illinilaw08

QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 20, 2016 -> 01:38 PM) My comment was in response to the idea that independents should be allowed to decide who the D or R nominee is. My logic is the party gets to decide who their nominee is. If you want to be that involved in the process of selecting the D or R nominee you must be involved in that political party. If you care so much about who the D nominee is you should be a D. If you don't want to be a member of one party, why should you get to be a part of that party's decision making? Where is the logic in having someone help decide the R nominee just to go vote for the D later? But there's nothing stopping that now. Granted each state does primaries differently, but if I'm registered as an R, I can vote for Kasich in my primary because I feel like he's the best choice for President. Then Trump gets the nomination, and I decide that Clinton suits my interests better. I can still cross parties and vote for Clinton. So other than the fact that the Rs and Ds are private entities (which in a Presidential context is silly because they are the only two real choices for President), what is the logical basis for restricting access to the primaries?

QUOTE (Reddy @ Apr 20, 2016 -> 01:27 PM) No... those people get to vote in November, which is what they signed up for when they refused to check a box. Personal responsibility and all that. Does it say when you do not check the box that "failure to check a party box, or to update your records within six months on the presidential primary, will prevent you from participating in the selection of presidential candidates from either party"? If not, then I struggle to see how this is a failure of personal responsibility. Less access to the political process is a bad thing.

QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 20, 2016 -> 01:00 PM) Then you stop being an independent. If you want to be involved at the primary level, you just stepped beyond independent and into the inner workings of a political party. I don't follow that logic. When I check the box as "Democrat" when I register to vote, I am not estopped from voting for Republicans in elections. I can still be an Independent and be a part of the primary. Basically, you are disenfranchising people who don't check a box...

QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 20, 2016 -> 12:58 PM) At stake here is not any elected office. It is an organization selecting their nominee. Primaries are not even required. As I mentioned above of the 14 parties that were on the 2012 ballot, two held primaries to help in making the decision of who would be their nominee twelve did not. People act like they were voting for President. The primaries are basically a traveling commercial to build support and publicity for their party. There aren't many organizations that make it easy for people from outside the organization to influence major decisions by that organization. You're a shareholder of Coke? Sure, come in and vote at the Pepsi shareholder's meeting. Well, at stake is the office of the Presidency. There aren't that many organizations that impact our every day lives more than the leader of the federal government. If you are an independent and you actually want a say in who the nominees are for the next President of the United States, you are kept outside the process. Independent isn't a political party. In many cases, it just means sometimes you vote R, sometimes you vote D. I don't think seeking a standardized system that provides access to the primary ballot for POTUS to everyone is asking for too much... As true as it was in 1996, .

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Apr 18, 2016 -> 02:15 PM) How would you prevent sexual assault? Irrelevant. I'm not running for President and wasn't asked a direct policy question on that point. If I were running for President, I'd hope I would have an answer to that question that went deeper than don't go to alcohol parties...

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Apr 18, 2016 -> 01:54 PM) If Kasich was asked by a young man how to feel safer from muggings, and Kasich had ended his reply with "and avoid dark alleys late at night", I don't think he'd be facing any of the backlash he is now. The question was what would you do as President to make college campuses safer from sexual assault (paraphrasing). Kasich starts his response by talking about confidential reporting, access to rape kits, and access to justice. Those are all fine policy positions, and if Kasich had ended there, the answer would have been fine. Note, however, that none of those answers have anything to do with preventing sexual assault. The only thing that Kasich says about sexual assault prevention in the answer is the "don't go to alcohol parties" quote. In response to a policy question about sexual assault prevention, that's the only he says that is directly on point to sexual assault prevention. It would be akin to a young man asking Kasich "what policies would you implement to reduce crime in my neighborhood" and, after saying a bunch of stuff about incarceration and reducing recidivism, he said "and avoid dark alleys late at night." Because the only prevention part of the response is what that specific person can do to reduce their risk... Again, to the extent Kasich clarified, I'm glad he did and I'll happily look at his policy position. But as a policy answer, the debated quote was a bad answer.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 18, 2016 -> 01:53 PM) Not really. More accurately would be don't drink and drive. We know that driving after drinking involves a higher rate of accidents. We tell people not to drink and drive all of the time. We also tell people not to get into a car with drunk driver, and we sure don't consider it victim shaming to do so. We tell people to not drink and drive - ie, we tell people not to commit crimes. We tell people not to get in the car with drunk drivers - ie, we tell people not to follow someone who is committing a crime. I'm not sure how that's remotely close to women not going to parties with alcohol...

