#Ugh #Politics

A blog dedicated to the less than democratic processes in our democratic process. The three admins support Senator Bernie Sanders during this primary but as of now will support the Democrat nominee come November.

[allthingsgerman]

And on today’s edition of The German government reacts to Donald Trump, this time with German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel:

Regarding Trump’s complains that rich Americans drive German cars and German’s don’t drive American cars:

Regarding Trump’s comments about Germany’s refugee policy:

Gabriel out.

(x)

[missingwigs]

i arrive at the thanksgiving dinner

talk: less smile: more me: doesn’t let them know what i’m against or what i’m for

[xpaperheartso]

I FORCIBLY REMOVE MYSELF FROM THE THANKSGIVING DINNER

[electiontrash]

Richard Wolff has always been one of my favorite content producers when it comes to economics. If you're thinking that Trump is going to be worth it because he'll save the working class, think again. He (and Clinton for that matter) is mired in the systemic inequality of American capitalism. Without making changes to that system by pushing for more worker self-directed enterprises, I don't see any way forward.

[electiontrash]

That time Congressional Democrats stood up. And it was awesome.

Remember June 14th, Sen. Chris Murphy took to the Senate floor and didn’t yield control for 15-hours ‘til the Republican-controlled-Senate agreed to hold a vote on 4 “common sense” gun laws? Man, that was great.

Sen. Chris Murphy (CT), Tuesdays MVP.

Well unfortunately none of those measures passed. They failed to get the 60 votes necessary, though to be fair, some Republicans did vote for the measures.Two of the proposals were even written or sponsored by Republicans. That made the votes much closer than many expected. (About 53-47 on both of them)

Senator Mitch McConnell (KY), actual turtle and spawn of Satan. Also Senate Majority Leader.

Today it was the House’s turn to take a stand. Or a seat (See what I did there). Just after 11 AM, dozens of Democratic Representatives staged a sit-in. Lead by Rep. John Lewis (GA), they had similar demands as Sen. Murphy, to hold a vote on two gun regulation bills. But they had to appeal to the Speaker of the House, Rep. Paul Ryan first.  

So how did Rep. Ryan and the House Republicans respond? By calling a recess and as he never called the session, the mics and the C-SPAN cameras, which stream all congressional sessions, were cut. 

Speaker of the House, Rep. Paul Ryan (WI). Don’t stare into his eyes for too long, you may forget that he’s an asshole. 

So how did those staging this sit-in respond to this? By setting up a Periscope account, and streaming it themselves. C-SPAN even went ‘fuck-it’ and picked up the stream. This technical loophole is giving transparency to an issue the GOP tried to cover. Even better, C-SPAN has been taking callers and has an anchor on stand by when the feed gets dropped. 

Rep. Scott Peters (CA), today's MVP and Periscope streamer. He or some intern deserve a lot of kudos.

And how did the Senate Democrats respond to the sit-in? By sending a snack basket.

Congressional sit-ins, a reason to relive those college glory days. (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CllHD5wWYAAI-kV.jpg:large)

Even better, many senators and other government officials have been offering their support for this sit in by coming to sit. Including but not limited to Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA), who has decided this is how she wants to celebrate her birthday.

Currently, Rep. Ryan is calling this a “political stunt,” but there is no sign of the Democrats stopping anytime soon. There is still a constant stream of speakers as they wait for the Speaker to call the House into session. They have even set up a schedule for who is spending the night and what shifts they can take to get food.

In summary, technology is great. And we are proud to be Democrats today. To the Congressional Democrats, as Rep. John Lewis stated today, “Thank you for getting in trouble.” 

-Gabby, Ben, and Chrissy

All Congressional pictures pulled from Wikipedia. 

[stellagibsonisalifeforce]

Senator Warren (D-MA) participates in the filibuster by asking Senator Murphy (D-CT) a thirteen-minute question.

[thestraggletag]

This way the senator can sit down, right? By yielding the floor to Warren for a question, is that how it works?

[electiontrash]

Watch Senate Democrats' Surprise Gun-Control Filibuster

Update, 5:00 p.m.: Add Missouri's Claire McCaskill, New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaneen, and New York's Kirsten Gillibrand to the list of Democratic speaker ...

While the Republican majority senate is refusing to even debate or vote on 2 bills, Senator Murphy is currently leading a filibuster.

His bills would 1. expand the terrorist watch list to include the exclusion of those on that list from being able to obtain weapons legally and 2. close the loop holes the current law has for not needing background checks if you buy online or at a gun show.

