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26 minutes ago, XRay said:

It was not the best executed policy, but the intention was there and it was pure (I think, I do not think any corporation was trying to profit off of it directly).

Just because you can't imagine who profits off policy doesn't make it "pure" by default. I also think you may have a higher opinion of earlier generations of politicians simply because you weren't around to know or understand them at the time. While I think our two political parties have changed their tone and strategy considerably in twenty years, the people in charge have not changed so much. They're the same people, to start.

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18 hours ago, XRay said:

It was something. At least the intent was there to attempt to address our education system.

I cannot name a thing that Republicans or Trump did during this administration that has the intent to benefit America significantly. While I support the trade war against China and I think it is a good thing overall, it is fucking over our farmers. They claim the tax cuts will help boost the economy, which it sort of did, but it was temporary and most of the tax cuts went to the shareholders who needs it the least, not the workers who needs it the most; basically it is a poorly disguised excuse to reduce taxes on the rich. Trump's friendly gesture towards North Korea was nice and I think he deserves credit for trying to thaw relations, but it does not really benefit America in any significant way.

Guess who profited off of the new curriculum and tests?

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On 3/27/2020 at 5:07 PM, eclipse said:

Guess who profited off of the new curriculum and tests?

Are you talking money profit or profit in terms of vote-count?

I should mention that I have no opinion on the money profit angle---I have no idea what companies/schools/whatever benefited on that front.

 

Anyway, as far as I know, voter turnout is still heavily biased towards older and more educated people, so crappy education didn't swing votes much either way at the start. So the votes angle is actually a plus for the GOP in my opinion---it's scummy way to lock down your voter base, but the fact that it only takes full effect 2+ decades down the line means the GOP at least knows how to plan for the future. It's kind of interesting that it's the GOP doing that, since people tend to be more likely to be Democratic the more education they got past high school, so you'd think the Democratic party would be better at future planning. *shrug*

 

Admittedly it means the median US citizen is kind of a gullible dumbass relative other 1st world countries, but the US gets to import its best people from other countries, so it'll only be an issue if median intelligence/education mattered. Or if the US stopped being able to import their best people from other countries. A quick skim of immigration demographics supports my guess that the US is importing smart people rather than growing them on home ground, but mind that I didn't spend a lot of time to fact check. So I could be in the middle of a massive case of confirmation bias right now.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/ < Website I skimmed the data from.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/ft_19-06-17_keyfindingsimmigrants_update_educational-attainment-us-immigrants-2017/ < A graph of education vs. demographics in terms of immigrants. Yeah, some people are imported to do drudge work, but the US imports a lot of people from certain countries that get way better education than the average American. (Europe, like you'd expect, and maybe Asia as well, but the Middle East was actually a bit surprising to me. Guess the Middle East put that oil money to good use by planning for the future via educating their citizens. Pity the US is skimming from the top. X1pzHie.gif)

 

So basically the No Child Left Behind thing benefited the GOP (but only a whiles down the line), was neutral to the US (since the US can just import its brains), and was negative for the Earth as a whole (since the US gave 3rd world educations to people born in a first world country).

 

I'm honestly kind of surprised that making the average American less educated would help one party over the other, though. You'd think getting dumb people votes would be politics 101 or something. (Hell, maybe even politics 001.)

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11 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Are you talking money profit or profit in terms of vote-count?

I should mention that I have no opinion on the money profit angle---I have no idea what companies/schools/whatever benefited on that front.

Yeah, good call.  Because you really don't.

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3 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Can you elaborate, though?

 

Like who benefited in terms of profits and how?

First, let's take a look at a comparison between then and now: here.

Second, notice the focus on testing?  Do you think these tests are provided, free of charge, to every school in the nation?

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Having just watched the film "Dark Waters" it got me thinking not only of that case but many similar cases.  Why are corporations allowed to dump harmful chemicals at all into waterways?  Why are they not responsible for finding another way of getting rid of waste?  They don't own the streams, rivers, what have you they shouldn't have the right to just dump crap into it.  Who knows how many health problems are caused by this, certainly it is a negative to American people who aren't getting paid by these corporations. 

