The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

[Corbyn is (no longer) the leader of the Labour Party]

It’s also worth noting that thanks to Farage, Theresa May and the ludicrous promises of the Leave Campaign any Brexit deal will be seen as a betrayal and a failure; and I’m still convinced that Labours social liberalism, Corbyns history and the generic malaise is actually a lot more harmful than its lack of support for Brexit.

If you want Labour to become a lexit, socially conservative, small town based party then you’re going to need 230 new MPs, 200 new lords, 450,000 new members, 6 million+ new voters and the whitewashing of 50 years of history.

[Politician]

Demographic changes + Romney voters dying off en masse since 2012

Not sure if this is a joke based off my post, but my point is the vast majority of Romney voters in wealthy suburban counties across the country were Trump voters.  It only takes a relatively small chunk defecting or staying home plus continued demographic change to make a very big difference.

Well, that’s obviously true, but did anyone really deny this? Anyway, I wouldn’t say that only a small chunk defected in 2016 given the absurdly large D swing from 2012. The county also swung + trended R in 2012, so I’m not sure if continued demographic change was the most relevant reason here like you seem to suggest.

First of all, I was not simply talking about Orange County.  As someone pointed out above, a huge part of OC was also Vietnamese voters abandoning Trump like no Republican before him.  Obviously, there were enough Romney-Clinton voters in OC to make for a big swing, but I think I did a pretty good job showing how even the tiniest siphoning off of Romney voters to Clinton's side makes for a giant swing (when coupled with demographic change and generational turnover).  I feel like you are insinuating that wealthy Whites in Orange County went from like 60/40 Trump to 60/40 Clinton, and if that were the case she would have won the county by a LOT more.  Period.  It is just a matter of statistics.  Trump still won White voters with a majority in Orange County, and he didn't do it simply by winning, like, 100% of *White Working Class* voters in the county.

You'll roll your eyes and deflect and throw out the line "it's not about what I WANT to happen" again, but I'm simply telling you that it comes across like you strongly prefer a nice, clean political alignment of working class, rural Republicans vs. cosmopolitan Democrats (and the minorities they graciously shepherd to enlightenment), and because of this you simply make jokes out of the legitimate underlying factors that help explain the story a lot more; isn't digging deeper than "D+7 state in Trump midterm!!!!" what this site is all about?  Isn't it here for people who want to look at things a bit more analytically?  To see the amount of effort you put into a post about New Hampshire or Montana or something and then to simply drop into topics like these to make fun of those who challenge the Atlas status quo on everyone's favorite topic of 2016/2018 trends without giving them the legitimate, well-reasoned responses that they are throwing out there indicates you would rather leave it at the surface level.  "County voted for Romney and then for Clinton, so it is stock full of Romney-Clinton voters" is incredibly lazy analysis and a complete disregard of how statistics work.  Now, before you say anything, I did not say you said that; I am saying that when you leave your post at a one sentence jab, that is what you imply.

(Disclaimer: should be obvious, but this next section is not talking about Orange County specifically.)
 Since I missed your first question: no, no one explicitly, in black and white language, *denied* that a majority of wealthy, White Romney voters were Trump voters, too ... but by solely focusing on TRENDS and acting as if they will last forever, you are effectively treating deep red counties as Democratic turf simply because they're less Republican than they were and you predict them to continue to be that way.  This is why people get annoyed with all of the trends talk; it only matters so much that Hamilton County, IN voted by only 6% for Mike Braun compared to its landslide margins of the past ... it's still a Republican county, and it is not referred to that way.  Hamilton voted GOP while all of the "WWC" counties in NW Indiana voted Democratic and it voted as Republican or to the right of "WWC" areas like Evansville and Fort Wayne, yet I am guessing someone on this site would assume a White guy from Hamilton County is more likely to be a Democrat than someone from Porter County simply because of our stereotypes of Trump voters and obsession with Obama-Trump and Romney-Clinton defectors.

I am not denying the trends of 2016 and 2018 and their potential to continue; I AM denying that it can be explained solely with people changing their party preference, as it quite obviously cannot.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I think this overstates the boundaries of the word 'believe'. With such a complicated society, 95% or more of people are simply not qualified to come to a truly informed opinion on 95% or more of issues, and this is a conservative estimate. This is fundamental to a specialized world, and is not necessarily an existential threat to the concept of democracy. However, it does require that individuals be able to trust more knowledgeable surrogates, in the same way one trusts an electrician to know how to fix one's lights or a mechanic to know how to fix one's car. Everyone, even those who consider themselves independently-minded, all but the greatest, cutting edge leaders of particular fields, must necessarily depend on knowledgeable surrogates or accept ignorance, which few are brave enough to do.

This is true both on factual and philosophical issues, as although ethical and moral issues can be thought through more independently than things like climate change or economic trends, they still require more education, brainpower, and patience than most people are prepared to put into independent thinking. I don't mean this as a criticism - I unquestionably do the same for the vast, vast majority of issues. The result of this is we (rationally) trust the opinions of our chosen surrogates more than we do ourselves - multiple studies have shown people are much more likely to support a given policy or moral idea if told beforehand that a trusted institution or person had endorsed it. Again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing - there is no sense in unqualified individuals trying to independently come to conclusions on serious questions which nevertheless require democratic consensus.

The problem, naturally, comes with the choice of surrogate. One way to do so is to find people with independently verified qualifications, but in the cultural absence of trust for intellectual and academic institutions, another (reasonable and rational!) way is to find those who say what you already know (or think you know) to be true. This, I think, is what happened with Trump - he replaced the very concept of expertise in the mind of people who lack trust in other surrogates. What we have here is a classic cult of personality, in which individuals are placing all of their trust - moral, ethical, political, factual - in a single individual, such that his word instantly becomes expert consensus. Does anyone really think that all these people are even considering what comes out of Trump's mouth? There is no more thought going into whether to 'believe' him  than there is to understand the details of how circuits work so long as the light turns on, or of the engine so long as the car drives. If the electrician said so, it's probably true. The only irony is that Trump portrays his support as some sort of revolution against the elitism of trusting 'experts', when it is based on the same concept.

