Morning Reads for Wednesday, October 31
I guess this is fitting for Halloween… some will see this a treat, others as a trick. Let us begin.
You were warned. All of you. In an attempt to bring civilized conversation to our comment section we even called out some of the worse offenders. Some of you listened, and we have noticed a a softening that is appreciated. Some of you just didn’t get it. So, without naming names, we have made it so some of you will have all of your comments moderated indefinitely. This can be remedied by a note through the tipline that explains why you believe we are sending your comments to moderation. Then, and only then, can a conversation begin about civility and it’s place here.
I’d give you guys examples of what is acceptable or not, but you are not children, and this is not a kindergarten. When you type something from now on look at it before you hit “Post Comment” and think:
- Does this add anything to the conversation
- Does this promote civil discourse
- Is what I have written the last thing I want people to see before they see [this user has been banned for lack of civil discourse]
Now, for what you actually came here from:
Dia de muertos begins today and runs until November 2nd.
While you don’t get to keep them if you guess the number right, you do get $100 in Downtown Dollars if you can guess the number of teeth in the jar. They have a great back story that doesn’t seem to be too uncommon in Georgia.
Lara Trump visited Georgia and she is… um… tall?
Abrams appeared on a broadcast version of an echo chamber.
UGA is number 666 in the first College Football Playoff rankings.
Speaking of runoffs… the other Georgia has one going on in its Presidential race.
Tattooine opens up in Augusta.
And for the finale.
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TheDeepDark
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False accusations of sexual assault?
Yeah, that’s a MAGA tactic.
Is this in reference to anything in particular?
I figured… but with no link and a MAGA reference it boarders on antagonistic. Was giving Indy a chance to add something to it rather than just drop and go.
It seems like the FBI already has a good amount of info on Burkman’s operations, and may have already reviewed his recent communications in order to narrow the scope of possible “accusers” Burkman may put forth tmrrw (or not, if his history is any indication). If someone actually comes fwd, the FBI may be able to act quickly to prevent damage voter opinion, but either way, the play looks dubious. An obvious over-reach, but one that may have criminal repercussions. Doesn’t seem so smart.
Hilarious that you don’t even recognize the irony of your statement given recent events.
The irony that Wohl thought someone reporting an easy to prove fake claim of sexual assault would take down a former FBI director without any the burden of proof when a hard to prove fairly credible report of sexual assault couldn’t take down a then sitting federal judge because of the lack of any proof? That’s not Irony, that a farce on the level of Hamlet’s gravediggers (not to mention down right stupidity) on Wohl’s part that he thought anyone would take him or this seriously.
Wohl has been trying to ‘engage’ Rick Wilson, Tom Nichols ect… for the last two years. It’s a work of art to see Rick to do a tweeter re-education on the 20 year old.
HIlarious that you doubted Dr. Ford, but immediately any accusations against a lifelong Republican, volunteered to serve in Viet Nam, injured on active duty, served 10 years as FBI director, plus two more years after Congress approved.
And once again, “alpha”?
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!
Update:
“Alleged victim is a no-show for news conference claiming Mueller ‘sex assaults'”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/alleged-victim-no-show-press-conference-claiming-mueller-sex-assaults-n929951
Consistent pattern for Burkman.
Current Events:
AJC-It used to be that millions of Georgians got a bargain on their monthly electric bills, paying Georgia Power residential rates that were nearly 10 percent lower than the national average.
But in the last decade most of that advantage has slipped away. The average rate residential customers pay the state’s largest utility has risen faster than the national average, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of federal data.
https://www.ajc.com/news/state–regional-govt–politics/digging-deeper-power-electricity-rates-rising/dr4iOSMAtcWjijm7EXQULK/
Shocking news. PSC elections may go down to the wire.
This issue is larger than the PSC. The entire legislature is dedicated to do the bidding of the Southern Co. So even if we change the PSC the legislature can and will overrule them at the behest of Georgia Power. I cannot figure out why this issue of Vogtle is not a factor in every legislative race. I live in Gwinnett and both of my reps (shafer and coleman) aren’t on the ballot but I asked the potential replacements where they stood and based my vote on this single issue.
Thank you for the enhanced moderation for the most consistent offenders.
BTT. Read it again.
The Finale….needed a second cup of coffee to finish but some interesting thoughts on the problem.
