kimmy

He couldn't pick a more divisive candidate than Arpaio if he tried. The nicest thing that could be said of Arpaio is that he's old and should be dead of natural causes before he has time to cause much more harm to anyone. -k

Pence's record on the subject is clear, and goes back far longer than his failed "RFRA" act. The only thing clear from Trump's record is that he wants to be the "star". If his economic policies haven't made him a star by the time the midterms roll around, he's going to do something else to be a star. Throwing some red meat social conservatism on the table would keep his "fans" happy for a while. The reaction of the crowd... uh, weren't they chanting "Trump The Bitch"? I honestly thought that was what they were saying. Anyway, it's nice that they cheered him for saying that. Maybe the convention delegates were on board, but the party platform committee still brought forward what was called by gay Republicans "the most anti-gay platform in party history". Trump himself might not hate gay people at all. But he's surrounded by people who do. If things go bad, I have no doubt he'd throw gay people overboard to keep the SS Trump afloat. That's his main focus. You say he needs to avoid offending the "Reagan Democrats" and swing voters and so-on, but on the other hand he also got the support of the evangelicals, who had grave misgivings about his personal life and his character but supported him anyway, because they expect action on abortion and traditional marriage. They only got on board the Trumpwagon because they expect him to keep his commitment to their social conservative goals. We'll see how this turns out. -k

Yeah, your idea that Hillary is actually a dhimmi plant who was going to bring in American Sharia is one of the most nuts ideas I've heard during the whole election cycle. -k

No problem. But Derek here is trying to convince me that Trump is actually a cool guy who is super-friendly with the gays, and Pence and the FRC guy are pretty clear hints that that's not the case. -k

Whether or not it was a winning political strategy, it was found to be constitutional, over and over again. And so are other rights. So when rights come into conflict, there are tests like "undue burden". For example, the fact that someone down the street may be using contraceptives is not actually a burden on Mr Santorum's ability to practice his faith. Moral of the story is that their religious bigots law didn't actually reflect their whole state. It's great that it had a happy ending-- the part where Pence was furious is my favorite part-- but overall I think it's quite unfortunate that these guys caused so much strife and economic damage to their own capital city. Sure, and that includes making an inclusive-sounding speech at the RNC when he knows swing-voters will be watching. Actions speak louder than words. Choosing a vitriolic gay-hater like Pence as his VP and a Family Research Council guy as his domestic policy transition team chairman are actions that send a pretty loud message about where he's going. -k

Whatever. 435 members of the House of Representatives will be up for reelection... and about 236 of them are going to be telling Trump they need some "wins" they can show their constituents. -k

Canadians heavily favored Barack Obama in two elections, and picked right both times. -k

My understanding is that in 2 years, the whole congress will be up for reelection. It seems that much like by-elections in Canada, American mid-term elections are often used to send a "message" to the President. It happened to Obama, it happened to Bush, it happened to Clinton... Obama was awfully popular when he got elected, but in 2010 when people found they'd seen a lot less "Change" than they'd "Hoped" for, the congress flipped to the Republicans. In 2018, if people feel that America isn't as "Great" as Trump promised he'd make it, he might receive a similar "message" at the midterms. His congressmen will be demanding some "wins". Ok, Trump said he'd protect gay people from getting shot by ISIS. He didn't say he'd protect their rights from Mike Pence. Speaking in general terms, I find that conservative people care a lot about gay people when they're threatened by Muslims, but not that much about gay people when they're threatened by Christians. Trump has said pretty much everything at one point or another, but he's definitely promised Christian leaders that he'd overturn "Obergefell vs Hodges". He also appointed this gay-hating Family Research Council goon to lead the "domestic policy" chairman of his transition team. That's not a very promising signal. -k