Which leads me to another point, is part of the problem the stock market.  Most major corporations are publicly owned and so have to make their shareholders happy continue making as big as a profit as possible. If a company finds that some chemical is unsafe or causing a problem, and perhaps they have to take something off the market they are unlikely to do so cause it will hurt their profits and may make the stocks fall.  Are major corporations like Kings of old?  Almost absolute power, as long as the general public doesn't get too upset?

 

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Just now, eclipse said:

Second, notice the focus on testing?  Do you think these tests are provided, free of charge, to every school in the nation?

Yeah, I kind of assumed that the companies providing tests are making money, but I didn't know where to look up the info on who/what is getting the money from that, hence me asking.

2 minutes ago, eclipse said:

First, let's take a look at a comparison between then and now: here.

Mind, my impression of the No Child Left Behind thing was that schools were cooking the books in terms of test scores and graduation rates anyway, so I'm not sure how much ESSA would actually help. They might not have been directly cheating or whatever (although some were), but teachers definitely seemed encouraged to teach to the test & make their courses easier. Yeah, that'll increase test scores and graduation rates, but that doesn't mean they actually got better at teaching stuff.

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4 hours ago, eclipse said:

Uhhh. . .you're only now learning that this is human nature?  What do you think the entirety of history is?!

It is less learning the nature of the people in charge, and more about the details which gets more and more disturbing the more I look into it.  Down the rabbit hole with no way out.  Trump has certainly done more than his part to further power them, on his repeal of many of Obama's protections and even going further than that in taking away protections that date from far before.  

Save us Bernie.

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5 hours ago, Lewyn said:

It is less learning the nature of the people in charge, and more about the details which gets more and more disturbing the more I look into it.  Down the rabbit hole with no way out.  Trump has certainly done more than his part to further power them, on his repeal of many of Obama's protections and even going further than that in taking away protections that date from far before.  

Save us Bernie.

I suggest taking a long, hard look at human history.  Trump's antics aren't new, merely a sign that we humans suck at learning from the past.

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5 hours ago, eclipse said:

I suggest taking a long, hard look at human history.  Trump's antics aren't new, merely a sign that we humans suck at learning from the past.

I think it's less that he's surprised by how people act, and more that attributing it to "human nature" is vague when there are more precise ways to describe and look at why it all happens. Like, we all know companies want more money and will lobby like hell to get laws that enable exploitative practices, but saying people are greedy isn't as looking at what stimulates greed. Consider that capitalism relies on constant growth, which itself is led by the notion that left alone, everything depreciates in value and therefore if your company is not growing, it's dying. If the measures that company takes (like say, over-extracting) are exploitative and bad in the long term, they try to justify by saying that technology will inevitably grow to handle the problems of tomorrow, or that resources they're not taking advantage of today will be taken by somebody anyway, might as well be them. There's a mix of the human tendency to convince ourselves something we know is bad is actually maybe probably fine, or that it's every man for themselves, combined with the pressure of a global economic system that no one person alone can change.

@Lewyn Side note, you might enjoy reading A Civil Action. Wasn't until around the 60's that we began to understand how groundwater works, so a lot of chemical dumping was done because people didn't know it'd end up in the drinking water. They figured it was fine as long as you weren't dumping directly into a body of water.

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7 hours ago, Johann said:

I think it's less that he's surprised by how people act, and more that attributing it to "human nature" is vague when there are more precise ways to describe and look at why it all happens. Like, we all know companies want more money and will lobby like hell to get laws that enable exploitative practices, but saying people are greedy isn't as looking at what stimulates greed. Consider that capitalism relies on constant growth, which itself is led by the notion that left alone, everything depreciates in value and therefore if your company is not growing, it's dying. If the measures that company takes (like say, over-extracting) are exploitative and bad in the long term, they try to justify by saying that technology will inevitably grow to handle the problems of tomorrow, or that resources they're not taking advantage of today will be taken by somebody anyway, might as well be them. There's a mix of the human tendency to convince ourselves something we know is bad is actually maybe probably fine, or that it's every man for themselves, combined with the pressure of a global economic system that no one person alone can change.

