The General 'Murican Politics Thread

[Patticus]

I'm pretty sure that the fact that we still have homeless people at all is evidence enough that a clear majority of politicians for a very long time have given, and continue to give, less than one metric fuck about them.

[TailsTellsTales]

1 hour ago, Dizcrybe said:

Really? That's your exhibit A for your claim that politicians don't care about homeless people? That's the best you could come up with?

The post was intended to only bring up something that is often ignored by society especially by politicians. Homeless can't afford to buy a politician.

1 hour ago, Tornado said:

I didn't know that armrests were originally invented to prevent the homeless from invading park benches. Learn something new.

Yeah I always wondered why they placed those middle arm rests. It seemed strange because standard benches don't have that except at the ends. But yeah it is designed to prevent homeless people from sleeping on them. Same with the spikes, they are made so homeless person will not sleep there. Very sad world we live in for how we as a society treat the most destitute.

[Dizcrybe]

1 hour ago, TailsTellsTales said:

Yeah I always wondered why they placed those middle arm rests. It seemed strange because standard benches don't have that except at the ends. But yeah it is designed to prevent homeless people from sleeping on them. Same with the spikes, they are made so homeless person will not sleep there. Very sad world we live in for how we as a society treat the most destitute.

Do you have, like, any source on this? At all? Because this is really grasping at straws here. There are no doubt countless better examples you could have used, but you went with the weakest possible one.

[Tani Coyote]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/09/us/florida-gov-scott-gun-bill/index.html

Florida has passed its gun control bill, raising the age to buy a gun to 21, while also banning bump stocks. $69 million has been allocated to school mental health programs. $98 million is going towards expanding security.

More controversially, it provides funding for arming teachers if a school district and the local sheriff's department agree to it. Schools that opt out can use the funds to hire more security.

The NRA has of course filed a lawsuit over the age raise, because the NRA. It's the usual Second Amendment argument and how 18 year olds are considered adults for most purposes.

They are of course being disingenuous and not recognizing the age 21 requirement for drinking has stayed intact. Why is the alcohol age 21? Because it was found 18, 19, and 20 year olds who drink tend to crash a lot of cars. It was a net public good to force them to wait.

This in mind, why the fuck would you give them a gun?

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-pennsylvania-special-election-could-matter-to-trump-and-pelosi/

Pennsylvania's 18th House district is holding a special election after it was redrawn. Trump carried the district by 20 points, but polls show the Democratic and Republican candidates essentially neck and neck.

The Democrat supports steel tariffs (basically robbing the GOP candidate of the main plus of being with Trump) and has also implied he would not support Nancy Pelosi staying on as the Democratic House leader.

Whether it is just a narrow loss or a win, the effects could be enormous. A narrow loss would give the GOP more reason to worry about the midterms given this was a solidly Trump district (and it would be the first time the Democrats have flipped a US House seat in Trump's term). A full on win would do this even more, but it would also embolden Democrats (particularly those running in red districts) to withold support for Pelosi's leadership.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

48 minutes ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

The NRA has of course filed a lawsuit over the age raise, because the NRA. It's the usual Second Amendment argument and how 18 year olds are considered adults for most purposes.

They are of course being disingenuous and not recognizing the age 21 requirement for drinking has stayed intact. Why is the alcohol age 21? Because it was found 18, 19, and 20 year olds who drink tend to crash a lot of cars. It was a net public good to force them to wait.

This in mind, why the fuck would you give them a gun?

A combination of obsession with their "freedumb" and frankly not giving a shit about how many lives are put at risk with their gun profiteering.

[Tornado]

10 hours ago, Dizcrybe said:

Do you have, like, any source on this? At all?

Why would he start now?

 

2 hours ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

They are of course being disingenuous and not recognizing the age 21 requirement for drinking has stayed intact.

They aren't being disingenuous filing a federal lawsuit against something that is potentially Unconstitutional (they certainly have a bit better footing for their argument than "because NRA") because they don't acknowledge some other, unrelated thing.

