StrangeSox

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 11:36 AM) You missed the point. Population distribution isn't even, and neither is the distribution of votes within those areas. Chicago is a great example of that. The population of democrats in the city is so evenly highly and distributed that in previous elections there were literally zero Republicans in office, despite there being significantly more Republicans in the city. Democratic votes tend to be concentrated in much higher levels within urban areas, while Republican votes tend to be much more sparsely concentrated, but more widely spread. That is how you see the heatmap from the last election where despite having a much lower percentage of votes, a much higher portion of the physical area of the country voted republican. Short of the creating the long and drawn out ear muff type district like we see in Chicago that extends for long mileages to encompass both urban and rural areas, there is only so much that can be done with a population distribution problem. I did edit that in to my original post because you're right, when one coalition packs itself into dense urban areas, that is going to put them at a disadvantage in our district-based system (versus a pure proportional representation-style system you see in some smaller parliamentary countries). But that doesn't explain away the entirety of the effect of partisan gerrymandering. In a hypothetical completely neutral districting map, Democrats will need more than 50% of the vote to get a majority because of these geographical effects, but the partisan gerrymandering makes it even worse. You don't only see ear muff-style districts for Dem advantage, either. Look at how well Austin, TX gets carved up to reach in a grab a piece of the democratic-majority city and then extend far out into the rural areas in an effort to neutralize those democratic votes in Austin as much as possible. Look at how they handled the redistricting in Wisconsin that's currently under review by SCOTUS. They didn't go through all of that trouble because there's no benefit to partisan gerrymandering. One way to help lessen the geographic effect and get back to a more proportionately representative system would be to abolish the hard cap on the number of House Reps imposed in the early 20th century and let the number grow so that we've always got approximately 1 rep per 100k or 200k people. As it is now, we all lose more and more power in our individual votes as our population grows.

New Gallup poll on the GOP tax plan 29% Approval overall --25% Independents --7% Democrats --70% Republicans 56% Disapproval --56% Independents --87% Democrats --16% Republicans

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 11:22 AM) It doesn't really work that way. Perfect example. The City Council in Chicago is 98% Democratic. Pretty sure Chicago is more than 2% Republican. Partisan gerrymandering is bad regardless of who does it and I hope Kennedy finds a way to significantly tamp it down in Gill v. Whitford. Democrats just have a heck of a lot less of an opportunity to do it at the state level given the Republican wave in 2010, but they do engage in it. Voter suppression is still heavily a Republican project, though. We don't really seem to see the same sorts of efforts--instituting voter ID schemes that conveniently allow all sorts of dem-likely ID's while not allowing rep-likely ID's, closing down R polling places, restricting early voting in R areas, not providing nearly enough voting machines on election days for R areas, purging voter roles of likely R voters, and more--coming from Democrats as we do from Republicans across the country.

Democrats not realizing that "playing nice" and ~decorum~ don't matter, at least at this point, is going to result in them continuing to get their asses kicked.

QUOTE (Quin @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 11:18 AM) f***. Maybe this means Jared has finally found peace in the Middle East?!

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 11:14 AM) Let's face it, Alabama will always be a red and backward ass state. I am sure there are states that with people getting off their butts and going to vote could make the difference. That's the ones I am talking about. Look to Wisconsin. 60% control of the state house with only 48% of the vote and likely enough voter suppression to have swung the Presidential vote in that state last year. Pennsylvania, a fairly purple state, has 12 Republican and 5 Democratic representatives in the US House despite Democrats getting 52% of the overall House vote in the state. We're a "representative" democracy in name only. And some of that difference is inherent to the structure of our political system, as even with 100% neutral districting, voting coalitions that pack themselves into dense urban areas are going to be underrepresented compared to rural voters.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 07:29 AM) Trump's financial records subpoenaed https://twitter.com/guardian/status/9380046...src=twsrc%5Etfw Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, revealed that the House R's running the "investigation" into Trump refused to subpoena these records despite subpoenaing bank records for Fusion GPS, the company that produced the Steele dossier.

US to recognize Jerusalem as Israeli capital and relocate embassy. This is going to cause a s***storm in the ME. Turkey has already said it will cut off diplomatic ties.

Pretty clear example of fetishizing fetuses above actual children in attacking Jones for not wanting to criminalize abortions while enthusiastically endorsing a child predator.

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 10:59 AM) They will pay dearly for their mistake. Politicians before Trump was elected, were savvy and subtle in their ways to screw over people. They are trying to do it now too by saying bs like you will save 4k on your taxes which is false. With Trump, they are openly saying things like this tax plan benefits the rich, the estate tax repeal only benefits the rich, and if you didn't drink booze and buy hookers, you could be rich too. These politicians have never tasted what it means to be poor and they will absolutely get people out of their homes to vote in the upcoming elections. Generally, people are happy with some crumbs but when you take those crumbs away, they will become desperate. Let me tell you about gerrymandering and voter suppression, my friend. Hell, Roy Moore was getting his supporters all riled up last week because Jones' campaign was REGISTERING FELONS!!....which was made legal after the Republican Governor in Alabama restored voting rights for some felons earlier this year. The President of the United States still maintains that millions of fraudulent votes were cast for his opponent last year.

She also came out immediately against that freshman Rep from NV, calling for his resignation. I'm worried that we're going to see a pattern emerge on who gets ethics committee investigations, who gets pressured to step down, and who just flatly denies it despite lots of witness and even written evidence with little or no consequences.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 10:23 AM) At this point I think Trump is going to really consider getting rid of Mueller. Over the last year its become clear that his supporters really dont care if he broke the law or not. He was absolutely right when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Ave and get away with it. I don't have a whole lot of hope of Congress doing anything to protect the integrity of Mueller's investigation, either. They'll say they're doing their own "investigations" which have largely been fruitless shams to this point and that's good enough. We'll know we're in a full-blown authoritarian state at that point.

But think of all of the teens Roy Moore didn't prey on!

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 09:54 AM) Good lord where how did pro choice evolve to Dems love killing babies? If you don't want an abortion, don't get one?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 5, 2017 -> 09:53 AM) What I heard this morning is that he isn't rerunning for re-election, but he is serving out his term. Has that changed? Yes

Moore is now changing his defense, claiming that he doesn't even know any of his five accusers despite two of them having written evidence from Moore himself and the other alleging a years-long family relationship. Moore has also openly admitted to first noticing his wife when he was attending her dance recital when she was 15 and he was in his 30's. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/roy-moor...article/2642549

Your next Senator from the great state of Alabama:

I managed to sneak into the playoffs at 6-7 after my 0-4 start. Had the most points for and most points against of anyone in the league. Round 1 match up is against the guy with the second most points on the season, of course.

Oh I was thinking of Cheney's separate intel shop he set up to fabricate and disseminate "evidence" about Saddam's WMD programs.

The Trump administration is proposing a rule that would effectively allow restaurant owners to steal tips from servers: Fun thing I learned recently: it's generally legal for management to keep anything left in tip jars on the counter, and they usually do.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archiv...e-pence/546569/

Trump's financial records subpoenaed https://twitter.com/guardian/status/9380046...src=twsrc%5Etfw

There's clearly no bridge too far at this point. Fully backing a lawless, theocratic child predator from top to bottom.

HATCH defends Trump endorsing Roy Moore: “I don't think he had any choice but to do that... that's the only Republican we can get down there.” Adds that “many of the things he allegedly did were decades ago.” (Via pooler @Carrasquillo)