@Lewyn Side note, you might enjoy reading A Civil Action. Wasn't until around the 60's that we began to understand how groundwater works, so a lot of chemical dumping was done because people didn't know it'd end up in the drinking water. They figured it was fine as long as you weren't dumping directly into a body of water.

I was talking about Trump's personal qualities - this is mirrored in all sorts of world history.  That, in turn, will drive his policy.  We may have new shiny toys in the form of technology, but having a filthy rich leader who caters to his friends and screws over the poor?  That's old news (literally).

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8 hours ago, Johann said:

I think it's less that he's surprised by how people act, and more that attributing it to "human nature" is vague when there are more precise ways to describe and look at why it all happens. Like, we all know companies want more money and will lobby like hell to get laws that enable exploitative practices, but saying people are greedy isn't as looking at what stimulates greed. Consider that capitalism relies on constant growth, which itself is led by the notion that left alone, everything depreciates in value and therefore if your company is not growing, it's dying. If the measures that company takes (like say, over-extracting) are exploitative and bad in the long term, they try to justify by saying that technology will inevitably grow to handle the problems of tomorrow, or that resources they're not taking advantage of today will be taken by somebody anyway, might as well be them. There's a mix of the human tendency to convince ourselves something we know is bad is actually maybe probably fine, or that it's every man for themselves, combined with the pressure of a global economic system that no one person alone can change.

@Lewyn Side note, you might enjoy reading A Civil Action. Wasn't until around the 60's that we began to understand how groundwater works, so a lot of chemical dumping was done because people didn't know it'd end up in the drinking water. They figured it was fine as long as you weren't dumping directly into a body of water.

That sounds like a great read!  I think I'll check it out when my library re opens.  

 

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On 3/25/2020 at 9:25 PM, Glennstavos said:

That having been said, Democrats can't just look at the election as an easy win, or we'll get a repeat of last time. Their priorities ought to include making sure all Americans can vote on Super Tuesday. I don't think anybody is projecting that quarantines will last until then, but this is a hell of an excuse to make mail-in ballots the standard nationwide. Something like "holding a national election today is impossible, whose to say that won't be the case in seven months? Flu seasons reverberate, can we afford to take risks on so important an election?". I've enjoyed that ease of voting for years, it's excellent. I can't imagine having to go to a place and stand in line like some kind of chump.

I didn't know it at the time, but I hear congressmen were trying to sneak in nationwide mail in ballot standards to the COVID relief bill, but it didn't take. I've always wondered why Republicans push back so hard against postal voting. Their base is far more likely to even know how to send snail mail, and I'm sure older voters would appreciate that convenience anyway. Although I guess those ballots are easier than letters, since postage and addressing is taken care of on the envelope it comes with.

Pretty much all of the remaining primaries are pushed back to June for understandable reasons. Campaigning and debates are cancelled too. I think expectations to safely hold a public election in May/June may prove too optimistic at this rate. How will we finish this little contest? Georgia is prepping for a postal-only primary in May, and if other states follow suit, we may see some permanent shifts in policy for later elections.

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5 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

I didn't know it at the time, but I hear congressmen were trying to sneak in nationwide mail in ballot standards to the COVID relief bill, but it didn't take. I've always wondered why Republicans push back so hard against postal voting. Their base is far more likely to even know how to send snail mail, and I'm sure older voters would appreciate that convenience anyway. Although I guess those ballots are easier than letters, since postage and addressing is taken care of on the envelope it comes with.

It means allowing more people to vote. . .including the lower class and/or minorities, who are generally not the Republican's voting base.  I had a hell of a wake-up call when I looked up another state's mail-in qualifications.

My state may not be perfect, but I think their absentee voting rules should be considered the minimum for all states (it's something like fill out a form and then you'll get a ballot by mail).  This year, I think they're doing pure mail-in ballots. . .or, that's what I'm understanding from my local commercials.