[KHCast]

Well if the argument of kids are mature enough to have a gun at 18 is valid, despite the accidental and intended shootings, why should the drinking age remain then at 21 despite the danger that we’ve seen from intoxicated youth? Adults after all can also be just as dangerous.  I don’t see why you can’t bring up the drinking age, or any other arbitrary age law, when talking about gun ownership age, as if that’s some special exception that simply cannot be altered. It seems worth bringing up in a supposed genuine non-biased proposal/law at the very least

Also, since you bring up the nra

Samantha on the shithole that is the NRA.

also

 

Where a lot of these killers are coming from 

[Tornado]

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

Well if the argument of kids are mature enough to have a gun at 18 is valid, despite the accidental and intended shootings,

It doesn't matter if they are mature enough (though the question that should be asked is why the right to vote is set at 18 in the first place then). That's not the argument the NRA is making by filing a lawsuit saying Florida's law violates the 2nd and 14th Amendment. They're arguing that it is not Florida's call to make in the first place. The possibility absolutely exists that they may be right, but we'll have to see what the Supreme Court decides; assuming it even makes it that far instead of just reaffirming Heller vs DC in lower courts.

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why should the drinking age remain then at 21 despite the danger that we’ve seen from intoxicated youth?

It probably shouldn't, but the alcohol consumption is not a federally protected right spelled out in the Constitution, so as a point of comparison it is irrelevant.

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I don’t see why you can’t bring up the drinking age, or any other arbitrary age law, when talking about gun ownership age, as if that’s some special exception that simply cannot be altered.

Because gun ownership is a special exception and it cannot be altered simply by a state passing a law that does so; at the very least not without expecting a case that will (especially in the past decade) be challenged in federal court. And I doubt what Florida threw together immediately after the shooting was terribly concerned with passing Constitutional scrutiny considering the other things in the bill.

The NRA is arguing that raising the age limit of a federally protected right to an arbitrary age violates violates the 14th Amendment by violating the 2nd Amendment; presumably more specifically because they are arguing that the age for government representation (and therefore the federal legal age of an adult) was codified by the 26th Amendment at 18. That's an actual legitimate legal challenge that cannot simply be dismissed "because NRA" or "the drinking age works that way." I suspect you're going to hear a lot of comparison to what would be said if a state law was passed that places similar restrictions with anything covered in the 1st Amendment; especially since a major reason the 26th sailed through so fast in the 1970s was because of the incompatibility of the Age 21 Right to Vote in place at the time with the Age 18 of Military Conscription.

[KHCast]

24 minutes ago, Tornado said:

The NRA is arguing that raising the age limit of a federally protected right to only apply at an arbitrary age that is different and higher from the federally protected voting age is Unconsitutional. That's an actual legitimate legal challenge that cannot simply be dismissed "because NRA".

A lot of things the NRA/Right has deemed unconstitutional have “a case” as well, but still were altered. The entire civil rights era was founded on what was deemed at the time unconstitutional, women voting, and gay marriage was deemed for the longest time unconstitutional, hell even that whole baking gays cakes controversy had ground as unconstitutional to many as it“infringed” on religious rights, so yeah, I’m not entirely convinced that just because something is deemed unconstitutional, it thereby can’t change or be revised.(which the constitution has gone through many) Difficult maybe, but not impossible.

Again, I simply don’t find gun rights out of all things done and changed throughout American history to be this one thing that can’t be changed like the NRA seems to be trying to claim.

[Tornado]

I legitimately don't understand what you're arguing. Article V is not going to be invoked over this, of that I can pretty much guarantee; so whether the 2nd Amendment can be changed or not at some point in the future is not relevant to the NRA suing the state of Florida in 2018. As Florida's law stands now (not however many theoretical years from now when it may become a federal issue with new Amendments to the Constitution addressing it) the NRA is arguing it violates the 2nd and 14th Amendments. Whether the law is struck down or not will be determined by how the 2nd Amendment is written now; as well as previous court precedent. And the 2nd Amendment, particularly following Heller vs DC, does supersede any states' ability to prevent its protections because of the 14th Amendment; which may very well mean that Florida can't enforce a law saying people can't buy guns until three years after they are considered adults by the federal government.

 

 

 

You're also not using the term "Unconstitutional" correctly. "Unconstitutional" means that it actually violates provisions contained in the US Constitution. Not just that something isn't specifically allowed in the Constitution.

The "civil rights era" and civil rights as a concept were not Unconstitutional. The federal government's attempts to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1875 on private establishments was Unconstitutional at the time, as the federal government frankly wasn't strong enough before WWI to claim enforcement of interstate activities like it can today.