Many people argued the same thing in regard to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. "States Rights" is a residuals kind of thing, where if it's not granted elsewhere the states can look after it. Many of these topics that social conservatives say are "states rights issues" are things like abortion or gay rights that aren't *specifically* addressed in the Constitution. But the 9th Amendment says to those people, "not so fast". Rights that aren't specifically enumerated can still be clearly inferred from other rights that exist in the Constitution. Rick Santorum has been talking for 10 years about how awful it is that the Supreme Court overturned Connecticut's ban on contraception. It should be a States Rights issue, he says, because the Constitution doesn't actually say anything about a right to contraception. The Supreme Court concluded that the right to use contraception is obviously inferred from clauses within the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court struck down the Texas ban on same-sex sexual activity in 2003, and Rick Perry is still mad as hell about it. That should be a States Rights issue, he says. The Supreme Court concluded that the right of consenting adults to have sex is obviously inferred from clauses within the 14th Amendment. Rick Santorum might THINK it's an intolerable situation that somebody in his state is using birth control at this very moment, but it's not actually an intolerable situation. People having their families destroyed because some politician outlawed gay marriage or adoption by gay people would actually be an intolerable situation. Rick Perry might THINK it's an intolerable situation that somebody in his state might be having sex with somebody of the same gender at this very moment, but it's actually not. People being fired from jobs or thrown out of restaurants or refused accommodation at hotels because somebody suspects they might be gay actually is an intolerable situation. The idea that having control of the legislature means that your views "reflect the people of your state" is pretty debatable. Consider last year's big dust-up in Indiana. Indiana has a whole lot of corn farmers, but it also has the city of Indianapolis, which aspires to be more than a corn mecca. The city and the state have offered all kinds of incentives to bring businesses to Indianapolis. As in most places, urban voters are under-represented by population relative to rural voters, and the rural voters have control of the legislature. And Mike Pence and his legislature thought it would be a great idea to bring in a "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" that legally protected anti-gay discrimination, provided it's done in the name of religion. And the resulting curb-stomping they received from the business community was absolutely gratifying to see. Businesses that had planned to expand into Indianapolis, like the software company Salesforce, cancelled their plans. Salesforce said "we have gay employees and we're not sending them someplace where they'll be discriminated against. We're not doing business there anymore." Lots of others followed suit. People boycotted Indianapolis businesses. They cancelled trips to Indianapolis. They moved their conventions out of Indianapolis to other places. And the people of Indianapolis said "PLEASE! WE DIDN'T WANT THIS LAW IN THE FIRST PLACE!" Indianapolis business start putting up signs with rainbows or hearts that say "all are welcome here!" and civic politicians start fighting with the state legislature, and the Indianapolis newspaper prints a front page that has just 3 words: "FIX THIS NOW." So Pence has this dilemma where his corn-farmers want one thing and the city that makes up over 1/3 of the state's populace wants the exact opposite, and the resulting firestorm had the potential to cost Indianapolis thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of economic activity, and it looks like he's throwing his capital city under the bus to appease the rural voters. So grudgingly Pence tells his legislature to amend the legislation. And they add a clause that states that the law can not be used to justify discrimination, including discrimination against gay people. And they do a press conference and say "aw, shucks, we never ever meant to make the gay people feel unwelcome here, we love the gay people." And Pence signs the amended legislation, grumbling the whole time that the law was "misunderstood". So... uh, long story short: was Mike Pence's "religious freedom" act really reflective of the people who live in Indiana? It might have been reflective of the rural voters, but it turns out it definitely wasn't reflective of the city of Indianapolis. Do you think Rick Perry's continued insistence that keeping gay sex illegal is "right for Texas" is "right" for the people who live in Austin and Houston and DFW? -k

Trump might be a RINO, but the large majority of his congressmen and senators are very serious about the subject. As I said before, I think the post-Obama, post-2010 Tea Party uprising Republicans are in general far less compromising than they were in the Bush 43 era. And as I said before, it doesn't matter if Trump himself is a RINO or not, these measures are going to be generated in Congress and Senate and get sent to him to sign or veto. You really think he's going to fight his own party for principles he doesn't actually care much about? And, as I also said earlier, in under 2 years it'll be time for the mid-term elections. When the 5% growth hasn't materialized, and the millions of Rust Belt workers are still out of work, and the illegals still haven't been deported, and ISIS still hasn't vanished from the face of the earth, what's he going to have to show the voters? His congressmen and senators are going to be desperate for some "wins" that they can take back to their constituents. He's going to need something that he and his congress can brag about. And Mike Pence, or Steve Bannon, or whoever happens to be whispering in his ear at the time, is going to point out that putting some social-conservative social policy into law would be a lot easier to do than making ISIS disappear or creating millions of Rust Belt jobs out of thin air. Whether or not Trump actually supports that stuff, he's going to do it, because it's the politically expedient thing to do. -k

I did some searching of my own and found 2 senators-- Mrs Murkowski of Alaska and Mrs Collins of Maine, Mark Kirk was a third, although he lost his reelection bid. I also turned up 4 congressmen. Mr Hanna wasn't one of them, although he does strongly defend Planned Parenthood. Given the Republican majorities in both houses, that's inconsequential. As for Gov. Sandoval, I'll believe it when I see it. The White House was apparently vetting him in February, presumably because they thought a moderate Republican might have a chance of getting confirmation. But now? Not likely. He clearly fails the 4-prong litmus test. -k

As you've been pointing out, Bush didn't actually have a pro-life majority on the Supreme Court. He did, however, manage to sign a number of anti-abortion measures while president. From a quick glance over Supreme Court rulings it looks like there have been 4 reliably pro-life votes on recent abortion rulings, and one of those was Scalia, so the Republicans probably just needs to replace Scalia and wait for an octogenarian liberal to croak. -k

Not much. Pro-life is a litmus test for anybody who wants to run for the Republicans in any capacity. Name a single pro-choice Republican at the federal level. -k

What Trump said on Twitter in 2012 after Romney lost: ... ... ... He thought the electoral college was "a disaster" when he thought that Romney had won the popular vote (although Obama actually won the popular vote) and he was calling for "a revolution" to "stop this travesty". ...so overall I think burning a few dumpsters and smashing some windows is pretty tame compared to what he called for. -k

