Political Randomness

[Isgrimnur]

Let's hear it for market freedom in MN!

The Silver Bay City Council voted 3-2 this week to remove Bent Paddle beer from the municipal liquor store in response to the brewery's stance on proposed copper mining in the region.

The vote went against a city Liquor Commission recommendation to allow customers to make a choice about whether to purchase the products, and allow the market to determine if there is a reason to remove Bent Paddle from shelves.

The City Council vote was spurred by a strongly worded email from a Silver Bay resident who objected to products made by Duluth-based Bent Paddle Brewing Co. being sold in the city's municipal liquor store because of the brewery's membership in the Downstream Business Coalition. The coalition is a group of 68 businesses who oppose proposed copper mining projects in Northeastern Minnesota — such as the PolyMet project near Hoyt Lakes. They say the potential environmental damage from mine waste could do greater harm to the region's economy than added mining jobs will help.
..
The issue was brought up at February's meeting of the Liquor Commission, but the commission recommended against removing Bent Paddle products after consulting with both the city attorney and a League of Minnesota Cities attorney. Among other issues, it was noted that a government can't treat similar businesses differently because of political stances those businesses may take.

The commission recommended the city leave it up to consumers to make a decision whether to purchase Bent Paddle products, saying that the liquor store manager makes decisions on what products are stocked based on sales; if a drop in sales warranted removal of Bent Paddle products, it would be done for economic, not political, reasons. The commission also noted that even though Bent Paddle has been removed from a number of liquor stores on the Iron Range, those are privately owned and not run by a local government.

After the Liquor Commission's recommendation, Berglund requested the issue be brought before the entire City Council, saying that because Silver Bay is a mining town, city officials should "stand up for steel."

I'm sure the ensuing lawsuit will help the city out dramatically.

[Zarathud]

But local government is always better than Washington, right?!?!

Sigh.

[El Guapo]

Among other issues, it was noted that a government can't treat similar businesses differently because of political stances those businesses may take.

If only there was some kind of constitutional amendment that addressed this kind of thing.

[Zarathud]

But...activist judges!! Evil plaintiffs who bring frivolous lawsuits!! More sigh.

I think my tank of sarcasm is overflowing today.

[Defiant]

H. RES. 642 Recognizing magic as a rare and valuable art form and national treasure.

[Holman]

H. RES. 642 Recognizing magic as a rare and valuable art form and national treasure.

Aren't they sort of conflating Gandalf and Gob Bluth here?

[hepcat]

This should make the front page of Poof.

[Defiant]

Great, anti-Semitic AI...

Microsoft AI chatbot designed to learn from Twitter ends up endorsing Trump and praising Hitler

[Isgrimnur]

Argentina

BUENOS AIRES — President Obama Thursday visited a memorial in Argentina to the thousands of people killed and disappeared during that country’s “dirty war,” on the 40th anniversary of the coup that started it.

Obama used his visit to announce his plan to declassify new military and intelligence records that document the human rights violations from 1976 to 1983.

“There’s been controversy about the policies of the United States early in those dark days,” Obama said, standing beside the Argentinian President Mauricio Macri. “The United States when it reflects on what happened here has to reflect on its own past…. When we’re slow to speak out on human rights, which was the case here.”

Despite early U.S. support for the coup, Obama said U.S. diplomats, human rights workers and reporters played an important role in documenting the abuses that took place in the aftermath. He extolled the likes of diplomat Tex Harris, who worked at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires during the administration of then-President Jimmy Carter to document human rights abuses and identify the disappeared. Such men did so despite threats to themselves and their families, Obama said.

[Isgrimnur]

WaPo

Students woke up Monday morning to find messages written in chalk all over campus, in support of Donald Trump. That afternoon, a group of 40 to 50 students protested. According to the student newspaper, the Emory Wheel, they shouted in the quad, “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!” and then students moved into the administration building calling out, “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Jim Wagner, the president of the university in Atlanta, met with the protesters and later sent an email to the campus community, saying, in part, “During our conversation, they voiced their genuine concern and pain in the face of this perceived intimidation.