Gay marriage wasn't unconstitutional. It wasn't even considered a federal matter until 1996, when it was legally unrecognized by the federal government until 2013; but even then it still wasn't illegal.

Women voting wasn't unconstitutional. They just didn't have it as a right at all until it was amended in.

[KHCast]

26 minutes ago, Tornado said:

Gay marriage wasn't unconstitutional. It wasn't even considered a federal matter until 1996, when it was legally unrecognized by the federal government until 2013; but even then it still wasn't illegal.

 

Well in that case like I say there was the case of bakeries feeling like their religious and 1st amendment rights were infringed on when courts ruled in favor of gay civil rights trumping their “religious freedoms”(which really aren’t usable when you’re on government funded property, but I digress). Is that a case of something being considered “unconstitutional” in the correct context? By all accounts you could make an argument that making people of faith with certain beliefs protected under religious freedom and the 1st amendment, bake gay people a gay themed cake is violating and infringing on their rights so therefore could be deemed unconstitutional.

And well, lawmakers and politicians I guess have been disingenuously been using “unconstitutional” then considering I’ve seen tons of GOP officials throw around that term incorrectly then.

And honestly, I’m not sure on whether you’re disagreeing with Ogi on the issue or not. My initial point was agreeing with him on the topic of age requirement and why we haven’t looked at the other topics regarding age in a similar fashion. Perhaps I was wrong regarding the legality regarding the second amendment and altering it, but I still feel as if this is more an issue of the wording and it’s difficulty to alter, more than the message itself 

[Tani Coyote]

10 hours ago, Tornado said:

They aren't being disingenuous filing a federal lawsuit against something that is potentially Unconstitutional (they certainly have a bit better footing for their argument than "because NRA") because they don't acknowledge some other, unrelated thing.

The precedent is still there that kids should not be trusted with dangerous things, which ties into the constitutional precedent that explicitly constitutional rights can be restricted when there is a legitimate state interest in doing so. The "unrelated" thing absolutely is relevant in the sense that there is a public good in the matter of limiting access to certain goods, which paves the way for limiting constitutional rights. The NRA is going "muh adulthood," when we have precedent that says "uh, not really" in policy.

There's also plenty of precedent that states can legally limit firearms in their states if not entirely ban them.

Let's not pretend like the Supreme Court's opinion on firearms has not historically been focused on militias and was only recently altered by the activist judges the NRA and its allies would normally decry but were strangely silent on this time around.

I could have enunciated all this more clearly in the original post, but "because NRA" was more straightforward considering the overwhelming majority of the people here are of the take the NRA's administration are turdwiches.

And they are. The Supreme Court, in the same case that ruled gun ownership a right for self-defense purposes, also ruled that gun sales can have qualifications imposed on them. In short: an 18 year old may be able to legally own a gun, but they cannot buy one. Seems odd, but the drinking age actually operates in a similar manner in many states, with underage people being able to legally consume alcohol, just not in public, nor can they buy the alcohol.

The NRA has no leg to stand on.

[Tornado]

2 hours ago, KHCast said:

 

Well in that case like I say there was the case of bakeries feeling like their religious and 1st amendment rights were infringed on when courts ruled in favor of gay civil rights trumping their “religious freedoms”(which really aren’t usable when you’re on government funded property, but I digress). Is that a case of something being considered “unconstitutional” in the correct context?

That was their argument, but the bakery in Oregon didn't simply lose that case for that. The only precedent that case established is that you can't refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple, then defame and attack them and frame it as protected religious freedom. Regardless:

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By all accounts you could make an argument that making people of faith with certain beliefs protected under religious freedom and the 1st amendment, bake gay people a gay themed cake is violating and infringing on their rights so therefore could be deemed unconstitutional.

And we'll know that answer for sure when the Supreme Court case concerning the other bakery is decided on sometime in the summer.

 

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And well, lawmakers and politicians I guess have been disingenuously been using “unconstitutional” then considering I’ve seen tons of GOP officials throw around that term incorrectly then.

Why would that surprise you?

 

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And honestly, I’m not sure on whether you’re disagreeing with Ogi on the issue or not.

Let me be blunt:

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The NRA has of course filed a lawsuit over the age raise, because the NRA

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and how 18 year olds are considered adults for most purposes.