The only way to fix this is to restore trust in true expertise. I would argue this means professionals and academics need to be more active in asserting their qualifications and in communicating directly with the public, rather than letting themselves be filtered through the sensationalism of the popular media. More importantly, they need to retain their expertise and pragmatism in the public eye, and resist the temptation to let simplification blur into dumbing down or worse, pandering to the uninformed. This, I think, is the great missed opportunity with Elizabeth Warren, who should have stayed a technocrat rather than becoming a populist when she entered politics - though it is hard to blame her, since it may well make her President.

[YE]

Dear God, there's so much wrong with this post that I don't even know where to begin.

1. Greenhouse gas emissions and particle pollution are not the same thing. The Paris climate accord dealt with the former, this infographic deals with the latter. It's quite pathetic that you don't know the difference.

2. Madagascar most definitely doesn't contribute as much to environmental chaos as the US does. This may come as a shock to you, seeing as I'd be surprised if you had ever seen a globe, but the US is significantly larger, more industrialized, and more populous than Madagascar. While Madagascar's cities may be more polluted on average, the US contributes significantly more toward the total amount of pollution in the world. And, by the way, the US pumps out 17 times more greenhouse gases per capita than Madagascar. The US has among the highest rates of per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world. It's absurd to suggest that we're somehow not responsible for the ongoing climate crisis.

3. Other countries are held to the same standard. That's literally what the Paris agreement did before our dimwit in chief pulled out of it. You say we need to enforce climate regulations around the world, yet you disparage one of the only major, commendable steps we made in that fight.

In summation, my opinion of your contributions to this website has sunk even lower. I'm disappointed that I was forced to read this bucket of ignorant slop and I'm disappointed that I was forced to waste my time educating a grown man on basic vocabulary. Please try to do better.

[Badger]

Dear God, there's so much wrong with this post that I don't even know where to begin.

1. Greenhouse gas emissions and particle pollution are not the same thing. The Paris climate accord dealt with the former, this infographic deals with the latter. It's quite pathetic that you don't know the difference.

2. Madagascar most definitely doesn't contribute as much to environmental chaos as the US does. This may come as a shock to you, seeing as I'd be surprised if you had ever seen a globe, but the US is significantly larger, more industrialized, and more populous than Madagascar. While Madagascar's cities may be more polluted on average, the US contributes significantly more toward the total amount of pollution in the world. And, by the way, the US pumps out 17 times more greenhouse gases per capita than Madagascar. The US has among the highest rates of per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world. It's absurd to suggest that we're somehow not responsible for the ongoing climate crisis.

3. Other countries are held to the same standard. That's literally what the Paris agreement did before our dimwit in chief pulled out of it. You say we need to enforce climate regulations around the world, yet you disparage one of the only major, commendable steps we made in that fight.

In summation, my opinion of your contributions to this website has sunk even lower. I'm disappointed that I was forced to read this bucket of ignorant slop and I'm disappointed that I was forced to waste my time educating a grown man on basic vocabulary. Please try to do better.

CC The Burn Ward thread

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

How often has it occurred that a presidential candidate has won each of the four census regions or even every single division of the United States?

My dataset only goes as far back as 1868, but since then, this has happened 7 times:

1928: Hoover's worst was West South Central, which he won by 2.6%
1932: Roosevelt's worst was New England, which he won by 0.8%
1936: Roosevelt's worst was New England, which he won by 7.4%
1972: Nixon's worst was New England, which he won by 5.8%
1980: Reagan's worst was East South Central, which he won by 1.0%
1984: Reagan's worst was Midatlantic, which he won by 9.4%
1988: Bush's worst was New England, which he won by 0.2%

Near misses:

1872: Grant lost West South Central by 0.3%
1940: Roosevelt lost West North Central by 3.3%
1956: Eisenhower lost East South Central by 2.5%
1992: Clinton lost West South Central by 0.8%, East South Central by 1.0% and Mountain by 1.8%
1996: Clinton lost West South Central by 0.05%, East South Central by 1.6% and Mountain by 3.8%

I also manually checked 1852, because it was the only plausible candidate between 1868 and the consolidation of the lower 48: Pierce lost East South Central by 4.9%.

It is interesting to see which landslides managed this and which didn't - it shows how different regions have become more or less politically polarized over time (acknowledging that these regions are subpar for political analysis):

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

This is the most Mitch McConnell-esque exanmple of DARVO I've seen from a Democrat. It's pretty clear that Pelosi fired the first shot (after AOC helped secure the left's votes for her). The disgusting part of this is when Pelosi decided to march The Squad out for their Rolling Stone photoshoot, while dismissing them as "four people" on multiple occasions with the other. She doesn't see AOC or Omar or Pressley or Tlaib as useful members of the caucus, she sees them as props to virtue signal about how diverse her caucus is and how women of color are starting to take leadership roles. And now she wants to talk about "unity" after attacking them? Get that BS outta here.

Let's go down the list of the establishments' attempts at "unity" with the left:

* Tom Perez, 2017. After his fight with Ellison for DNC chair, he decided to purge Ellison's supporters (including my state party's chair - one of the most competent state parties in the nation) from leadership posts and replace them with his loyalists. These included lobbyists for Big Oil, long-time establishment members, and Fox News lobbyists.

* Hillary Clinton, 2017. Her supporters are still blaming Bernie in the Year of Our Lord, 2019 for daring to run against her, the most Experienced Nominee since Eisenhower, and have been a part of that vicious smear campaign for years. She could have ended it all and joined the call for unity in her book. She officially endorsed the smear campaign on multiple occasions, because how dare Bernie run against The Anointed One, a long-term politician who was destined by her experience to become the nominee.

* The Entire Damn DCCC, 2018. The Democrats' Anointed One in NE-2, Brad Ashford, lost the primary to Kara Eastman, noted Bernie candidate, liberal, and breath of fresh air. Never mind that Ashford had already lost to Bacon and was an ex-Republican. The Anointed One lost, so they cut their losses, moved it to triage, and moved on, abandoning a pickup opportunity. And we haven't gotten into my favorite "women's interest group" failing to endorse Eastman until the general, or the deafening silence from the same anti-Bernie crowd who crucified Heath Mello for having the same beliefs on abortion as Ashford did. I guarantee you that if Welder won the KS-3 primary, he'd be another example of this.

* Kim Jong Bustos, 2018. You're still seeing the DCCC play Politburo today, expelling all consultants from the party who defy their will in the name of protecting those poor conservative zealots in liberal districts.

