DogofWar1

Tshile, two key points on Reid: 1. he did not go beyond 2013, which I think has been covered. 2. Reid would not be in Congress at the start of the 2017 Congress. His statements should not be used to justify anything extra. It'd be like if in 2008 GWB had said he would expand the Supreme Court in 2009 if it served the GOP's purposes. Like, okay, that's not great, but he's not gonna be President in 2009 so unless McCain chimed in and was like "yup, that's the plan," I think we need to take it with a grain of salt, and certainly Obama could not use it as justification to expand and pack the court. Reid is out. We should, as such, stop trying to use his post-retirement-announcement words as justification for further filibuster changes. The 2013 changes came as a result of a real, unreasonable, stimulus. We don't have a real and unreasonable stimulus yet. The idea of the filibuster being killed should be some far flung hypothetical, not something discussed as likely to happen early next year. You should also note that this whole filibuster debate mostly stemmed from the contention that the filibuster was already dead. I'm blasting that contention as justification for further action, which blocs of the GOP are advancing, NOT blasting the GOP for doing it, as obviously they haven't done it yet. Nor am I blasting any changes regardless of circumstances. If Trump magically turns out to be great for the USA and democrats obstruct him like the GOP did Obama, I would not be so angry at the GOP's rule changes. And I take issue with your characterization of me here. I have always been for judicious use of the filibuster. If I have not already stated somewhere, and I am fairly certain I have, let me state here that I oppose blanket use and abuse of the filibuster. The appropriate use of the filibuster is to stop highly inappropriate legislation and appointees. If that is how the democrats wield it in the coming Congress, then good. If they emulate the GOP from 2011-2014, then I will be much more understanding of GOP action on that front. And I also will note that you again do actually partake in false equivalency in your last paragraph. The history of the filibuster is sufficiently nuanced that it can not really be fit into the "hypocrisy" mould you establish at the end. Not yet at least.

...with conditions. Reid: “Unless after this election there is a dramatic change to go back to the way it used to be, the Senate will have to evolve as it has in the past,” It's vague, sure, but it's clearly not unconditional. It's speculation to assume the conditions would he met. Also, Reid won't even be there next Congress. Schumer is in charge, and would have been in charge, and was mum on the matter. So again, speculation, because Reid, while he would still be an influential figure among Dems, would not have any actual power to do anything.

I like how all these justifications for pre-emptive action by the GOP use some combination of counter-factuals on past actions and speculation re: intent and future actions. Whether they needed to remove the legislation filibuster or not is somewhat moot when you consider that the filibuster still exists either way. "The filibuster is already dead." That is factually false. But the narrative that it is, is absolutely one the GOP wants. You know, it's funny, when the first filibuster "crisis" of this millenium happened during the Bush presidency (a "crisis" which was magnitudes smaller in scope than the 2013 "crisis"), the GOP threatened to kill the filibuster and said it'd be the democrats fault if they had to do it. Fast forward to 2013, and the GOP acted in a manner magnitudes worse than democrats from 02-06. Democrats did what Republicans threatened to do for much less, and yet now, fast forward to today, and it's all the democrats fault. The GOP laid the groundwork to blame the obstructing party back in 2006 for far lesser offenses, and then became a much worse example of obstruction by 2013, but don't want the blame! It's absurd.

If the filibuster was killed by Reid what the hell were all those Democrats doing about gun laws a little while ago? http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-live-democrat-mounts-gun-control-filibuster-1466014395-htmlstory.html It is disingenuous to suggest the filibuster is "dead." It's not. Not for legislation and SCOTUS. Of course, by framing it as "dead" you can then say Reid killed it and put all the responsibility on him when the GOP actually kills it for real real. And I fail to see how it's a different argument, the events are inextricably intertwined in terms of cause and effect. The GOP was objectively unreasonable in their actions and the limited removal of certain filibusters was the effect.

So let the GOP castrate government for 8 years? Like what would you do? The options were "get nothing done" and "eliminate filibuster on *something*."

