Recently in Politics Category

The Affordable Housing Crisis May Have Cost Us An Election | by Kenya Gibson | Nov, 2024 | Medium

A grassroots Democrat city councilor in Richmond, Virginia, writes that Democrat databases are not keeping up with voters displaced by gentrification: "Software company NGP VAN, in partnership with the Democratic party, sells access to voter databases. NGP VAN is extremely costly and impacts crucial races nationwide. Because they are effectively a monopoly, when NGP VAN makes cuts to help their bottom line, their decisions could have massive implications on our national democracy. On numerous occasions, we personally knew people who had moved in or out of the district, and their voting address was only updated after they voted. The DNC and state parties owe it to us to audit its processes to maintain voter data and to investigate possible ramifications of NGP VAN's 2023 layoffs after their sale to a private equity firm in 2022."

dear washington DC - by el gato malo - bad cattitude

"i know A LOT of these people. this is what most of my friends are like. they learn for a living. they pull systems apart, see them as functional wholes, and work 16 hour days reading arcane 1000 page descriptions until they understand. then they pull the underwear of whoever thought they understood this material up over their heads in an atomic wedgie and take over a space. it's just what you do if you're a person like that. it's compulsion. it's like breathing.

"these are 3 and 4 and 5 standard deviation people who have focus and talent in quantities they do not even have maps of in washington....

"moving into a novel systems or spaces and becoming better at it than the people currently there is what these people do. it's ALL they do. it's who and what they are....

"DC was able to deal with people like this in the past because there were only a couple. you could isolate them and use the systems against them. this is a mob. and that's a very different thing."

U.S. Senate: About Executive Nominations | Historical Overview

A misleading quote from this article has been circulated to suggest that Senate confirmation of executive nominations is a new thing, but the article cites several examples going back to the earliest days of the republic where the Senate rebuffed the president's choice: "Nevertheless, political and partisan conflicts between the president and senators have at times produced dramatic fights over cabinet nominees and led to their ultimate withdrawal or rejection. For example, when opponents of President Andrew Jackson gained a Senate majority in 1833, the Senate rejected Jackson's choice for secretary of the treasury, Roger B. Taney. When Vice President John Tyler became president in 1841 upon the death of William Henry Harrison, he clashed with Senate Whigs, who rejected Tyler's nominees to head the Treasury, Navy, and War Departments."

Elsewhere on the Senate website is a timeline of notable confirmations and rejections, the first of which occurred in 1795, when George Washington nominated John Rutledge as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. "Rutledge thus became the first rejected Supreme Court nominee and the only one among the 15 who would gain their offices through recess appointments not to be subsequently confirmed. In turning down Rutledge, the Senate made it clear that an examination of a nominee's qualifications would include his political views."

Clinton Transition Left $15,000 Damage, GAO Says - Los Angeles Times

Remembering the petty vandalism of the 2001 "peaceful transition of power" from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. "The GAO concluded that 'damage, theft, vandalism, and pranks did occur in the White House during the 2001 presidential transition.' The report stated that some incidents, such as removing keyboard keys, placing glue on desk drawers and leaving obscene voicemail messages 'clearly were intentional,' and intentional damage would constitute a criminal act under federal law. No prosecutions are planned, though."

Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

A tremendous resources that has been around since the early days of the World Wide Web, and continually expanded and updated. Great for visualizing political shifts over time. Please be aware that Mr. Leip uses the traditional convention of coloring the more socialist/leftist party red and the conservative/right-wing party blue, as he explains in the FAQ.

Transcript: Lessons from the 1968 Democratic Convention: Under the Shadow of Protests - Retro Report

Sen. Fred Harris (D-Oklahoma) remembers the conflict between old-guard Rust Belt and Yellow Dog Democrats and the New Left in the Vietnam War Era:

"I came out of that convention terribly depressed about the failure to adopt an anti-war plank, about what had happened in the streets. And I was very bothered by the fact that the Democrat Party was undemocratic. People felt the anti-war movement represented the majority of Democrats in the country, but that was not reflected in the selection of the delegates to that convention. They were establishment people, a big part of whom, what we now call 'super delegates.'"