If you look at the situation from an unbiased view, those who are calling the loudest for "party unity" are waging a war against people like AOC and Scott and me, and they expect us to be good little ducklings and follow along because their Enlightened Experience gives them the God-given right to rule.

The establishment doesn't give a flying f*** about unity. They don't care about resistance. Their first concern isn't even stopping Trump and the various abuses of power he's committed (and will continue to commit). The primary goal of the Democratic Party is making the left submit to their will. They know they're not serving the voters. They know we're the real threat to their power. And they'll do everything they can to cling to that power - even if it means extending our long national nightmare by four more years.

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

Wonderful to see the CBC has joined in on the gaslighting. Alongside a lot of the stuff we've discussed to death, we've seen William Lacy Clay literally compare the Justice Democrats to Russia (absolutely ridiculous!).

We've also seen Gregory Meeks claim that the CBC endorsed noted white men like Mike Capuano to "protect the majority". You know, because Ayanna Pressley had such a tough race to win the general against... literally nobody.

Also curious how there was no major push from certain CBC members to endorse Donna Edwards over the establishment's pick of Chris Van Hollen. Jesus tapdancing Christ, even EMILY's List gave their all for her and showed some damn backbone.

I can't speak to whether or not Pelosi's a racist, but we can certainly identify that "anonymous Democratic" staffer who compared AOC to a Goomba is a sexist.

Mostt damningly of all, Pelosi's "do not tweet" order apparently only applies to The Squad and their allies, and not... the official account of the caucus.

https://twitter.com/HouseDemocrats/status/1149856308801286148
Truly Orwellian stuff we have going on here, folks. Appeasement is strength. Submission is unity. Misogyny is civility. The right-winger who vowed to block Hillary Clinton's nominees into her presidency is a #Resistance hero, and so is the biggest attention whore in the history of the Senate (who backed up his talk with absolutely no action). Meanwhile, the left-winger who dared to give her a primary challenge contributed to the rise of Trump. They say Trump is the enemy, but if you look into their actions, you'll see who their real enemies are.

Let it be known that I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

If Sanchez actually deserves a permanent ban, what shall we say for any number of posters I can think of.  Yes, I am willing to do the research to prove that point. 

People have used the exact same language to address me, more than once, and nothing happens. That's fine, and I'm a big boy.  Atlas USGD is tackle football, and I'm prepare to take hits.  Just don't make it tackle for me and flag football for them.

I literally deleted a negative post aimed at you in this very thread yesterday.

I’m not criticizing you individually as a moderator at all (seriously I think you’re fantastic in the role), but while that may have happened here, I feel that doesn’t happen enough in other forums. Whatever you may think of the philosophy or debating style of Fuzzy, this man is given more sh!t than anyone else I’ve ever seen on this forum after nearly a decade. Some of the posts are outright viscous. I’m partially at fault for not reporting them, but in the future I’m going too.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Cuckgressive Democrats reject push to let 16-year-olds vote:

The Democratic-led House on Thursday turned down a proposal to let 16-year-olds vote in federal elections, which Republicans said is a plot to put more Democrats in office.

Almost every Republican and nearly half of the Democrats voted against the amendment from Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and it failed 126-305.

Cuckgressive Democrats help Republicans shut down AOC psychedelics research measure:

In a sweeping rejection of what advocates regarded as a commonsense drug reform measure, a large majority of Democratic House members joined all but seven Republicans on Thursday in a vote against an amendment that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) filed to expand research into the potential benefits of psychedelic substances.

The measure, which was cleared by the House Rules Committee and was initially approved in a voice vote earlier Thursday morning, was soundly defeated in a 91 to 331 afternoon roll call vote. Democrats accounted for 148 of those “nay” votes.

Cuckgressive Democrats reject two AOC amendments to limit Trump border crisis crackdown:

The Democratic-led House rejected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-led efforts Friday to curb President Trump’s border crackdown.

Two amendments Ocasio-Cortez authored to a defense authorization bill failed to get enough support from her colleagues on the House floor Friday.

The Bronx Democrat, who has called for defunding ICE and disbanding the Department of Homeland Security, pushed an amendment to prohibit Trump from deploying troops on the southern border for immigration enforcement.

The House rejected her measure 179-241.

Ocasio-Cortez also sought to bar Trump from using funds to detain undocumented immigrants in Department of Defense facilities.

It failed by a 173-245 vote.

Let's just drop the illusion that the Democratic Party is center-left.  At the very best, it's a centrist party.  I'd even go as far to say that it's a conservative party in the old Burkean sense.  But it's most definitely not a social democratic party or even a center-left party.  And they'll do anything to throw progressives under the bus while convincing us that Joe Biden is the best alternative to Trump.  They'll sure as hell take your votes, though!

But no, I'm the bad guy because I dared to say that I might vote third party next year.

What.  A.  Joke.

Or maybe, and here's just a mad idea I've come up with, having something pass the House doesn't automatically make it law? And putting something before a Republican Senate and President that can then tear it apart might hurt such a law if it came up under a Democratic trifecta in the future if the public reaction to it has already been defined. And maybe, and again, I'm just throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks, Pelosi is experienced enough to know that playing into Trump's hands is the last thing the Democrats need to do right now and that whatever proposals come along need to wait until they can be something other than posturing that would be at best a net neutral for the party? And maybe even, and stop me if I'm wrong, that this grand conspiracy to disenfranchise progressives is a load of bullsh*t that only came up because Pelosi won't cower to the demands of a couple of loudmouth freshmen who give Trump ammunition every time they open their mouths?

That's all some harmless theorising.

(fwiw I would identify more with the progressives than the establishment and I definitely think the Dems need to get rid of the stupid consensus centrist crap and start acting a lot more hardline. But there's a difference between that and stupid posturing that doesn't achieve anything apart from writing GOP attack ads. And also, crying foul every time something doesn't go your way is not a great strategy to get other Democrats (i.e the ones you need to vote for progressives to win primaries) onboard.)

[ON Progressive]

Haha, you picked the wrong state to talk about my dude. I don't like it when people post bullsh*t about AZ, and quite frankly, almost everything you wrote is utter trash. Let me break it down for you!

