US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1162

On July 11 2014 02:26 GreenHorizons wrote:


I suppose one could say he wasn't defending pointless votes

On July 11 2014 05:59 oneofthem wrote:

i agree that termination hurdle is prob worst part of teacher union deals, but it is not like getting rid of teacher unions will save education. fundamental problem is not bad teachers but very bad distribution of resources, both direct school resourcse and social resources in the bad neighborhoods.

On July 11 2014 07:39 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

We need quality teachers, good standards and communities that value education.

I don't know how big the funding issue is. MA doesn't seem to be special in terms of funding, yet the education quality is really good.

An activist who is rallying a Bundy Ranch-style militia to the Texas border to address the ongoing crisis there reportedly released a YouTube video in which he said those crossing illegally would be warned: "Get back across the border or you will be shot."

Operation Secure Our Border, with its own Facebook page, is being organized by members of the "Patriot" movement along with Oathkeepers and Three-Percenters, according to the San Antonio Express News. Those are some of the same militia groups that came to Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's defense earlier this year.

The Express News and The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, both reported on a YouTube video featuring Chris Davis, who has been identified as the commander of the militia, in which he apparently explained how the border would be secured.

"You see an illegal. You point your gun dead at him, right between his eyes, and you say, 'Get back across the border or you will be shot,'" Davis said in the video, according to the reports.

The video has since been taken down, Davis told the Express News, because it had been "taken out of context."

The militia is being organized via social media, email chains and a phone hotline, according to the newspaper. They plan to head to the border in a few weeks, according to Davis, when they have "enough trained manpower." He wasn't specific about what that meant, according to the Express News, and the Facebook page has less than 200 likes.

The United States on Wednesday designated 685 miles of beaches from Mississippi to North Carolina and 300,000 square miles of ocean off the Gulf and Atlantic coasts as critical nesting and roaming habitat for threatened loggerhead sea turtles.

The joint ruling by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is the largest critical habitat designation in U.S. history, environmentalists say.

The announcement followed a lawsuit filed last year by environmental groups to require the government to protect the area. Scientists said the area is home to 70,000 to 90,000 nesting sites per year and comprises 84 percent of all known nesting areas for the large sea turtles.

The designated area includes some reproductive sites directly off of nesting beaches from North Carolina through Mississippi, and breeding habitat in Florida, as well as 88 nesting beaches in six states which account for 48 percent of an estimated 1,531 miles of coastal beach shoreline used by loggerheads.

"Given the vital role loggerhead sea turtles play in maintaining the health of our oceans, rebuilding their populations is key as we work to ensure healthy and resilient oceans for generations to come," said Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries.

Protection doesn't limit public access to the designated areas but requires that any federal activity in the waters off nesting sites, such as drilling or fisheries, must be further scrutinized for possible impact on the turtles.

On July 11 2014 07:39 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

I don't know how big the funding issue is. MA doesn't seem to be special in terms of funding, yet the education quality is really good.

On July 11 2014 02:26 GreenHorizons wrote:
Well Perhaps it's a bit harder because you may not remember this.



He seemed to think that pointless repeal votes were not coming from Cruz and the Tea Party, which is obviously wrong.



Source

Seems like pointless votes are popular and desired by the majority of Republicans (Tea Party included) contrary to what Danglers was suggesting (After he said that he wanted 'them to fight tooth and nail').

I suppose one could say he wasn't defending pointless votes, just misrepresenting who wanted them?

It has become a truism that House Republicans have voted dozens and dozens of times -- at least 50 in all -- to repeal Obamacare. "They have been obsessed with repealing the Affordable Care Act," President Obama told a Democratic National Committee meeting in Washington last month. "You know what they say: 50th time is the charm. Maybe when you hit your 50th repeal vote, you will win a prize. Maybe if you buy 50 repeal votes, you get one free. We get it."

For more than a year, Democrats and their advocates in the press have been ridiculing the GOP's anti-Obamacare efforts. "The House Republicans have voted more than 30 times to repeal Obamacare," White House press secretary Jay Carney said in March 2013. "The House has wasted weeks voting more than 40 times to repeal Obamacare," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in October of last year. "If at first you don't succeed, try 50 times -- Republicans [are] holding a 50th vote to repeal Obamacare," MSNBC's Al Sharpton said last week. Many others have said similar things.

The only problem is, the truism isn't true. The House has actually voted to repeal Obamacare in its entirety six times. Certainly Democrats think that is six too many. But it is not 50, or even close to 50. The rest of the votes -- there have actually been 54 so far -- were votes that ranged from defunding measures that would have crippled Obamacare to delaying measures that would have put off some of the very same provisions in the law that President Obama has delayed unilaterally, to measures fixing portions of the law that passed both houses of Congress with bipartisan support and were signed by the president.

The basic story is that House Republicans have voted for repeal at a few key moments since Obamacare was signed into law, and also as part of the yearly budget process. "It's six times if you count the budget," says one House GOP source in an email. "First time was when we first took the House majority, once after the Supreme Court decision, and once this Congress. And then the budget ever year."