I'm so proud of every single Senator saying they will not idly sit by when something, that polls suggest 80-90% of Americans want to be put into law, is being passed over by the senate.

-Chrissy

[electiontrash]

Bernie Sanders understands that I can be smart at both politics and video games.

[electiontrash]

NY Primary 2016

Are you a registered NY Democrat or Republican? Have you found your polling station yet? Have you voted yet? 

It’s our civic duty as Americans to vote. A non vote is still a vote. Do some last minute research if you are still unsure. 

If you are unsure if you can vote, you can always cast a provisional vote! There is currently an emergency court case going through for all those registered Dems who were told weren’t registered. SO IF YOU ARE UNSURE GO OUT AND VOTE STILL! Tell the volunteers you need the provisional ballot and follow all the instruction.s If it passes those votes WILL COUNT!

For Republicans you just vote for your candidate. For Democrats you must vote for your candidate and ACROSS THE ROW FOR THEIR DELEGATES. Do NOT just pick delegates freely, vote for the delegates that go with YOUR candidate.

Polls close at 9 but if you are there before 9 you can not be turned away so STAY UNTIL YOUR VOTE IS CAST!

Lastly, DO NOT WEAR ANYTHING ENDORSING A CANDIDATE TO YOUR POLL AND DO NOT TAKE A PICTURE OF YOUR BALLOT. IT VOIDS YOUR VOTE IF FOUND.

Now go out and VOTE VOTE VOTE! Grab a friend, get your sticker and SHOW OFF HOW YOU CONTRIBUTED TO THIS HISTORIC RACE!

-Chrissy

[thingstolovefor]

Here, you fucking have it:

Bernie on working conditions in Florida and slavery in America

Bernie predicts 2008 depression

Bernie warns against regime change and predicts extremism like ISIS and the escalation of Israel/Palestine conflict

Bernie speaks against the Panama Free Trade agreement, predicting the whole Panama Papers incident

Bernie opposing the Iraq war

Bernie tells Alan Greenspan he’s ruining the middle class in 2003

Bernie on Corporate Welfare

Bernie on Healthcare

Bernie on Veterans

Bernie on Global Warming

Bernie Sanders: Drugs vs. Hopelessness

Bernie on DADT and gay slurs in 1995, as well as some environmental stuff, probably my favorite clip so far, you can see his passion and righteous anger

Bernie opposes the repeal of Glass Steagall, and therefore the deregulation of Wall Street, predicting the 2008 crash, in 1999

Keep reading

[electiontrash]

The crazy ride that is the 2016 Primary

So it has been a couple weeks since the last big primary contest (which Bernie swept). But since then in all the campaigning the 3 5 candidates have done, two potentially large scandals have come up.

D.C. Madame According to a Rachel Maddow and MSNBC report on March 29th, the chief lawyer in this case believes he is sitting on some time-sensitive information relating to the 2016 Election and has appealed to the Supreme Court to be released from a 2007 restraining order which prevents him from releasing more records. For those who don’t know the D.C. Madame case surrounded a escort service in -you guessed it- D.C. They operated from the early 90′s to 2007. What was interesting about this case was that as part of their defense they started releasing the phone records of their prominent clientele. One such number was traced back to a Republican Senator but the courts issued the restraining order before more numbers were released and here we are today. 

Now this could be some weird April Fool’s joke (a lot of papers ran with this relating back to Ted Cruz cheating allegations on that day) and you need to take the word of a disbarred lawyer with a grain of salt but we looked at the dates and determined who this would likely affect: Trump - Weekend getaway? Otherwise he really had no reason to be in D.C. Cruz - Wasn’t in federal office at the time. Which leaves Kasich (the less insane GOP candidate), Sanders, and Clinton. We really don’t want any of these three named in this. Either of the Democratic candidates will harm our chances of keeping the White House in the Fall. Panama Papers    If anything gets large enough, its bound to burst. And burst it did. Now no US officials have been named yet in this data leak but that doesn’t mean they weren't taking advantage of these offshore accounts. There are many people both in the MSM and online that have explained the Panama Papers better than I ever could. But, we are supporting the candidate who in 2011 foretold this kind of thing happening:

Ahh, receipts. My favorite.  So this is another instance where Senator Sanders displayed great judgement  and again seemed to be on the right side of history. Best of luck sir in Wisconsin today.

