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Messages - RedKing

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1591
General Discussion / Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically Insane
« on: September 09, 2016, 01:55:10 pm »
But for young voters, the protectionism thing just seems outdated and close-minded.

IDK man, the democratic convention seems to disagree with that a lot.
I feel like Bernie's trade protectionism came out of a different source though -- anticorporatism as opposed to nationalist sentiment. Young people aren't keen on nationalism (after all, that's what those evil Nazis were all about, right?) but they're totally down with hating on Big Whatever. And they're old enough to remember the 2008 collapse and all the anger against Wall Street (most of it well-earned).

1592
General Discussion / Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically Insane
« on: September 09, 2016, 01:27:58 pm »
I can sort of see that.

Young people (for the most part) are just appalled by Trump. Older folks, even older Democrats, can see themselves agreeing with at least some of his stances, like trade protectionism. Millennials really haven't had to live through outsourcing/offshoring the way GenX and Baby Boomers have. Hell, even I get tempted at times by the siren song of "bring the jobs back". But I know that my line of work at least, is affected as much or more by H1Bs as by offshoring. And I also recognize that by and large, the jobs that have been offshored aren't coming back. And forbidding US companies from using offshore backoffice IT would utterly cripple them in the short-term (and never pass Congress). But for young voters, the protectionism thing just seems outdated and close-minded.

But people 30+ are also old enough to remember Bill Clinton and the economic boom of the 1990's. That's a strong draw, even if much of that boom had more to do with the rise of the Internet and other structural factors, and less to do with Presidential policy. Millennials never got to take part in that boom. They've only known the post-bubble economy, wherein we've had two major recessions since 2000, and they've graduated college with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and finding that the only available jobs are retail or bottom-feeder gigs at giant corporations. So the subconscious link of Clinton=$$$$ isn't there.

So yeah, the idea that young people are voting against Trump, while older people are voting for Clinton sounds right to me.

EDIT: I don't think I'd ever use "incapable" with Hillary. The rest, yeah I'm in agreement.  :P



EDIT #2: I think immigration is another area where age perspective explains a lot. Millenials in many parts of the country have always grown up with a fair number of Hispanic neighbors, friends, coworkers, the guy who runs their favorite taco truck, etc. So it just seems normal, and they don't see what the big deal is.

Older people in many places outside the Southwest remember a time when Hispanics were something of a rarity. When I was a kid, you could count the number of Mexican restaurants in town (and this was a city of 100,000+) on one hand. There were three kinds of "ethnic" food available -- Italian, Mexican and Chinese. Bilingual signs just weren't a thing, even at the Mexican restaurants. Now, they're so commonplace I don't even notice them. And to Anglocentric whites (which is a lot of people), that seems like a demographic/cultural threat, the same as the Yellow Peril. There's the appearance at least, of less cultural assimilation compared to say, the 1970s and 1980s. So even if they dislike Trump personally, they do see some value to clamping down on immigration.

1593
General Discussion / Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically Insane
« on: September 09, 2016, 01:02:08 pm »
Can't really argue with that. I'd like to, but the numbers do bear out that she was a fair bit more popular with the youth segment prior to the primaries.

For my part, I was not in favor of her running even before she announced (and I have posts in the old Ameripol forum to prove it). And my reasons for that have largely been borne out -- too much baggage, too hawkish, too many people for whom she is an utter non-starter, to the point that they would countenance DONALD FUCKING TRUMP as a more palatable alternative.

I still maintain that if almost anyone else in the Democratic Party had gotten the nomination, we'd be talking about the prospect of a 40+ state sweep in November.
And if a mainstream Republican had won the nomination, we'd be talking about what kind of Congress President Bush/Kasich/Rubio is going to have to work with.

1594
General Discussion / Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically Insane
« on: September 09, 2016, 12:43:45 pm »
what do I do

Blame Redking.
At least you admit that's your default setting.  :P


https://mobile.twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/773639656592334853

For comparison Obama is about 15% more popular with 18-29 then all adults. If you held the 30+ rate at 39% and changed the young approval of Clinton to match the Obama spread her approval disapproval would be about 44%-50%.
Not really sure what the point of this is. Either,

1: "This is all your fault, young people! Why don't you like Clinton-senpai as much as you do Obama-kun? WHYYY?"
2: "Even if young people like Clinton as much as they like Obama....she'd still be viewed negatively overall."

