[Terez]

Well, I really didn't expect Walker to be next.

http://www.washingto...ntial-campaign/

Since he and Jeb were supposed to be the top 2 establishment candidates, things just got a lot easier for both Jeb and Trump. Again, Trump's only chance is to get an actual majority of delegates; if he gets a plurality he'll lose in a brokered convention.

I still think Rubio is their best bet, though. I'll be amazed if they also come to that conclusion.

[LinearPhilosopher]

i don't supposes theres a coles notes esque summary of the various repub front runners with index for how crazy they are

[Gnaw]

LinearPhilosopher, on 21 September 2015 - 09:17 PM, said:

i don't supposes theres a coles notes esque summary of the various repub front runners with index for how crazy they are

It's fairly simple. Kasich and Fiorina are sane.

The rest want to dial back to a previous century. Most want to go back to at least before Marbury v Madison.

[LinearPhilosopher]

Gnaw, on 21 September 2015 - 09:47 PM, said:

LinearPhilosopher, on 21 September 2015 - 09:17 PM, said:

i don't supposes theres a coles notes esque summary of the various repub front runners with index for how crazy they are

It's fairly simple. Kasich and Fiorina are sane.

The rest want to dial back to a previous century. Most want to go back to at least before Marbury v Madison.

im canadian and my brain is currently occupied with trying to cram corporate governance and strategy. you're gona have to break that one down.

[Nevyn]

Terez, on 21 September 2015 - 09:16 PM, said:

Well, I really didn't expect Walker to be next.

http://www.washingto...ntial-campaign/

Since he and Jeb were supposed to be the top 2 establishment candidates, things just got a lot easier for both Jeb and Trump. Again, Trump's only chance is to get an actual majority of delegates; if he gets a plurality he'll lose in a brokered convention.

I still think Rubio is their best bet, though. I'll be amazed if they also come to that conclusion.

Well, 'top' rankings are always a bit of a mugs game, especially when the party has been out of the executive for nearly 7 years. Bush has family and name recognition (good and bad) and was a governor of an important state for some time. The other people cited as top establishment picks (Rubio, Walker, etc) got that status mainly by being darlings of right wing voters for high profile stories (like Walker fighting unions). But they also had limited national exposure.

As people get to know you better that perception can change. It looks like the early states were not warming to him and his debate performances did not stand out. Leaving now is better than staying in and finishing worse than 3rd in the first couple states. As it is, he is a potentially .credible choice for a VP nomination

[Terez]

John Boehner is stepping down from Congress and his position of Speaker of the House. This is big news. There have been many threats from the extreme right wing to replace him as Speaker because he is fairly moderate and has never favored the tactic of threatening to shut down the government in order to advance extreme right wing policies. The issue of the moment is the drive to defund Planned Parenthood.

Boehner is a Catholic, so the news comes at an interesting time, the day after the Pope addressed Congress.

It also comes just over a year after the majority leader, Eric Cantor, lost his seat in a primary challenge from the right in his district in Virginia. (In other words, he lost to another Republican, who then went on to win the general election against the Democrat.)

Both of these events herald an extreme right turn in the Republican Party. Ordinarily this would mean that the GOP would lose votes as moderates defect to the Democrats. That will happen, but the House of Representatives is gerrymandered such that the Republicans will almost certainly continue to control it in the near future. Which means we'll have more precipitous action from the House. Fortunately it's highly unlikely that Republicans will gain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and it's quite possible that Democrats will regain control of the Senate in 2016.

[Tsundoku]

Terez, on 25 September 2015 - 02:59 PM, said:

John Boehner is stepping down from Congress and his position of Speaker of the House. This is big news. There have been many threats from the extreme right wing to replace him as Speaker because he is fairly moderate and has never favored the tactic of threatening to shut down the government in order to advance extreme right wing policies. The issue of the moment is the drive to defund Planned Parenthood.

Boehner is a Catholic, so the news comes at an interesting time, the day after the Pope addressed Congress.

It also comes just over a year after the majority leader, Eric Cantor, lost his seat in a primary challenge from the right in his district in Virginia. (In other words, he lost to another Republican, who then went on to win the general election against the Democrat.)

Both of these events herald an extreme right turn in the Republican Party. Ordinarily this would mean that the GOP would lose votes as moderates defect to the Democrats. That will happen, but the House of Representatives is gerrymandered such that the Republicans will almost certainly continue to control it in the near future. Which means we'll have more precipitous action from the House. Fortunately it's highly unlikely that Republicans will gain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and it's quite possible that Democrats will regain control of the Senate in 2016.

That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence when you consider what's going on with Russia, China, Iran etc at the moment. The last thing the world needs is a hard core Tea Party type dipshit in charge in the White House, and/or TP majority in your Senate or Congress.

[Terez]

The chances that the GOP will get the White House are small. The chances that an ultra-conservative nominee will win are even smaller. I still think that Rubio is their only chance of winning, but even Rubio's chances are slim because they can win Ohio and Florida and still lose.

[HoosierDaddy]

Well stated Terez.

I'm terrified that Boehner's actual moderation will give way to some absolute nut-job as Speaker.

Oompa Loompa man might well have been the person standing in the way of a serious long term government shutdown.

[Terez]

HoosierDaddy, on 25 September 2015 - 09:16 PM, said:

Well stated Terez.

I'm terrified that Boehner's actual moderation will give way to some absolute nut-job as Speaker.

My local (MS) news station fielded Louie Gohmert as a possibility.