1. Sinema broke 14% with Republicans.  Hillary got half that.

Exit polls indicated that Sinema did, in fact, have significantly more Republican support than Hillary Clinton. Why might that be? Well, for starters, many of these Republicans from places like Scottsdale, Surprise, and Glendale were already skeptical of Donald Trump. Many of these voters even broke for Gary Johnson in 2016. There was a significant third party vote (>4%) in almost every suburban precinct in Maricopa county.

Does this mean these voters won't support Donald Trump in 2016? Not necessarily, but it's an uphill battle. Remember, the President of the United States has publicly and repeatedly insulted a dead Republican Senator from Arizona. McCain's base was firmly in the suburbs of Phoenix. Donald Trump received 742,000 votes in Maricopa County; John McCain received 842,000.

Sinema was a moderate who wanted to send troops to the border to stop the caravan.

Sinema is definitely a moderate, but she wasn't the only Democrat to win statewide in Arizona. Kathy Hoffman won the race for Superintendent of Public Schools by a greater margin than Sinema won the Senate race. Democrats also won the Secretary of State race with Katie Hobbs. It would be foolish to assume that Sinema's victory was a one off success.

It's like saying Ducey's performance means that Trump will improve his margin of victory in the state.

Ducey, an incumbent Governor, enjoyed increasing approval ratings after the end of the teacher's strike. David Garcia, by contrast, was left for dead by the national Party as the fall went on. Only progressive groups came to his aid.

Also, dems only won the generic ballot here bc one district did not run a republican.

A state's vote in the House of Representatives isn't indicative of how that state will vote for other races. President Obama won Florida while Democrats lost the House popular vote by six points.

2. Trump's approval there is above 50% (only 41% strongly disapprove) per the 2018 exit poll, 9% above his 2016 exit poll and 1% above the final result.  Trump has clearly improved his image in the Romney wing of the party since the election.

And what did it gain for local Republicans? They lost the Senate race, they lost a Congressional district, they lost two statewide races...Are you suggesting that these voters have an unfavorable view of the local Party, but not of President Trump?

3. Arizona's party registration has become more red since the midterms, despite dems making gains prior to that.

It's held stable. Republicans are maintaining their current edge in registration; however, I'd like to point out that independents have been growing as a percentage of the electorate. They now make up 33% of the electorate. If Trump's numbers with independents decline, this will have a major impact on Arizona in 2020.

4. Even if Maricopa does flip blue, which is not a sure thing by the way, it does not mean the state will flip as a whole.  Counties such as Yuma trended R in the midterms.

Haha, what?? Yuma county, which is 59.7% Latino as of 2010, only reached 82.5% of its 2016 turnout. Mojave, by comparison, reached 89.4% of its 2016 turnout and Maricopa achieved 90.56%. And yet, the county still swung towards Sinema!

5. The latino vote probably wont increase in sizable numbers since 2016.  Trump has deported less illegals than Obama and the polls show he has stagnant if not increased support since the election.  Turnout of AZ Latinos in 2020 may even be lower percentage wise as the factor of hysteria over how Trump may impact their lives has receded.  

What the f**k?! Okay, this is a pretty dumb take. Turnout is set to jump significantly in 2020. Even if Latinos don't get any worse for the President, turnout among this group will likely increase as well. Most data suggests that, as turnout increases in the Sun Belt, the electorate becomes more favorable to the Democratic Party. Do you think Latino voters choose to vote based on their fear of deportation??

6. Non educated white voters are Trumps base and saw a big turnout drop-off in 2018.  I assure you they will be back in 2020, and some voted blue in the midterms esp. in the rust belt.  DO NOT underestimate them or you will be stunned again.

This is true, but again, Arizona has less whites without a college education as a percentage of its population compared to states in the Rust Belt. As turnout increases in this state, more Latinos and more young people are the ones who will come to the polls. Arizona also has a very generous vote by mail law, which already increases turnout among whites without a college education.

If you were talking about Pennsylvania, you'd have a point. But Trump will not benefit from higher turnout in Arizona.

That being said, there's nothing that guarantees Arizona will vote for Democrats in 2020. I am not saying the state is safely Democratic or whatever. However, the data suggests that Trump is in deep trouble here and that he will have to work hard to win the state in 2020. People like me will hopefully prove you wrong next year!

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

this post was kinda off-topic in the thread it was in, but it's worth reading.

As an academic who holds an econ PhD, I'd like to chime in here on a few items:

1) First, regarding economics as a discipline, the field is indeed somewhat more conservative than most other social sciences (more than poli sci and sociology, for example), but not by that much, and this is rapidly changing. I've noticed a marked leftward shift in the types of journal articles which get published in economics just in the time since I started grad school.

This has come through a slightly complicated mechanism: the field of economics is extremely hierarchical by school, field, and journal to the point where only five journals really matter (AER, QJE, JPE, Econometrica, REStud) for tenure cases at noteworthy schools, and many tenure cases can be summed up by counting your publications in these journals. This movement has been caused by increasing ease of quantifying journal articles through Google Scholar and more robust impact factor measures. Your incentive as an econ professor is to pump out as many of these Top 5 articles as possible, and, as it turns out, the easiest route to doing so is publishing empirical papers over theoretical papers. Empirical papers follow where data, "relevance", and econometric "identification" are most available. This emphasis has meant that empirical econometric papers have become more and more trendy (e.g. income inequality, diversity, discrimination, etc.), latching on to flashy results with less and less anchoring in economic theory. As such, the type of professors who are being churned out by top PhD programs and hired by top schools tend to have good statistical skills, an eye for trendy topics, and diminishing skill in economic theory.

At the same time, econ has seen a number of #metoo scandals among the top schools (who have the worst gender norms) which has lurched sentiment toward increasing emphasis on diversity and representation (which ironically does not punish the top, but the lower schools who do not have as bad of gender norms). The end result is that the post-recession "baby Ph.D. boom" has seen a huge rise in the number of left-wing econ professors getting academic positions (especially women and minorities) while more traditionally conservative econ PhDs tend to get pushed into industry/consulting/think tanks. This has moved the point of emphasis in standard Econ 101 classes leftward as well: we're seeing textbooks with increased focus on trendy left-wing topics and emphasis on caveats to right-wing theories whereas caveats to left-wing theories are downplayed (all econ theory has a myriad of caveats, of course).

