General US Politics

[eclipse]

11 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

(I leave the long quotes in mafia)

I'd be interested in the actual breakdown of numbers for each district.  Like, if it's super-close in several, that would be odd.

For comparison, Hawaii's local politicians are purely Democrat.  The lone Republican was voted out FSR.

[Shoblongoo]

9 minutes ago, eclipse said:

I'd be interested in the actual breakdown of numbers for each district.  Like, if it's super-close in several, that would be odd.

For comparison, Hawaii's local politicians are purely Democrat.  The lone Republican was voted out FSR.

They have it jerryrigged so that those three (3) blue districts are all 60-70% Democrat super-majorities.

So they can just easily carry those three districts every election cycle but can't put up the numbers to be competitive anywhere else. Even though there's 13 districts, and Democrats are almost half the state.

...its literally just this...

Edited October 17, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[eclipse]

1 minute ago, Shoblongoo said:

They have it jerryrigged so that those three (3) blue districts are all 60-70% Democrat super-majorities.

So they can just easily carry those three districts every election cycle but can't put up the numbers anywhere else. Even though there's 13 districts, and Democrats are almost half the state.

...its literally just this...
 

I'm far more interested in numbers when it comes to claims like this. . .and a lot of other things like religious distribution (since Republicans pander to Christians).  For example, it wouldn't surprise me if the deep red districts had a higher church:population ratio.

Sorry, numbers fascinate me.

[Shoblongoo]

16 minutes ago, eclipse said:

I'm far more interested in numbers when it comes to claims like this. . .and a lot of other things like religious distribution (since Republicans pander to Christians).  For example, it wouldn't surprise me if the deep red districts had a higher church:population ratio.

Sorry, numbers fascinate me.

Might do some number crunching tomorrow.

Generally the main thing you want to look for is the urban/agrarian divide; that's your best predictor of democratic vs. republican voter base.  You could almost even make the case that religious distribution flows as a derivative of that prime factor, with high religiosity + church attendance corresponding to rural values. And secular humanism + rejection of traditional closed-community orthodoxies corresponding to urban values.

...and then the distribution of churches in Republican vs. Democratic districts really just becomes another way of expressing how urbanized or countryside your population is.

IDK. I'll think about it. Gotta get some sleep. I have court in the morning.

Thanks for cleaning up all the spambots btw. I'm assuming that was your diligent efforts.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[eclipse]

2 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Might do some number crunching tomorrow.

Generally the main thing you want to look for is the urban/agrarian divide; that's your best predictor of democratic vs. republican voter base.  You could almost even make the case that religious distribution flows as a derivative of that prime factor, with high religiosity + church attendance corresponding to rural values. And secular humanism + rejection of traditional closed-community orthodoxies corresponding to urban values.

...and then the distribution of churches in Republican vs. Democratic districts really just becomes another way of expressing how urbanized or countryside your population is.

IDK. I'll think about it. Gotta get some sleep. I have court in the morning.

Thanks for cleaning up all the spambots btw. I'm assuming that was your diligent efforts.

There's been a ton of churches popping up in my area.  Pretty sure this place ain't urban.  Might be due to the general fear of what's happening in the past few months, might be something else.  Regardless, I'm having issues finding a new church - the more of them there are, the harder it becomes.

Good night, and thanks.  Hopefully those bots go away.

[ping]

Re: Gerrymandering: John Oliver did a thing about it a few months ago. Examples include election for the house of representatives - Pennsylvania voted 44% Dem, but 5/18 (28%) districts went to them, Democrats got 40% of the votes in Ohio but only a quarter of the districts. Not that it would be a purely republican strategy, they just seem to be more competent at it.

[Res]

Wikipedia has a full breakdown of the numbers by county,  which is entirely useless (see Shoblongoo's post below, sorry!).

 

Edited October 17, 2017 by Res

[Moblin Major General]

29 minutes ago, Res said:

Wikipedia has a full breakdown of the numbers by county,  not super close in many of them, but the population differences between the districts is staggering.

 

I thought districts were all supposed to have the same population size? If it were truly enforced gerrymandering wouldn't be as much of a problem as it is.

[Shoblongoo]

1 hour ago, Hylian Air Force said:

I thought districts were all supposed to have the same population size? 

Correct.

2 hours ago, Res said:

Wikipedia has a full breakdown of the numbers by county,  not super close in many of them, but the population differences between the districts is staggering.

 

...so a [county] and a [district] are two very different things.

A "district" is a political subdivision of a state that gets one (1) congressman in the United States House of Representatives. All districts in every state are supposed to have equal population, so that every congressman represents the same number of constituents. And no constituent is under-represented or over-represented.

