US Politics Mega-thread - Page 10033

On March 08 2018 05:01 farvacola wrote:

You may be thinking of the Dept. of Ed. rescission of guidance that forced the SC to remand the Gavin Grimm case back to the Fourth without a decision. In today's Sixth case, the transgender individual intervened in the lawsuit on the basis that the EEOC may no longer represent her interests and she succeeded both there and with the substantive decision today.

On March 08 2018 04:44 Biff The Understudy wrote:

I think you have some examples in this thread of how delusional most people who voted for Trump are ready to get not to admit that they indeed put a complete clown at the white house, and that his government is one of the most spectacular clusterfuck of incompetence, corruption and utter stupidity in contemporary history

When all the damage is done, they probably find a way to blame the deep state and the establishment for the cancer the benzene created.

In any case, remember: Trump voters didn’t fuck up and did nothing wrong. He could well blow up the fucking planet, Danglar and xDaunt would still be certain that at no point they might have screwed up. Don’t expect anyone to learn anything from that shitshow. They’ll keep promoting benzene.

The US should join the rest of the industrialized world in providing universal health coverage, congressman Keith Ellison said on Wednesday, as he assumed leadership of the Democrats’ single-player plan in the House of Representatives.

Ellison, a progressive from Minnesota and the deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, will replace congressman John Conyers as the leading sponsor of legislation to establish a healthcare system that covers all 323 million Americans. Conyers resigned from Congress last year amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment.

In a floor speech, Ellison asked – and received – unanimous consent by members of the House of Representatives to take charge of the single-payer healthcare bill, titled the Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Act, which has earned the support of nearly two-thirds of the Democratic caucus.

“The United States is the outlier among large industrial countries,” Ellison said in a short interview on Wednesday. “Everybody else has decided that healthcare is a right and they’re working to make sure that it is. We as a nation need to move in that direction for the welfare of our people.”

When Conyers stepped down, there was no immediate replacement to take charge of the bill, which the Michigan lawmaker had introduced in every Congress since 2003.

Public polling shows a growing share of Americans support a universal, or single-payer, system of healthcare. Once a liberal pipe-dream, many prominent Democrats have since embraced the approach and liberal voters have rallied around the cause.

Ellison thinks it is only a matter of time before a single-payer healthcare system is adopted by the Democratic party. He pointed to the number of candidates running in 2018 on a platform embracing universal healthcare.

In Texas on Tuesday night, Beto O’Rourke, a supporter of a single-payer system, won the Democratic primary there to challenge Ted Cruz for his Senate seat in November. And two other Democratic candidates and supporters of universal healthcare advanced in a crowded primary to a May runoff election.

“We’re going to have new people in Congress who are for this,” he said. “We’re going to have more people who are for it than before,” he added, predicting that rising healthcare costs will force the issue to center stage.

“As the public continues to say, ‘Hey, look, I can’t pay $900 for an EpiPen, I can’t do it, and this is running me into bankruptcy, the urgency for this kind of legislation, for a Medicare for All, single-payer bill is going to become greater,” he said.

With Republican control of both chambers of Congress, the legislation has no chance of becoming law. But Democrats, emboldened by early electoral successes and Trump’s record low approval ratings, are increasingly optimistic about their chances of taking back one or both chambers at the midterms in November.

Nevertheless, they would also need to win the presidency to pass such a sweeping reform, as well as the support of more conservative Democrats on the issue.

Ellison said his colleagues agreed he should take up the bill as one of the most visible House Democratic supporters of universal healthcare. The Minnesota progressive said he does not expect to amend the bill this year, but is open to changes to the legislation in the future.
He will continue to build public support and organize around universal healthcare at rallies and events around the country. Next week, Ellison will host a town hall-style event in Minnesota to discuss healthcare and the congressional proposal.

In the Senate, Bernie Sanders has introduced a similar bill, known as Medicare for All, which has been endorsed by a record 16 senators. The list includes six senators who are up for re-election in 2018 and a number of potential 2020 presidential candidates, including senators Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

“I am excited to have Keith take the lead in the House on the fight to pass a Medicare-for-all health care system,” Sanders said in a statement, supporting Ellison. “With his leadership, I know that we will be able to take on the greed of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries and finally join every other major country in guaranteeing health care as a right, not a privilege.”

The news comes as Ellison is facing fresh questioning over his former support for the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, after the minister made a series of antisemitic remarks during a speech late last month.

Ellison publicly renounced any association with the group in 2006 and repudiated Farrakhan for propagating “bigoted and antisemitic ideas and statements”.

But that piece of his past has continued to dog him throughout his career, and resurfaced in his race for chairman of the DNC last year. On Tuesday, the Republican Jewish Coalition called on all “Farrakhan-connected” members of Congress to resign, including Ellison.

In the interview, Ellison blamed political opponents for continuing to give life to this story, which has received considerable attention in conservative media since Farrakhan, in his speech, lashed out at Ellison for distancing himself.

“This is the equivalent of ‘Obama’s a Kenyan’. This is the equivalent of ‘John Kerry’s not a courageous person’. This is a swift-boating,” Ellison said, adding: “No one asks me about this other than reporters.”

President Donald Trump is already eyeing another trade crackdown, one that is squarely aimed at punishing China.