Harris, as DNC chairman, reformed the nominating process, but it led to George McGovern and the biggest loss in the party's history in 1972:

"I was elected the Chair of the Party in 1969. I appointed a reform commission to be sure that there'd be democracy in the selection of delegates. The main thing we wanted was that they'd be elected, but then in 1984, another commission decided to go back to some super delegates."

Except for Jimmy Carter's surprise "win" in the 1976 Iowa caucuses (he finished second to Uncommitted), the Democrats under Harris's reform kept losing with northern progressives. The introduction of super-delegates in 1984 helped more conventional left-of-center politicians (Mondale, Dukakis) to the nomination, but they still got beaten badly. The Democratic Leadership Council pushed for a regional Southern primary (Super Tuesday, starting in 1988) to give a boost to more moderate Democrats to counterbalance the momentum of candidates backed by left-leaning Iowa activists and New Hampshire voters. That paid off with Bill Clinton's surprise 1992 victory.

Church leaders: If you think you're neutral, you're drifting left | Clear Truth Media

Joel Berry writes: "The particulars of the political parties aren't just a set of neutral tools, they are a series of conclusions that follow logically from very different starting points. The politics of the right grow from the worldview of the Right. The politics of the Left grow from the worldview of the Left. There are sinners on both sides, there are imperfect solutions on both sides. But they are far from neutral.

"And right now, the culture, all our institutions, our politics, and our pop-culture, are all moving Left. Christians aren't leading the way in this drift. At this point, they're just along for the ride. At the highest levels of Leftism both culturally and politically, you see people who are unapologetic about their hostility towards God and everything good, true, and beautiful. The Leftist movement starts with the assumption of a godless universe populated by an animal species that through evolution can build heaven here on earth. All their politics follow from that beginning. Every power center on earth, almost without exception, is following their lead."

U.S. Congressional District Shapefiles

Shapefiles of historical congressional district boundaries for the 1st through the 114th Congresses (1789-2015)

Kate Forbes has still won a significant victory - for religion in public life -- Daily Telegraph

Fraser Nelson on the deputy leader of the Scottish National Party:

"It's not just that she was born into the Free Church of Scotland: she converted into it, leaving the more liberal Presbyterian church. She disagrees with gay marriage, sex outside of marriage and even women ministers. She'd uphold everyone's rights, she says - but her faith is real. And far more important to her than politics....

"A Cambridge graduate, appointed Nicola Sturgeon's finance minister at the age of 29, Forbes has long stood out. Brought up in India to missionary parents, she first followed the normal pattern of dodging questions about her faith.

"Three years ago, she changed tack. 'To be straight, I believe in the person of Jesus Christ,' she told an astonished Nick Robinson. 'I believe that he died for me, he saved me. And that my calling is to serve and to love him and to serve and love my neighbours with all my heart and soul and mind and strength.'"

The Sociopaths Among Us--And How to Avoid Them - The Atlantic

Arthur Brooks writes: "You may be allowed a measure of schadenfreude--without being accused of sadism--to learn that Dark Triads are usually not particularly successful in life. They are not, in general, capable leaders; they don't have close friends; they report lower-than-average life satisfaction. If you are worrying about whether you qualify, then, for your own happiness's sake, seek help. Well-designed Dark Triad tests can guide that decision.

"More useful for the other 93 percent of us is advice on how to identify and avoid Dark Triads. The traits to look for are self-importance, a sense of entitlement, vanity, a victim mentality, a tendency to bend the truth or even openly lie, manipulativeness, grandiosity, a lack of remorse, and an absence of empathy. Probe for these characteristics particularly when on first dates and in job interviews. You might even want to take that test imaginatively on behalf of someone you suspect may have Triad traits and see what result you get."

MORE: Jordan Peterson interview with Del Paulhus about the Dark Tetrad (the Triad of narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy, plus sadism).