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[Antioch]

In other news, the Spreme Court has agreed to hear Gill v. Whitford, a legal challenge to gerrymandering.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/06/todays-orders-court-tackle-partisan-gerrymandering/

It is pretty bizarre that in the USA you can still just blatantly manipulate elections without any legal consequences.

[Neonivek]

In other news Trump needs to get of Twitter... You know I wonder how many times I can say this before it stops becoming more and more true.

I mean... it isn't like there is an investigation caused almost exclusively by Trump being a moron.

[Frumple]

I'unno how many times it takes,  but I am pretty sure the more people say it, the less likely it becomes.

So please, please. Don't stop saying it. We haven't reached maximal self-destruction yet, amazingly enough.

[Gizogin]

There are two special elections happening later today. The Georgia one is getting all the attention, since it looks very close, while the South Carolina election is expected to go Republican. Either way the Georgia race goes, it promises to be interesting, not because it will change a great deal in absolute terms, but because everyone's suddenly paying attention.

If Ossof wins, expect the Democrats to take it as a massive victory to rally behind. They'll try to ride it all the way to the midterms, selling it as evidence that the people are fed up with the Republicans generally and Trump in particular. I doubt much will change for the Republicans, even though the pundits will doubtless call it a staggering blow to their pride and a condemnation of their policies and whatnot. They, too, will turn to the midterms as being more important.

If Handel wins, it could actually be more of an upset. Not that I think it's unlikely; I'd still give her at least even money to win. Rather, if the Republican leadership takes it as vindication of their actions, we might actually see something of a split from Trump. It's a long shot, of course; more likely, they'll double down on support for the White House, especially since Trump has publicly endorsed Handel.

By the way, is that an unusual thing, for a sitting President to publicly back a particular candidate in a local election? Maybe it's just the publicity around this particular race, but I don't remember having seen that before. It just seems weird to me.

[smjjames]

Obama has done it a few times with trying to support dems in races. Don't remember if Bush 43 or Clinton ever did. Of course, that was before Twitter came on the scene and Twitter offers more visibility and on the free.

It's not unusual to do it for critical or high-stake races, no, just has higher visibility because Trump is Trump and he's been doing it on Twitter.

[RedKing]

It's not unusual in House and Senate races during regular campaign seasons, but I suppose it is a bit unusual the degree to which Trump is Twittering in the Ossoff/Handel race. Not sure how much sitting Presidents have gotten involved in special elections.

I like to imagine Karen Handel cringing every time 45 shits out another tweet in support.

If she loses, it'll be interesting to see if Republicans try to stay out of Trump's spotlight in the midterms, same way a lot of Republicans put Dubya at arm's length in 2006 and 2008, or Democrats with Clinton in 2000.

[smjjames]

Well, Trump loves to jump in the fray, so, not exactly surprising. The one in Georgia and the one that was in Montana were both seen as high stakes, so, he's just supporting his team.

Though both parties have gone all out, literally, to try and win the Georgia race, so, in that context, it's not unusual.

[Rolan7]

It's not unusual in House and Senate races during regular campaign seasons, but I suppose it is a bit unusual the degree to which Trump is Twittering in the Ossoff/Handel race. Not sure how much sitting Presidents have gotten involved in special elections.

I like to imagine Karen Handel cringing every time 45 shits out another tweet in support.

If she loses, it'll be interesting to see if Republicans try to stay out of Trump's spotlight in the midterms, same way a lot of Republicans put Dubya at arm's length in 2006 and 2008, or Democrats with Clinton in 2000.

Which is kinda funny, since Trump has threatening to sabotage Republican election campaigns ever since he became presumed-winner of the primary.  Even people not running for a while, not to mention recently with the health care repeal.  It's part of why so many of the primary candidates fell in line so disgustingly, despite such an openly vicious race.

But is Trump's support in an election worth more than nothing at the moment?  Or less?

Re Georgia:  With record-levels of campaign spending, Karen Handel's campaign A PAC had the bright idea to accuse her opponent Jon Ossoff of approving of the baseball shooting.
It does illustrate the problem with judging any group by its worst members.  It's also pretty disgusting, and may be effective.  We'll see!

EDIT: To be fair though, it's a PAC, and they're barred from coordinating with the candidate.  So it's not her campaign, exactly.  It's just that her campaign has notably refused to condemn the ad (which seems odd- if they condemn it, they still get the benefit, but look like decent human beings)  I was mistaken, thanks Sluissa!

[sluissa]

It's not unusual in House and Senate races during regular campaign seasons, but I suppose it is a bit unusual the degree to which Trump is Twittering in the Ossoff/Handel race. Not sure how much sitting Presidents have gotten involved in special elections.