Neither of those seem like points you'd be likely to make.  ???




EDIT: In non-campaign news, Congress keeps blocking emergency funding to fight Zika, because Planned Parenthood is EVUL and #ConfederateDeadMatter.

The TL;DR explanation: Republicans inserted language that would block contraceptive funding for Planned Parenthood, and also language to allow Confederate flags to be displayed in national military cemetaries, into the Zika funding bill. Democrats said, "Wait, WTF? Get the fuck outta here with that shit" and they've been at a stalemate. Right-wing sources are, of course, casting this as "Democrats block vital Zika funding to protect evil Planned Parenthood and because they hate Southern heritage".  ::)

Hopefully, as the article above indicates, McConnell may be on the verge of caving and pulling that shit out so the funding can get a clean vote. Unfortunately, the House is unlikely to compromise.

On the upside, this could swing Florida hard to the Dem column, if Zika spreads and the Republicans are seen as sacrificing Floridians' health on the altar of ideology. Unfortunately, media polarization and cognitive dissonance being what it is, Republicans in Florida will just find a way to blame this on the Democrats.

1595
General Discussion / Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically Insane
« on: September 08, 2016, 05:37:55 pm »
Yeah, the Aleppo thing was just...>_<

Dammit Gary, and I was starting to lean back in your direction too.

Although Lindsey Graham got good mileage out of it by tweeting: "He set back the cause of legalizing marijuana by 50 years."  :P

1596
General Discussion / Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically Insane
« on: September 07, 2016, 02:22:20 pm »
I don't think the problem is Democrats not voting down ballot, it's that they might potentially fail to vote *up* ballot.

I know a considerable number of Dems and independents who are planning to vote straight ticket (or nearly-straight ticket) at state and local races, but still haven't decided what to do on the Presidential race. Yes, you can argue that letting Trump "catch up" scares people into voting for her, but if she was already set to win a state anyways, I don't that it helps. Victories are based on electoral college votes, not popular vote. Popular vote margins are like "style points".

1597
General Discussion / Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically Insane
« on: September 07, 2016, 01:07:32 pm »
Noted warlock Nate Silver

Noted indeed.

Needless to say, I don't have much faith in any odds he's providing. Petty as it is, I still can't help but chuckle when I see him referred to as Nate Bronze.

"OMG guyz he was wrong about something, so therefore he's wrong about everything after that"  ::)


Somehow I think if he was predicting a Trump victory, you'd be touting his track record.
Or linking tweets like this.

1598
General Discussion / Re: Doc Helgoland's Asylum for the Politically Insane
« on: September 07, 2016, 09:29:57 am »
Getting the thread back on the blood-soaked rails that are the 2016 campaign season....


Polls are starting to tighten, which is pushing some "blue lean" states back into the toss-up category. Clinton is no longer considered a safeish bet to win 270+ without the tossups, as she was a few weeks ago.

Right now, RCP's electoral map has Clinton with 229 likely electoral votes, Trump with 154, and 155 up for grabs, although a lot of the toss-up states do show a slight Clinton lean in the polls.

Noted warlock Nate Silver now has Clinton as basically a 2-1 favorite over Trump, a far cry from her 9-1 advantage a few weeks ago.


1599
General Discussion / Re: Gunnerkrigg Court: Confusion, confusion everywhere!
« on: September 07, 2016, 08:57:54 am »
So....I am thoroughly confused now. Jeanne is fighting Robot (who may have been part of the plan, or may have crashed the party to protect Kat), and Annie appears to have fallen through the ether and is facing Jeanne's dead elf boyfriend. Who I'm beginning to suspect is the real vengeful ghost, somehow melding into Jeanne's spirit and trapping her by the river.

1600
General Discussion / Re: Space Thread
« on: September 06, 2016, 08:40:05 am »
You do gotta admit it's a little weird that all the mysteriously vanishing high-energy radio emissions we've found are all in similar ranges, though. Probably not aliens, but if it were aliens against all odds, it would probably look a lot like that.
Obviously jump drive signatures. High-energy and nonrepeating.