The article on Civility brings up interesting possibilities. I believe our elected officials have created their own mess by disrespecting themselves, their colleagues and their constituents. This has led to the recent unpleasantness of confrontations between the public and the elected. The elected don’t respect facts, truth, their elected opponents, or their constituents. The elected quickly learn how lucrative their elected position is and fight like hell to stay in office. This becomes more important than actually serving “the greater good.”
Partisanship has reached a bizarre level of Protectionism. Parties now believe they are above any law, ethics, or reproach simply by being a party member. The tired excuse,”It’s a partisan attack” is a desperate attempt to deflect and shut down any reasonable inquiry or inconvenient truth. Simply declaring “partisan attack” means, “You can’t touch me because I am a party member.” “You are party member A and cannot say anything bad about member of party B.” Labeling un-elected individuals as members of parties, or other personally perceived definitions of the L/R L/C varieties, and using those labels as pejoratives are equally childish and offensive. Labeling to discredit, labeling to deflect, labeling to remove credibility is widespread across the political landscape and have permeated all sides of the media to the point where no one can discuss the reality of a situation without first labeling a person or point of view as coming from a branded political name. There is no discussion on the merits of an idea, legislation or statement without first pigeonholing the source. The media has become sports reporters, keeping score between party A and B over “stupid soundbite of the day.” We have lost context when the focus is only on the label.
I hope that Day of the Dead guy in TDD’s pic gets stopped at the border.
Anyone here comfortable with the idea of limiting birthright citizenship?
Trump and Kobach say they are. Claremont and Heritage support the idea. At a guess the freedom caucus types are fine with it. Lindsay Graham says it’s about time something was done.
I agree with those who say this is just Trump trying his best to keep the anti-immigration pot boiling until election day but on the greater question, can we expect more talk about birthright citizenship and the defense of the west in the future?
I’m not. But I support efforts seeking to eliminate “birth tourism” whereby pregnant women enter the country on a visa primarily to give birth then return to whence they came. It would be addressed by the visa-granting and entry process.
Not exactly on point, but related. Dual citizenship rubs me the wrong way. I think at some point the citizen should be required to choose—after achieving some age in the case of the young (25 or 30 years old?), or after some duration of time (15 years of dual citizenship as an adult?)
The US doesn’t recognize dual citizenship. However if your other country of citizenship does, then it mostly doesn’t matter.
For me personally, I’d have to hear what criteria we would use in place of birthright citizenship to know how I feel about it. But for a country such as this, I don’t think anything else makes sense.
I don’t know if it matters that (to my memory) it was just-scorned Steve King who most recently introduced a bill on the 14th amendment issue in Jan. 2017.
It might matter to Rob Woodall, in his tight race, that he supported a bill in 2011-right alongside of Steve King.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-republicans-introduce-bill-to-repeal-birthright-citizenship-amendment
But I heard the word “vaporware” used in political context yesterday to describe the Pres.’ efforts at fanning the GOTV flames by bringing up this 14th amend issue now, and the prospect of a middle-class tax cut. It seems like an apt word, although I think there is a distinction between teasing the release of a product and a misrepresentation that there actually is a product.
I think there is an intent to look at the 14th amendment, and use an Exec. Order to push the issue to the Supreme Ct.
And that’s when we get into the legal weeds.
As I posted yesterday, even illegal aliens are subject to U.S. jurisdiction- in any common understanding (you can arrest, administer, deport, etc). But do you go back to an 1866 statute to determine whether it excludes people who are also subject to other countries’ jurisdiction?
The most thorough article I could find (not a law review article) was at
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/23/17595754/birthright-citizenship-trump-14th-amendment-executive-order
The analysis is really in the second half of the article
But this legal complexity will test the so-called “originalist” and “textualist” jurisprudence- do you abide by the 1866 statue, or do you say the Constitutional Amendment was different for a reason? Do you use any legislator’s quote from 1866 or not? Not sure why folks think these concerns of jurisprudence are monolithic, and not influenced by the desired policy outcome of the judges. I think the Pres. and the supporters are banking on a little judicial activism in that regard.
The language and purpose of the 14th are crystal clear. Short of constitutional amendment, It’s an argument originalists shouldn’t touch. Concern about the national debt has been exposed as hypocrisy. Originalists may well be too.
I see it more as: The President has an unambiguous power to cause a justiciable controversy which must be resolved by Courts.
Trump may think he has the SC stacked at this point, but it would be an interesting conundrum for some of them. Thomas for example, probably.