“After meeting with our students, I cannot dismiss their expression of feelings and concern as motivated only by political preference or over-sensitivity. Instead, the students with whom I spoke heard a message, not about political process or candidate choice, but instead about values regarding diversity and respect that clash with Emory’s own.”

[Grifman]

WaPo

Students woke up Monday morning to find messages written in chalk all over campus, in support of Donald Trump. That afternoon, a group of 40 to 50 students protested. According to the student newspaper, the Emory Wheel, they shouted in the quad, “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!” and then students moved into the administration building calling out, “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Jim Wagner, the president of the university in Atlanta, met with the protesters and later sent an email to the campus community, saying, in part, “During our conversation, they voiced their genuine concern and pain in the face of this perceived intimidation.

“After meeting with our students, I cannot dismiss their expression of feelings and concern as motivated only by political preference or over-sensitivity. Instead, the students with whom I spoke heard a message, not about political process or candidate choice, but instead about values regarding diversity and respect that clash with Emory’s own.”

Geez, I think Trump is an idiot but this is just as idiotic. Their feelings are hurt because of pro-Trump messages? If I were the president I would have told them to grow up because the real world isn't going to coddle you. I really can't believe some of the stuff I read about what is happening on many college campuses today.

[Isgrimnur]

[ImLawBoy]

WaPo

Students woke up Monday morning to find messages written in chalk all over campus, in support of Donald Trump. That afternoon, a group of 40 to 50 students protested. According to the student newspaper, the Emory Wheel, they shouted in the quad, “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!” and then students moved into the administration building calling out, “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Jim Wagner, the president of the university in Atlanta, met with the protesters and later sent an email to the campus community, saying, in part, “During our conversation, they voiced their genuine concern and pain in the face of this perceived intimidation.

“After meeting with our students, I cannot dismiss their expression of feelings and concern as motivated only by political preference or over-sensitivity. Instead, the students with whom I spoke heard a message, not about political process or candidate choice, but instead about values regarding diversity and respect that clash with Emory’s own.”

Geez, I think Trump is an idiot but this is just as idiotic. Their feelings are hurt because of pro-Trump messages? If I were the president I would have told them to grow up because the real world isn't going to coddle you. I really can't believe some of the stuff I read about what is happening on many college campuses today.

I keep hearing about things along these lines on college campuses, and I wonder what's going to happen to these precious snowflakes once they hit the real (i.e., post academic) world. Some folks at my school used to seem to protest at the drop of a hat (that's violence towards hats, you know), but I can't imagine something like this.

To sum up, kids today.

P.S. Get off my lawn.

[Holman]

As an Emory alum, I'm pretty damn embarrassed.

[ImLawBoy]

Also, their chants suck.

[Jaymann]

Just chalk it up to too much emo.

[Holman]

Also, their chants suck.

The fault of not having a football team.

[Isgrimnur]

AZ Voter suppression:

Once again, an American election was unnecessarily thwarted by long lines and not enough ballots. To say there’s no excuse for such nonsense, especially in a nation that prides itself on its representative democracy and, yes, its exceptionalism, is understating the problem. This time around, it happened during the Arizona primary where countless voters were forced to stand in lines for hours, while others were told they weren’t registered in the first place.

In Maricopa County alone, election officials infuriatingly reduced the number of polling places by 70 percent. Such a drastic reduction meant there was only one polling place per 21,000 residents of the highly populated Phoenix metroplex. Officials including County Recorder Helen Purcell (a Republican) said the cutbacks were due to budgetary concerns. Uh-huh. Of course, I doubt members of either party who were forced to wait in five-hour lines would’ve minded the additional expense to facilitate our most basic right as Americans. Elsewhere, independent voters who switched their registration to the Democratic Party were allegedly told they hadn’t registered at all, forcing them to sit out the closed primary.
...
Voter ID laws and punitive voter purges have been the centerpieces of a Republican strategy to rig modern elections. Republicans in nearly half of all states have managed to pass laws that make it more difficult for lower-income Democratic voters to cast ballots, forcing former Attorney General Eric Holder to compare such measures to the poll taxes used in the Jim Crow-era South in order to suppress the Black vote.. This is absolutely by design, even if some Republicans are caught in the meat grinder, too. The lower the turnout, the better Republicans fare in elections, so while voter ID laws tend to disenfranchise Democrats, the intention is more specifically to elect Republicans.