Those are disingenuous arguments. You'd be out of your mind if you think the age restriction wasn't going to be challenged in court by someone sooner rather than later and only the NRA is going to raise a fuss about it, so it's not "because the NRA". I didn't think the Florida law was even going to get passed because it seems so sketchy on that basis, so I figured what was instead going to be the big lawsuit was the Wal-Mart thing.

And what the age of being an adult "for most purposes" is not relevant, because the only purpose of any importance is the age established by the 26th Amendment, as that is the baseline for when the federal government considers you an adult. Suffice to say, I don't agree with Ogilvie.

 

2 hours ago, KHCast said:

My initial point was agreeing with him on the topic of age requirement and why we haven’t looked at the other topics regarding age in a similar fashion.

Because other topics of arbitrary ages beyond that of federal representation are irrelevant when discussing things that impact federally protected rights.

 

The US Constitution, at least in regards to the most recent established court precedent, says that you have the federally protected right to own a firearm for the purposes of self defense. The US Constitution establishes the age that you are considered an adult capable of being represented in the federal government as 18 years old. The US Constitution says that no state is allowed to put forth a law that restricts anything that the federal government protects it's citizens as being a right.

The NRA is suing on the basis that Florida's law, which says you cannot purchase a gun until you are 21 years old, violates the first part because it establishes an age higher than the second part which is explicitly against the third part.

 

 

The US Constitution says nothing about whether you are allowed to drink alcohol. The US Constitution says nothing about whether you are allowed to smoke weed. The US Constitution says nothing about whether you are allowed to go in a casino. The US Constitution says nothing about whether you are allowed to drive operate types of machinery. A state saying you have to be 21 or whatever to do all of those things are not constitutional issues, so they don't hold much relevancy to a state being sued specifically for passing an obviously knee-jerk law that probably didn't have much consideration put towards federal oversight to begin with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

44 minutes ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

The precedent is still there that kids should not be trusted with dangerous things, while ties into the precedent is still there that explicitly constitutional rights can be restricted when there is a legitimate state interest in doing so.

So what is the legitimate state interest for raising the age to purchase firearms to 21? I mean beyond the obvious answer that there's state interest because it makes it look like legislators have done something so they can get re-elected. Since the law also included a bunch of stuff that is making the entire thing a pariah (arming coaches and librarians), a joke ("let's just throw money at 'mental health'") or not even related to this case (bump stocks are scary! even though he wasn't using one!), we can probably already assume that it wasn't the most considered piece of legislation to begin with.

 

And when Trump suggested it as a solution when the Florida law was still being crafted? It was treated as joke by pretty much everyone; and when I see statistics that say it would (maybe) stop all of one mass shooting in the past 9 year (out of 156), I certainly see why it was. Granted, I haven't vetted any of those statistics, but I don't think the tone of the article is suggesting a pro-gun coverup, so I think I can err on the side of caution on that being the best case scenario feelgood legislation instead of an NRA argument against doing anything.

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There's also plenty of precedent that states can legally limit firearms in their states if not entirely ban them.

Except this is a ban, and one much more thorough than anything that was happening in the US when DC vs Heller was in trial. Even Chicago's laws at the time were just "you can't buy a gun unless you can jump through the loopholes we deliberately left in so we can show it wasn't an actual ban."

 

I'm 20 years old. I live in Florida. I want to buy any gun at all. I can't, even though it certainly looks like the federal government says I can based on the US Consitution and currently established federal law, and even though state governments are explicitly not allowed to do things for the "greater good" in that context.

That's not even worth checking in court to see if it holds up to federal oversight, all because it's in the "greater good" to prevent the one person in 9 years who was under 21, bought a rifle and shot up a school with it after already setting off multiple red flags that were ignored?

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Let's not pretend like the Supreme Court's opinion on firearms has not historically been focused on militias and was only recently altered by the activist judges the NRA and its allies would normally decry but were strangely silent on this time around.

Let's not pretend that Heller vs. DC wasn't an extensively researched and justified and internally debated case on a topic that the Supreme Court had generally demurred on so state courts would handle it.

