US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1181

On July 22 2014 01:08 Wolfstan wrote:
Pipelines are still 100x safer than rail or tanker. Use your pen and phone to show you care about the safety of your citizens and the environment.

On July 22 2014 01:58 Nyxisto wrote:


http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43390.pdf

This report states when we're talking about oil spilled, from 'good to bad' it is : boat > rail > pipeline > truck

What is your source for what you're claiming?

Given the comparatively small capacity of a rail tank car, around 700 barrels, the total amount
spilled from even a major derailment is likely to be small compared to the 260,000 barrels
discharged in the 1989 grounding of the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound, AK, or the
approximately 40,000 barrels discharged in the largest U.S. pipeline oil spill CRS can document,
which occurred in 1991 near Grand Rapids, MN.36 Nonetheless, spill volume is arguably a
relatively unimportant factor in terms of impacts and cleanup costs. Location matters more

On July 21 2014 22:49 xDaunt wrote:


Yeah, and as undemocratic as it sounds, Madison had it basically right. And if you think about it, he and Jefferson agreed upon the basic premise that it is a bad idea to let people vote who are not vested in the state. They just had different ideas regarding what to do about it.

On July 22 2014 03:46 IgnE wrote:


I think what you meant was, "it's bad to vest people in the state who are not already so vested."

A report published last week in the esteemed New England Journal of Medicine provided an overview of Obamacare's first year, its successes and the challenges ahead. It also offered a yet another estimate of the number of people covered by the law: 20 million.

The NEJM report pulled a wealth of information, much of it already known by those closely following the law's implementation but presented together by the journal, from think tanks and government agencies. It covered a range of topics, including the number of people covered, 2015 premiums, and the adequacy of provider networks for plans offered through the law.

But its bottom line was that millions of people have become insured under Obamacare.

"Taking all existing coverage expansions together, we estimate that 20 million Americans have gained coverage as of May 1 under the ACA," the authors wrote. "We do not know yet exactly how many of these people were previously uninsured, but it seems certain that many were."

They reached the 20 million total this way: 1 million adults under age 26 enrolled in their parents' plan; 8 million enrolled in private coverage through the insurance marketplaces; 5 million enrolled in private coverage directly through their insurer; 6 million enrolled in Medicaid.

As the authors noted, some of these people were likely insured prior to the law. Experts have previously said they expect many of those enrolling directly with an insurer, for example, already had coverage. But the conclusion still stands, the NEJM authors said.

"With continuing enrollment ... the numbers of Americans gaining insurance for the first time -- or insurance that is better in quality or more affordable than their previous policy -- will total in the many tens of millions," they wrote.

The city of Detroit vowed Monday not to shut off water to people with unpaid bills for the next 15 days, the latest response by officials to a controversy that has sparked large protests in the city.

The announcement came on the same day that residents filed a lawsuit alleging that Detroit’s Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) was violating constitutional and contractual rights by turning off the taps to customers in arrears, according to the Detroit Free Press newspaper.

“In case we have missed someone who has legitimate affordability problems this will allow them to come to us to see if they can work out payments,” DWSD spokesman Bill Johnson told the newspaper. “We’ve always maintained that what we were doing was a collection effort — not a shutoff effort.”

The water department stopped service to about 7,200 homes and businesses in June, compared to 1,570 in the same month last year. Water was restored to 43 percent of them after customers paid or worked out payment plans.

But the city issue has gained wider attention due in part to activists appealing to the United Nations for assistance.

Separately, about 2,000 people protested last week during a national convention of liberal Democratic activists.

The water department has said it needs to shut off water for delinquent accounts to recoup $175 million in outstanding bills. But it has been accused of ignoring the debts of large entities, such as a golf course that owes $437,000 and the state of Michigan itself, which owes $70,000, while going after people who owe as little as $150 on their accounts.

On July 22 2014 04:57 Nyxisto wrote:

Private prisons? how is that even legal? This is fucking sad an inhuman. "It's a great investment opportunity because of high recidivism" That is just insane.

Rubio: Small Government Can Help Fix Economic Inequality

Sen. Marco Rubio, a potential 2016 GOP presidential contender, is concerned about issues of access to affordable education, availability of job training and prospects for economic mobility. While shunning the "income inequality" language of the left, he insists that those problems need to be viewed through the lens of limited government.

"At its core, conservatism is not an anti-government movement, and it's not a no-government movement," Rubio tells Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep in the first of a two-part interview today.

"The conservative movement is about government playing its important yet limited role, and about not falling into the trap of believing that every problem has an exclusive government answer for it," the Florida Republican says.

Just last week, Rubio, 43, co-sponsored a bill with Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner to set up a system for federal student loan repayment based on a borrower's income.

While many conservatives argue that federal aid perpetuates dependency, others, such as Rubio, want to help struggling families without disowning their core ideology.

In May, for example, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, another possible 2016 candidate, warned against an economy where some people are permanently on top and others stuck at the bottom. While he offered no rhetoric about "the 1 percent," Bush was referencing some of the same underlying concerns.

Rubio steers away from criticizing unequal incomes, preferring instead to focus on unequal opportunity. "If you're the cashier at Burger King, of course you make less than the manager or even the CEO," Rubio tells NPR. "The issue is whether you're stuck being a cashier for the rest of your life.

