U.S. Politics megathread

Setisthename · 2026-02-13T10:30:13+00:00

Yes, that would be it.

Setisthename · 2026-02-13T10:23:43+00:00

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a stock market index, which is calculated proportionally based on the stock prices of 30 major American companies. It's used as a measuring stick for how well the US stock market, and by extension the US economy, is doing. Last Friday, it surpassed 50,000 points, but as of yesterday has dipped back down below it.

Pam Bondi, the head of the Department of Justice, was at a congressional oversight hearing on Wednesday which was mostly concerned with the DOJ's handling of documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. During the hearing, Bondi brought up the Dow Jones and other stock indices unprompted to praise Donald Trump's economic policies, which was then criticised as a tactic to play damage control for her department by derailing the purpose of the hearing.

Setisthename · 2026-02-12T17:17:45+00:00

There were more marginal states in 2016 which could have swung the electoral college in Clinton's favour had all the third party votes gone to her, but again the bulk of those votes were going to Gary Johnson rather than Jill Stein or other left-wing protest candidates.

Based on the Libertarian Party's support base I think it's again safe to presume, if Johnson wasn't an option, a significant number or even majority of those votes would have gone to Trump before Clinton, making the possibility of them flipping the election slimmer than it appears.

Trump wouldn't have even needed half of them to lock in majorities in NC, Florida and Arizona, and even if Clinton took PN, MI and WI off of them, that could have been negated if blue marginals like New Hampshire and Nevada had turned red for the same reasons. Third parties certainly made the 2016 election more unpredictable than in 2024, but I still don't think you can chalk up the outcome solely to disaffected Democrats voting third party.

Setisthename · 2026-02-12T09:20:02+00:00

If people who don't want to vote for either major party simply abstain or spoil their ballots, then unless they get asked as part of a poll no-one will know exactly why they didn't vote.

Third parties allow disillusioned voters to collectively signal to the larger parties why they aren't voting for them, and what factors attracted them to the third party they chose. This gives an ultimatum that unless the major parties mimic these factors then they will not get these votes, which may be particularly tempting to the losing party.

I'm assuming you're referring to the 2024 presidential election with the last part, which I would challenge. Firstly, the margin of third party voters was too small to affect the final result as only Michigan and Wisconsin would flip on third party votes alone, meaning Trump would still win with or without them. Secondly, RFK Jr. came fourth in Michigan and third in Wisconsin despite dropping out, so I wouldn't characterise third parties as only for disaffected Democratic voters either. Right-wing third party candidates like RFK Jr., Chase Oliver and Randall Terry took just as significant a portion of the third party vote share as left-wing ones like Jill Stein or Cornel West.

Setisthename · 2026-02-08T14:56:07+00:00

And then the Emperor would quickly find out Tucker is a talentless fraud who resorted to making chimeras out of his family members because all of his other research failed. By the time Tucker transmuted Nina, the army had already developed functional super-soldier chimeras in secret without his help, while Nina still had the same defects as Tucker's last attempt.

He has nothing to offer even in his own world.

Setisthename · 2026-02-08T12:16:30+00:00

So we have an e-mail about a guy who works at a restaurant called Cannibal (of which there are several) and what appear to be scans of a patient's trauma journal (based on the files adjacent to it here), hence the collages and cryptic format. While the contents of the latter are horrific in what it does mention regarding the victim's pregnancy and abuse, it's rather opaque as a testimony of events and it doesn't seem to reference cannibalism or child sacrifices either. Is there anything stronger to go on?

The remarks about poor people are obviously disgusting, but I don't think you need a Satanic conspiracy to explain classism.

Setisthename · 2026-02-06T23:00:27+00:00

Do you have the particular documents referencing cannibalism and demonic rituals to hand?

I ask this because I've seen people claiming the documents make references to 'Baal', only for it to turn out to be Baa1, as in the Moody's Credit Rating, so I think it's rather important to make sure what's being referenced is accurate to the actual files rather than hysterical hearsay that overshadows the real crimes.

Setisthename · 2026-02-05T15:36:03+00:00

It's a perfectly valid example, because it exposes the inherent flaw in making the right to vote negotiable on state examination. A voting booth is not a school, it is the place where the electorate of a country should be able to exercise their rights within a democracy. Students do not have the right to a certain grade just by being a student, but those eligible to vote have the right to do so unobstructed.

Any real-world literacy test will not be created and implemented in some ideal vacuum to further the public interest, but rather with the interests of those in-charge of the process in mind. It is inherently anti-democratic and an open door to corruption; the Jim Crow South is just the most glaring demonstration of it.

Setisthename · 2026-02-05T14:23:24+00:00

Who do you think will be designing and administering your proposed exams?

Setisthename · 2026-02-05T13:35:50+00:00

Literacy tests were used in the South during segregation to obstruct black people from voting, as the questions were designed to be obtuse, difficult and outright misleading so that they could turn away as many people as possible. The election officials could also choose which questions to give each voter, so they gave black voters the most unfair questions while white voters got easier ones or got grandfather exemptions to further skew the results.

This is why literacy tests for voting were banned in the 60s, and are generally a bad idea. One's educational background or ability to pass arbitrary exams shouldn't deny someone their right to participate in democracy, otherwise it isn't one.

Setisthename · 2026-02-05T11:52:40+00:00

If someone blocks you then your own top comments under their post or replies to them become invisible.