[Dark Qiviut]

On 3/9/2018 at 9:20 PM, Dizcrybe said:

Do you have, like, any source on this? At all?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/31/anti-homeless-benches-sprinklers-bike-racks-latest-hostile-architecture/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/06/council-removes-anti-homeless-bars-benches-public-backlash/

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/how-cities-use-design-to-drive-homeless-people-away/373067/

https://sf.curbed.com/2017/11/10/16634728/spur-homeless-new-york-times-arieff-sf

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/designing-inclusive-cities.html?_r=0

https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/12/1/16724914/hostile-architecture-defensive-design-uncomfortable-benches

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/unpleasant-design-hostile-urban-architecture/

https://www.popsci.com/unpleasant-design#page-3

https://www.indy100.com/article/disturbing-anti-homeless-architecture-ryan-brown-twitter-8189081

And there's a lot more to Google.

The examples @TailsTellsTales put up and shown in many of the links I put up are what's known as hostile architecture. The bars, spikes, rails, wavy seats, and low back rests on benches and floors are designed to make it more difficult, if not impossible, for the homeless to sleep comfortably on them, and their designs are often intentional. Anti-homeless hostile architecture tells the homeless they're not welcome there, thus treating homelessness as a crime and the homeless as bad people.

[Tani Coyote]

On 3/10/2018 at 3:00 PM, Tornado said:

So what is the legitimate state interest for raising the age to purchase firearms to 21?

Age limits will always be arbitrary, but the justification will likely come from more developed brains being less conductive to violence on average.

Now whether there are studies on that is another subject.

It's a Band-Aid for a mortal wound considering the number of mass shooters over that age, but let's be honest, mass shootings are catalysts for discussing firearms in a context far beyond mass shootings.

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we can probably already assume that it wasn't the most considered piece of legislation to begin with.

I think it's moreso they were aiming to wrap up some of the least controversial policy proposals while also giving a carrot to their gun-loving constituents in the form of the armed teachers. Though the armed teachers provision is moreso virtue signalling on their part, because every district can opt out of it.

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And when Trump suggested it as a solution when the Florida law was still being crafted? It was treated as joke by pretty much everyone; and when I see statistics that say it would (maybe) stop all of one mass shooting in the past 9 year (out of 156), I certainly see why it was. Granted, I haven't vetted any of those statistics, but I don't think the tone of the article is suggesting a pro-gun coverup, so I think I can err on the side of caution on that being the best case scenario feelgood legislation instead of an NRA argument against doing anything.

Arguably, any gun control measure isn't going to reduce violence that dramatically.

Particularly since for it to be effective, it would require a huge buyback (areas in the USA that have banned guns have mixed records on the decreased gun crimes, precisely because there are so many guns already in circulation just banning them runs into issues) never mind a huge shift in the socioeconomic paradigm to create a culture less conductive to violence.

Liberals who celebrate Australia every time gun control comes up tend to leave out the buyback and Australia's superior social welfare system. They're small details that really can't be ignored. Those are factors that 1) reduce the supply of firearms dramatically and 2) create for a much less bloodthirsty culture.

America executes people in unfair trials. America fetishizes the military despite the enormous psychological damage it does to the people within it. America stands by the police in spite of enormous evidence they are corrupt and abusive. America handwaves the enormous issue of sexual assault. America prefers to jail the homeless over giving them better accommodations. We feed millions of people through a prison system that is proven to psychologically damage all who go through it. We decide a human life's value is proportionate to how much money they have. The list goes on. We have a violent, sociopathic culture, and we have convinced ourselves that just taking the guns away would make it all better.

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Except this is a ban, and one much more thorough than anything that was happening in the US when DC vs Heller was in trial. Even Chicago's laws at the time were just "you can't buy a gun unless you can jump through the loopholes we deliberately left in so we can show it wasn't an actual ban."

Not really, most people can still get one. And presumably an 18-20 year old could still possess a gun, they just cannot buy one. 

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That's not even worth checking in court to see if it holds up to federal oversight, all because it's in the "greater good" to prevent the one person in 9 years who was under 21, bought a rifle and shot up a school with it after already setting off multiple red flags that were ignored?

Hey, they're certainly welcome to give it a try.

I'm just saying the case is weak based on Chicago's precedent. There's a reason even gun gun control advocates felt there was a victory in that ruling: it left the door open for a broad amount of gun control, so long as there was no explicit "no guns at all" provisions. Licenses are okay. Magazine limits are okay. Background checks are okay. Age requirements certainly would seem okay with those in mind.