A "county" is a political subdivision of the state that  has its own sheriff, its own police department, its own Court, its own prison system, its own judges, and its own jurisdiction to make arrests within the County + hear cases in County Court + send criminals to County Jail. They do not need to be the same size, because they are completely irrelevant to apportionment of legislative representation.  

A county is a judicial subdivision. Not a congressional one.  By way of example:

...This is a county map of New Jersey...



...this is the district map of New Jersey...






So if you  live in Cumberland or Cape May County or Salem County , you are represented by the Congressman of the 2nd District of New Jersey and that is the congressional election you vote in.

But if you arrested for armed robbery in Cumberland County your case goes to Cumberland Superior Court, if you are arrested for armed robbery in Salem County your case goes to Salem Superior Court, and so on and so forth.


...and just for the sake of lightening the mood...this is a real map of new jersey...

Edited October 17, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Res]

17 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Correct.

...so a [county] and a [district] are two very different things.

Oh, whoops, sorry, and thanks for the clarification! I will edit my post.

 

[Shoblongoo]

2 minutes ago, Res said:

Oh, whoops, sorry, and thanks for the clarification! I will edit my post.

 

Hey--I got to post something informative and make fun of New Jersey.

Its all good. 

[SullyMcGully]

Redistricting is really just annoying in general, regardless of political implications. Virginia has it happen fairly frequently, and while it isn't as bad as it is in other states, it still gets on my nerves because I live near one of the lines that gets moved every time a different political party comes to power. It gets on my nerves when you vote for one person and then he doesn't even represent your county anymore. Plus, it has actually rigged our primaries before. 

Why can't we just have stable lines? They should make a law that keeps them from changing them more than once a decade.

[eclipse]

5 hours ago, Res said:

Wikipedia has a full breakdown of the numbers by county,  which is entirely useless (see Shoblongoo's post below, sorry!).

 

This is really interesting.  It assumes that people will vote across party lines, as opposed to being rebellious and voting for whoever they think will represent them best (like me).  However, it's also a calculated risk.  All it takes is a small voting block to cross party lines, and the vote swings the other way.

Still, it's very fascinating.  Thanks~!

[Punished Dayni]

It's interesting seeing how upfront some people are about their willingness to gerrymander. There's a good reason that politicians aren't allowed to do it here. (I'll stick the political history in a spoiler, mainly because it's not US related. Also, while the size of the countries might differ, I could see an adequate comparison to a state with a few million people)

Spoiler

Back before the late 70's, the minister for local government had full control over the constituency borders so long as each seat represented an equal proportion of people (And even then it was clear they messed with this as much as possible, causing urban areas to have less representation). Naturally they manipulated it to benefit their party when the had the chance in power. And then some smartalec named Tully made a lot of changes to the boundaries to make it easier for the parties in coalition to get seats (In general, they gave urban areas smaller constituencies and rural areas larger ones (that still gave accurate(ish) representation)). While before the election it had been predicted the government parties would have done better with the new boundaries with a similar share of the vote, it then shot them out when the vote swung hard against them and the largest opposition party got an overall majority that would have been tighter without the boundary change. Naturally it was a scandal enough that the new government formed an independent boundary commission that's been making the boundaries since.

I wonder if there will be a force that would force change over in the US like the Tullymander. Part of the reason it was so easy to notice was because the voting system was different, so I have my doubts that such change would be forced on a state or federal level. Of course, how rigid the lines have to be is also a pain because of population fluctuation between different parts of, well, wherever the boundary's being drawn. 

[Zanarkin]

2 hours ago, Dayni said:

I wonder if there will be a force that would force change over in the US like the Tullymander. Part of the reason it was so easy to notice was because the voting system was different, so I have my doubts that such change would be forced on a state or federal level. Of course, how rigid the lines have to be is also a pain because of population fluctuation between different parts of, well, wherever the boundary's being drawn. 

You could always just use this idea, and change the lines whenever it is necessary by leaving it to a computer (untouched by the hands of government parties or other parties with vested interests). 

It would certainly improve the sight of district maps, given how awkward politicians will draw lines to give themselves a majority... 

[Lushen]

Can we just agree that both parties claims on Russian collusion are ridiculous? 

Democrats on Trump - This guy met with that guy who happens to be a Russian.  RUSSAIN COLLUSION!!!
Democrats on Clinton - Eh, it's just opposition research.

And I'm well aware of Republicans trying to flipflop a single story when they are two different stories.  Both parties are aggravating me.

Seriously?  I'm well aware of the slight differences between Trump-Russia and Clinton-Russia but instead of debating about how one party is slightly more responsible than the other, can we just let this crap go?  I am afraid of Russian interference from hacking voting machines, but I honestly don't give a crap about any of this stuff.  So what if Trump dug up dirt on Clinton with the help of Russians?  I don't care where the dirt came from, I care about the dirt and I'm glad to see it.  Same with Trump.  I don't care if it went through every foreign gov't on this planet, I care about the dirt, not where it came from!  And so what if Republicans or Democrats ran ads that were paid for by another gov't?  An ad shouldn't change your vote, but the content of the ad might.  Republicans and Democrats are both being extremely hypocritical of one another. 

