U.S. Politics: The Biggest Trade in WNBA History

[Gamzee Makara]

I wonder if he's planning to raise these kids into his American Gestapo or KGB after he kills his opposition and/or delays elections after his perceived second term(which there is a legal way to do) like Stalin did with the children of the initial Bolsheviks...

He IS taking pointers in persecution from Putin(and formerly(?) Steve Bannon),...so it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if that's what he thinks he can and will do.

EDIT in order to avoid double-posting...

In #MeToo news, this clears one accused...

https://observer.com/2018/05/george-takei-accuser-scott-brunton-changed-his-story-of-drugs-assault/

 

[RedJirachi]

Who do you guys think is the worst president the United State of America ever had? From what I've seen of history, the usual contenders are Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Warren Harding. Do you think Bush Jr and Trump should be compared to these great blunderers or not? Who out of these seven is the worst? Is there someone else you think should get the worst president "award"?

Please note that I'm not counting William Harrison because it's not really fair, since he died a month in office

 

[bobjr]

Buchanan was a corrupt, pro-slavery, petty, coward whose actions turned the Civil War from a solvable insurrection issue into the deadliest war in US history. He's a piece of **** and I hate him and I hope you hate him too.

Like Thomas Jefferson was a rapist and a slaveowner and I consider Buchanan worse.

 

[RedJirachi]

Buchanan was a corrupt, pro-slavery, petty, coward whose actions turned the Civil War from a solvable insurrection issue into the deadliest war in US history. He's a piece of **** and I hate him and I hope you hate him too.

Like Thomas Jefferson was a rapist and a slaveowner and I consider Buchanan worse.

His competitors in the 1856 election were John C Fremont and Millard Fillmore. Of Buchanan, Fremont and Fillmore, who do you think would've been the best president...or more accurately the least bad

 

[Auraninja]

Like Thomas Jefferson was a rapist and a slaveowner and I consider Buchanan worse.

Has it actually been confirmed historically that Thomas Jefferson raped somebody?

I thought he had consensual intercourse with a slave (or at least I thought that was debatable), or are we not talking about that?

 

[Pikachu52]

Who do you guys think is the worst president the United State of America ever had? From what I've seen of history, the usual contenders are Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Warren Harding. Do you think Bush Jr and Trump should be compared to these great blunderers or not? Who out of these seven is the worst? Is there someone else you think should get the worst president "award"?

Please note that I'm not counting William Harrison because it's not really fair, since he died a month in office

Let’s see worst President.

I’m going to say Ronald Reagan.

Prehaps he wasn’t the worst ever, but I do see that a lot of the problems in the US and the world stem from his administration. Here’s why:

First his foregin policy I think has been quite destructive. His aggressive persuance of the containment policy against the Soviet Union led his government to aggressively back a number of dictators or violent freedom fighters including, amongst others, Saddam Hussain, the Taliban and the Iranians. I don’t think I need to elaborate on the long term consequneces of those decisions.

Second, his domestic policies were harmful. He largely ignored the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and in doing so allowed hysteria and homophobia to flourish.

More subtly on this front, his campaign strategy married what became the “religious right” to the Republican Party giving birth to the culture wars that dominated the politics of the Clinton, Bush and Obama years. His Surgeon General C. Everett Coop was partially responsible for the making of the film “What ever happened to the human race,” which was certainly influential in the Pro-life/anti-abortion movement.

 

[bobjr]

Has it actually been confirmed historically that Thomas Jefferson raped somebody?

I thought he had consensual intercourse with a slave (or at least I thought that was debatable), or are we not talking about that?

Even if every single slave he had sex with was consensual in the sense that they were 100% okay with it, there’s a line there where owning someone and using them for sex kind of automatically counts.

 

[Auraninja]

Even if every single slave he had sex with was consensual in the sense that they were 100% okay with it, there’s a line there where owning someone and using them for sex kind of automatically counts.

I see; thank you.

As far as worst presidents, I thought Harding was pretty bad, but it kind of sounds like a case of the people around him being worse than he was. I read that he was a member of the KKK, but that seems to be a very disputed claim, or at least Wikipedia thought so.

I don't know, I could tell you more about presidential trivia more than actual policies or important details. *shrugs*

 

[bobjr]

Reagan is definitely on the bad side, but it's hard to judge long term effects for anyone in the last 40 or so years in terms of how much good or damage they actually did.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/grove...most-despicable-in-american-political-history

Looking at things like this from Presidents early on it's easier to pass some kind of judgement.

 

[RedJirachi]

I see; thank you.

As far as worst presidents, I thought Harding was pretty bad, but it kind of sounds like a case of the people around him being worse than he was. I read that he was a member of the KKK, but that seems to be a very disputed claim, or at least Wikipedia thought so.

I don't know, I could tell you more about presidential trivia more than actual policies or important details. *shrugs*

Unlikely that he's a KKK member. From what I've read he's actually an early supporter of civil rights-one of the few positive things to his name. That and keeping America out of war. There have been rumors at the time he's of black descent because of that, but DNA testing from his relatives suggest otherwise. DNA testing on his relatives have also proven his mistress' daughter was also his, though given he was a shameless womanizer that's not surprising.

 

[Auraninja]

Ronald Reagan seems like the kind of president that had bad people around him more than he was bad. I'm not saying he wasn't bad, but let me say one thing.