2) Regarding "liberal indoctrination" at colleges, I think it does exist to an extent, and professors do play a role, but it is an exaggerated one outside a couple fields. The primary cause of liberal lurches by college students are A) lack of rule enforcement away for parental supervision which allows for previously taboo behavior and B) a social environment where "involvement" and "difference-making" is incentivized-- campus activities tend to exhibit network externalities and increasing returns to scale as larger and louder groups see higher returns both during your time on campus and beyond through alumni networking. Thus, if you want to both belong and maximize your future gains, you are incentivized to join groups which reinforce the dominant campus mores and norms, including lax personal morality but a globalizing left-wing social morality through which your "impact on the world" can manifest. Because, after all, virtually all of the notable causes you'll encounter which are endorsed by the in-crowd are of a left-wing bent; while other worthy causes may occasionally find representation in on-campus groups, these groups often receive less funding, less administrative support, are less likely to find a faculty advisor (as most profs are left-leaning), and lower priority in event planning, etc.

And really, more so than faculty political views (which tend to manifest in subtle ways such as topic or example choice outside of the most politicized fields like sociology or gender studies), this feedback loop all goes back to administrator politics. Campus administration has ballooned since the recession, and its mainly ballooned thanks to Obama-era reforms such as expansive Title IX changes. This has meant a boatload of new left-wing administrators who literally have jobs to pander to every possible group except white men (who are ironically far more underrepresented in college student bodies than basically any other group) and Asians, plus loads of new financial resources for every "diverse" group under the sun. College presidents have heard this sea change and have caved to every demand of these new admins who now possess far more power than ever before in on-campus internal politics.

This massive influx of admins due to Obama-era governmental mandates and changing academic social norms has created a ton of new outlays for the college budget, necessitating large tuition hikes (which are inelastically absorbed thanks to student loans) and an ever-increasing focus on bringing in more and more international students who can be charged higher rates than domestic students. This has increased the on-campus advocacy of lax immigration and visa laws, both my administrative fiat and by a larger number of students to advocate for these causes. The timing of this with Trump's more strict immigration advocacy has sharpened the already anti-Republican attitudes nascent on college campuses across students, faculty, and admins.

At the end of the day, if you want to belong and succeed on campus, you follow the trends-- that rule applies to students, faculty, and administration alike-- which is ironic given that many idealize college as a time of free-thinking and self-discovery.

[Joe Republic]

Did anyone really compare the ICE camps to Nazi concentration camps though? I mean it was the Brits who originally invented concentration camps in South Africa and I always assumed that the contemporary comparisons with the Trump camps refered to those?

It I have made the comparison, as have many others. 

The technical point - which Republicans are desperate to the point of Lovecraftian madness to try and confuse - is that concentration camps and death camps are not the same thing.

A concentration camp is,

A camp where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners, prisoners of war, refugees etc., are detained for the purpose of confining them in one place, typically with inadequate or inhumane facilities.

A death camp is,

A prison camp in which a large number of prisoners die for various reasons, such as starvation, disease, brutality and neglect.

Sometimes it is used specifically to refer to extermination camps set up by the government of Nazi Germany.

All these camps are horrible, whatever their exact definition or classification. They're all, I think, crimes against humanity. I'm confident that most people would agree death camps are worse than concentration camps, but that's ultimately just arguing about how horribly evil something is - and all of them are so evil no decent human being wants anything to do with enabling any of them.

Which brings us right back around to the GOP's desperate attempts to twist semantics in order to avoid being judged for their own actions.

First, Republicans confuse 'concentration camps' with 'death camps'.

Second, Republicans get very indignant at supposedly being accused of mass murder and genocide, charges of which they are innocent so far. (If you don't count Yemen, started by Obama, continued by Trump and his Republicans.)

Third, Republicans claim that since they aren't running death camps (which, again, they are not) they can't be running concentration camps either (yes, Republicans are running concentration camps) because they're the same thing (which they are not) which must mean they're doing nothing wrong at all  on immigration (which wouldn't be true even if they weren't running concentration camps).

I know it gets confusing - modern Republicans  have weaponized stupidity. This is far from the only issue where Republicans lie about definitions in order to try and get away with abusive and criminal behavior. From Trump's many impeachable actions to stacking the deck for internet service providers, lying and spreading confusion are key Republican tactics.

I suppose it's possible that the errors are made in good faith and Republicans are reliably ignorant and stupid to the level of criminality. But if that's the case, they still shouldn't be running a burger joint, much less the United States of America.

In the end, I think Never Again has the best reaction to any Republican attempt obfuscate their atrocities:

“ the semantics. Children are dying. That should be enough,” she said. “My goal is not to convince you to use those semantics. It’s to get you to stop these atrocities.”

Sophie Ellman-Golan, Never Again Action spokesperson, said the group isn’t waiting for conditions to match those of the Holocaust to take action.

“We look at what is happening and what our government is doing immigrant communities,” Ellman-Golan told The Daily Beast. “We see nothing less than a mass atrocity. While conditions might not exactly mirror the Holocaust, we shouldn’t wait for them to mirror the Holocaust to take action. That’s why we say ‘never again’ means never again for everyone, and never again means now.”

[Skunk]

You know, it's funny. I used to think like you. I was a naive white suburban pre-teen who thought we had solved racism and that people discussing racism were just being oversensitive. After all, we had a black President! We did away with legal segregation and Jim Crow decades ago! I hadn't experienced the cruel lash of racism myself, so I assumed it wasn't an issue for anybody in this day and age.

Then I matured a little bit. I got into high school and started to develop more of an interest in politics and the world around me. I befriended more people with backgrounds, races, ethnicities, appearances, cultures, and stories different than my own. I started to read more and pay attention to the news. And I started to realize that my thoughts on racism were foolish and underdeveloped. I didn't think racism was still a problem in this country because I was fortunate enough not to have experienced it personally.

My ignorance was regrettable, but in my own defense, I had yet to be truly exposed to other perspectives. You, on the other hand, have almost certainly been confronted with piles of evidence in your time trolling political communities like this one. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt one more time. Let's review some of the most poignant realities. Let's review racism in this country today.

You talk about race being a distraction from bread and butter issues. People trying to put food on their table. So let's start there. Food insecurity disproportionately impacts racial minorities. While only 9% of white households in the US struggle with food insecurity, it’s a problem for 22% of black households and 18% of Hispanic households. In fact, according to Drexel’s Dr. Mariana Chilton, “you cannot take on poverty and hunger without taking on historical and contemporary discrimination.”