What it has done is get the whole constitutional convention, Article V movement, John Birch Society, ALEC’s Convention of States crowds all fired up. They were posted all over the sibling’s Facebook page in the last 24 hours.
I would need to know what problem we’re solving by changing the constitution. The President has offered no factual basis for the change. He’s stated that we’re the “only” country in the world that has birthright citizenship. He is either willfully ignorant or lying. He claims that the “right” is being abused but he’s offered no evidence to support that assertion.
I’m always suspicious of the motives of people who offer solutions in search of a problem without defining the problem.
The effort to raise the bar of discourse here, and the NYT article, are a breath of fresh air. As always, thanks to the site contributors for the hard unpaid work, and may we all move smoothly forward and upward.
Ditto on the discourse and the thanks. Open threads are especially difficult to moderate.
“I know what that rhetoric can do. “I saw it happen.” Said Nikki Haley weeks before the anniversary of the Charleston Church massacre. Haley’s message after the Pittsburg synagogue massacre: Don’t blame the president.
Haley quit because she realized she was working for an idiot with an inner circle she disagreed with, but her own political career is more important than principle.
The GOP at all levels more or less is composed of Trump supporters, sycophants, and the self-serving complicit, those having spoken out having been marginalized. This election is about Trump. Anyone seriously concerned about checking Trump is delusional if they think the GOP is capable of it at any level. The GOP can’t because it’s candidates are nearly all very dependent on Trump supporters. MAGA.
“Think about the choices we make as individuals about what news and information and online spaces we go to. Can you get outside your echo chamber enough to actually get curious? Moving from “I know everything about them — they’re jerks” to “I wonder what they’re saying about this” is huge.”
I’ll add, seek out reasonable people who disagree with you. Don’t wade in with trolls and think that counts as engaging with “the other side”. The “other side” is whatever we define it to be. If we ignore reasonable people because the crazies are easier to defeat we lose.
Also, some of us don’t have a side until we are forced to take one, so if we can move away from “everyone who is arguing with me is a librul/magat” that would be cool.
“If we ignore reasonable people because the crazies are easier to defeat we lose” is an especially good point.
If we had a wall we wouldn’t need all this razor tape. https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/us-military-sending-miles-and-miles-concertina-wire-sw-border
From the “I Did Not Know That!” department (it helps if you read it in Johnny Carson’s voice in your head)….
A Supreme Marriage Proposal (NPR.org) H/T Edith Roberts at SCOTUSblog.com
I have such thick skin about anti-Semitism because I grew up being regularly bullied for being Jewish, so when I read that tweet I wanted to think it’s just a random coincidence that three rich Jews were the focus of ire.
But in that Twitter thread was linked this article:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nra-anti-semitism-george-soros_us_5bd70d7ce4b0a8f17ef9f36a
And with such a history, from LaPierre, Nugent, North, etc, etc, it is hard to write off any of it as random coincidence. With language referring to global conspiracies, owning government…seems undeniably anti-Semitic. Which is sad. Seems so weird to even suggest that Soros, Bloomberg, or Steyer believe in communism, too, because I would gather they all got rich using market forces, and they’d gladly preach the benefit of them.
Who planned this? (look at the time and place…)
https://www.runrocknroll.com/en/events/savannah/the-weekend/expo
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/vice-president-mike-pence-and-brian-kemp-rally-in-coastal-georgia-savannah-tickets-51753490082
Kemp is dropping out of the Sunday debate with Abrams that has been scheduled since September because of a “conflict”. Campaigning with Trump is more important than the commitment he made. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kemp-pulls-out-of-debate-with-abrams-to-campaign-with-trump/ar-BBPbPm4
Republicans will protect people with pre-existing conditions far better than the Dems!
Trump 11:28 AM – Oct 31, 2018
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There’s a bona fide scary lie on Halloween. If the GaGOP really wanted to protect pre-existing conditions, it could enact a statute requiring all health insurance in the state cover pre-existing condition.
While this NYT Upshot “Live” poll on the CD6 race is TBD it does answer a question several of us have asked recently:
“We’ve made 18,279 calls, and 233 “people have spoken to us so far.” [Not enough for a statistical sampling until tomorrow when it resumes]
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/elections-poll-ga06-3.html
So seemingly this is verification that modern polling is at the mercy of the small minority of people who aren’t screening their calls.