The president hinted on Twitter on Wednesday morning that a separate trade action related to China’s intellectual property practices could be unveiled soon. The tweet comes as Trump is planning to announce this week steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, an issue that has divided the president’s advisers.

“The U.S. is acting swiftly on Intellectual Property theft. We cannot allow this to happen as it has for many years!” Trump tweeted.

The move is related to an order Trump signed in August that directed U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to open an investigation against China under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 for violations of U.S. intellectual property rights.

Officials are examining whether any of China’s laws, policies, practices or actions force American companies to transfer valuable technology to compete in the market or otherwise fail to adequately protect intellectual property rights. Senior administration officials and Cabinet secretaries have been meeting for months to reach a consensus on the United States’ response.

As a result of that inquiry, the administration is now weighing tariffs on more than 100 Chinese products. And officials are considering imposing investment restrictions that would prevent Chinese nationals from acquiring, controlling or even owning significant shares of U.S. businesses or other interests, according to two people briefed on the internal debate.

It’s unclear exactly when Trump will make the announcement, and the details are still in flux. But administration officials said the president is increasingly eager to take action on trade after being urged by his more moderate advisers for months to embrace a more deliberate approach. An administration official working on the issue said the White House wants the full suite of actions under the investigation as soon as possible.

Administration officials and Lighthizer in particular want to use the Made in China 2025 plan — a coordinated industrial policy Beijing is using to upgrade the country’s manufacturing sector — as the basis for any specific tariff and investment actions, according to an administration official involved in the planning.

USTR is examining a list of possible items that would benefit from tariffs that go after China’s industrial policy, but there are still questions about how to put them in place. The president’s Council of Economic Advisers analyzed the effects and found the targeted tariffs could have the desired impact of hurting China for three to four years but then they would become ineffective or even harmful to U.S. consumers and businesses, the official said.

“USTR just want to shoot first and figure it all out later,” the official said.

The internal deliberation over new restrictions to Chinese investment, which is being handled by the Treasury Department, is also facing tough legal questions over how broad any action should be.

The USTR report right now includes language that would restrict virtually any of China’s more than 1.3 billion citizens from investing. Officials are considering how to narrow the restrictions to government-directed or -controlled entities. The administration is also weighing which sectors of the U.S. economy are most at risk from Chinese investment and need to be protected, one administration official said.

“We’re trying to do this in a way that we don’t immediately get sued at the World Trade Organization,” the official said.

Another person involved in the trade discussion said there was still more work to be done to finalize the investment restrictions. As a result, the tariff action could move forward more quickly.

Many administration officials involved in trade discussions had hoped Trump would announce the intellectual property actions before the steel and aluminum tariffs in part because they believed it would satisfy his desire for taking aggressive action on trade. The 301 actions have much broader buy-in among Trump’s aides, who have clashed loudly in closed-door meetings over trade.

Unlike when Trump last week announced his intention to move forward with the steel and aluminum tariffs, key legal legwork and economic analyses have already been completed on the intellectual property actions. And one official involved in the trade talks said the intellectual property actions are nearly ready to go.

In addition, Trump has support from many parts of the business sector for such a move. U.S. technology firms have long argued that China's trade practices result in theft of U.S. intellectual property and in some cases force U.S. companies to transfer technology to Chinese authorities as a condition for doing business in the country. Some contend that forced technology transfers are subsidizing state-owned companies in China and helping with state-sponsored cyberattacks and corporate espionage.

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment.

On March 08 2018 10:01 a_flayer wrote:

Five hundred years from now: "In the 21st century, as the battle for resources slowed down due to sustainability efforts, the West attempted to retain its imperialistic dominance over the world by claiming ownership of ideas."

On March 08 2018 04:19 Mohdoo wrote:
My favorite thing about Trump's presidency is that it is completely disproving all the 20 year old edge lords who are like "WTF GOVERNMENT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE, THIS IS CLEARLY WHAT WOULD WORK BEST!"

None of these ideas are new. We've done them before. And then it was shitty and we learned from it, so we don't do it anymore. It's like using benzene as a tabletop cleaner. We used to do that because it seemed like it would work great. But there are really big reasons why you should not do that. So we stopped. Benzene is great at cleaning, but the whole cancer thing later in life ends up being a total buzzkill.

The more I think of it, benzene as a household cleaner is actually a fantastic analogy for the Trump presidency.

A Texas appeals court has overturned a man's conviction after finding a judge had inappropriately electrocuted him in court, US media report.

Terry Lee Morris was convicted of soliciting sexual performance from a child and was sentenced to 60 years.

Judge George Gallagher ordered the bailiff to activate a stun belt sending 50,000 volts through Morris when he allegedly refused to answer questions.

The higher court found that stun belts cannot be used as punishment in court.

Mr Morris appealed his 2014 conviction alleging that his constitutional rights were violated when the judge used the belt as punishment for not answering questions properly.

The belts - used by courtrooms such as the one Tarrant County in Texas - are affixed around the legs or midsection of a suspect in court and are used to deliver a shock to the person should they become violent.

Mr Morris said he was too scared to return to court out of more electrical shocks, the Texas Eighth Court of Appeals in El Paso heard.

On March 08 2018 12:39 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:
umm what the hell is this



http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43307797