 

And in other news, tax reform passed.  Yay.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Lushen

[Res]

39 minutes ago, Lushen said:

And in other news, tax reform passed.  Yay.

Hurrah for increasing the national debt and decreasing welfare! And to wealth inheritance and rich families. 

[SullyMcGully]

2 minutes ago, Res said:

Hurrah for increasing the national debt and decreasing welfare! And to wealth inheritance and rich families. 

And especially hurray for my older brother, who is now going to inherit his parent's farm without paying more money than he's made in his life beforehand. Hooray for my grandparents being able to pass down their hard-earned cash to the next generation instead of spending it all as fast as possible on themselves because "when we're dead, the government will just take it all and use it for things we don't agree with."

[Res]

9 minutes ago, SullyMcGully said:

And especially hurray for my older brother, who is now going to inherit his parent's farm without paying more money than he's made in his life beforehand. Hooray for my grandparents being able to pass down their hard-earned cash to the next generation instead of spending it all as fast as possible on themselves because "when we're dead, the government will just take it all and use it for things we don't agree with."

There's already a large exemption in place which drastically reduces the taxes on most estates; the estates that will be affected by the new budget are really the top 1%. The government currently does not 'take it all'. 

[Tryhard]

1 hour ago, SullyMcGully said:

And especially hurray for my older brother, who is now going to inherit his parent's farm without paying more money than he's made in his life beforehand. Hooray for my grandparents being able to pass down their hard-earned cash to the next generation instead of spending it all as fast as possible on themselves because "when we're dead, the government will just take it all and use it for things we don't agree with."

yeah, this won't affect any of that unless your family is so rich it wouldn't even matter anymore

[Lushen]

I'm completely against the removal of the death tax.  I think death tax should skyrocket.  I also think that people should have the option to substitute the makeup of the death tax to charities, because I don't see how the gov't deserves your hardworking money after you die, but I don't think your kids necessarily deserve it either.

I am in favor of everything else in the bill. The bill targets the middle class and job makers more than anyone.  Dems are just so focused on the little things that benefit the rich and don't care about anything else.   News flash!  There is very little difference between the political makeup of the 1% and the political makeup of the 99%.  And when it comes to conservatives vs liberals in the 1% and the 99%, there is near zero difference between the two.  It's politically advantageous to suggest that Republicans only make legislature for the 1%, but it's also entirely untrue. 

Edited October 26, 2017 by Lushen

[Res]

Firstly, the bottom 20% may see their taxes decrease by an estimated $100 or so but $100 isn't going to cover the difference in the loss of assistance in terms of welfare and medicare that they'll likely be seeing very soon. 

The next 40% again, may see their taxes decrease by an estimated $500-1,000, but amongst these two groups single parents and parents with multiple children are expected to actually have their taxes increase; in other words, the demographic that needs tax cuts most will probably end up paying more. 

Me, personally, last time I used the Trump tax calculator I was expected to benefit to the tune of $1,000 (although that's pretty negligible with regards to rising healthcare costs). Still, if my gains are going to be at the expense of the poor, single parents and large families (plus the national debt), that's nothing to be cheering about. The middle class is still considerably well off.

And the 1% may only be 1% of the population but their wealth is so vast that the tax cuts they'll see will have more effect on the budget than anything else. 

 

[Lushen]

21 minutes ago, Res said:

Firstly, the bottom 20% may see their taxes decrease by an estimated $100 or so but $100 isn't going to cover the difference in the loss of assistance in terms of welfare and medicare that they'll likely be seeing very soon. 

The next 40% again, may see their taxes decrease by an estimated $500-1,000, but amongst these two groups single parents and parents with multiple children are expected to actually have their taxes increase; in other words, the demographic that needs tax cuts most will probably end up paying more. 

Me, personally, last time I used the Trump tax calculator I was expected to benefit to the tune of $1,000 (although that's pretty negligible with regards to rising healthcare costs). Still, if my gains are going to be at the expense of the poor, single parents and large families (plus the national debt), that's nothing to be cheering about. The middle class is still considerably well off.

And the 1% may only be 1% of the population but their wealth is so vast that the tax cuts they'll see will have more effect on the budget than anything else. 

 

2

You just said that the poor will SAVE $100.00.  But you're saying that your $1000.00 is at the expense of the poor?  