[worry]

Then I guess I'm right there with HD on the whole terrified thing.

[Terez]

In all likelihood it will be Kevin McCarthy and he'll follow the same path as Böhner. Precipitous action with last-minute deals to avoid catastrophe. But we'll see. The base doesn't want McCarthy, but they never wanted Boehner either, and they were always outnumbered by the half-sane Republicans.

[worry]

Alabama has provided a master lesson on the ramifications of gutting the Voting Rights Act: http://talkingpoints...censes-voter-id



What happens when a state with a tough voter ID law suddenly makes it
much harder for minorities to get driver's licenses? We are about to
find out in Alabama.

Facing a budget crisis, Alabama has shuttered 31 driver's license
offices, many of them in counties with a high proportion of black
residents. Coming after the state recently put into effect a tougher
voter ID law, the closures will cut off access -- particularly for
minorities -- to one of the few types of IDs accepted.

According to a tally by AL.com columnist John Archibald,
eight of the 10 Alabama counties with the highest percentage of
non-white registered voters saw their driver's license offices closed.

"Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of
registered voters will see their driver license office closed. Every
one," Archibald wrote.

[Gnaw]

Convenient budget crisis, no?

[Nevyn]

Seems Kevin McCarthy is getting some blowback for selling the Benghazi invesgations political upside.


Way to break the first two rules of fight club, Kev.

[Vengeance]

worry, on 01 October 2015 - 10:17 PM, said:

Alabama has provided a master lesson on the ramifications of gutting the Voting Rights Act: http://talkingpoints...censes-voter-id



What happens when a state with a tough voter ID law suddenly makes it
much harder for minorities to get driver's licenses? We are about to
find out in Alabama.

Facing a budget crisis, Alabama has shuttered 31 driver's license
offices, many of them in counties with a high proportion of black
residents. Coming after the state recently put into effect a tougher
voter ID law, the closures will cut off access -- particularly for
minorities -- to one of the few types of IDs accepted.

According to a tally by AL.com columnist John Archibald,
eight of the 10 Alabama counties with the highest percentage of
non-white registered voters saw their driver's license offices closed.

"Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of
registered voters will see their driver license office closed. Every
one," Archibald wrote.

Thank goodness we don't need the voting act anymore because there is no racism!

[Illuyankas]

This isn't all you needed to know about Scott Walker but it's a good start and a useful reminder about why it's good he's dropped out

[Terez]

It's basically why I opined a while back that he didn't have much chance of winning. I didn't expect him to make it far in the primary process, but I honestly expected him to make it to the primary process. I suppose he wanted to avoid tarnishing what legacy he has a.k.a. Rick Perry in 2012. (Amazing, actually, that Perry tried again.)

[Terez]

Vengeance, on 02 October 2015 - 02:47 AM, said:

worry, on 01 October 2015 - 10:17 PM, said:

Alabama has provided a master lesson on the ramifications of gutting the Voting Rights Act: http://talkingpoints...censes-voter-id

What happens when a state with a tough voter ID law suddenly makes it
much harder for minorities to get driver's licenses? We are about to
find out in Alabama.

Facing a budget crisis, Alabama has shuttered 31 driver's license
offices, many of them in counties with a high proportion of black
residents. Coming after the state recently put into effect a tougher
voter ID law, the closures will cut off access -- particularly for
minorities -- to one of the few types of IDs accepted.

According to a tally by AL.com columnist John Archibald,
eight of the 10 Alabama counties with the highest percentage of
non-white registered voters saw their driver's license offices closed.

"Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of
registered voters will see their driver license office closed. Every
one," Archibald wrote.

Thank goodness we don't need the voting act anymore because there is no racism!

To be perfectly honest, I agree with the court's reasoning on ruling the pre-clearance formula unconstitutional, though I can see why the liberal justices didn't want to make that ruling—they knew they couldn't count on Congress to rewrite it in anything resembling a timely fashion. But the pre-clearance formula in Section 5 was outdated. Pre-clearance itself is not unconstitutional, but basing it on decades-old criteria is questionable at best. There are plenty of states today that were not part of the old Confederacy but use this sort of voter suppression tactic in minority-heavy precincts and districts, like Ohio. The state Republicans did their damndest in 2012 to suppress minority votes in hopes of winning Ohio in the electoral college.

SCOTUS did not take away the Justice Department's power to subject jurisdictions to pre-clearance, by the way. We still have Section 3. Of course, Holder was looking at retiring around this time, and it took forever for Loretta Lynch to be confirmed, but I assume that Justice has a long-term strategy in mind to "bail in" offending jurisdictions. This would not go against the SCOTUS ruling because the criteria for "bailing in" jurisdictions is inherently up-to-date. And I assume it's no coincidence that Obama has only nominated black people for this position in particular (not that he wouldn't trust certain white people with the job, but because he wanted the justice reform mission to be personal).

HD, back me up here.

[worry]

It's true, any formula that didn't include 100% of jurisdictions where white racism has the potential to influence politics should have been considered outdated circa 1776, and congress-members whose regions were not subject to pre-clearance have been getting away with not looking in the mirror since '65. However the reasoning was not "white racism has to be checked everywhere it affects voting policy", it was "we have to assume the map of which white people are trustworthy and which aren't must have changed since '65, and in fact the troubling regions have surely shrunk." But it's the same map it's always been, as marked in yellow below:

This post has been edited by worry: 02 October 2015 - 10:22 AM