Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Ah, the snapshot approach to life. It's so convenient when you wish to couch your argument in terms most favorable to your outlook on life. It must be nice to so easily be able to throw away the reasons why blacks are disproportionately targeted when it comes to incarceration. It must also be nice to ignore which states have the harshest restrictions (well, hello, South) and which have no restrictions on felons' (or inmates') voting rights (hello, overwhelmingly white ones).

http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2014/02/26/felon-voting/

TM

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

yes, Robert Byrd is indeed a great rebuttal to how the Dems have moved away from racism in the last two decades. I mean, he was even alive for part of that time.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

So perhaps Jeff Sessions is not as bad as I feared. I had forgotten his involvement in reforming drug crime sentencing:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-raci...ons-1480465010

And from the files of Hey, GWB wasn't all bad! (and thank goodness we didn't have President Gore) Khalid Sheik Mohammed, in his own words:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.ac15e58edbd7

“Then he looked at me and said, ‘How was I supposed to know that cowboy George Bush would announce he wanted us ‘dead or alive’ and then invade Afghanistan to hunt us down?’” Mitchell writes. “KSM explained that if the United States had treated 9/11 like a law enforcement matter, he would have had time to launch a second wave of attacks.” He was not able to do so because al-Qaeda was stunned “by the ferocity and swiftness of George W. Bush’s response.”

But KSM said something else that was prophetic. In the end, he told Mitchell, “We will win because Americans don’t realize . . . we do not need to defeat you militarily; we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting.”

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Unfortunately, his involvement was to intervene to make sure that a disparity remained rather than eliminated entirely:

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

(1) I posted something about Medicare, not the ACA.

(2) Your second sentence is wrong.

(3) I agree that the Democrats fucked up the politics of healthcare. To put it simply, and this goes beyond healthcare, I think Obama stopped investing in the political struggle, focused on governing, and thought that good results would speak for themselves. Either they didn't, or they did (the Dems picked up House and Senate seats in the last election) but HRC was a bad candidate.

(4) With regard to the ACA, people don't distinguish very well between what is happening in the healthcare market generally and what the government is doing. So they hold things like price increases against the ACA, even though prices would have gone up anyway.

(5) Because of (4), once Trump and the GOP start messing with the ACA, the Pottery Barn rule will apply, and people will blame them for the mess that is our healthcare system.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

You keep telling me what people like and don't like, seemingly forgetting I was the one who predicted the election and the states that would flip.

I do agree that the fact the Cadillac tax will not kick in saved the Dems 50 house seats and 10 senate seats.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Your irony meter's off today. Slap yourself crisply on the forehead.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Sorry. Not everything I think is first considered through a prism of race.

I was talking about the issue of felons generally. Now that you've brought it to race and how restrictions keep down the black vote, yes, I agree - that's obviously true.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

"Yeah, we'll give 30 million people, many of whom don't have two nickles to rub together, HC coverage. Don't worry about the math. We've got that..."

It didn't work as expected? Do tell...

(Nevermind it was just a door opener for introduction of a single payer system, which was pie-in-the-sky thinking even if Hillary had won as anticipated.)

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Dude, this is just fucking pathetic. You might as well have said I played the race card. It's a lazy and stupid way to exit an argument.

If you want to talk about incarceration and the laws that restrict the voting of the current and formerly incarcerated, then you should know a little bit more about who is being incarcerated and why, and you should think about why there are laws restricting their ability to vote. Having that context leads you to the truth about the racial reasons behind that reality. You're implying that I look at everything to find racism first and then proceed from there. That's bullshit and it makes you look fucking petty.

I have not brought it to race. I have given you the numbers behind who is actually being incarcerated. And I have pointed out where the laws are the most restrictive, which has lead you to think about why.

Don't be a dick.

TM

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

How can a state law that limits the right to vote in a national election differ state to state? I took con law pass/fail but that just seems to violate something.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Why? California and NY are both quite restrictive, yet very liberal. Are the state houses not?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Did we not just agree on what people like and don't like?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

You would think. Obviously there are federal laws which set floors on voting requirements, but apparently Article I of the Constitution is determinative, and it is settled law that states oversee federal elections (unless the majority of the Supreme Court leans right and the election rides on the decision).

I'm not sure what your definition of "quite restrictive" is. In NY and CA, inmates and parolees cannot vote. Given the total population in each state, the number of disenfranchised (98,000 and 223,000, respectively) is low when compared to states in which inmates, parolees, probationers, and ex-felons cannot vote.

Florida: 1.69 million disenfranchised
Mississippi: 218,000 disenfranchised
Alabama: 286,000 disenfranchised
etc.

TM