I don't think that's quite right. He's not suggesting that the outcome is a random event where the outcomes might go one way or the other depending. He runs many thousands of simulations based on the polling information, and adjusting the polling information in each poll based on each poll's sample size and chance of error. "If this poll underestimates Trump's support in this state by 0.1%, how do the results of the election change?" And he runs thousands of simulation based on all the possibilities of all the polls being off by any given amount. And when he's done, he's got 7000 simulations where Hillary won, and 3000 simulations where Trump is the winner, and that's where the 70% figure comes from. I strongly suspect that the biggest source of error he faces comes from the part where the pollster asks the respondent if they are a "likely voter". -k

People might be inclined to ignore everything Michael Moore says, for obvious reasons, but he did predict Trump would win, a long before everybody else did. His movie about Flint factory closures is probably why he spotted what Trump was doing a long time before most people. Everybody else was talking about Trump's appeal to alienated Rust Belt workers on November 9, Moore was talking about it in July. He wrote a 5 point memo to Democrats after the election, and while 3 of the points are partisan stuff, I think two of them are pretty astute. -k

I'm getting pretty sick of you continuously implying that the only reason I supported Hillary is that she's female. First off, if you go check on the "Democratic Primaries" thread, you'll find that I was on Team Bernie right until the bitter end, so that alone kills your scummy, dishonest narrative. Second, I didn't support Hillary in the general election because she's a woman, I supported her because Trump is a piece of garbage with disastrous policies. Third, I'm also pretty tired of hearing that having a female candidate was "an angle". Fourth, also pretty tired of hearing you constantly trivialize Trump's behavior towards women, as if calling Rosie O'Donnell "fat" or calling Hillary "nasty" was all that women were mad about. -k

If I recall, they took over a wildlife refuge in Oregon, formed an armed militia to protect deadbeat rancher in Nevada, and staged an 8-year campaign to demand "the REAL birth certificate." As for Twitter, I imagine most of them think a Twitter is something that you keep in a cage. -k

Refusing to accept the results of an election isn't an exclusively left wing phenomenon. A lot of angry conservatives likewise refused to accept that Barack Obama was their President as well. -k

"Religious Freedom Bill" is just short for "Religious Freedom To Discriminate Bill". I'd suggest that first off, that's not a question that would even occur to guys like Mike Pence or the social conservatives in congress. And I suggest the answer they'd give is that their right to discriminate is guaranteed by the First Amendment, while the constitution doesn't expressly protect sexual orientation at all. That's a lot like Trump's response when somebody asked him how he'd feel if Ivanka was being treated the way Roger Ailes treated women at Fox. “I would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case." I didn't care for that response. If her boss was grabbing her by the pussy, she should find a new job? I guess that's a great option if you have the job prospects to just quit, or the resources to just up and relocate at the drop of a hat. For a lot of people it's not very realistic. I don't agree with this might-makes-right approach to peoples' rights. Making everything "states rights" and telling the rest of the country that it's not their business how people in other states, or telling people "it's Yahweh or the Highway" when your government brings in punitive laws, is miserable and vindictive. I'm sure that some governors would love to put up a sign at the state line that says "ATTENTION HOMOS: GET OUT AND STAY OUT." Pence would no doubt be at the front of the line, and your guy Rick Perry would be close behind if he were still governor. But is that really the kind of country you'd want? Like I said earlier, I see it as a lot of people being hurt for no good reason, and the suggestion that everything can just be "states rights" and the chips fall where they may doesn't do anything to reassure me that it's not going to lead to a shitty situation for a lot of people. -k

Another interesting name in the mix: Pam Bondi has been added to the "transition team" and could end up in the cabinet. If that name rings a bell, it's because she's the Florida AG who "accidentally" received a donation from the Trump Foundation the same week that she decided that Florida would not participate in the multi-state lawsuit against Trump University. #DrainTheSwamp! -k

Have you broken the news to Betsy? I don't think she'll take it well. -k

Complaining about the Electoral College is just sour grapes. The system has been around for a very long time, both parties understand how it works, both parties have had numerous opportunities to propose changes if they wished, and they didn't wish. The possibility of winning the popular vote but losing the election is built into the system, and everybody recognizes that. As for voter suppression, it's a legitimate issue. Surprise voter-roll purges shortly before elections, closing of voting stations, reducing early polling, gerrymandering and "voter caging", these are all real things and all of them should be embarrassing to the American people as a whole. But I'm having a hard time buying that they had a significant impact on the outcome this year. This year's big voter suppression headlines came from North Carolina, and it was probably all wasted effort because North Carolina really wasn't close anyway. -k

George W. Bush had that for a while, but some of the Republican Supreme Court appointees were not sufficiently "pro-life" enough to overturn Roe v Wade. One of them is viewed as a "traitor" for not being a pro-life rubber stamp as Republicans had expected when they got selected. Several anti-abortion laws have been defeated in the Supreme Court in recent years, by 5-4 votes, and one of the 4 pro-life votes was Scalia. So it might be that they need Scalia's replacement, plus they need one of the liberal justices to croak within the next few years. They won't make the same mistake again, and the next Supreme Court Justice nominees will be selected with a careful 4-point litmus test (loves guns, hates abortions, loves Bibles, hates homos.) -k

She's a miracle worker, no doubt, and she can probably write her own cheque wherever she goes next. But I doubt she's going to get much love as a womens' icon, given her previous work attempting to get Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin elected. -k