I talked to a guy who wanted to become a soil conservation scientist back in the day, but someone from Reagan's cabinet was so anti-environmental, that he couldn't get the job.
Years later, when he was offered the job, it was a little too late, as he already settled down, got married, and so forth.

On the flip side of the coin, who was a good president (past or present)?

 

[Pikachu52]

Ronald Reagan seems like the kind of president that had bad people around him more than he was bad. I'm not saying he wasn't bad, but let me say one thing.

For me personally, when considering who was the "worst president" it's more a question of policy and the short and long term effects of those than whether the person was bad or good.

Certainly Reagan had a lot of bad people around him - Oliver North comes to mind.

I think with Ronald Reagan however it's not really policy implications that I think made him a "bad" president, it was his discourse and campaigning style. As I said, Reagan married the "religious right," particularly people like Jerry Falwell, to the mainstream GOP and made them a core part of the GOP. And as a result that constituency had a lot of influence over both the GOP's position and Government policy on a lot of social issues such as LGBT rights, Sex-ed in schools, Abortion ect.

The term "socialised medicine," which came up a lot when the affordable care act was being debated, was coined by Ronald Reagan. He's quoted as saying;

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It is very easy to describe a medical program as a humanitarian project... Under the Truman administration, it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this... In the last decade, 127 million of our citizens, in just ten years, have come under the protection of some privately-owned medical or hospital insurance. The advocates of [socialized healthcare], when you try to oppose it, challenge you on an emotional basis...

Sound familiar??

Moreover he cemented the ideological positions of that define the modern GOP; Tax cuts, anti-government rhetoric, cuts to social security.

 

[RedJirachi]

With that in mind, which bad presidents do you think were good people?

 

[bobjr]

Jimmy Carter is the most obvious recent pick there. He had bad luck with outside events which didn't help, but his work with charity after leaving office cemented him being a decent person at least.

Too bad they made him sell his peanut farm.

 

[Pikachu52]

The Supreme Court today made it's ruling in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, finding in favour of the Bakery:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf

While this is not a great decision from the perspective of LGBT rights, the decision is extremely narrow. The baker only won on the basis that the Colorado civil rights commission had displayed open hostility to his religious beliefs.

 

[Scammel]

The Supreme Court today made it's ruling in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, finding in favour of the Bakery:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf

While this is not a great decision from the perspective of LGBT rights, the decision is extremely narrow. The baker only won on the basis that the Colorado civil rights commission had displayed open hostility to his religious beliefs.

It's an interesting read - if I understand it correctly, the SC has only argued that the creation of a cake might be classified as expression and that there might be a case there. The crux of the decision boiled down to the fact that the lower court had not even considered that there might be a valid case.

 

[bobjr]

Also Kennedy mentioned that gay marriage was illegal at the time, also it would have been mean to punish someone if they genuinely believed in it, even if they're a bigot.

 

[Zora]

It's an interesting read - if I understand it correctly, the SC has only argued that the creation of a cake might be classified as expression and that there might be a case there. The crux of the decision boiled down to the fact that the lower court had not even considered that there might be a valid case.

No.

This case is SCOTUS tone policing; there's no other way to describe it. CO can still enforce anti-discrimination w.r.t. to LGBTQA+, but any jurisprudence stemming from this case needs to be reestablished where the courts have a nicer tone towards the client's religion (the SCOTUS opinion details what's a 'nice tone'). The opinion more or less outright says that if CO goes through the process, reach the exact same conclusions, but changed the tone SCOTUS would side with CO; hence why it's a narrow ruling.

Good Twitter thread explaining it better than I could: https://twitter.com/alexandraerin/status/1003656438743470080?s=19

That said, I think SCOTUS shouldn't do this. Tone policing, especially with bigots, is a waste of everyone's time and because the LGBTQA+ will need to deal with being turned away from services with this ruling being cited, even if citef improperly. The popular interpretation rather than the ruling proper will matter more. This ruling is a whole lot of confusion with a whole lot of repercussions for a whole lot of nothing .

 

[Pikachu52]

In other news, it what I'm going to describe as a political "No one wanted to come to my birthday party," Trump disinvited Philadelphia Eagles players from visiting the White House after not enough players wanted to attended:

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/05/6171...phia-eagles-event-into-celebration-of-america

There's also the insane tweet storm of the last few days where, among other things Trump has; claimed he can Pardon himself (despite not needing to because he's innocent apparently), says he never should have hired Jeff Sessions because of his recusal, defended Paul Manafort and says he's worried that the IG report is being changed to obscure the truth or words to that effect.

For context the IG report refers to the DOJ investigator generals inquiry into the handling of the Clinton Email probe, which if twitter is anything to go by, has a lot of Trump supporters exited that it will be extremely inculpatory towards Clinton. My view is that in tweeting about it, Trump is aware there isn't anything there and is trying to prime his base not to accept any finding that doesn't align with conservative talking points.

 

[Trainer Yusuf]

There seems to be a common belief that either Ukraine or Russia will stage a provocation in Donbass with the World Cup in Russia serving a distraction. I doubt this, outside of military build up of Ukraine with the support of Trump's GOP, Gagauzia in Moldova is probably a better bet. I was thinking Libya or Yemen, but they are not as quick.

I'll probably talk about Turkish elections here later... but I will talk about results. Not liveblog. Erdoğan is obviously going to win, but how matters.