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4 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I didn't know it at the time, but I hear congressmen were trying to sneak in nationwide mail in ballot standards to the COVID relief bill, but it didn't take. I've always wondered why Republicans push back so hard against postal voting. Their base is far more likely to even know how to send snail mail, and I'm sure older voters would appreciate that convenience anyway. Although I guess those ballots are easier than letters, since postage and addressing is taken care of on the envelope it comes with.

Generally speaking, because they know they and their policy positions are generally unpopular with majorities of the country. When a party fails to resonate with a majority of the country, you'd expect them to hold less power, less seats and they would try to change the campaign pitch to try to get more voters. The GOP is too entrenched in its use of the Southern Strategy and they know they're slowly dying for it so the best they can hope for without changing their ways is to just continue making enemies of certain groups and convince whites that there's a decade long plan to create a plantation of votes for the Democrats by increasing immigration. They know increased voter turnout will cripple them:

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“This will be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia,” he said. “Every registered voter is going to get one of these. … This will certainly drive up turnout.”

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Trump earlier this week similarly told “Fox & Friends” that Democrats were pushing for initiatives that would generate “levels of voting that if you ever agreed to it you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”

Quote

Let's remember the wise words of former Maine GOP governor LePage: If we decided to go with the popular vote, white people won't have a say.

A bill to ease voting for EVERYONE is a Democrat Political Power Grab (here's the bill in question). The Republicans in congress are fucking trash and should be removed from office. State Republicans that aren't bad should look to distance themselves from Trump and the current GOP but you've got perfect examples of recently elected morons in state GOP courtesy of Florida and Georgia.

Again, they know they're shit, most of them are straight up ideologues until they've already fucked up and have to take action but the right-wing media will defend them anyways. Just check out the Daily Wire's youtube channel and you'll see their priorities to quickly be:

1. Blame China, we on the right are not to blame for anything.

2. Protect our lord and savior Trump, media is crazy.

3. AOC and the democrats are crazy, they and Bernie Sanders have never been right about anything.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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4 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

They know increased voter turnout will cripple them:

I guess I'm skeptical of the claim because I don't think people suddenly turn out in droves to vote once it becomes more convenient. Opportunity to vote is a factor, yes. Especially with voter suppression efforts like when you show up to vote on that one day of the year and are told the rules have changed overnight and you need your birth certificate. But getting people to vote is a difficult and illusive thing.  As shitty as the world is, I haven't noticed any of my mid 20s friends suddenly feel like voting. And every time I ask why somebody doesn't vote in this thread, everybody's universal response is always "my vote doesn't matter, it's a solid blue/red state". Unless Bernie clinches the nomination somehow, our country is in no explicit danger of abolishing the electoral college in the next four years. And even if we did do that, I don't expect those stay at home voters will prove their will to do the right thing when the world decides their vote matters. Now that the burden of the election is in so many more hands somebody will take care of it, right? My expectation is that they will continue to stay home. Same for voters in states with the added convenience of having their ballot mailed to them. Expecting otherwise is just too optimistic. Or superstitious in the case of the GOP's viewpoint. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though.

I looked at some voter turnout numbers by state, particularly at the states who vote exclusively through mail rather than it just being an option. Those states are Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and Utah. And I guess one could conclude that their turnout numbers are above average on average? Washington, Oregon, and Colorado being on the high side but also Hawaii with the absolute lowest numbers nationwide, and Utah (the only red state in that list) being painfully average with huge upswings only in general elections, not midterms which secretly also matter. Colorado also feels like a bad test case since it only very recently stopped being a swing state. Swing states have high turnouts because that's the only part of the country presidents campaign in (something that WILL change if the electoral college got abolished).

McConnell says the threat posed by added mail options is the added cost of having them. And idiot moderates will think about that for a second and say "yeah that sounds about right" and support the traditional style of voting. But I just don't see what the GOP is afraid of. If there are numbers to support their fears, I can't find them. 