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Apr 18, 2016 -> 01:45 PM) What an asshole! He's basically saying "get back in the kitchen where you belong!" Right? Ugh. Disgusting. Women have a right to go to school just like us, am I right? Seriously though, I hope if/when you guys have daughters you never tell them to "be careful" or "be smart" or "make good choices." That's obviously just blatant victim-shaming and rapist-supporting talk. Except there's a huge difference between a father telling his daughter to make good choices and it being a politicians' sexual assault prevention position (particularly in light of the historic treatment of victims of sexual assault).

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 18, 2016 -> 01:31 PM) "Avoid bad neighborhoods" has a racial context that "avoid drunken parties" does not have. Ok, change it to "avoid dark alleys" late at night. The point is that in both the hypothetical crime example and the real sexual assault example, the first part of the answer is fine and addresses real policy details re: victims of sexual assault. At no point in the answer does Kasich make any policy statement regarding sexual assault prevention other than to say "avoid parties with lots of alcohol." To me, that quote isn't as bad if it's in response to the question "what would you tell your daughter to try to reduce her risk of sexual assault" or if the answer followed other policy positions involving sexual assault prevention. It was a bad answer within the context of the question.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Apr 18, 2016 -> 01:04 PM) Do the police recommend to people in s***ty neighborhoods not to go out at night or loiter at night, etc? Just because they do that, they are just saying, hey, higher liklihood something bad will happen later and we recommend against it....doesn't mean if it happens it is your fault or you are blaming the victim. I think it is a slippery slope to combine the two. This isn't a "don't dress that way" or she was asking for it line of thought here. This was just an answer any dad would give to his daughter. The problem is the context though. Kasich was asked about sexual assault. He said a lot of stuff about policies he enacted in Ohio that helped provide access to rape kits and counseling after the fact. Which was all really good stuff. The problem with the answer is that the only thing he said about rape prevention, in a policy answer, was avoid parties with lots of alcohol. Take the crappy neighborhood example. If Kasich was asked about reducing crime and he responded with a bunch of solid ideas when it comes to incarceration rates, community cooperation, and ways to prevent recidivism, and then followed that up by saying "and oh yeah, avoid bad neighborhoods after dark," that answer would be panned (rightfully). I don't think Kasich intended his response to be anything other than advice to a student who seemed particularly concerned about sexual assault on campus, but when compared to the fact that he answered a policy question with policy answers, to me, the avoid parties with alcohol quote came across poorly.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 18, 2016 -> 11:09 AM) It's too late. StrangeSox and bmags have already decided exactly what he meant by that. Anything further he says would just be pandering for votes and not actually clarifying what he meant. The only acceptable answer Kasich could have given is that all straight, white Christian males are awful disgusting human beings and should all be thrown in jail just for being who they are. Any other answer is bigoted in some shape or form. Well, you have also decided exactly what he means by it, refusing to see any negative subtext in the answer, whether intended by Kasich or not.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Apr 18, 2016 -> 10:36 AM) I thought it was pretty clear that the real message was "don't get totally wasted", not simply avoiding parties where alcohol is present. The exact quote is "Well, I would give you, I'd also like to give one bit of advice. Don't go to parties where there's a lot of alcohol. Ok? Don't do that." I'm not sure that I see where it's clear the message is "don't get totally wasted." But rather "don't put yourself around drunk boys." I could defend Kasich by saying that he was giving what he considered to be common sense advice to a student who was particularly concerned about her own safety (and I don't think that would be inappropriate). I could decry his statement by saying he doesn't get to the root cause of the sexual assault problem on college campuses other than to tell women not to go to parties with lots of alcohol, following a decades old stance of victim blaming victims of rape (if she hadn't gone to that alcohol party, she wouldn't have gotten raped). Hopefully Kasich cleans up his message on this point...