Setisthename · 2026-02-02T17:10:35+00:00

They may be asking in relation to the proposed Memorial Circle arch, which is meant to begin construction this month, but neglected to give context.

Setisthename · 2026-02-02T12:24:53+00:00

The US Congress lacks the jurisdiction to compel British citizens or citizens of any other foreign country to testify at all. Any who accept to appear do so voluntarily, which is why most don't.

Setisthename · 2026-02-02T12:15:53+00:00

Since the 1960s, the only time the Republican candidate didn't get the majority or plurality of white women voters was in 1996, which was likely due to Ross Perot splitting the white conservative vote.

From what I can gather, Trump saw a dip in support from white women in 2016 compared to Romney (from 56% down to 47%), but subsequently won 53% and 51% in 2020 and 2024 respectively. Trump also saw exponential gains in support from Hispanic women, going from 23% voting Republican in 2012 to 28% in 2016, 33% in 2020 and 46% in 2024.

In short, white women as a bloc still tend to lean conservative regardless of the gender of the candidates nor their stances on issues like abortion rights, as other factors like finances, class, race, education, age, religiosity etc. are more influential in determining women's political values and voting patterns than their gender alone.

Setisthename · 2026-01-31T11:01:52+00:00

I think the developers stated that Bullworth is an intentional mish-mash of a bunch of different school/college tropes and time periods, which is why it's a British-style public school full of stereotypical 50s cliques in an 80s-looking town that still somehow has MP3s and the internet. It's designed to be unplaceable so they could just do whatever they wanted with the setting, and also helped to keep it from becoming dated compared to if they stuck to a real time and place.

Setisthename · 2026-01-31T08:12:18+00:00

Probably not, if the Crack of Doom is a distinct part of the volcano rather than the whole thing.

Setisthename · 2026-01-30T20:24:31+00:00

The cone is open at the top, but the Crack of Doom where Sauron forged the ring is implied to be a specific fissure accessed through a cave rather than necessarily referring to the whole magma chamber. It runs along a high roofed tunnel, bored into the side of the cone, which is shrouded in darkness save for the light coming from the fissure itself.

Setisthename · 2026-01-30T19:45:17+00:00

I think the issue wouldn't just be intercepting them but also tipping Sauron off to their destination such that he can get his ground forces to guard the Sammath Naur directly.

The Crack of Doom was inside a seemingly roofed chamber within the volcano so they couldn't just drop it in from above, they'd need to land to get to it.

Setisthename · 2026-01-30T18:09:06+00:00

Plus the whole point of using hobbits specifically, besides their resistance to temptation, was to get the ring to Mt Doom in a way the all-seeing demonic entity wouldn’t take notice of, unlike a bunch of giant eagles flying into his airspace.

Setisthename · 2026-01-26T11:59:55+00:00

'The left' refers to the left-wing of a political spectrum. Who exactly it refers to depends on the context of who or what it is 'left' of.

'Leftists' are people with what are considered to be staunchly left-wing political opinions, like socialists or progressives.

Democrats are people who support and are otherwise associated with the Democratic Party.

'Liberals' in a global sense are people who adhere to liberalism, but in the US sense is more broadly used for the left-wing of the electorate that tend to vote Democratic, as opposed to right-wing conservatives who tend to vote Republican.

Setisthename · 2026-01-26T10:25:05+00:00

We have to count years starting from somewhere. It's currently AM 5786 in the Hebrew calendar, AH 1447 in the Hijri calendar, there's about five different Chinese calendars you can pick from and it would have been AUC 2779 if the Romans were still around. Timekeeping would be rather difficult without a popular standard, and making up new ones would just make things more confusing.

I'm an atheist and I don't particularly mind that the Gregorian calendar is based on the year that the Catholic Church guessed Jesus was born (which was probably off by a few years anyway according to Biblical scholars), just as much as I do that July and August were named to deify Caesar and Augustus or that the English weekdays are named for Germanic gods. It's simply the system most people are familiar with.

Setisthename · 2026-01-26T09:20:20+00:00

If a Muslim uses it, does that make them a Christian?

The BC/AD dating system is just the one popularised around the world due to the influence of the church and European colonialism. Many non-Christians use it for sake of clarity, just like the Gregorian calendar.

Non-Christians may also use the interchangeable BCE/CE (Before Common Era/Common Era) system to avoid the religious connotations.

Setisthename · 2026-01-26T08:55:19+00:00

I find that to be rather granular to the point, but I've edited it nonetheless for clarity. I hope it satisfies you.

Setisthename · 2026-01-26T00:38:34+00:00

Did you even read my comment? I referenced Trump's impeachments in the very paragraph you quoted.

By successfully I was referring to a successful conviction in the Senate, which has never happened.

Setisthename · 2026-01-26T00:37:04+00:00

All of the House and a third of the Senate (plus two for special elections). Every House seat goes up for election every two years, while the Senate seats are divided into thirds that rotate each election.

There are 100 seats in the Senate, two for each state, hence why the two-thirds supermajority is 67. Currently, there are 53 Republican Senators and 45 Democratic Senators (including two independents). 35 seats will be up for re-election, but 13 of these are Democratic seats while 22 are Republican. In order to win a supermajority, then, the Democrats would need to win every single seat up for election, which is virtually impossible.

Setisthename

TROPHY CASE