When does the GOP take responsibility for blocking unprecedented numbers of nominees in the Senate? http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/nov/22/harry-reid/harry-reid-says-82-presidential-nominees-have-been/ Reid didn't nuke the filibuster for non-SCOTUS appointees ONLY for no reason. The GOP was treating Obama like a 2nd class President, with numerous important posts unfilled. I keep hearing "oh Reid shouldn't of done that, oooooooo it's his fault." Bull. The GOP abused the filibuster. The filibuster was a privilege to the minority to help protect against total tyranny of the majority, not to blockade qualified individuals en masse for political reasons. You abuse a privilege, and sometimes you lose it. Reid actually held back. I know the distinction between ending it entirely and ending it for non-SCOTUS appointees only is sometimes lost, but it's an important one. Certain filibusters were ended because of an objectively unreasonable outside stimulus. Now the GOP is gonna kill it entirely, SCOTUS, appointees, legislation and all? Over what? The first thing Dems try to stop? *sigh*

They didn't kill it. Not entirely. They ended it for non-SCOTUS judicial and executive appointees. It remains for legislation and SCOTUS appointees. Even this "ending" could be temporary, but of course it's hard to stuff the genie back in the bottle once he's out.

How the filibuster is employed will be most interesting. With 48-49 Senators, you would expect Dems to have some capability to craft how the Senate works, but we'll see how that works in practice.

I don't think I'd go the missile up their bums route yet. Rather, give them a reasonable amount of time to disperse, then move in. In the case of Malheur, 24 hours was plenty. Get it out of your system in 24 hours and go, or the police/FBI move in and arrest them. Get solid defensive equipment and don't escalate any further than they make you, but firmly arrest them.

First step from here will be to respond much quicker to these "protests." No more letting them sit there for a month. Eventually one of these juries will find their big person pants and put a group of these wankers behind bars. Letting them hang out for a month was almost as bad as this jury result. Second, if they try to let their animals graze on public property without permission/paying/etc., give them a warning and 24 hours to get their stuff under control, and if they don't then shoot the animals. Quick and clean. No ****ing around. Send the carcasses back to the ranchers, and charge them for the cost of transport. Third, actually investigate and arrest people for making threats to the community. I mean, the poor Sheriff got threatened a ton, and nobody appears to have been brought in. We treat people's lives being upended by SovCit threats as what, playful banter? Come on.

Heyzues Christmas are you kidding me. I mean, the 2nd charge is a ****ing checkbox. Gun on federal land, yes no. Wonderful. Dumbass sovcits and alt righters gonna get bolder by the day. Meanwhile, how many young minorities do you think got jailtime for marijuana possession? Or a petty larceny? Or reckless driving (no accident)?

If Trump wins maybe we can all move to Canada together.

UKIP leader out too. I'm pretty sure if you look up cluster**** in next year's dictionary UKIP is listed as an example. I have never seen so many people run away from their grand achievement so quickly.

Man, my friend who went over a few weeks ago should've gone over now. Instead of only buying one castle, she could've bought TWO!

One thing I'll note on crime data, and using it to back anything, is that you have to demonstrate it is sufficiently accurate for the purpose it is being used for. I do not think the data is sufficiently good that we can decisively state anything with regards to race and crime rates. Consider, briefly, that in 2005, only about 25% of robbery cases were "solved." So when we see a statistic that among charged robbery cases, African Americans are disproportionately represented, will that hold through the remaining 75%? We ultimately have no way of knowing. However, acceptance of incomplete or bad data can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. Start with "blacks commit more crimes." This leads to increased police presence in high black population areas, which leads to more blacks caught for crimes, which leads to statistics which back the idea that blacks commit more crimes. Example, if you think blacks will drive drunk more often, and therefore set up all your DUI checkpoints in high minority areas, does the subsequent end of year totaling mean anything, really? If police estimate they "solve" 10% of DUIs (this is a stat I just made up, btw), and their solved cases show disproportionately high black rates, but they are only checking high black areas, it would suggest an evening out over more "solved" cases. Further, we have to check biases at other levels, like with charges. Blacks are charged more often, okay, but that means any case where a suspect is identified but not charged isn't included. If there's a bias to not charge whites, for example, that could bias the data. And it can seem innocuous. A cop pulls over two people in a night. Both are two blocks from their house, and similarly drunk (we'll say .12, that is, over legal limit but not totally hammered). Cop arrests only the black guy, while letting the white guy drive the last two blocks. Suddenly the data is off. Until we can ensure that the collected data is not biased at some level, we have to be very wary of it. We don't need to totally discount it, after all, data is data; the USC Dornsife poll is consistently 6 points more in favor of Trump than the average, which looks bad but doesn't make it "bad," it just requires taking into account house effect. Problem is, data is incomplete and biases have not been examined and controlled for. We don't have tons of different data sets, we have one, with serious potential problems.