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19 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

I guess I'm skeptical of the claim because I don't think people suddenly turn out in droves to vote once it becomes more convenient. Opportunity to vote is a factor, yes. Especially with voter suppression efforts like when you show up to vote on that one day of the year and are told the rules have changed overnight and you need your birth certificate. But getting people to vote is a difficult and illusive thing.  As shitty as the world is, I haven't noticed any of my mid 20s friends suddenly feel like voting. And every time I ask why somebody doesn't vote in this thread, everybody's universal response is always "my vote doesn't matter, it's a solid blue/red state". Unless Bernie clinches the nomination somehow, our country is in no explicit danger of abolishing the electoral college in the next four years. And even if we did do that, I don't expect those stay at home voters will prove their will to do the right thing when the world decides their vote matters. Now that the burden of the election is in so many more hands somebody will take care of it, right? My expectation is that they will continue to stay home. Same for voters in states with the added convenience of having their ballot mailed to them. Expecting otherwise is just too optimistic. Or superstitious in the case of the GOP's viewpoint. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though.

I'm sure most people think the same thing and it probably is the case but for some of these GOP politicians, it's just more about stopping poor people from voting because as well as keeping Republican control. On election day, what you can certainly expect is old folks going out to vote and poor people to not bother or lack interest in doing so because they're unable to take the day off (or just don't see voting as a significant enough reason to take a day) and in many cases, they'll go vote but get discouraged by waiting in line for so long. There were reports of people waiting up to 6 hours to vote in Texas recently  

Ease of voting is a threat to them and they realize it, they may be exaggerating the difference in turnout that such laws would make but their fears certainly seem warranted given the recent increases in turnout during the Democratic Primary. Here's an example pointed out by Shoblogoo:

Image may contain: 2 people

Image may contain: 4 people

 

Make it easier and you may see even higher numbers from the opposing side during an election cycle where people are just pissed. At the end of the day, no one truly knows how much such laws will impact voter turnout but the answer is simply "it hurts the GOP's chances of winning" given how the poor are the people they're constantly fucking with their policies.

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11 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I looked at some voter turnout numbers by state, particularly at the states who vote exclusively through mail rather than it just being an option. Those states are Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and Utah. And I guess one could conclude that their turnout numbers are above average on average? Washington, Oregon, and Colorado being on the high side but also Hawaii with the absolute lowest numbers nationwide, and Utah (the only red state in that list) being painfully average with huge upswings only in general elections, not midterms which secretly also matter. Colorado also feels like a bad test case since it only very recently stopped being a swing state. Swing states have high turnouts because that's the only part of the country presidents campaign in (something that WILL change if the electoral college got abolished).

No, Hawaii doesn't vote exclusively by mail YET.  I walked into the last election and voted in-person.  So don't use our past numbers for this.

EDIT: Another issue Hawaii has is a gigantic homeless population.  Probably not the end of the world, but a factor.  Oh, and then there's the "we're not voting Republican short of a damn miracle", which is a gigantic disincentive to vote.  I'm still gonna anyway.

Edited by eclipse
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https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/03/politics/trump-fires-inspector-general-michael-atkinson/index.html

So everyone's favorite orange piece of shit acted like the scumbag in chief yet again.  Man do the laws really suck in terms of checking the president.  All of them assume the president has at least a hint of a moral compass.  However now with Trump we see how little there is to restrain the president from doing whatever the fuck he wants.  

Even Republican Senators are asking for real reasons, but does it really matter?  He could say I didn't like that he wore black socks one day and what the fuck is Congress or anyone going to do?  Nothing.  

After this douchebag is out of office either in 2020 or 2024 the next president should exile him and his hellspawn, he doesn't deserve to be a part of this country.

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35 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

Surprised no-one mentioned it yet, but Sanders has suspended his 2020 campaign.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-drops-out-presidential-race-n1155156?cid=public-rss_20200408

Mood:

Image may contain: one or more people and text

_________

He didn't get the nomination. But he proved that what once once dismissed as 'radical' ideas of the fringe-left are mainstream positions that millions of people want to get behind. 

And he left a mark on the political scene that's not going away anytime soon. 

Well fought, Bernie. Well fought. 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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