The Democrats eroded filibusters for nominations with their move to pack federal courts, and now the Republicans are giving them their own medicine over kicking and howling. But its going to be done. The status-quo-ante-Scalia-mortem will be restored. Republicans teetered on supporting a nominee before the election on the presumption Hillary's nominee would be ultra-leftist and they'd lack any power to stop it. Democrats made no effort to put forward a compromise nominee that would draw in those teetering Republicans. The election was upset and now what's done is done.

I'd say I hate to nitpick, but I'd hate to lie: It should be status quo ante mortem Scaliae.

I knew someone would correct my 40k meme Latin.

[EnigmaticHat]

-this ended up all big at the top of the page, so snip-

On the TL;DR thing, I wonder if that's just an American thing or it's a Human Psychology thing. Might be likely human psychology since the same phenomenon can be seen pretty much anywhere, just seems magnified here in the US maybe. Or maybe that's just because I live in the US and don't experience politics outside of the US, at least not with the same familiarity.

Conservative people are everywhere, but this specific misconception is an Our Time thing in my opinion.  Bill Clinton cuts right and is widely successful (scandal aside), then  conservative god Reagan descends from heaven, and because he's a movie star nothing he does is ever scrutinized by the press.  Then the early Bush years were defined by a certain amount of successful compromise.  That's ~20 years of democrats equating the conservative with the powerful.

[smjjames]

-this ended up all big at the top of the page, so snip-

On the TL;DR thing, I wonder if that's just an American thing or it's a Human Psychology thing. Might be likely human psychology since the same phenomenon can be seen pretty much anywhere, just seems magnified here in the US maybe. Or maybe that's just because I live in the US and don't experience politics outside of the US, at least not with the same familiarity.

Conservative people are everywhere, but this specific misconception is an Our Time thing in my opinion.  Bill Clinton cuts right and is widely successful (scandal aside), then  conservative god Reagan descends from heaven, and because he's a movie star nothing he does is ever scrutinized by the press.  Then the early Bush years were defined by a certain amount of successful compromise.  That's ~20 years of democrats equating the conservative with the powerful.

And with the Republicans having full majorities of both wings in Congress (though not supermajorities) and the Presidency at the same time for the first time since the 1950's or something, they're having trouble figuring out how to legislate properly as a full majority.

[misko27]

And with the Republicans having full majorities of both wings in Congress (though not supermajorities) and the Presidency at the same time for the first time since the 1950's or something, they're having trouble figuring out how to legislate properly as a full majority.

That's a rather generous way of putting it, but sure, they are indeed having trouble.

[smjjames]

Yeah, 'having trouble' is kind of an understatement, but still accurate.

[Frumple]

Well, here's a little bit of fun. Apparently gorsuch may have indulged in a wee bit of plagiarism, which is interesting considering his scholarship rigor has been being played up during the confirmation hearing. Don't really have the gaf to hunt down original sources and look at what's being considered directly, but I can say that the comment about citations and dissertations regarding legal philosophy is utter and complete bullshit; the experts the white house offered up on that subject were lying out their ass on that one.

Any writing at that level and with that degree of importance gets pretty much zero bloody slack on that front, and academia of that nature (and most other sorts, too) starts hammering that point in a hell of a lot earlier than the time you start work on a dissertation. If anything, legal work related stuff is even more strict on the subject, since there's few other fields quite so well equipped to understand the potential legal complications and why you don't risk entanglement with them.

[Strife26]

There's enough scandals being flung at the walls these days that it's going to crash the wallpaper industry.

[Neonivek]

There's enough scandals being flung at the walls these days that it's going to crash the wallpaper industry.

Amazing sales is going to crash an industry?

[smjjames]

There's enough scandals being flung at the walls these days that it's going to crash the wallpaper industry.

Amazing sales is going to crash an industry?

What neo said.

Seems like it'd be the opposite because people would need new walls, thus wallpaper. Though it's all metaphorical anyway.

[Sheb]

Copypasta, from copypaste.

I presume it's a meme.  With something replaced by 'Republicans'.

It's excerpts from an article by Emily Goldstein, apparently a professor of Critical Race Theory (or possibly a troll - who can say which is which in these post-Bahar Mustafa #KillAllWhiteMen days?), calling for white genocide. The dramatic way in which people keep saying the GOP is apparently going to die out reminded me of the similarly dramatic discussion of white genocide, so I replaced 'white people' with Republicans for a moderately amusing effect.

Ninja'd by Tawa, but yeah.

Yeah, it's a troll. Facts that you didn't realize it (and yes I double checked) probably says more about you and where you hang out than about liberals TBH.

[EnigmaticHat]

I thought you were going to link to Snopes or something, so that first sentence there caught me off guard.

[Sheb]

Well, unsurprisingly, that text and references to it are mostly found on white supremacists website. 

[smjjames]

I'd rather we not link to white supremacists websites

Anyways, Trump is meeting with Chinese president Xi Jingping today.