But frankly, kids need college money, not guns. Though I would not expect the NRA to have its priorities straight.

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Let's not pretend that Heller vs. DC wasn't an extensively researched and justified and internally debated case on a topic that the Supreme Court had generally demurred on so state courts would handle it.

And Heller v. DC is irrelevant to this case, because that case only applied to DC due to it being the federal district. McDonald v Chicago is the follow up case that expands on Heller, and it says states can impose qualifications on gun purchases.

They really have no leg to stand on.

[KHCast]

Usually the jimquisition is more a video game thing, but since  the government has been talking about video game violence again, feel like it’s an appropriate place to post this one

EDIT: Jim mentions this in the video and it should be obvious given the title of the video, but for  clarity's sake, I'd like to point out that this video contains intense graphic violence, including news footage of really horrific incidents.  So please view at your own discretion. ~Tara

Edited March 13, 2018 by Tara

[Tara]

17 hours ago, KHCast said:

EDIT: Jim mentions this in the video and it should be obvious given the title of the video, but for  clarity's sake, I'd like to point out that this video contains intense graphic violence, including news footage of really horrific incidents.  So please view at your own discretion. ~Tara

Just leaving a note that I added this content warning here.  Jim warns of violent and disturbing content in the video but doesn't really go into specifics.  So please be mindful of that.

[Tani Coyote]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/13/17116874/conor-lamb-rick-saccone-pennsylvania-18-special-election-live-results

Pennsylvania special election results are live.

Currently, 60-40 towards the Democrat with 5% of results in. This is a district Trump won 60-40 himself in 2016.

If the Democrat wins, we may see a revival of the Blue Dog coalition later this year. And possibly the fall of Nancy Pelosi as party leader.

[Patticus]

1 hour ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/13/17116874/conor-lamb-rick-saccone-pennsylvania-18-special-election-live-results

Pennsylvania special election results are live.

Currently, 60-40 towards the Democrat with 5% of results in. This is a district Trump won 60-40 himself in 2016.

If the Democrat wins, we may see a revival of the Blue Dog coalition later this year. And possibly the fall of Nancy Pelosi as party leader.

538 has their own guide for watching it, you may be interested to hear. An excerpt:

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If you’re watching the special election results as they come in (polls close at 8 p.m. Eastern), pay attention to these county-by-county variations; they can help you project the ultimate winner. Assuming that the whole district shifts left or right uniformly (more on this in a second), we’ve calculated an approximate benchmark for how we would expect each county to vote if the election were exactly tied districtwide. If the counties are voting more Republican than their benchmarks, then Saccone is on pace to win. If they’re voting more Democratic, then Lamb is ahead. (The not-so-grisly math behind these benchmarks: We used the same weighted average of the last two presidential elections to arrive at a partisan lean for each county, then moved it 21 points in Democrats’ direction — because that’s how much the entire district needs to shift leftward to deliver Lamb a victory.)

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-pennsylvania-18th-special-election/

I've not been paying it any attention to it because I get too caught up in the whole affair, and too bummed out when it fails to go blue, even if the margin of victory for the GOP is a fraction of what a "healthy" result should look like.
 

In other news, Trump has announced his intent to militarize space.

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"My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land air and sea. We may even have a Space Force," Trump said. "We're doing a tremendous amount of work in space, and I said, maybe we need a new force. We'll call it the Space Force." Trump was most likely referring to the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law on December 12th and stipulates that the defense secretary "establish in the executive part of the Department of the Air Force a Space Corps." Back in July, senior Air Force officials told CNN that the corps was an “unnecessary change in the force's existing space efforts.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-proposes-us-space-force-to-guard-the-galaxy

Naturally, such an endeavor would directly violate multiple international treaties, which any normal administration would be loathe to do, but Trump is all too happy to break... well, just about everything.

I do question the long-term sustainability of these treaties to begin with, though: It's all well and good to have them when only one or two world powers have the capability to engage in spaceflight and the like, and said spaceflight is used for scientific, commercial and intelligence ops, but today we're seeing China, Japan, India and the EU taking off, in addition to Russia and the US. We may well live to see Brazil and others also head up there, too. Everyone competing for strategic orbital positions; the Lagrange Points, etc, as well as prime colony locations on the lunar surface and such. Multiple competing agendas and ideologies at work.

