Alright, y'all. Obviously there's issues with the state of the thread, and comparisons to other threads. I'd like to try talking it out with people, which we can either do here, or via PMs, per preference.
Just to get the stuff a lot of people are talking about out of the way: Most common question seems to be about the bans and the unlock message. Long and short of it is, we feel like the case being made in the OP is fairly convincing re: Cenk's misogyny issues. So if you come into the thread and just post "yeah well I like him", it reads as dismissing all of that. Thus the bans, and the lengths.
The Michelle Obama thread is going to stay locked. The updated lock message goes over why - in short, we feel like that's significantly more complex than we can address right now, due to sitting at the intersection of a lot of sore spots. It's going to be one of the things we're talking about with various communities going forward, trying to figure out how best to handle topics like that.
Like I said, if you'd like to reach out to talk one on one about more specific issues, or if you want more on those ones, you can hit me up via PM or just quote me here.