My takeaway from ESA's Philae mishap is that I will no longer feel bad when I fuck up a probe landing in KSP. Even if lands sideways and oriented such that the solar panels can't get light and the probe is doomed...I'm at least as good as a professional space agency.  :P

1601
General Discussion / Re: It Gets Weirder [DPRK Thread]
« on: September 06, 2016, 08:26:31 am »
So there might be an allegedly dead American teaching English in North Korea.
I'm skeptical of this one. If he had disappeared from Heilongjiang, sure. But Yunnan? That's down near Thailand. Awfully long way to send kidnappers for a dude hiking. Most of the abductions of Americans have been opportunistic, when people literally traipse around Pyongyang and give them some semi-legit cover for detaining them.

1602
Play With Your Buddies / Re: Crusader Kings II Dynasty Succession Game
« on: September 05, 2016, 04:45:13 pm »
Kinda fascinating to see what happens if the Papacy controls a merchant republic. Gold for the Glory of God!

1603
General Discussion / Re: Ameripol\{RK, mainiac}
« on: September 03, 2016, 08:00:53 pm »
The NYTimes will give you an interactive graphic for the gun shops mass shooters got their guns at or the top five douchey walking paths through manhattan (my words, not theirs).  Just in case you wanted to know the specifics on those things.  But they wont give you a specific breakdown on the exact information that is causing this big stink.  Why?  They seem to care an awful lot seeing as it has shaped the entire tone of their political coverage for a year.  Why the fuck haven't they gotten down to the specifics?

I'm not being sarcastic here when I say I honestly can't figure this mystery out.  I am not so cynical that I would pass it off as stupidity or laziness or malice...

Or it could be that the press hasnt revealed the contents of the classified emails, because...they're still classified.

You're basing a lot of your argument off the stuff released through Wikileaks, for which there is no confirmation that those are in fact the emails in question.



Quote
Now please do me a favor, be polite and stop breaking forum rules about personal insults and bickering.

Quote
Which is all you have done because you have never cared about the facts.  Now I I dont give a shit about your ignorance anymore today.

 ::)

1604
General Discussion / Re: Ameripol\{RK, mainiac}
« on: September 03, 2016, 07:23:22 pm »
I'm trying to keep this a low-sodium discussion.  ::)

On the first point, no it's a legit question. If you convincingly illustrate that she didn't commit perjury, then it's a fair cop and there's nothing else to discuss. If she did....well, as I said nothing is going to come of it anyways.

On the second point, content is irrelevant as is the degree of public knowledge. If Obama's favorite snack food is deemed classified information, then it's classified information. Even if Vanity Fair does a piece on him and mentions it explicitly. Until the responsible agency for that information moves to declassify it (which is admittedly often slow to catch up to public knowledge), it remains classified. They probably wouldn't go after anyone outside the government for discussing it, but they damn sure will go after people internally who do.

When they first big Wikileaks dump happened several years back, we were all told in no uncertain terms that even viewing the Wikileaks dump on government computers would be grounds for clearance revocation, reprimand, and even dismissal. Uncle Sam don't play.


EDIT: @Ispil -- That's a fair point, and ultimately that'll probably be the defense used. Still leaves a grey area, because you can never prove "intent" but it's as good an answer as I've heard so far. As you say though, the implications still aren't great.

1605
General Discussion / Re: Ameripol\{RK, mainiac}
« on: September 03, 2016, 07:02:45 pm »
For me, the only question worth considering now is -- did she commit perjury?

IIRC, she testified under oath to Congress that she did not send any classified information through her private server. The FBI's findings would seem to contradict that.

Even if the act committed was or wasn't a big deal, the lying about it is. Just as Martha Stewart's "insider trading" ultimately turned out to be a minor thing, but it was the perjury about it that landed her in prison.

Ultimately though, even if she did, nothing is going to happen. That's just a given. Republicans will rant and fume and screech, and ultimately it will be a host of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Because one, they don't want Trump to get in. And two, Clinton is almost more useful to them in power, as it gives them a convenient boogey(wo)man for corralling votes and fundraising.

@mainiac: That's a poor excuse. Just because something has been compromised into the press doesn't declassify it. Anyone worth their salt with a security clearance is aware of that.

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