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 18, 2016 -> 09:02 AM) https://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2015/10...college-campus/ But without laws barring people with penises from going into women's rooms, it's not illegal to go in there. Believe it or not, sometimes laws are a deterrent to bad behavior. It's still illegal to film the women showering or expose yourself to the women. So if the only thing separating these guys from legal and illegal behavior is the sign on the door, I'm not sure that the laws are deterring the bad behavior.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 18, 2016 -> 08:30 AM) Despite what either side of the issue might lead you to believe, it is not an open and shut case. For pretty much ever, the standard was that if you have a penis, you use men's restrooms and locker rooms, and if you have a vagina, you use women's restrooms and locker rooms. This has always been a problem for transgendered people, some of whom dress in the style of the gender they identify with instead of the gender they actually are. M->F people often were ridiculed/bullied/attacked if they entered a men's room dressed as a woman. F->M people dressed as men are often mistakenly identified as sexual predators there to attack women. For transgendered people, the solution seemed simple: let them use restrooms and locker rooms of the gender they identify with instead of the gender they actually are. Seems simple but has two major complications: 1) There is nobody at the door of restrooms and locker rooms verifying that people with penises who are trying to use women's facilities are actually transgendered. There have already been cases of straight men taking advantage of this rule to expose themselves to and/or get a look at women. 2) Even if only transgendered people were to use the other restroom/locker room, there are still plenty of women who just don't want to see a penis while they are in a locker room, and certainly plenty of parents who don't want their teenage daughters exposed to that. While some of the people who favored bills like the one in North Carolina are bigoted, bigotry is clearly not the only reason one might have for supporting this bill. I would propose a compromise that ought to be good enough (but not necessarily ideal) for everybody: A) Any newly constructed buildings must have restrooms/locker rooms for men and women, as well as open/family facilities that can be used by anyone. B) Any existing buildings that have at or above a certain number of restrooms/locker rooms must convert some to open/family facilities. C) Any existing buildings with limited numbers of restrooms/locker rooms that are unable to convert some to open/family facilities must post notices at the entries that they do not have open/family facilities. Restrooms are clearly a much easier fix than places with locker rooms and showers. Also, PayPal and Bryan Adams (and probably most other musicians) = total hypocrites. Both do plenty of business in Muslim countries where transgendered people aren't accommodated and even worse it's actually illegal to be gay. But they needed to take a stand against North Carolina. Cite/Link to the bold? As you note, there is no bathroom cop checking to make sure men use the men's room and women use the women's room. So I find it hard to believe that the man who walked into the ladies room to expose himself to ladies did so because transgendered. Simply put, that dude would have just walked into the ladies room and exposed himself anyway...

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Apr 13, 2016 -> 03:17 PM) So the pick was going to be lowered. Damn. No, that article said that the Kings balked at lowering the protection on the pick and then the Bulls declined to go any further. Based on that article, when the Sixers got involved, the Bulls would have gotten McLemore and Koufos for Gasol, Snell, Hinrich and a 2nd with no changes to the protection on the Deng pick...

QUOTE (ptatc @ Apr 8, 2016 -> 08:49 AM) From one of the movies and books, they reference that many Bothans die trying to get this information. It's a source of pride among that planet. I wonder if they work that in or just go the human route. The Bothans are the Second Death Star. This one is the First Death Star. Theoretically, Rogue One could end with the plans being handed to Leia, right before the events that started A New Hope...

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Apr 1, 2016 -> 10:55 AM) It probably was Jeter, but right now baseball doesn't have any stars on the level of the top NFL or NBA guys. Winner.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 31, 2016 -> 03:32 PM) There is nothing worse than the VA system. Nothing. It is an abject disaster. No access to healthcare because of a pre-existing condition is pretty terrible. I'm not excusing the VA. It's objectively not good. But the for profit healthcare industry is also objectively bad. I haven't heard that many complaints about Medicare. Haven't looked into it that much. But all of my older relatives (parents, in-laws, etc.) were pretty excited to get on Medicare because their costs in the private pool were so high.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 31, 2016 -> 03:07 PM) I will leave it with this thought. The two examples we have of the government being involved in health care are medicare and the VA. Counterpoint. The examples we have of the free market in the health insurance industry is probably worse.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Mar 30, 2016 -> 10:11 AM) I seriously couldn't care less what the Lakers think about him, they have f***ed with him all season long. Who gives a s*** that a guy who nicknames himself swaggy p is upset, that team is a dumpster fire Yeah, Rose for Russell seems to be a no brainer for the Bulls as far as I'm concerned.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Mar 30, 2016 -> 05:43 AM) ND's Jackson going pro. Hard to see another Elite 8 run without him. With the new rules, most kids should declare and see how they get evaluated at the combine. To me, Jackson isn't ready, so he may still come back. But I've been wrong before.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 29, 2016 -> 08:40 AM) It was basically the same roster. It should have been better, but it certainly wasn't good enough to win a title. And problems were exposed. A CSN beat reporter even said they don't like playing with each other. How can he see this and the FO can't? Gar hiring his buddy really did Hoiberg no favors other than to his bank account. He's left looking like a fool. You said it yourself in an earlier post though. 3 or 4 teams have a chance to win the title every year. The Bulls looked like they were going to have a long window starting with the Rose MVP year, but without Rose, that window effectively closed. A lot needed to go right for this to be a championship caliber roster. Rose needed to return to 85-90% of his MVP form. Noah needed to be the guy he was two seasons ago when he was in the MVP voting conversation. Butler needed to continue his rise to elite status. And the problems with chemistry last year needed to be because of Thibs. Add to that Mirotic continuing to improve and not regressing horribly and some decent contributions from Snell and/or McDermott and this could have been a championship caliber roster. There are a lot of unknowns there, but the point is that is a more reasonable road to contention than blowing it up and starting over. With the benefit of hindsight, things almost definitely wouldn't have been worse with Thibs this year. But Noah still wouldn't be right. And the chemistry issues wouldn't have gone away. The question now is, are we at the end of the Bulls' window or, with a couple tweaks to the roster, can they get competitive again quickly...

