US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1161

On July 10 2014 05:07 Jormundr wrote:

And the repeated attempts to repeal Obamacare are fooling people because....?

On July 10 2014 11:23 Danglars wrote:
You must have me confused with someone that supported that kind of behavior. Mainstream elected Republicans like Boehner and the leadership are facing growing opposition; they're seen as unwilling to mount opposition when it matters.

On June 12 2014 16:22 Danglars wrote:

It was a discussion of optics for incoming House freshmen at the time taking place (those that hadn't been on the record an absurd number of times). I really don't see how you could conclude otherwise...

Boehner bringing up votes on modifying the passed bill was precisely the wrong strategy for people newly elected having promised to work to destroy it. In town hall meetings, a recently-elected candidate could feel sheepish if his only vote was having to put down moderate's ideas to alter it from within instead of replacing fresh.

I don't know what kind of parallels you're trying to draw here from Obamacare to creationism. If you've been following, the types in Congress that are in favor of meaningless votes are the very types the local tea parties are trying to unseat. That's part and parcel of business-as-usual Washington, talk about reducing the size of government, and do nothing.

On July 10 2014 14:12 Introvert wrote:
Edit: ops

That doesn't look like an endorsement to me. Looks more like an explanation of the politics behind it.

As a matter of fact, it appears he was highlighting quotes from an article (an article you posted). Kid of dishonest to leave out the context.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/383301-us-politics-megathread?page=1109#22177

on the very same page he said



[ emphasis mine]

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/383301-us-politics-megathread?page=1109#22171


How does that seem like an endorsement or defense?

On June 13 2014 08:53 GreenHorizons wrote:


Is that not exactly meaningless?

A vote based solely on the optics? A vote which is admittedly purely symbolic? So that the half-wits that elected them believe them? Without it actually having any meaning at all...? Not to mention the other 30+ votes they ALREADY had... Plenty of them had to be meaningless without the shield of 'optics'...?

They could of voted 1000 times to repeal it and it wouldn't change whether they could/would signed on to reasonable legislation after or before... But their constituency is too dense to comprehend that.

I can't believe it's even in contention whether the Tea Party supported meaningless votes...
.

On July 10 2014 15:16 GreenHorizons wrote:


Well I guess that's why I responded with



To which he responded.... Oh wait he never did... Because it was foolish to suggest that the Tea Party wanted to get rid of the congresspeople who were holding meaningless votes, because that was one of the first things they wanted to do when they got there maybe...?

It wasn't Boehner or establishment Republicans pushing to vote to repeal the ACA for the 50+ time, it was the Tea Party.

His suggestion that the Tea Party was trying to stop those types of votes is divorced from the reality that they were the ones clamoring for those exact votes.

I guess more importantly to the point was that he was asked who the repeal votes were fooling, his response doesn't fit with his previous assertion that those votes were intentionally fooling the people who elected tea party reps (optics). Which didn't fit with his previous assertion that the Tea parties were trying unseat people who took votes like that, which doesn't fit with reality...

Hope that clears it up a bit for you?

On July 10 2014 10:40 KwarK wrote:
How is Palin saying "you don't bring a lawsuit to a gunfight" not literally saying that the Obama problem is one to be solved by bullets, not lawyers. The expression "you don't bring a knife to a gunfight" suggests the proposed solution is a metaphorical knife and a metaphorical gun might be better. As the solution she is criticising is a literal lawsuit surely she proposes a literal gun?

Or is Palin just an idiot?

On October 21 2013 13:40 Danglars wrote:
Cruz and the Tea Party's position on Obamacare is as popular as ever amongst the Republican electorate.

Sen. Ted Cruz is sponsoring a bill – the “Obamacare Repeal Act” (S. 177) – that would completely erase the federal healthcare law from the books and get Washington out of the healthcare business altogether.
In the House of Representatives, H.R. 45 accomplishes similar goals as it would “repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.”
Take Action! Sign the petition and send free messages to U.S. lawmakers DEMANDING that they pass S. 177 and H.R. 45 to REPEAL OBAMACARE and replace it with nothing.

A bill passed the California Legislature days after the Vergara ruling that reduces the time it takes to fire abusive teachers from up to two years to seven months. But that law deals mainly with the rare cases of egregious misconduct including child abuse, sex abuse and teachers who commit certain drug crimes.