Let’s talk about poverty. According to the Census Bureau, for every $100 earned by white families in the US, black families earn an average of $57.30. That’s just income. In terms of actual wealth, for every $100 held by white families, black families hold $5.04. While only 10.1% of non-Hispanic whites live in poverty, 23.6% of Hispanic Americans do, alongside 26.2% of Black Americans and a shocking 28.3% of Native Americans.

How about jobs? According to Pew, for six or seven straight decades, the black unemployment rate has consistently been twice as high as the white unemployment rate. This affects black college graduates as well. Back in 2014, the unemployment rate for black college graduates was 12.4%. Overall, the unemployment rate for college graduates was 5.6%. Even higher education can’t outpace the scourge of racism. That’s not even getting into the well-attributed phenomenon of people with white sounding names receiving as high as 50% more callbacks for employment than those with stereotypically black names.

Let’s get back to education for a second. Black children are put to a disadvantage as early as preschool, where they make up half of all suspensions per the Department of Education. Across the nation, minority children make up disproportionate percentages of schools that underachieve, largely due to poor funding. According to a paper from the Civil Rights Project, schools with high proportions of minority enrollment are often characterized by "less experienced and less qualified teachers, high levels of teacher turnover, less successful peer groups and inadequate facilities and learning materials." And their problems don’t end in high school. According to the Hechinger Report, 42% of college age white Americans are actually enrolled in college, while only 34% of black and Hispanic Americans the same age are. These students are less likely to go to selective institutions and are less likely to graduate.

Black people make up around 40% of the prison population despite making up 13% of the total population of the country. This is due entirely to institutional racism, sentencing disparities, and racial profiling. Black drivers are 30% more likely to be pulled over by the police and black convicts are 20% more likely to be sentenced to jail time for the same crime (oh, and by the way, their sentences are 20% longer as well.)

Only 42% of black Americans own homes, as compared to 72% of white Americans.

When an implicit bias survey was conducted in 2012, 56% of Americans expressed anti-black attitudes. 57% of Americans expressed anti-Hispanic attitudes.

76% of black and Asian Americans, alongside 58% of Hispanics, said that they had experienced discrimination or unfair treatment at some point in their lives, something that can affect one’s psyche for years.

Let’s not forget about the President of the United States denigrating members of Congress, telling them to go back to their countries and implying their citizenship wasn’t equal to a native-born white American’s. Do you think that promotes a good image of American values in the mind’s eye of children of color?

I could go on for pages and pages, but since I assume you gave up reading a while back, I’ll wrap up with an anecdote. The other day, I attended a roundtable talk put on by some friends of mine. It was intended to discuss race, culture, and disparities here in my home county. Not that someone like you would see the value in this, but I found the perspectives of those who had differences than my own illuminating. Racial disparities exist everywhere, and if you’re not aware of that, you need to look harder. A Latino guy made the salient point that something as simple as trash collection was done with much more care in the whiter portion of my county where he used to live than the less white portion of the county where he lives now. Several Muslim students brought up the difficulties they had experienced attempting to practice their faith in school.

I find it quite telling that you don’t find racism to be a big problem in the US, Grasr00ts. It goes to show that you’re lucky. You’re living in a fantasy land where you haven’t been the victim of these vicious behaviors and, since you’re the kind of person who’s seemingly incapable of understanding other people’s perspectives, you assume that all of this bigotry has vanished. It hasn’t and it’s stunningly naive for you to assume that is has. I encourage you to try and learn from people who don’t think like you and don’t have the same background as you in the future. Like I said, I was once like you. I hadn’t experienced all of this crap so I assumed there was no way it could exist. I was wrong then, and you’re wrong now. Grow up, open your eyes, and listen to others. It might just serve you well.

[America Needs R'hllor]

Oman is probably the best. Though they are an absolute monarchy, they've managed to stay neutral in the destructive conflicts plaguing the Middle East, most notably the Saudi-Iranian rivalry. That in itself is a great achievement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Oman

Easy to say when you're comfortably sitting with all your free speech and liberty. I'd also add that it's pretty unfair to call us worse than an authoritarian, theocratic absolute monarchy because we don't "stay out" of conflicts when we're literally everyone's favourite boogeyman in the region. We can't stay out.

Yeah you might be right; should've thought that over more.

Just because I think it takes a big person to admit to be convinced by another's argument in the internet, and I haven't seen this a lot in Atlas I'm sure that I also often have this very human flaw of digging into my position and refusing to budge, so kudos.

[YE]

If someone arguing against an assault weapons ban made the argument that cars are responsible for more deaths in the US than assault weapons and so by that logic we should ban cars, would it make any sense to anyone if we started running stories “REP. X CALLS FOR BANNING CARS”? The situation here is no different.

But that’s pretty much all I’m going to say on this, as you guys have thrown all semblance of honesty out the window long ago. Ilhan Omar could say “the weather is nice today” and you blue avatars would probably make a thread “Ilhan Omar THREATENS TERRORIST ATTACK AGAINST AMERICA” and then all of you would post pages and pages defending this conclusion.

[YE]

This debate was certainly livelier than last month's first night debate, yet I actually have less to say about it. So don't fear an overly long Progressive Pessimist post right here. Just a slightly long one.

All I'll say overall is that I think everybody either improved or performed similarly to their last debates with Buttigieg, Sanders, and Williamson being the standouts. Buttigieg was on point and staked a very interesting niche for himself. Sanders was a lot more animated and didn't just rely on his stump speech (maybe it's because he was on the defensive more). And Williamson came across as a lot less loopy and wacky compared to last time. She actually made some great points (also did she dye her hair?). Bullock is also kind of a winner since he got to finally put himself out there. He isn't going anywhere though and switch to the Montana Senate race as soon as possible. I doubt that this debate moved the needle very much for any of the candidates, but those three stand to benefit the most, if at all. I don't think there really any losers either, if it's anyone it's Hickenlooper just because the guy has no stage presence and couldn't help but stammer and fumble his way through his answers. Though Delaney too might have come out slightly weak since he was on defense a lot also.