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Mar 22, 2016 -> 10:45 AM) People can describe Garland as a centrist all they want. The chart is looking at things analytically, and Garland is as far left of center as Aliso is right of center. The Republicans know they are an underdog to win in November. If they really thought Garland was a lot closer to the center than what they would get from Hilllary, they would confirm him. Nope. Leaving aside that there is no explanation of the methodology used to score justices in that NYT piece, and leaving aside that the bastion of liberalness that is Orrin Hatch said that Garland would be a great, centrist addition to the Court, the Rs are digging in on this fight because, even with a long shot of winning in November, IF they win, they get to replace Scalia with another Conservative justice and the composition of the Court remains the same. If they lose, so long as the appointment is someone left of Kennedy, the composition of the Court shifts substantially on close votes. So whether Garland is a centrist or the most liberal judge to ever take the bench, McConnell is still going to try to prevent the appointment on the hope that the Republicans win in November.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 22, 2016 -> 09:54 AM) Obama was against a specific nominee who never faced a real threat to be blocked and was actually confirmed. The GOP Senate is against any possible nominee even getting a hearing. There's no ~both sides~ here. Obama, a Democrat, nominating a moderate liberal is not a shock and it's the norm for liberal Democrat presidents to nominate people inline with their judicial philosophy. Obama picked a candidate that Orin Hatch said would be a reasonable consensus nominee a couple of weeks ago. The court's ideological balance will shift, but it's been conservative for decades and there's no reason it should stay that way. eta: OBama has nominated someone much farther right than RGB. If you want to make a 2006 comparison, you need to take into account that Obama didn't choose a mirror of Alito but more realistically a liberal version of O'Connor. Yeah, I'm curious about the methodology on that chart and how they arrived at the conclusion that Garland is significantly further to the left than RBG. Nothing I have read about him supports that. Basically, the key to this Scotus fight is that Scalia was a pretty conservative vote on everything. Any replacement by a Democratic President is going to shift the Court further to the left (though not as extreme of a shift as Marshall to Thomas was the other direction). There is no excusing the Republicans' rhetoric on this. There is no "both sides" on this. The Senate needs to do their job, hold hearings with Garland, and vote. McConnell, I suspect, thinks that if Garland actually comes to a vote, R senators up for election might vote for confirmation...

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Mar 18, 2016 -> 08:29 AM) Apparently Nunn was just in court on Tuesday and was sentenced to 12 months probation and 100 hours of community service for driving on a suspended license. So if this is a legit charge he'll get hit with a decent sentence. Goodbye Nunn and goodbye chances of a tournament bid next year. Sucks for Groce. Not his fault his players are dumbasses, But in addition to his s*** job coaching, he's responsible when 1/3rd of his roster gets arrested. Good riddance. Hopefully Whitman moves quickly. Throw cash at Bryce Drew please. Yep. There's a clear lack of leadership in the program at the moment. Unfortunate because the Lovie bounce (positive press for the athletic department) could have provided some goodwill to the basketball program, but that's... that's not happening now. I can condone second chances for non-violent offenses. I can't condone second chances for Tate or Nunn if the allegations against them are true. I'm fully on board that it's time for a fresh start.