I like to imagine Karen Handel cringing every time 45 shits out another tweet in support.

If she loses, it'll be interesting to see if Republicans try to stay out of Trump's spotlight in the midterms, same way a lot of Republicans put Dubya at arm's length in 2006 and 2008, or Democrats with Clinton in 2000.

Which is kinda funny, since Trump has threatening to sabotage Republican election campaigns ever since he became presumed-winner of the primary.  Even people not running for a while, not to mention recently with the health care repeal.  It's part of why so many of the primary candidates fell in line so disgustingly, despite such an openly vicious race.

But is Trump's support in an election worth more than nothing at the moment?  Or less?

Re Georgia:  With record-levels of campaign spending, Karen Handel's campaign had the bright idea to accuse her opponent Jon Ossoff of approving of the baseball shooting.
It does illustrate the problem with judging any group by its worst members.  It's also pretty disgusting, and may be effective.  We'll see!

EDIT: To be fair though, it's a PAC, and they're barred from coordinating with the candidate.  So it's not her campaign, exactly.  It's just that her campaign has notably refused to condemn the ad (which seems odd- if they condemn it, they still get the benefit, but look like decent human beings).

I could have sworn that she did in fact come out condemning that particular ad.

Not to say it's not simply that same sort of political maneuvering, getting the benefit of the ad without the negatives attached to it. But I do remember hearing that she didn't approve.

EDIT: She did, in fact. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/georgia-republican-calls-ad-tying-race-congressional-shooting/story?id=48136819

[Rolan7]

Oh, good!  My mistake then.  Especially since I apparently skimmed that article while finding a source, oops.  I think the stupid auto-playing video drove me off, I still hate those.

"The video is disturbing and disgusting," said Handel's spokesperson Kate Constantini Saturday. "For any group to use the shootings this week for political or personal benefit is shameful. This group should be ashamed."

So good on her.  I guess the real message is that PACs are exploitable.

[smjjames]

I remember something about her condemning the ad, or a mention of it, I think. Things got really ugly towards the end here, which is both not surprising and unfortunate.

Anyways, this is interesting, the FBI director nominee removed a reference to case involving the Russian Government (he was representing an American) from a bio of his. The law firm involved did explain the story behind the representation, but didn't give any clue as to why Chris Wray removed it in the first place, which was back in January. It's not much more than a curiosity atm and could be innoccous.

Also, the US shot down another pro-regieme iranian made drone in Syria, but gonna revive the MidEast thread for that....

[Zangi]

In other news, the Spreme Court has agreed to hear Gill v. Whitford, a legal challenge to gerrymandering.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/06/todays-orders-court-tackle-partisan-gerrymandering/

It is pretty bizarre that in the USA you can still just blatantly manipulate elections without any legal consequences.

It'd be pretty hard to blatantly manipulate elections if we let some good-minded people change the laws for the better.  Good thing we are preventing them from being elected.

[martinuzz]

Haha Brett Stephens in NYT says mass deportation of non-immigrant US citizens could save the US.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/opinion/only-mass-deportation-can-save-america.html

O.K., so I’m jesting about deporting “real Americans” en masse. (Who would take them in, anyway?)

[EnigmaticHat]

In other news, the Spreme Court has agreed to hear Gill v. Whitford, a legal challenge to gerrymandering.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/06/todays-orders-court-tackle-partisan-gerrymandering/

It is pretty bizarre that in the USA you can still just blatantly manipulate elections without any legal consequences.

I like to think of the USA as the Seinfeld of the free world.  Just as Seinfeld no longer seems funny because later sitcoms did it better, the US no longer seems free because later democracies did it better.

Highly questionable electoral practices have been a huge part of our history unfortunately.  We started out with political machines and only having landholding white men able to vote.  If we wanted to define when the US was at "peak democracy" so to speak, when our electoral systems MOST resembled an ideal democracy by modern standards, despite our current problems it would have to be quite recent.  You pretty much couldn't pick any time prior to 1954, which is Brown vs Board of Education AKA the nominal end of segregation.  If *I* had to pick a time I would guess 1999 was when we were at peak democracy, but I'm not confident in that decision.

[Lord Shonus]

only having landholding white men able to vote

This is often cited, but a gross oversimplification. Property requirements were common in the early US, but not universal - some states never had them. It was not unusual for the vote to be restricted to men - but at least three states didn't do so until after they abolished property requirements entirely, as women were allowed to vote as long as they had the requisite property or paid the requisite amount of tax. Prohibiting non-whites was common - except in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and (somewhat oddly) North Carolina, all of which allowed free blacks to vote immediately after the Revolution.

There was never a time when "white landowning males" were the only group allowed to vote.