"So, what we need to do is figure out, what is it that's holding people back? And try to do what we can to address it within the confines of what limited government should be doing," he says.

Take a single mother with two children who's struggling to support her family on $10 an hour: "[There] are things that government can do to incentivize the creation of innovations in education that are accessible to people like [her], because if you have to work full time and raise a family, you can't just drop everything and go into a traditional four-year college program," he says.

"There are things that government can do through our tax code to allow you to keep more of the money that you make, particularly when you look at the cost of child care," he says.

Asked why he specifically mentions single mothers, Rubio responds, "Because I know a bunch of them."

"There are millions of women who are trapped in lower-paying jobs and don't have the skills for a higher-paying job, and don't have the money or the time to access the higher education that they need for a better job," he says.

"So, for the rest of their lives, they're stuck making $10 an hour, and their kids, as a result, don't have opportunities either," Rubio says.

Many conservatives see government support as only reinforcing a dependency and incentivizing the father's absence. Rubio, however, insists that often it's not the mother's fault. "The man has abandoned her, or he was abusive."

"The success sequence in America says you get an education, you get a good job, you get married, you have children," Rubio says. "People who do those four things have an incredible level of economic stability.

"But there are millions of people who aren't going to have one or any of those things," he says. "They are not going to have an equal opportunity to succeed unless something happens to equalize the situation.

"The question for those of us in public policy is: What can a limited government do to become a part of that solution — not the exclusive solution — but a part of that solution?" Rubio contends.

"People should be allowed to package learning no matter how they acquired it," he says. "Their life experience, their work experience, free online courses, one course at a community college, another at another community college — you should be able to package all that cumulative learning into the equivalent of a degree that allows you to be employed."

In the second part of our conversation with Rubio, on Tuesday's Morning Edition, we'll hear from him about immigration and his presidential ambitions.

On July 22 2014 05:42 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

What's wrong with private prisons? They don't get to send people to jail, they just collect fees for running the prison.

On July 22 2014 05:42 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

What's wrong with private prisons? They don't get to send people to jail, they just collect fees for running the prison.

On July 22 2014 05:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Well said:


Source

On July 22 2014 05:48 Nyxisto wrote:


Have you seen the video? The owners literally claim that their prison is a great investment opportunity because of high recidivism rates. The population wants less prisoners and less crime and low recidivism rates. A for profit prison wants the opposite.

I don't even know why we would need to discuss this. If it wasn't so sad and real it could be straight out of an American Caricature.

WASHINGTON -– So far, 2014 has seen a renewed interest in climate change on the Sunday morning political talk shows. In just the first six months of this year, the major newscasts have featured more coverage of climate change than they did in the four previous years combined, according to a new Media Matters analysis.

Media Matters puts together regular reports on broadcast coverage of climate change, and its recent studies have found a shocking shortage of stories on the subject. While the last report found more coverage in 2013 than in 2012, it was still down from the peak in coverage that happened in 2009.

But 2014 has been a busy year for climate stories. In March, a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned of the threats that climate change poses to economies, food supplies and human security globally. In May, federal agencies released an assessment of climate threats here in the United States. And in June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the first-ever limits on planet-warming greenhouse gases from existing power plants, which produce nearly 40 percent of domestic emissions.

Among the Sunday shows, ABC's "This Week," CBS' "Face The Nation," NBC's "Meet The Press," and Fox's "Fox News Sunday" have had a total of 65 minutes of climate change coverage so far this year -– which is the same amount they had in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 combined.



"Meet The Press" had the most coverage, with 21 minutes spent on the issue.

On July 22 2014 05:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

From a strictly financial perspective, yes, the for profit prison wants to stay full of prisoners. And guess what? The numbers work exactly the same for a public run prison.

On July 22 2014 05:42 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

What's wrong with private prisons? They don't get to send people to jail, they just collect fees for running the prison.

On July 22 2014 06:11 Hagen0 wrote:


I don't necessarily doubt this but can you back this up?

Regardless even if true it merely means that US public prisons are just as awful as the private ones. Recidism rates in the US are particularly high compared to other nations. Some of this may be due to cultural differences but a lot of it is probaly not.

WASHINGTON — Conditions in California’s overcrowded prisons are so bad that they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday, ordering the state to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000 inmates. ...

The majority opinion included photographs of inmates crowded into open gymnasium-style rooms and what Justice Kennedy described as “telephone-booth-sized cages without toilets” used to house suicidal inmates. Suicide rates in the state’s prisons, Justice Kennedy wrote, have been 80 percent higher than the average for inmates nationwide. A lower court in the case said it was “an uncontested fact” that “an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies.”

On July 22 2014 06:18 Nachtwind wrote:


Could be wrong if the influence of this "private sector" has enough power to
a) have a negative effect for future laws
b) have a negative effect of "lesser" crimes not being reconsidered in the future
Now they´re indirectly sending people to jail - with "lobby work" - all legally though.

It´s not like you can say private sectors didn´t had already a influence on politics and your respective laws. Just a few to mention - weapon lobby, oil/gas, car producers, chemical industry and any other important industry with a good lobby behind them.

On July 22 2014 05:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

From a strictly financial perspective, yes, the for profit prison wants to stay full of prisoners. And guess what? The numbers work exactly the same for a public run prison.