As our technology advances, more countries enter the space age, and we become accustomed to manned spaceflight further afield, war will inevitably follow in our footsteps; weaponized satellites, orbital weapons platforms, above top secret military installations, and so on. It will happen. It's the new high ground, almost completely unassailable, and it's all up for grabs.

So far, only the US and Russia have the capacity to begin working on militarizing space, and I'm certain that both already are. Trump's statement of intent, then, seems more foolish than alarming, as it gives the element of surprise away, and will mean that India, China and the EU will now feel pressure to try to figure out their own space military strategies, and Russia will also move to accelerate its plans.

[SSF1991]

I've been conversing with @Bergamo (Ogilvie) all night during this PA election, and I've expressed so many emotions. It's still too close to call right now.

Just imagine me going "REEEEEEEE" a million times and that's how our conversation went.

EDIT: NBC's calling it for Lamb! Wow!

 

[Patticus]

Now all he has to do is win again in November, when the new district lines are put in place. No pressure.

It's entirely possible that both Lamb and Saccone could be in congress this time next year, if they opt to run in separate districts.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

14 hours ago, Patticus said:

In other news, Trump has announced his intent to militarize space

Ironically, this is one of the few things I almost would side with Trump on given the rising capabilities and potential threats of China, and Russia’s new weapons capabilities.

I say almost because doing so in violation of treaties against space militarization would trigger a bigger arms race and risk the very escalation of war. Was called a certain “Trap,” but I can remember who it was named after.

That said, if he wanted to go through with this, I question whether it was good to announce it rather than keep his mouth shut over it. I know the military has been requesting a space force branch in recent years, but this is likey something to keep hush hush. 

[Candescence]

Also, Trump is quite seriously considering creating tariffs on Chinese imports, apparently. If he did that, a trade war would be inevitable.

However, funnily enough, he could very well actually win that fight, as China is still quite heavily dependant on manufacturing for its economy, despite efforts to move to a more service-based economy. But since the cost of manufacturing in China is increasing due to the increasing prosperity of the country itself, other third-world countries are increasingly becoming better-placed to replace it as the world's sweatshop - Chinese businesses are already getting people from neighbouring countries like Vietnam to cross the border regularly because paying them is cheaper than paying local workers. If a trade war happens, I expect a mass exodus of manufacturing to other countries that are cheaper, and China loses out big time, and the economy is possibly crippled, to the point where the Communist Party might end up with a revolution on its hands.

But that would mean while Trump ultimately could very well win that trade war and hurt the world economy in the process, his obvious objective of forcing corporations to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US would be a spectacular failure.

[TailsTellsTales]

I hope Trump does more tariffs, and anything to stop good paying jobs being replaced with starvation wage jobs. Though I wish it was Sanders who was doing the tariffs since he would do them safely and not recklessly. Thank you @Dark Qiviut for the sources. I was too lazy to go through all that.

[Tani Coyote]

10 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

I say almost because doing so in violation of treaties against space militarization would trigger a bigger arms race and risk the very escalation of war.

It will. God knows how many resources will be devoted to it.

Russia might end up trying to avoid the situation, because it's certainly not in a position to keep up with China and the USA in the long term.

But you have two autocrats and one wannabe autocrat in this equation. That's a recipe for disaster, as it's all about image rather than the public good.

Hopefully, some cooler heads in American foreign policy will prevail in maintaining the status quo.

6 hours ago, TailsTellsTales said:

I hope Trump does more tariffs, and anything to stop good paying jobs being replaced with starvation wage jobs. Though I wish it was Sanders who was doing the tariffs since he would do them safely and not recklessly. Thank you @Dark Qiviut for the sources. I was too lazy to go through all that.

You're also hoping to pay for higher-priced goods.

Unless you're planning to enforce trade tariffs with the barrel of a gun, you will see retaliatory tariffs.

This is why free trade exists. It's more than just "capitalist elites!," it is proven to be the best trade policy long-term. Everyone building walls around themselves just makes us all poorer.

Also, it's key to note the reason manufacturing jobs paid so well is because the unions were very strong in that time period. We may get the jobs, but we may very well not get the good wages.

Again, support a social safety net instead. It's far superior to this nationalist nonsense that makes us all worse off in the long run.