When it comes to issues and messaging though, the progressives definitely won the night. It's pretty clear that the more mainstream candidates just don't have a meaningful way of inspiring enthusiasm like Sanders and Warren do. The only issue I think they won their exchanges with those two on was with eliminating private insurance. Seriously, I appreciate the idea that private insurance on principle shouldn't exist, but it's a non-starter as a  successful part of an appealing health care plan.

Also one more thing, this debate was simultaneously more organized than the NBC ones, yet also more chaotic at the same time somehow. Perhaps that's partly due to some of the fluff before the debate actually started, but also probably due to the seemingly shorter response times. When discussing substantial policy issues like these, even with ten candidates, they need at least a little more time to respond to questions and exchanges. Maybe ten candidates just isn't tenable enough for a relatively smooth debate. At least there were no microphone issues.

[YE]

One thing that is bothersome about Atlas is how openly normalized transphobia is, especially for a forum where a significant chunk of the posters are LGBT+. It honestly takes a very low character to get a kick out of using trans folks as a punching bag – for no reason at all, at that – while simultaneously spitting out misinformative garbage about them.  What do you gain out of acting like a dick to people whose actions have absolutely no impact on you whatsoever?

Like, have you ever interacted with a trans person? Why is compassion towards them treated as a political statement whereas compassion towards anyone else isn't? I can't understand why cruelty (especially deliberately misinformed cruelty) towards trans folk is the automatic reaction of so many people.

You know, I've had many friends who are trans. I've been friends with some before they had come out and/or transitioned, some that had already come out when we met, some who had already been well underway in their transition. And not once did I think that I ought to treat them any differently than I would other friends or acquaintances, so I don't understand the necessity of acting like an asshole to them, purposefully making their lives more difficult merely for being the person that they are.

And the people who complain that trans folks demand too much to be accommodated or whatever, doesn't it take an equal amount of effort (or more) to purposefully be an asshole and try to score cheap political points? (for what exactly? I don't know.)

You could also learn to deal with the idea that there are people with different ideas.

Perhaps it's more constructive for John Dule and his fellow transphobia to learn to deal with the reality that trans people exist?

The whole "let's all accept the plurality of worldviews yadda yadda" sounds really great until you're at the receiving end of those worldviews, worldviews that focus solely on denying your humanity for (dubious) political grandstanding.

It's a damn shame, overall. Growing up and trying to understand how another person is affected by our words and actions is difficult, it really is. But it's also the sign of maturity and a cornerstone to good character.

[P. Clodius Pulcher did nothing wrong]

Kasich is a giant pansy whose name and reputation should be tarnished forever for his failure to challenge Trump now.

Approval for Donald Trump within the GOP is at least in the 70s. so there is no need for Trump to rig any primaries.

There was no need for Nixon to send a gang of goons to break into the DNC HQ either.  Some crooks just like to ensure their already certain victory by any means necessary.

It still blows my mind that the GOP did not cease to exist as a political entity after that. Jimmy Carter should have won all 50 states by a record landslide margin of like 50 points. The Republican Party should have been wiped off the map right then and there. The fact that it wasn’t, and indeed soon emerged stronger than ever, was the first sign of how f—ked we were. Frankly I can never trust anyone who ever voted GOP after Watergate clearly exposed the depths of their corruption and depravity for all to see. Then as if that wasn’t bad enough, we had Iran-Contra, a child rapist as Speaker of the House, Florida 2000 and Iraq, and now all things Trump. The idea that anyone could look at all that and say “Yep, these people represent my values” absolutely blows my mind. I guess I’m just not warped or stupid enough to understand how that’s even humanly possible.

[Fuzzy Bear]

First thing is that we need to acknowledge the problem on a national level and treat it as something that needs to be combated. This seems to be the actual sticking point more than any other issues of law enforcement.

Second we need to combat the narrative these guys get in their heads that these sorts of attacks will achieve any kind of political aim. Stop posting their names and pictures. Treat them like any other criminal, and not some sort of mastermind who is the last line of defense before the destruction of white people. We also need to counter the foreign-based online propaganda that feeds these narratives in order to further the interests of those countries on the international stage.

We further need to expose some of these white nationalist groups for the grift that they are, and show just how little the major figures in these groups care about their footsoldiers. Vanguard America refusing to align itself with the Charlottesville attacker, for example, despite his membership in their group.

Third is eliminating the ability to conduct these sorts of attacks. I don't think increased restrictions on guns are in the cards right now, although that's really what we would need to do.

Fourthly, we need to reform the police system so that we aren't hiring people who sympathize with the agenda of these terrorists, and may be turning a blind eye to their exploits. While I think the problems with police in the US are larger than "just a few bad apples," I'm not sure how much of a problem the particular issue of actual white supremacist infiltration of police departments is, so we might just need to start out with an audit of our police force to see just how bad the problem is.

I don't agree with the gun control part, but the first, second, and fourth points are an absolute must.

[dead0man]

Why would that be awkward? Last time I checked the Bill of Rights isn't a red flag, its our literal collective birthright. Our sign code, our ban on panhandling, our ban on trick or treating, our parade ordinance, requiring even nonprofit neighborhood groups to get expensive insurance to meet in the park ... if you think free speech burdens are limited to the far right you've never worked in local government. I literally had to argue with the police chief just to make sure the disabled and elderly could attend public events since they wanted a blanket no exceptions ban on walking canes and hearing aids at such events. And I'm proud to do that because im not some schmuck who thinks rights aren't rights if icky people get to have them to. The real red flag here is framing freedom of speech perhaps our most important right, as muh alt right, as though that somehow invalidates our rights. Ladt time I checked the alt right gets the benefit of due process and a trial... are those things now bad?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The best way is true Christianity. We are called to love others. Doesn’t mean we have to agree with everything they say or do. But a true christian’s character should be love.

[DC Al Fine]

Someone could probably do this better, but here's my crack at WA:

As I understand it, there have been three main periods in Washington's economic development, simplified to natural resources, defense and aviation, and tech. The state's early economy was based around timber, mining, and agriculture/aquaculture. Basically from statehood in 1889 up until WWI, the state voted like many Mountain West states (mostly Republican) with a touch of prairie populism east of the Cascades and western Progressivism throughout. Between WWI and WWII, the timber resources of the western part of the state encouraged the creation of a number of military bases around the Puget Sound to serve as shipyards and, later, air bases. The proximity of these bases to the Pacific Theater of WWII made them quite important in the 1930s and 1940s. The growing military connection helped the nascent aviation industry. Combined with a number of federal hydroelectric projects along the Columbia River in the 1930s, the state took a sharp turn to the Democratic Party from the Depression through the 1970s; the state relied heavily on federal funding and defense contracts, which came steadily during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The numerous shipyards and timber companies also spurred a large growth in union membership at this time as well.