[saintjoan]

the panama papers: the biggest secret data leak in history (a concise masterpost)

so what is it?

they are leaked documents that contain information from Panama based Mossack Fonseca, “a law firm that specializes in the creation of off shore accounts designed to hide wealth in tiny island tax havens”

this video sums up what is in the documents (tw: sex slavery, death)

which news outlets are reporting the information?

full list here

The Guardian has a series of very good explanations and in depth articles

Reddit is “doing their thing” and has a detailed live thread

the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that first exposed the leak

wait, okay, so how is the data leak important?

mostly because it incriminates some of the world’s top politicians and key wealthy individuals as they engage in off-shore laundering, tax evasion, and other crimes (x) 

Vladimir Putin 

Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, prime minister of Iceland

the implications of his activities 

Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine 

a FIFA ethics committee member (inc. Lionel Messi) 

HRH Prince Salman, King of Saudi Arabia

numerous relatives and associates of political leaders 

and other very important people

are there any *insert notable Americans/Canadians/(citizens of your country)* involved?

as of now, only 149 documents have been released (publicly) out of 11.5 Million, so it’s guaranteed that more incriminating evidence will surface

“editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung responded to the lack of U.S. individuals in the documents, saying “Just wait for what is coming next"” (x)

other important links

glossary for offshore banking terms

the wikipedia page

shell companies explained, in “simple english”

a video explaining the potential illegality of offshore comapanies 

client announcement sent by Mossack Fonseca

video: so how does a person hide a billion dollars?

possibilities to what will happen in Panama

this is going to change the world as we know it.

updated as of april 4th

[electiontrash]

As a Bird Keeper, I’m glad me and the birds share opinions on Presidential Candidates. First we had the Eagle scaring the shit out of Trump and now we have a little bird chillin’ with Sanders.

-Gabby

[electiontrash]

THE GOP’S PRISONER’S DILEMMA You might be familiar with the game theory idea of the prisoner’s dilemma. If not, we’ll explain it below. The current three-sided battle for the GOP nomination is a fascinating (albeit depressing) example of this logic problem playing out in real-life. Let’s hope that our prisoners in this case make better choices than one would expect.

The prisoner’s dilemma is a hypothetical situation that game-theory uses to explain how rational thinkers can still end up making decisions that hurt them. The theory works as follows. Two criminals are brought in by law enforcement. Immediately held apart in solitary confinement with no opportunity to communicate, each is offered a choice. If they rat out and betray their partner (while their partner stays silent), they will be let free, and their partner will receive 3 years in prison. However, if both prisoners betray each other, then they will each receive 2 years in prison. If neither betrays the other, then they each receive 1 year in prison. The situation is assumed to be in a vacuum: no potential repercussions outside of the changes in jail-time are considered. The basic idea here is that a rational, self-interested person will always act to help themselves over cooperating. Both prisoners will always act to betray the other in the hope of getting out free. How is this relevant to the GOP primary? Cruz and Kasich are taking the roll of the prisoners. They are faced with a choice: they can betray the other in the hopes of getting more votes and political power for themselves, or they can cede states to each other in order to maximize the chances of stopping Trump from obtaining the nomination. It’s not quite a perfect match to the original dilemma, but the idea is there. From what we’ve seen so far, the dilemma is playing out exactly as it always does. Kasich is still fighting in the race, despite the mathematical impossibility of winning. Cruz is still using resources to sap voters that could go to Kasich. Each is worse off. Meanwhile, Trump continues to steamroll his way to the convention. If Cruz and Kasich collaborated to work out which states and districts they each have a comparative advantage in, they would be able to present a stronger and more coherent front against Trump.

[electiontrash]

Reminder: Register to vote in NYS!

This coming day, Friday March 25th , is the last day to register to vote in the party primaries in New York state. If you have not voted before, I would highly encourage you to do so. By exercising your right here, you get to impact who will run as your party's nominee to the Presidency. You can contact or visit the County Clerks office to register. If you don't have the time, you can register online at: https://dmv.ny.gov/mydmv/mydmv

I hope that you register and get out on primary day April 19th!

[electiontrash]

Bernie Sanders Is Currently Winning the Democratic Primary Race, and I'll Prove It to You

Nobody cares how well a politician does at the ballot box when he or she is running for an office unopposed. What matters is how a politician performs in...

The HuffPost is doing something that mainstream media isn’t doing. It’s looking at the real numbers. Because numbers don’t lie. Bernie Sanders isn’t out of the race, no matter how much media wants you to believe that as fact. 