[Defiant]

Great, anti-Semitic AI...

Microsoft AI chatbot designed to learn from Twitter ends up endorsing Trump and praising Hitler

Wow, AI can do snarky.

[hitbyambulance]

I am currently in a caucus line for a Seattle voting district. When I got here the line was already three or four blocks long. It has now grown to TEN CITY BLOCKS and I'm still not in the building (and it was supposed to start seven minutes ago.)

[Moliere]

ESPN Tried to Shame Cuba on Poverty and It Backfired Spectacularly

Response:

[hitbyambulance]

Half an hour later, still in line.

[Defiant]

LGBT Student Activist Group Says Gay Men Not Oppressed Enough to Deserve Representation

[Isgrimnur]

NY

Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was found guilty on all counts Monday afternoon in his federal trial on charges of bribery, extortion and money laundering.

Disbarred

A state appeals court on Tuesday ruled the 72-year-old disgraced Democrat effectively lost his license in November when he was convicted in federal court of violating federal honest services laws. A jury found that he took $3.5 million in legal fees from clients and then did favors for them that involved his elected office.

The panel of judges in the Manhattan Appellate Division said that by state law, a felony conviction means an automatic disbarment at the time of the conviction.

"A conviction on a federal felony does not trigger automatic disbarment unless the office would constitute a felony under the New York Penal Law," the judges wrote. "While the federal felony need not be a mirror image of the New York felony, the two crimes must be essentially similar."

The judges equated Silver's federal conviction to a conviction on extortion charges under New York State law.

[Defiant]

The integration of production across countries with complementary labor forces — cheaper workers in Mexico to perform many basic tasks, with more highly paid and productive engineers and workers in the United States — turned out to play a central role in reviving the auto industry in North America.

In the final analysis, Nafta might have saved hundreds of thousands of jobs. By offering a low-wage platform, Mexican plants increased the scale of production in North America, allowing domestic and foreign automakers to amortize their large fixed costs. Carmakers and parts suppliers tend to cluster relatively close together. So assembly plants in Mexico help sustain a robust auto-parts industry across North America.

This regional integration gave the United States-based auto industry a competitive edge that was critical to its survival. “There was a concern 20 years ago that an auto industry production chain would develop across Asia, including China and Taiwan and Southeast Asia,” Professor Hanson said. “Maybe Nafta saved us from that.”

And it’s no longer just about cars. Mexico is trying to get into the aerospace production chain, too. Over the past few years, Bombardier, Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft have set up shop there, among others. Just as Michigan’s autoworkers might thank Nafta for keeping China from taking over the global auto industry, aerospace workers might one day have Nafta to thank for keeping the Chinese out, too.

“It’s exactly the wrong time to blow up Nafta,” Professor Hanson argued. “We would be doing China an enormous favor.”

Nafta May Have Saved Many Autoworkers’ Jobs

[Max Peck]

Most Americans support torture against terror suspects - poll

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe torture can be justified to extract information from suspected terrorists, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, a level of support similar to that seen in countries like Nigeria where militant attacks are common. The poll reflects a U.S. public on edge after the massacre of 14 people in San Bernardino in December and large-scale attacks in Europe in recent months, including a bombing claimed by the militant group Islamic State last week that killed at least 32 people in Belgium.

Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has forcefully injected the issue of whether terrorism suspects should be tortured into the election campaign. Trump has said he would seek to roll back President Barack Obama's ban on waterboarding - an interrogation technique that simulates drowning that human rights groups contend is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. Trump has also vowed to "bring back a hell of a lot worse" if elected. Trump's stance has drawn broad criticism from human rights organizations, world bodies, and political rivals. But the poll findings suggest that many Americans are aligned with Trump on the issue, although the survey did not ask respondents to define what they consider torture.

"The public right now is coping with a host of negative emotions," said Elizabeth Zechmeister, a Vanderbilt University professor who has studied the link between terrorist threats and public opinion. "Fear, anger, general anxiety: (Trump) gives a certain credibility to these feelings," she said. The March 22-28 online poll asked respondents if torture can be justified "against suspected terrorists to obtain information about terrorism." About 25 percent said it is "often" justified while another 38 percent it is "sometimes" justified. Only 15 percent said torture should never be used. Republicans were more accepting of torture to elicit information than Democrats: 82 percent of Republicans said torture is "often" or "sometimes" justified, compared with 53 percent of Democrats.

[GreenGoo]

I'm not surprised and I even understand it. These people (ISIS terrorists) are barbarians of a sort that we aren't often exposed to in the West.

That said, we can't go down this path just because others are barbaric. We're better than that, it's not effective, and we need to strive to be better people than our own baser instincts want us to be.

Whenever we lower ourselves in response to terrorism, whether it's moving closer to a police state or rationalizing our own unethical behaviour, the terrorists win. Literally. That's their goal. And fuck that.

[Defiant]

Whenever we lower ourselves in response to terrorism, whether it's moving closer to a police state or rationalizing our own unethical behaviour, the terrorists win. Literally. That's their goal.

No, it really isn't.

[El Guapo]

I suspect that the polling support would vary widely based upon how you phrase the question. If you ask about torturing "terror suspects" you're going to get a high level of support in part because I think people assume that "terror suspects" are a more limited and defined group of people than is the case.

I'm curious about the results of a poll that asks more like "Should the government be able to torture suspects in some circumstances?"

[GreenGoo]

Whenever we lower ourselves in response to terrorism, whether it's moving closer to a police state or rationalizing our own unethical behaviour, the terrorists win. Literally. That's their goal.

No, it really isn't.

Clearly, I disagree.

[El Guapo]

Whenever we lower ourselves in response to terrorism, whether it's moving closer to a police state or rationalizing our own unethical behaviour, the terrorists win. Literally. That's their goal.

No, it really isn't.

Clearly, I disagree.

FWIW I agree with Defiant that it's possible to argue that getting us to "rationalize our own unethical behavior" is a means to a end for terrorists, but that's obviously not their actual end goals. Which of course depend on which terrorist(s) you are talking about, but tend to (for islamist terrorists) center around spreading fundamentalist Islamic governments around the Middle East (and presumably eventually worldwide).

[Jeff V]

I suspect that the polling support would vary widely based upon how you phrase the question. If you ask about torturing "terror suspects" you're going to get a high level of support in part because I think people assume that "terror suspects" are a more limited and defined group of people than is the case.

I'm curious about the results of a poll that asks more like "Should the government be able to torture suspects in some circumstances?"

Or how about, "Torture has been discredited as a means to obtain information for many centuries now. Do you think our government should continue to do it though for shits and giggles?"

[Defiant]

Whether it's to establish an Islamic caliphate, drive out foreigners from Muslim lands, frighten governments to change their policies, or kill people who disagree with them, they aren't like Satan or something - they're not trying to tempt or trick you into doing something evil in retaliation.

[El Guapo]

Whether it's to establish an Islamic caliphate, drive out foreigners from Muslim lands, frighten governments to change their policies, or kill people who disagree with them, they aren't like Satan or something - they're not trying to tempt or trick you into doing something evil in retaliation.

The one caveat on this is that to the extent that they can get the United States (and other western powers) to adopt a more explicit "U.S. vs. Islam"-esque framework as part of the war on terror, that's helpful to the ISIS narrative (and recruiting) in the Middle East.

