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On 23-12-2018 at 6:50 AM, Time the Crestfallen said:

My problem is that even if Trump goes down, Mike Pence takes over and his appointments will likely be just as bad as Trumps, so even if Trump goes down to Mueller or something we'd still be fucked if a SCOTUS vacancy opens up prior to the 2020 election. There's also the fact that if the Republicans manage to hold onto a Senate Majority, we might learn whether or not Ted Cruz was serious about Republicans indefinitely blocking Democrat nominations to the SCOTUS.

If anything Pence will nominate people like Roberts, not clearly unqualified partisan hacks like Gorsuch. In that sense your supreme court will be highly unpalatable for the coming few decades, but at least basically competent.

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On 23-12-2018 at 5:11 AM, Pixelman said:

...What? Why?

If the supreme court majority becomes extreme right wing activists, they can overrule a bunch of their previous rulings.

Abortion and gay marriage rights were things the SC made legal through their rulings, and those decisions can(and probably will be) overturned if the right wing activists get the majority. 

Chevron deference, the ability of executive agencies like the EPA to decide what kind of policy they want to pursue within their congressional mandate without interference from the courts, is also on the chopping block. Gorsuch really wants to get rid of it. This essentially means that the SC gives itself a say on things like whether or not asbestos gets banned by the EPA, amongst other things. Outside of the obvious balance of powers issue, without chevron deference a right wing(or left wing) court can stonewall any executive agency from doing anything as long as they have a majority. 

Finally there's the religious freedom(and freedom from religion) and discrimination issues. Masterpiece cakeshop was a good example of this. Things like laws for prayer in school, "in god we trust" signs in the state legislatures, etc. Generally accomodating christians in showinghow christian they are, and allowing them to discriminate against jews/muslims/agnosts/homosexuals/transgenders/etc because of their 'religious beliefs'. Considering the history the US has with discrimination against minority religion that's probably gonna make a return as well.

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1 hour ago, Larverto said:

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh.

I'll vote for her if she's the nominee, but I really wanna see who else is running and what their campaigns are looking like before I commit to a primary contender. 

I like Warren on policy. But I have serious concerns about her ability to mount an effective campaign on the national level. Not sure how the positions that make her such a beloved figure in Massachusetts play in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  (I hope she proves me wrong)
_______

I'm also concerned that if shes running and Bernie's running, you have two far-lefties with the same base that cannibalize each other's support and make it impossible for either one of them to be viable against a candidate that captures the Clinton/Obama moderate bulk of the party. 

Of Warren and Sanders: one has to drop out (or fizzle) very early in the process and the left has to fully consolidate behind the other, if the center consolidates early around--sayyyyyyy--Joe Biden, in the mainstream alternative.

Still very early in the process. But these are problems to anticipate at some point down the road. 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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also her crusade to prove she's "native american" was distasteful. i'm between 6-10 generations removed from nigerian ancestors according to 23andme--am i black now? i'm even from a black neighborhood!! (i'm ~49% irish/uk and ~50% jordanian/lebanese but look 1000% irish to clear that up.)

if sanders and warren really are both running, which i hope will not be the case, i think it'd be best for warren to move aside. i want a progressive candidate, though!

unfortunately, i think that reality will chime in the next year or so and remind us that not all leftist states are like california. we're going to have to settle for a biden or something.

Edited by Phoenix Wright
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22 minutes ago, Yojinbo said:

Can somebody explain to me what it is about Warren that supposedly makes her a "far-left" politician?

She thinks we should be more environmentally conscious and that the rich should pay more taxes.

Which seems like common sense to me, but ya know. America's kind of backwards.

EDIT: Oh, and she supports single-payer healthcare.

Edited by Slumber
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On 1/2/2019 at 12:52 PM, Yojinbo said:

Can somebody explain to me what it is about Warren that supposedly makes her a "far-left" politician?

real talk, pretty much nothing

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Interesting research that's been getting some buzz in the news recently. Political scientists have graphed out prevalence of mental illness in developed nations  over levels of income inequality, and what they've found is:

The Prevalence of Mental Illness is Higher in More Unequal Rich Countries


Its being posited that there's a causal connection here: higher rates of mental illness is caused by higher rates of inequality, because excessive inequality is an environmental stressor on the mental health of the affected populace. 

The theory, if correct, means that as the gap between the rich and the working class widens and ever greater % of a nation's wealth come under the control of a small number of individuals, while a greater and greater % of the population struggles to make ends-meet and support a family on a working class salary, higher percentages of the population will become mentally unstable and act out in a disturbed, deranged, manner. 

A while back in the "general mass killings thread," there was talk of how mass shootings seem more prevalent today then in prior decades + attempts to correlate the apparent rise to other developments. Largely unrelated developments.

...well now...


Image result for us income inequality by year




Image result for mass shootings us by year


...Could it be???

Edited by Shoblongoo
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1 hour ago, Shoblongoo said:

..Could it be???

