The Round Stable

If you haven't listened to Sunday's Chapo, I recommend giving it a listen. If you don't like Chapo for whatever reason, I still recommend giving it a listen. It starts off bleak with them assessing the situation in light of the GOP tax bill passing, then goes onto them dunking on the ghouls and vampires of the contemporary right-wing and the inept liberal caucus for a little catharsis, and ends on a slightly more uplifting note as they remind themselves of all the good that's been happening (like socialist revival) as all this shit has been going on. Definitely worth a listen imo.

Venusy wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:40 pm

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... tions.html
Once again, the administration isn't just evil, but also completely incompetent about it, because they accidentally killed all corporate tax deductions while rushing.

I came here to post this. There's something just beautiful about it, like if the ending of Return of the Jedi the emperor had cackled about how he won and was going to destroy the rebel fleet, then tripped and fallen into the reactor shaft while trying to hit the button.

Australia finally passes Same Sex Marriage laws today, after over a dozen bills failing to pass previously on the subject.

After a $120m public opinion survey (a non-binding postal vote which returned a 62% yes result) parliament finally did their job and just voted on a bill, which they should have done years ago saving a lot of money.

Oh well, hooray. The first marriages can take place on Jan 8th, which is 30 days after submitting notification of marriage forms if people do it tomorrow.

Lyle Shelton is also getting his just desserts.



Eat shit, Lyle

Democrat Doug Jones wins the Alabama senate election, according to the AP.

Unbelievable... as this is Alabama, but character and decency prevails.

Octavia wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:33 am

It's Alabama so I'm betting he still gets reelected in 2018.

This is why I don't make assumptions.

Wow, that's actually amazing.

For context, the last time Alabama had a Democratic senator was 25 years ago.

Well, guess I was wrong in all this. I was going into the evening thinking Alabama was going to usher Roy Moore into office, but it looks like the Obama coalition (minorities, college-educated whites, and millennials) turned out enough to give Doug Jones a razor-thin win.

Here's hoping the DNC wakes the fuck up next year, realizes there's this bloc of voters that wants a strong left-wing message, and actually campaigns for them instead of trying to persuade some minuscule number of moderates.

Moore isn't conceding so we're not out of the woods yet. This might go all the way through the absentee and military ballots, so I'm honestly still not going to believe it until then

Fizzbuzz wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 12, 2017 11:23 pm

Here's hoping the DNC wakes the fuck up next year, realizes there's this bloc of voters that wants a strong left-wing message, and actually campaigns for them instead of trying to persuade some minuscule number of moderates.

Not sure I'd call moderate Republicans joining to elect a moderate Democrat rather than an accused pedophile to be a sign the south is filled with hidden stockpiles of leftists.

Also turnout for this special election was still much lower than say a gubernatorial or presidential election.

stuff wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 12, 2017 10:29 pm

This is why I don't make assumptions.

It's not 2018 yet so it's not wrong!

Also, he won 49.9% to 48.4%. I'm really glad he prevailed, but it was still wayyy too close.

For a Democrat in Alabama in Trump's America, it's the equivalent of a landslide. Sure, it would have been fun to see a more embarrassing loss for Moore, but my expectations have been massively readjusted after last November.



EDIT:

The most important demographic among Doug Jones voters were black people, especially black women, despite recurring reports of strong voter surpression going on in their communities. The US really needs improvement of its voter protection and rights like yesterday, so shit like this becomes way less narrow.

Yeah, apparently their tactic this time was to literally unregister black voters under the guise that they hadn't voted in a long time. One person on Twitter, who had voted just last fall, was reporting that she was expected to have her birth certificate on hand to re-register on the spot. She fuckin' had it, out of sheer paranoia.

Jones is actually quite a liberal Democrat, fwiw.

Looking at a quick glance of where he stands on major issues he seems to be in line with most of the Democratic senators already in the Senate. Self avowed "second amendment guy" though believes in expanding background checks (though more moderate GOP lawmakers have started flirting with this after the church shooting in Texas), supports DACA but also heightened border security, wants tax reform but hates the current tax bill.

Nothing about him screams super hardcore leftist. The biggest thing going for him was the allegations against Moore.

Juju&Lulu wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 13, 2017 12:52 am

The biggest thing going for him was the allegations against Moore.

Well, the biggest thing was the entire 2017 GOP legislative output, along with their refusal to take investigation of Republican crimes seriously.

A lot of Republicans are also blaming Steve Bannon for causing them to lose what should have been an easy election.

Octavia wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 13, 2017 12:03 am

Also, he won 49.9% to 48.4%. I'm really glad he prevailed, but it was still wayyy too close.

Agreed. I don't intently keep track of politics, but I've heard so much about this specific election that I'm surprised the margin was THAT close. The fact that it was so close makes me uncomfortable, especially as I continue to learn more about the allegations against Moore (as well as other things, like how he's been fired as Chief Justice of Alabama more than once for pretty legitimate reasons, apparently).

Auxiliatrix wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:31 pm

Agreed. I don't intently keep track of politics, but I've heard so much about this specific election that I'm surprised the margin was THAT close. The fact that it was so close makes me uncomfortable, especially as I continue to learn more about the allegations against Moore (as well as other things, like how he's been fired as Chief Justice of Alabama more than once for pretty legitimate reasons, apparently).

Keep in mind, Alabama usually goes Republican by about 30%, so Moore loosing is a shocking turn of events.

OTOH, Moore was also extremely unpopular even before the allegations. Fivethirtyeight estimated (based on polls from various times) that he probably lost about 10% because of the current backlash against the Republican party, about 10% for being personally disliked, and then an additional 10% once the allegations came out.

Here's something from my state.