Please provide the source. We need more sources cited in these threads. Some things I won't cite because I've already cited them on the board a couple times ( for example, I'm fairly certain I've linked to that study on AA interview callbacks a couple times), but the first time something pops up, getting a source is good.

Proposed solution. John Legend rewrites the 3rd stanza. Congress adopts it as the new National Anthem (by Francis Scott Key with 3rd Stanza by John Legend). No one sings that stanza anyway, EXCEPT for the first time the whole anthem is performed, which would be during the Superbowl! Performed by Legend himself. From there on out we just keep using the first stanza primarily.

Saw this, thought it relevant. Protest seems contained to National Anthem.

Frustrating. Whether he gets it or not, protest will now be more about him and his conduct than underlying issues. It was already borderline, but defensible, now people standing with Kaep will be seen as having gone from Pro-Black issues to Anti-Cop. Much harder to get people to support you in that. Disappointing.

GMU grad here, their econ department tries really hard to turn everyone into an Ayn Rand follower, does that count? Of course, you have to actually go into econ there to take those classes. Mason Law though, they have a law and economics class you have to take, built into the 1st year law student curriculum, and that too leans towards the Rand-y side of things. I think I came out alright though.

Certain things had gotten better, but unfortunately the Great Recession wiped out almost an entire generation of wealth among African Americans, and that wealth has recovered little. Now, how much government should involve itself in trying to rebuild that wealth in a government facilitated manner is up for debate, as the loss of wealth sits primarily in the private economic realm as opposed to the political one. Government could certainly go after some of the surrounding issues (housing, education), but direct action is a little harder to hit on. Of course, there's the counter-balance that since around that time the counter-offensive to the War on Drugs and its surrounding criminal justice issues has been slowly achieving victories (marijuana legalization in some states, recently the plan to drop private prisons at the federal level). In short, I think it's a bit of a zig-zag. I do think one political party has made attempts to bring positive changes intentionally more than the other though.

Answer isn't 0 for both. It's more like 0 versus -50. Note: I'm not conceding that Dems have done zero, but rather pointing out that even doing nothing is better than doing harm.

To Tshile's discussion on who has done what for whom, even if we pulled racism out of it for the right, and even if we assumed the left has done zero, the balance of favor would still be to the Dems due to the general impact of proposed GOP policies. That is, they see the erosion of the Voting Rights Act, and even if we assume it's not racially motivated, it still harms African Americans. It might harm others too, but it will certainly harm AAs, so from the perspective of an individual AA voter, it's a negative action. To vote for the GOP is to vote for a platform that is taking action that harms African Americans. Even if we pull all the racial connotations out, it can be boiled down purely to "policies in their interests" and "policies not in their interests." And even if we assume Dems have done and will do nothing positive, their opposition to the negative policies alone is sufficient to make them more palatable. Just as a bland piece of bread is preferable to poison, so also is a frustrating but not unlivable status quo preferable to a future with harsher policies.

One further group that has not been discussed much but is ABSOLUTELY VITAL to understanding how the parties re-aligned on race is the Rockefeller Republican wing. They were moderate and even moderately liberal on social issues, and were named after Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, who sought the GOP nomination several times, most notably in 1964. In 1964, Rockefeller was defeated by Barry Goldwater, who harnessed the power of the conservative wing to overthrow the more moderate Eastern Establishment. This had far reaching impact, many of the moderate and even liberal GOP congressmen who had voted for the Civil Rights Act had pressure exerted on them and were often eventually pushed out. Today, Rockefeller Republicans, or at least ones that fit the mould, are increasingly rare. Many people who hold stances that would have been considered a part of the RR platform are today democrats. The moderate wing of the GOP are sort of their descendants, but as time goes on the line is further and further blurred. People like Colin Powell, for example, have called themselves Rockefeller Republicans, but some have endorsed democrats in recent years (or like Lincoln Chafee, were Republicans before slowly evolving into Democrats).

Privilege isn't uniform, and it is often rather sneaky, indeed it must be, overly obvious privilege is sometimes actionable as discrimination, and as such we don't see clear examples as often. But instances can nonetheless be identified. One example came from a study that showed AAs were given callbacks for interviews only 66% as often as whites with ALL factors held constant. A black man with a clean record was as likely to get a job as a white felon. There are issues at a variety of levels. Education, early, primary, and secondary; criminal justice; corporate practices. And please, please, PLEASE no more youtube videos from random "woke" people. I swear, is it really that hard to cite to a well sourced paper, or book? Like if we're gonna have dueling sources, can we at least not have one side throwing random woke youtubers as topic experts? They're not.