On the other hand, from one argument I've heard is that mental illness has nothing to do with mass shootings. The argument- the rate of gun deaths in the US is 40 times that of Great Britain, but the mental illness rate is nowhere near that. The same for the US against other countries in the same two statistics. If mental illness = gun violence, then the rates of mental illness in the US should either be much higher than countries with few or no mass shootings.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/talking-about-mental-health-after-mass-shootings-is-a-cop-out/2017/10/05/8c319ca4-aa13-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8757d3a31f04

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6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

On the other hand, from one argument I've heard is that mental illness has nothing to do with mass shootings. The argument- the rate of gun deaths in the US is 40 times that of Great Britain, but the mental illness rate is nowhere near that. The same for the US against other countries in the same two statistics. If mental illness = gun violence, then the rates of mental illness in the US should either be much higher than countries with few or no mass shootings.

I mean you also have to account for the relative availability of guns in all these countries. You could definitely make the argument that if guns were as easy to acquire in the UK as they are in the US, the gun deaths per capita might be a lot more similar.

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On 8-1-2019 at 2:31 AM, Time the Crestfallen said:

I mean you also have to account for the relative availability of guns in all these countries. You could definitely make the argument that if guns were as easy to acquire in the UK as they are in the US, the gun deaths per capita might be a lot more similar.

It's actually not hard at all in most of Europe to get a gun, ammo and taking it to shoot. 

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1 hour ago, Excellen Browning said:

It's actually not hard at all in most of Europe to get a gun, ammo and taking it to shoot. 

Well I did say 'relative' accessibility. It can be easy to get a gun in most of Europe and still relatively more 'responsible' if you will when compared to the US. For instance, even if the laws of gun ownership are more liberal than many would suspect, I'd still imagine that the number of guns per residence wouldn't even come close to that of the US, and this is without going into individual laws on classifications. My understanding is that most of Europe would be a lot more strict when it comes to handgun ownership than the US.

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2 hours ago, Excellen Browning said:

It's actually not hard at all in most of Europe to get a gun, ammo and taking it to shoot. 

Isn't it pretty difficult for even police officers to get guns in the UK?

Regardless, I do think the ease of access to guns, along with the quality of mental care, leads to the ridiculous homicide and mass murder rates in the US. Canada's pretty similar to the US when it comes to ease of gun access, but their quality of mental health care blows ours out of the water, apparently.

Edited by Slumber
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1 hour ago, Slumber said:

Isn't it pretty difficult for even police officers to get guns in the UK?

Regardless, I do think the ease of access to guns, along with the quality of mental care, leads to the ridiculous homicide and mass murder rates in the US. Canada's pretty similar to the US when it comes to ease of gun access, but their quality of mental health care blows ours out of the water, apparently.

I can't comment on how difficult it's is for UK police to get guns, because I don't know, but UK gun law is fairly similar to most of Europe. The UK is also 1 in some 20 states in the EU and isn't necessarily a good representative. What is, is the European firearms directive, which forces some minimum regulations on member states, and those in the borderless zone. 

And according to the directive you can own a lot of things if you have a permit, and a permit is AFAIK in most countries not difficult to get. You just have to prove you'll use it, say by joining a shooting or hunting club, and that you're not a risk to public safety. And depending on the country this can get you single or two shot rifles, shotguns, and an assortment of handguns. 

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In England and Wales, about 5% of police are firearms authorised. That includes any that are operationally deployable or trainers.

I assume it's similar numbers up here. I have only really seen police with firearms at airports.

Now as a citizen, if you can provide a good reason, you can get a gun. But few find it worthwhile to do so.

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2 hours ago, Excellen Browning said:

So, anyone getting affected by the shutdown already? I know some people who've been placed on indefinite leave.

The only person I know that is affected is my friend's grandma calling about her Social Security or something, but no one from the governnent office picked up.

I still see USPS trucks delivering mail, although they operate on a slightly different funding model though and can keep themselves alive.

Unless you are living on Social Security or work for the fed, I have not seen the shutdown impacting California, or at least Sacramento, much yet.

Edited by XRay
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1 hour ago, XRay said:

Unless you are living on Social Security or work for the fed, I have not seen the shutdown impacting California, or at least Sacramento, much yet.

Although I thought I saw an infographic showing the impact of the shutdown state by state, I think California was the most impacted in terms of sheer numbers, 30000+.

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Here's a list of the effects of the shutdown

At this point the shutdown really comes down to "which side" you're on.

If you're on the side of morons demanding Trump's border wall gets the funding, It's the Dems' fault.

If you're on the other side, it's ultimately Mitch McConnel's fault. Congress can pass a bill to reopen the government and Trump vetoing it is an impeachable offense. Of course there's Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Fox News for having started the stupid debacle but at the end of the day, they and Trump are irrelevant and this turtle's obstruction of any bill attempting to reopen the government is really what's keeping this going.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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4 hours ago, Sarracenia said:

The overweight, vacuous, fake-tanned crony-capitalist that is the United States President invites a College Football team to the White House for a dinner and feeds them fast food.

That sentence wouldn't have looked out of place as Soviet propaganda during the Cold War.

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