- Chrissy

(I do have this article copied and pasted to my computer in case any changes are made. If there are any changed they will be added)

[electiontrash]

Guess what day it is?

Its a Tuesday, during an election year! Which means we have some state primaries today!

On the Republican side: Arizona (Winner-take-all primary) and Utah (caucus). And on the Democrat side: Arizona (Primary), Utah (caucus), and Idaho (caucus). All polls close late today, so don’t expect many results until 10:00 pm EST.

I predict that there is a chance that Trump sweeps the two states today, though he has been weaker in caucus states (and in Utah some polls have him in 3rd). There is also good chance that Sanders can win the two caucus states today and I feel that Arizona is going to be close, just like Nevada was. Till the polls close though, we’ll be doing what we do best. Following bits and pieces of exit polls, but mostly getting distracted in Minecraft.

~Gabby

[electiontrash]

Why the Republicans are a bunch of babies, Part I

Oh did we say we were unbiased. Our bad. We just can’t ignore stupid.

So yesterday, I arrived home from work to news that President Obama has nominated Merrick Garland to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court. This seat was previously held by Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed away suddenly on February 13th. So this means Obama had deliberated his choice for about a month. That’s a pretty long time given the important cases the Supreme Court weighs in on (most recently V.L. vs E.L. which dealt with adoption rights of same sex couples and states recognizing those adoptions) and that any decision resulting in a 4-4 split means the lesser court’s ruling stands. This fact is terrible for both Democrats and Republicans. So who is this Merrick Garland?

According to Wikipedia, this guy.

Garland, at 63 years old is one of the oldest Supreme Court nominees ever. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, which means he fits in well with Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kennedy, Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, Justice Kagan, and the late Justice Scalia who all attended Harvard Law School in some capacity. In 1995 he was appointed as Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and all in all seems like a solid centralist, bipartisan pick. He was even seriously considered for the Supreme Court nomination in 2009 and 2010 (the last two times there was a vacancy) and was supported by both Democrats and Republicans. Seems pretty straight forward. Now Congress just needs to start the review process and...

I heard someone was trying to do their job. It’d be a shame if something were to happen. - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

Right from the get go McConnell opposed any and all discussion on candidates to fill Scalia’s seat and a large number of Republicans agreed with him. On February 23rd (remember this is only about a week after Scalia’s passing and a month before Obama nominated anyone) the 11 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee signed a letter cementing their opposition to any and all nominees made by President Obama. These Congressmen are Chuck Grassley of IA, Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee of UT, Jeff Sessions of AL, Lindsey Graham of SC, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz (We’ll get in to it later why I feel such vitriol, disgust, disdain... you get the point... towards Ted Cruz) of TX, Jeff Flake of AZ, David Vitter of LA, David Perdue of GA, and Thom Tillis of NC. Please remember their names. They all site the Thurmond Rule, an unwritten guideline of congress to not review federal judge nominations during a Presidential election year, as to why they would oppose a nomination. Makes sense in certain cases, for example, if this vacancy happened in November 2016 and a Republican had already won the General election. Unfortunately it has been invoked by both parties in the past to some extremes. This being one of those extremes.

The Republicans want to delay this nomination till January 20th 2017!

So lets say its about a year till the next president (and its not even a sure shot that is will be a Republican) makes their Supreme Court nomination. You know how many cases the Supreme Court hears from in that time frame? Close to a hundred! You know how many cases they are asked to review each year? 7,000-8,000! The justices vote on what cases they hear oral arguments from, meaning having a vacant seat sways that vote. Though there is an argument that the Supreme Court is more apt to rehear cases that ended in split decisions, this delays future cases and so on. I repeat, this fact is terrible for both Democrats and Republicans. This disrupts our democracy, prevents a government branch from fully functioning, and conflicts with what is stated in the Constitution (you know the document the Republicans say they hold near and dear).

Republicans have a majority in the Senate and with the possibility of two other Supreme Court seats opening up following the 2016 election, you’d think they would try their hardest to appeal to the American people who are about to vote. What better chance to actually rework and limit the Thurmond Rule. To be the better person. Hell it might even help Presidential nominee John Kasich in the primaries (what? you say there are other Republicans running? I didn’t hear you.) Fortunately some Republicans sound like they are coming around to at least talking to Judge Garland.

But for the pace to pick up, it would mean they would have to actually do their job. -Gabby