By cutting the time and expense of litigating these types of cases, districts should be able to avoid out-of-court settlements like the one between the Los Angeles Unified School District and Mark Berndt, an elementary school teacher accused in 2012 of sexually abusing dozens of students. In that case L.A. Unified paid Berndt $40,000 to not appeal his firing. He was sentenced in 2013 to 25 years in prison for committing lewd acts on children. The law will also prohibit districts from agreeing to nondisclosure agreements and expunging accusations of abuse from personnel records if teachers agree to quit.

On July 11 2014 02:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Source

Lovely, it now *only* takes seven months to fire a teacher who abuses a child.

Another small improvement from the law:


Source

Republicans who signed up for Obamacare this year are liking their new insurance coverage, according to a new survey.

A poll of Obamacare enrollees published Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund found that 74 percent of newly insured Republicans are happy with the plans they bought. Overall, 77 percent of people who had insurance prior to the rollout of the Affordable Care Act said they are pleased with the new coverage they obtained in the last year.

The survey revealed the current uninsured rate among working-age adults in the U.S. has dropped to 15 percent, down from 20 percent in July-September 2013 -- meaning an estimated 9.5 million people have gained coverage since then.

On July 11 2014 04:13 IgnE wrote:


I assume that the trial and conviction of such a teacher takes approximately 7 months too. Maybe you'd prefer a firing squad on the spot?

The South may get its first union at a foreign-owned automaker after all. Bucking an anti-union vote by workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in February, the United Auto Workers and Volkswagen will announce Thursday the creation of a union local.

Participation in the local would be voluntary and not formally recognized by VW until a majority of the 3,200 employees at the plant agree to join, according to The Tennessean. It’s unclear that that number of employees would agree to join immediately, but pro-union workers lost narrowly in February’s vote, and Volkswagen has actively encouraged the creation of a union, threatening to pull back on expansion plans if workers cannot agree to form one.

"We will be announcing a local, and we would fully expect that Volkswagen would deal with this local union if it represents a substantial portion of its employees," UAW Secretary-Treasurer Gary Casteel of Ashland City told The Tennessean.

Workers had rejected a plan to form a union in a 712–626 vote, despite Volkswagen being keen on the idea. The vote had become symbolic of undue foreign and liberal influence in the conservative state, and state politicians like Sen. Bob Corker and Gov. Bill Haslam, both Republicans, actively opposed VW’s and the UAW’s efforts to unionize. Leading up to the vote, signs around Chattanooga conflated a vote for unionization with support for President Barack Obama.

At nearly every other VW plant across the globe, workers participate in a “works council” in which many decisions are made collectively between management and workers.

On July 11 2014 05:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Firing a teacher shouldn't require the same legal burden of proof as a criminal conviction.

On July 11 2014 05:34 Adreme wrote:


Sure it should unless you would rather be open to a very large number of wrongful termination suits when they fire first and ask questions later which would cost the state a fortune.

Edit: Also they probably don't have enough potential applicants to fire first and ask questions later.

On July 11 2014 05:52 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

What an absurd worry! It's not rocket science to develop reasonable standards for hiring / firing people.

On July 11 2014 04:13 IgnE wrote:


I assume that the trial and conviction of such a teacher takes approximately 7 months too. Maybe you'd prefer a firing squad on the spot?

WASHINGTON – Over the past five years, the Obama administration has repeatedly called for cutting fossil fuel subsidies in the form of tax breaks and other incentives. But the amount of money the federal government forfeits through subsidies has increased steadily over that time period, reaching $18.5 billion last year, according to a new report from the environmental group Oil Change International.

That total is up from $12.7 billion in 2009, largely because oil and gas production has increased in the United States. Next year, domestic oil production is expected to reach the highest level since 1972. The Obama administration regularly touts its "all of the above" energy strategy, which includes increased oil and gas production.

The Oil Change report includes a variety of subsidies in its accounting, including tax breaks, incentives for production on federal lands (such as royalty fees that haven't been adjusted in 25 years) and tax deductions for clean-up costs. And if state subsidies for oil, gas and coal production are also included, the total value climbs to $21.6 billion for 2013. Here's how that breaks down:



In September 2009, Obama and other G20 leaders pledged to phase out fossil fuel subsidies to help curb global warming. Obama also called for eliminating subsidies in 2012 and 2013. And the administration's 2015 budget proposal again calls for a major cut to fossil fuel subsidies.