Tennessee has a law called the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act. The gist of it is that it prohibits the removal of any monuments that are installed on public properties in the state. That includes Confederate statues.

So how does the city of Memphis, which has been trying to remove two of such statues, get around this law? By selling the parks that has the statues to a private non-profit organization. Since the parks are now considered private properties, they are now able to remove the statues legally.

They removed both statues mere hours after the sale.

Getting rid of Confederate monuments is good, but I don't like the idea of privatizing public spaces and facilities, even if it is only to a shell corporation that exists to dodge a shitty law. I hope the deal includes some provision that lets the city continue to exercise control over the parks.

According to Commercial Appeal:

Greenspace signed a contract with [Memphis Mayor] Strickland on Friday that requires them to continue operating the park as a park, McMullen confirmed Wednesday. He said he knew of no plans for the nonprofit to sell the parks back to the city.

So yeah, the park will continue to operate as is.

Someone at NORAD accidentally sent out alerts about an incoming missile attack headed toward Hawaii. Luckily, the President was busy golfing and was not informed until it had been confirmed to be a false alarm; otherwise we might already be at war with whoever the hell he decided was responsible.

That needs to be the narrative going forward. That the only thing stopping the most powerful man in the world from starting World War III by accident was the fact that he was too lazy to do his damn job.

One of the stories I read that was covering this incident had someone in the comments saying that it's just like the Cold War all over again. Wouldn't a good leader be working to back the United States and other countries down from the threat of nuclear war, instead of bragging to the entire world about the size and efficacy of his nuclear button?

Fizzbuzz wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 13, 2018 8:51 pm

Wouldn't a good leader be working to back the United States and other countries down from the threat of nuclear war, instead of bragging to the entire world about the size and efficacy of his...

Donald Trump.

This is where I'd say this was a joke, except instead of a joke it's actually a cruel reality.

Shame a government shutdown is still largely a bad thing, and it's uncertain right now when it will end.

Definitely just further proof that nothing these clowns do actually benefits the general public or the economy.

Has anyone been hearing about Venezuela lately? We're looking at a refugee crisis here. By now, about 3 million Venezuelans have left the country already. There has been migration into other Latin American countries as well such as Perú, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. Just like with any other migrant crisis that's happening at a similar pace, the countries to which the migrant flee start to experience problems (and South American countries have enough domestic problems to contend with). It only makes sense that Latin American countries work together to share the burden of this refugee crisis. It's going to take a coordinated effort both both between countries and within countries to make this as painless as possible for each. The fact that much of Latin America speaks Spanish and have similar enough cultures helps with Venezuelans to integrate into the countries. Viable candidates for taking Venezuelan refugees include Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Perú and Chile (I'm only including Spanish-speaking countries for the moment). They have a combined population of 261 million. These five countries alone could take in 2 million Venezuelans before increasing their respective population by 1 percent. Not all Lat Am countries are suitable, however, as countries such as Honduras, Guyana, Guatemala and Nicaragua rank among the lowest in Human Development Index. If the host country is doing very poorly already, they'll just move out on their own -- for example, those allocated to Guatemala could opt to relocate themselves to neighboring Mexico.

Obviously, I'm not expecting the USA to help in any of this. Would be neat if Canada were to help but the language barrier won't be doing anyone any favors.

Gibson Guitars is facing bankruptcy after being in business for 116 years.

This is shocking, considering Gibson is one of the two biggest guitar companies in the world.

FCC chair Pai receives NRA gun award for courage

You can't make this shit up

I am cringing IRL as I type.

I absolutely loathe every single word in that article. Wow.

I googled the one name I didn't recognise. It's a guy who, among other dubious activities, spent 75k on 565 new handguns for his 275 deputies.

John Oliver had a bit about cryptocurrencies:

Yet another special election went down today, and once again the Democrat candidate massively outperformed the norm (the results are still too close to call and will likely come down to a recount). This brings up something I've said elsewhere but wanted to bring up here: I love how every single one of these elections is getting national attention. Regardless of the results or what people think of them, people are paying attention to who's running and who they want to win. And that's huge.

It's become a cliché—for good reason—that most Americans don't even know the names of their senators, representatives, or even governors, let alone anything about them. It's no wonder incumbents keep getting reelected term after term. But that's partly the fault of the media they consume. Most people get their news from cable, or from major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post rather than the ones run out of their own counties or even states. Local TV news isn't worth watching most of the time, and people are disinclined to alter their viewing schedule for the entire month leading up to Election Day just to check in on local politics.

But now—and I'm guessing it's because Trump keeps hiring people out of Congress to fill positions in his administration, only to have them resign or get fired only weeks later; correct me if I'm wrong about this—we're getting another special election somewhere every month or so. All these elections to Congress that aren't competing with each other for airtime. So every single one is getting coverage on the national news.

It makes me wonder if the ideal system would be to intentionally stagger congressional elections so that there's another one somewhere every week or so, rather than hold it all on one day. It wouldn't have to mean more days per year that you have to go vote; states and cities could move their own elections to line up with the dates of their senatorial and house elections, respectively, and do away with the traditional November Election Day entirely except in presidential years.

I voted in the Illinois Primary today and I have Jury Duty on Thursday.

Doin' all my civic duties this week.

10 dead in school shooting in Santa Fe

Cynical, but obligatory:

Over at the Fox News headquarters, they recently hired a female CEO, adapted a new trans-inclusive policy, installed a Muslim prayer rug in Ollie North's old office, and employees now must undergo mandatory sexual harassment training.

In another words, everything that the Fox News demographic is against, and people working at the network aren't exactly happy about it.

There's no violin tiny enough for those people

I wonder what the hell could have prompted all this. Their actual programming has been turning more and more into the Trump State Propaganda Network in the past year, even as Trump becomes more and more impossible to defend.