As the defense and aviation sectors grew, so did the population of the Puget Sound area. By the 1960s and into the 1970s, the Seattle and Tacoma suburbs grew steadily. Most of the buildings you'll find in the Seattle metro area are from this period. Many California residents moved up around and immediately after the Vietnam War, either as members of the military or as a way of "escaping" back to nature. The suburban character of the Snohomish-King-Pierce corridor and military bases in Kitsap, Island, and Pierce pushed the state more toward Reagan in the 1980s, but the Democratic unionized timber and manufacturing areas in SW Washington balanced the state for a while and led to a narrow Dukakis victory in 1988.

Starting around 1990, the Cold War ended and the timber industry faced increasing obstacles from environmental/endangered species lawsuits and legislation. The children of the 1970s migrations in the core Seattle metro had grown up quite left-wing and less pro-military than their parents, pushing the state toward the Dems for much of the 1990s and 2000s. This generation was much more introverted than their parents, launching the grunge movement and early tech industry. As the timber and manufacturing sectors declined like much of the rest of the country, SW Washington began to drift rightward while the declining significance of defense and aviation pushed suburban Seattle more to the left.

Since 2010, the tech industry has boomed in core King County, leading to in-migration from across the country and around the world. King, Snohomish, and Pierce have again swelled in population, primarily from young, left-wing voters. The Olympic Peninsula finally discarded its union-driven Democratic nature in 2016, leaving only pockets of hippy-generation retirees and rich folk voting to the left west of the Sound.

East of the Cascades, the agricultural nature of the region has kept it Republican since the 1950s, save for a few tourist/seasonal destinations, college towns, and pockets of Hispanic migrant farm workers. Nuclear power played a large role in the development of south-central WA during the 1940s, with the Hanford Nuclear Site drawing many to the Tri-Cities area. The Tri-Cities has continued to grow of late, with a large influx of retirees attracted to the warm weather, low cost of living, no income tax, and Columbia River access. Hispanic migration, especially to Pasco, has also increased, but the area retains a strong Republican character.

Spokane peaked in importance in the 1900s and 1910s as a major rail hub, shipping the agricultural, timber, and mining products of eastern WA and northern ID eastward. There were also military installations built near the city, which helped grow the population through the end of WWII. Spokane stagnated for most of the middle part of the 20th century. The city began to grow again in the 1990s, thanks to migration from conservative Californians seeking lower costs of living and minimal taxes, and a growth in tech-related manufacturing in service of west-side companies. The many hospitals of Spokane became a major economic player as retirees moved to the area, and the healthcare industry remains a major player in the local economy, especially with the recent opening of a major medical school. Of all things, the success of the Gonzaga University college basketball team has helped to turn the image of the city around, and parts of the city have experienced heavy gentrification in recent years. The city remains primarily working class, however, and very white for a city of its size, leading to far more of a Republican lean than other cities of comparable size.

[YE]

Wait would Atlas be calling a Clinton +13 district where Trump got a lower % than Romney, but voted for the Republican governor candidate by 9% as the state became 24% less Republican and elected a Republican congressperson on their coattails Lean R?

Just asking.

Huh?

The suburbs are trending D. Get over it. Tilt R/Toss-Up

I really hate every time somebody says suburbs are trending D, yea for the last two elections suburbs went more Democratic mostly because Trump but Before that there was no trending D, many trended R for Romney and in the 2014 midterms

Suburbs have actually been trending D for a long time, it's not just a 2016 thing. There's a few examples I could use, but I'll just use Oklahoma County since it's relevant to the thread.

Oklahoma County, OK:
2004 - Bush +28 (R+26)
2008 - McCain +16 (R+23)
2012 - Romney +16 (R+20)
2016 - Trump +11 (R+14)

It was already slowly trending Democratic during the Obama years, it was just accelerated by Trump.

[YE]

LMAO!!!
What a whiny little b****.

https://twitter.com/jeffzeleny/status/1161038562273484801

Landslide Lyndon... come on man, this isn't a 2016 rerun DEM PRIM.

It's heated up because the Washington Post are standing by their reporters (Just saw one of them earlier tonight on MSNBC) and maybe they are feeling like they are getting hit by two sides.

Amazon is still a big deal, especially in Democratic Party strongholds such as Seattle, where there has been massive community resistance against Amazon basically taking over roughly 50% of the Corporate Real Estate Market in Downtown Seattle, massively jacking up the the cost for virtually any other companies looking to lease smaller amounts of office space within the City.

It is also an issue in NYC, where Amazon abruptly pulled out of negotiations for a planned NYC HQ in Queens, NY.

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/seven-negotiation-lessons-from-amazon-s-hq-disaster-in-queens

Additionally, we have another issue.....

With the dramatic shift on online retailing where Amazon is essentially the "Top Dog", we see a massive rise in FCs (Fulfillment Centers), as well as the traditional model of DCs (Distribution Centers),

Warehouse Work is rough setting, now that every single worker's production is measured upon "prod", where your online scanners track "units of production by worker" with no concept of safety....

There is currently in the United States a massive issue when it comes to exploitation of workers in these types of fulfillment centers (FCs), where we might start our 6 AM 12 Hour shift with a safety gig, and the Swing Shift will have their equivalent.

Sure, now I am losing employees for new Amazon FC Centers that pay in Oregon starting $15/Hr, recruiting a new generation of younger workers without much job experience, not understanding the working conditions in these facilities.

So although this might sound odd, Bernie Sanders is attuned to the working conditions in these places (Where I worked briefly for three Months after I was laid off from a professional job), and although Amazon might sound awesome (We buy their Amazon.prime, we shop in their online marketplaces), at the end of the day, the cost of cheaper goods are born on the backs of the Warehouse Workers of America....

I tried to bring an ILWU Union Local into a DC/FC and got laid off within three Months as a direct hire.....

Amazon going off on the WP might seem odd, but going off against Amazon is not....



http://archive.ilwu.org/?page_id=2518