In addition, eight of the times Republicans have voted to "repeal" Obamacare have been instances in which Congress passed, and President Obama signed, for example, measures to repeal the 1099 tax reporting requirement; repeal the CLASS Act; reduce funding in the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which many lawmakers viewed as excessive; and other issues.

On June 04 2014 03:07 xDaunt wrote:

No, your last post fairly perfectly proved the point in my prior. There's not much left for me to say. Either people will agree with me or they won't. Besides, it is bush league to always insist on having the last word. All that does is shit up threads, which happens a lot around here.

In a ruling released late Thursday, Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis blasted the Republican establishment that created Florida's congressional map, saying they "made a mockery" of transparency, allowed for "improper partisan intent" and he ordered that two of the state's 27 districts drawn in 2012 violate the Fair District standards.

In his 41-page ruling, the judge rejected challenges to districts in South Florida and that Tampa Bay but said that District 5, held by Democrat U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, and District 10, held by Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Webster, "will need to be redrawn, as will any other districts affected thereby."

The ruling is expected to be appealed by the Legislature, which said in a statement it is reviewing the ruling.

Lewis blasted the role of the political consultants saying "they made a mockery of the Legislature's transparent and open process of redistricting" while "going to great lengths to conceal from the public their paln and their participation in it.

"They were successful in their efforts to influence the redistricting process and the congressional plan under review here,'' he wrote. "And they might have successfully concealed their scheme and their actions from the public had it not been for the Plaintiffs determined efforts to uncover it in this case."

He concluded, however, that the circumstantial evidence proved that the political operatives "managed to find other avenues...to infiltrate and influence the Legislature." He drew no conclusions that legislative leaders were aware of the scheme, but he noted that Legislative leaders destroyed almost all of their emails and other documents related to redistricting, as did the political operatives.

"There is no legal duty on the part of the Legislature to preserve these records, but you have to wonder why they didn't,'' he wrote. "Litigation over their plans was 'a moral certainty' as their lawyers put it earlier in the case, and intent woudl be a key issue in any challenge."

Lewis tore apart the defense of the most controversial district in Florida's map -- District 5, a snake-shaped that runs from Jacksonville to Orlando district that was first drawn by a court 20 years ago and which Brown has represented since then. Brown was so intent on leaving the district unchanged, that she challenged the constitutionality of Florida Fair District law but lost.

The public largely blames President Obama for the flood of children who have poured over the border in recent weeks, creating a growing humanitarian crisis, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Poll released Monday.
The late June survey found that the public largely blames Obama policies for the crisis in Iraq and believes the lost IRS emails are an administration effort to cover up wrongdoing at the agency.
The poll found that 59% of those closely following the immigration crisis agree that "current administration policies and lack of focus on securing the border" are behind the human tide of illegal crossings. Six in 10 say that the children should be ordered to leave the country. (The survey found that 73% of Americans are following this story closely.)
Hoping to quell public outrage, Obama formally asked Congress on Monday for $2 billion in emergency funds to improve border security, provide more detention space and return children to their native countries.
He also promised to take executive action on immigration reform, blaming House Republicans for not passing legislation. He directed staff to recommend initiatives this summer that he can act on "without delay."
House Speaker John Boehner fired back, saying that Obama had helped to trigger the latest crisis by "giving false hope" to illegal immigrants and that his penchant for unilateral action makes it hard for GOP members to believe that he will enforce border-security measures.

Most See IRS Cover-Up
Obama is taking hits from the public on the IRS scandal as well.
The IBD/TIPP poll found that 65% believe that the lost IRS emails are an attempt by the administration to "hide evidence that the IRS deliberately targeted conservative groups" prior to the 2012 presidential election.
The lost emails are the latest twist in a more than year-long saga that erupted when an inspector general report detailed how the IRS held up Tea Party groups' applications for tax-exempt status before the 2012 elections.
Several saw their applications in limbo for years while they were being asked overly intrusive questions. The delays limited their ability to raise money for voter drives, education campaigns and the like.
The IRS initially blamed "rogue agents" in its Cincinnati office, a claim that later fell apart as evidence of coordination with officials in Washington emerged.
GOP lawmakers had long been pressing for emails sent to and from Lois Lerner, an official at the heart of the controversy who refused to testify before Congress about the case. Just weeks ago, the IRS claimed that her 2009-2011 emails disappeared when her hard drive crashed.
Obama dismissed the IRS scandal earlier this year, saying there was not "even a smidgen of corruption." Congressional Democrats argue that the IRS wasn't singling out right-wing groups.
Those defenses aren't flying with most Americans who've been tracking this story. Among independents, 66% think the lost emails were an attempt to cover up wrongdoing. Even 36% of Democrats say it was a cover-up.