The real advantage the poor will be seeing is that the middle class will open new or expand existing businesses.  I've said it before, somewhat controversially, anyone can go from poor to the middle class the general sense (excluding things like disabilities or drug abuse).  The reason they don't is that either they don't believe they can or they don't know how to.  With more expansion and creation in businesses, I think we can expect demand for workers to increase which gives the poor a better shot at surviving in society.  Certainly more than giving them temporary relief through things like redistribution of wealth or free public services.  Classical "teach a man to fish" philosophy.  

Tax reform should help ALL classes.  The real victims of tax reform are government workers and the federal budget.  Not the poor, not the rich, and not the middle class.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Lushen

[Tryhard]

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

You just said that the poor will SAVE $100.00.  But you're saying that your $1000.00 is at the expense of the poor?  

The real advantage the poor will be seeing is that the middle class will open new or expand existing businesses.  I've said it before, somewhat controversially, anyone can go from poor to the middle class the general sense (excluding things like disabilities or drug abuse).  The reason they don't is that either they don't believe they can or they don't know how to.  With more expansion and creation in businesses, I think we can expect demand for workers to increase which gives the poor a better shot at surviving in society.  Certainly more than giving them temporary relief through things like redistribution of wealth or free public services.  Classical "teach a man to fish" philosophy.  

Tax reform should help ALL classes.  The real victims of tax reform are government workers and the federal budget.  Not the poor, not the rich, and not the middle class.

Setting aside how Trump's tax reforms disproportionately favour the wealthy over everyone else, with how much conservatives go on about healthcare premiums and mandates, universal healthcare would save far more for the people that needed it. "Free" public services is not the bogeyman you make it out to be. In regards to this, it may be worth listening to a conversation Sanders had with a Danish Conservative about this sort of thing.

"Teach a man to fish" in American conservative terms usually means making them swim and attempt to catch fish with their hands. Fishing rods just cost too much. You seem to think we live in a perfect meritocracy where if you are worse off, you have simply failed to work hard enough. Poor people tend to stay poor regardless of their level of hard work and effort and rich people tend to stay rich.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Tryhard

[Lushen]

5 hours ago, Tryhard said:

Setting aside how Trump's tax reforms disproportionately favour the wealthy over everyone else, with how much conservatives go on about healthcare premiums and mandates, universal healthcare would save far more for the people that needed it. "Free" public services is not the bogeyman you make it out to be. In regards to this, it may be worth listening to a conversation Sanders had with a Danish Conservative about this sort of thing. And that's a Conservative in Denmark.

What bernie has been doing is exactly what I said democrats (even though he's not a democrat) are doing.  Incredibly focused on how tax reform helps the rich and ignores the fact that it helps everyone.  Are the rich going to end up saving more money from a dollar standpoint?  Yea, duh, they have more taxable money.  Bernie doesn't care if tax reform helps the poor or the middle class.  He's mad at tax reform because of some specific situations where it benefits the rich.  Bernie would probably pass legislature that forces the rich to burn half their income because it would be more fair.

 There's also a huge differentiation between trickle down economics, a term used exclusively by the left, and what conservatives believe.  If some rich guy wants to purchase a Yacht, there are two things that need be realized.  One, when he purchases the Yacht that money will go into financing manufacturing companies involved with the production of the Yacht and the sales people.  Two, the money he saved up would have been placed in a bank and then the bank will loan out said money to the entry level members of the middle class so they can start businesses.  This is not trickle down economics, no conservative I know of suggests trickle down economics.  Trickle down economics implies that if you give the rich more more money, they will purchase two yachts instead of one.  Really both trickle down economics and Keynesian economics were invented by the left, one meant to receive praise and one meant to condemn the republican party.  Basically, people need to stop seeing the 1% as the enemy.  As I said before, the 1%'s distribution of democrat/republican and liberal/conservative is almost identical to the 99%.  It's not that there's some giant group of greedy 1%ers that steal money from the poor.  The democrats appeal to the poor is exactly identical to the southern strategy - it is entirely a political strategy and ignores the fact that the ten poorest cities are being run by democrats.  The appeal to the poor is entirely a political move and there is no evidence that democrat policies has ever helped the poor.  

Bill Gates very nearly single handedly destroyed Polio.  He's a 1%er (he's also a socialist).

And FYI, plenty of people have caught fish with their hands.  It's not ideal, or easy, but if you can do it you won't starve.  Either way, conservative policies generally end up with more money in the bank such that the fisherman can more easily take out a bank loan to finance the purchase of a fishing pole.  And the liberal side of the argument is most certainty not to give them a fishing pole either, it's to give them fish.  Then we run out of fish because no one is producing fish and we're giving it to everyone for free.  Hence, why America has the longest 5 year cancer survival rate.  But hell, all human beings should have the right to eat fish!  "Free public services" is not the bogymen, but it's not free from flaws.  It most certainty destroys the entirety of innovation.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Lushen