[ImLawBoy]

I suspect that the polling support would vary widely based upon how you phrase the question. If you ask about torturing "terror suspects" you're going to get a high level of support in part because I think people assume that "terror suspects" are a more limited and defined group of people than is the case.

I'm curious about the results of a poll that asks more like "Should the government be able to torture suspects in some circumstances?"

Or how about, "Torture has been discredited as a means to obtain information for many centuries now. Do you think our government should continue to do it though for shits and giggles?"

Jack Bauer would bite your fucking ear off for saying that, and then you'd agree with him.

[hepcat]

The margins aren't that extreme in comparison to the rest of the world's opinion on torture in this context.

The U.S. public is among the most likely to consider torture justifiable: 58% say this, while only 37% disagree. There are only five nations in the survey where larger shares of the public believe torture against suspected terrorists can be justified: Uganda (78%), Lebanon (72%), Israel (62%), Kenya (62%) and Nigeria (61%).

I'm not justifying it as I'm certainly against it. But I can understand it. ISIS is displaying incredible cruelty and savagery. That will usually be met with a response similar in nature from its victims. I would say that any poll taken today in light of recent attacks would probably show even sharper support outside the U.S..

[Defiant]

Whether it's to establish an Islamic caliphate, drive out foreigners from Muslim lands, frighten governments to change their policies, or kill people who disagree with them, they aren't like Satan or something - they're not trying to tempt or trick you into doing something evil in retaliation.

The one caveat on this is that to the extent that they can get the United States (and other western powers) to adopt a more explicit "U.S. vs. Islam"-esque framework as part of the war on terror, that's helpful to the ISIS narrative (and recruiting) in the Middle East.

That's fair enough (at least, for ISIS or Al Qaeda). But even then, I suspect that most of them weren't done intending for that, rather, they were pleased when the opportunity to use it as PR when it presented itself.

[Jeff V]

I'm not justifying it as I'm certainly against it. But I can understand it. ISIS is displaying incredible cruelty and savagery. That will usually be met with a response similar in nature from its victims. I would say that any poll taken today in light of recent attacks would probably show even sharper support outside the U.S..

But you are talking about revenge torture. Torture is not a credible way to gain information since the tortured will say anything to make it stop. How do you know the difference between useful information from someone who knows something and rubbish from someone who truly knows nothing but acts like they do to make it stop?

[El Guapo]

Whether it's to establish an Islamic caliphate, drive out foreigners from Muslim lands, frighten governments to change their policies, or kill people who disagree with them, they aren't like Satan or something - they're not trying to tempt or trick you into doing something evil in retaliation.

The one caveat on this is that to the extent that they can get the United States (and other western powers) to adopt a more explicit "U.S. vs. Islam"-esque framework as part of the war on terror, that's helpful to the ISIS narrative (and recruiting) in the Middle East.

That's fair enough (at least, for ISIS or Al Qaeda). But even then, I suspect that most of them weren't done intending for that, rather, they were pleased when the opportunity to use it as PR when it presented itself.

Yeah one can go a little crazy inferring intent and goals when most people (terrorist or otherwise) often aren't thinking things through beyond more than one or two steps ahead. And ultimately it's not really a very useful lens for policymaking (though it's a great one for political rhetoric).

To conclude, if the federal income tax is not abolished as to the El Guapo family, then the terrorists will have won.

[Defiant]

Setting aside the moral/ethical implications:

Torture is not a credible way to gain information since the tortured will say anything to make it stop.

Sounds like it's a credible way to gain information, but the information may have a greater chance for inaccuracy (if, say, the suspect doesn't have the relevant information)

How do you know the difference between useful information from someone who knows something and rubbish from someone who truly knows nothing but acts like they do to make it stop?

The same way you check other pieces of intelligence for accuracy? (Present it to the UN and then find out years later it was wrong... I mean, verify it with other independent sources of information)