Iraq Policy Criticized
On Iraq, 56% of Americans following events there say that Obama's decision to remove all American troops from the country in 2011 "set the stage for the current unrest," which has seen an Islamic militant group — the ISIL — overtake several Iraqi cities. Half of Democrats also blame the troop withdrawal.
What's more, 55% say that Obama wasn't being honest when he claimed that Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was entirely responsible for the decision to bring the troops home.
Meanwhile, 55% say that the administration's failure to contain the Syria conflict contributed to the rise of the militant forces in Iraq. Just 27% give Obama high marks for his handling of the Iraq situation.
But while a majority believes that ISIL militants pose a direct threat to U.S. security, the public is hesitant to endorse any military response. Only 49% support airstrikes, and just 27% back the use of ground troops.
Obama said Monday he would send 200 personnel "equipped for combat" to Iraq in addition to 300 military advisers sent earlier.
Despite the recent events, Obama's popularity has not deteriorated significantly. The IBD/TIPP Presidential Leadership Index fell just 0.1 point to 44.9. That's still the 16th straight month below the neutral 50 level.

I’m flying 35,000 feet somewhere over Eastern Ohio now — isn’t technology wonderful? — so I can only comment on this briefly, but the Investors’ Business Daily poll purporting to show widespread opposition to health care reform among doctors is simply not credible. There are five reasons why:

1. The survey was conducted by mail, which is unusual. The only other mail-based poll that I’m aware of is that conducted by the Columbus Dispatch, which was associated with an average error of about 7 percentage points — the highest of any pollster that we tested.

2. At least one of the questions is blatantly biased: “Do you believe the government can cover 47 million more people and it will cost less money and th quality of care will be better?”. Holy run-on-sentence, Batman? A pollster who asks a question like this one is not intending to be objective.

3. As we learned during the Presidntial campaign — when, among other things, they had John McCain winning the youth vote 74-22 — the IBD/TIPP polling operation has literally no idea what they’re doing. I mean, literally none. For example, I don’t trust IBD/TIPP to have competently selected anything resembling a random panel, which is harder to do than you’d think.

4. They say, somewhat ambiguously: “Responses are still coming in.” This is also highly unorthodox. Professional pollsters generally do not report results before the survey period is compete.

5. There is virtually no disclosure about methodology. For example, IBD doesn’t bother to define the term “practicing physician”, which could mean almost anything. Nor do they explain how their randomization procedure worked, provide the entire question battery, or anything like that.

My advice would be to completely ignore this poll. There are pollsters out there that have an agenda but are highly competent, and there are pollsters that are nonpartisan but not particularly skilled. Rarely, however, do you find the whole package: that special pollster which is both biased and inept. IBD/TIPP is one of the few exceptions.

On July 11 2014 13:27 coverpunch wrote:
Just a note, the "wrongness" of a poll's prediction is not a good reason to ignore a poll altogether because quite simply the consensus is not always right and having a more accurate average usually means needing people on both extremes. I think it has long been known that a problem with polls is that they are biased and get fudged because they're scared of making a prediction that differs too greatly from others - they'd rather be wrong than alone.

If they develop a pattern of wildly bad predictions and/or there is evidence they are purposely skewing the poll to fit a result that they want, that's a different question. But being wildly incorrect is not the same as being incompetent.

Nate Silver got a first-hand lesson this week by predicting Brazil to beat Germany.

On July 11 2014 13:27 coverpunch wrote:
Just a note, the "wrongness" of a poll's prediction is not a good reason to ignore a poll altogether because quite simply the consensus is not always right and having a more accurate average usually means needing people on both extremes. I think it has long been known that a problem with polls is that they are biased and get fudged because they're scared of making a prediction that differs too greatly from others - they'd rather be wrong than alone.

If they develop a pattern of wildly bad predictions and/or there is evidence they are purposely skewing the poll to fit a result that they want, that's a different question. But being wildly incorrect is not the same as being incompetent.

Nate Silver got a first-hand lesson this week by predicting Brazil to beat Germany.

On July 11 2014 13:50 Funnytoss wrote:


Predicting Sports Team A will defeat Sports Team B is *very* different from predicting the results of a Presidential election, where it's not decided by players on the field and other random factors, but rather the voters - in which you literally have years of pre-election polling results to work off of.

On July 11 2014 14:33 coverpunch wrote:
Ideally, you never go into the dimension of what people want to hear and stick to the data, or you state your priors and your biases so people know it's inevitably baked into the analysis.

A Google search for IBD/TIPP brings up some interesting results. I have no real opinion on whether they're good or bad, just noting that bringing up their two biggest blunders isn't a good reason to ignore them because it doesn't invalidate their polling methods.

To be fair to your point, a lot of Democrats are very upset with Nate Silver because he's predicting Republicans will retake the Senate. Much of the early love for him was that he kept predicting Obama and Democrats to win elections and they did. Now they're not so happy when he says the data is pointing the other way.

There are pollsters out there that have an agenda but are highly competent, and there are pollsters that are nonpartisan but not particularly skilled. Rarely, however, do you find the whole package: that special pollster which is both biased and inept. IBD/TIPP is one of the few exceptions.