US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1324

On October 01 2014 03:46 xDaunt wrote:
Looks like people are finally starting to come to an agreement that Obama is a horrible leader. You know it's bad when the National Journal is writing stuff like this:



You can read the rest here.

The time-tested strategy for Obama: Claim he's in the dark about his own administration's activities, blame the mess on subordinates, and hope that with the passage of time, all will be forgotten.

More and more reports of Secret Service blunders keep coming out. The latest came on Tuesday afternoon: A security contractor with a gun who had three prior convictions for assault and battery was able to get on an elevator with President Barack Obama earlier in September, according to The Washington Post.

It was a violation of Secret Service protocols, the Post noted.

The Post reported that the incident happened on Sept. 16 when Obama went to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to deliver remarks on the country's response to the ongoing crisis concerning the Ebola virus.

Secret Service agents asked the contractor to stop using a camera phone he had to videotape Obama while in the elevator, the Post said. Secret Service agents did question him and checked a database to find out out about his criminal background.

A supervisor for the private security firm learned about the Secret Service agents' concern with the contractor and the contractor was then fired. He agreed to hand over his gun as well, which surprised agents who did not know until then that he had been armed while he was near Obama.

Labor advocacy groups welcomed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signing on Tuesday of an executive order that will raise wages for thousands of New Yorkers, saying it will help people survive in the notoriously expensive city.

De Blasio said the order expands a 2012 “living wage” law that previously applied to only 1,200 New York jobs. The order extends coverage to 18,000 workers over the next five years, and increases the amount they must be paid under the law — to as high as $13.13 an hour for some workers.

The executive order will cover employees of commercial tenants in development projects that take in more than $1 million in city subsidies, The New York Times said Tuesday.

“I think it’s a good step in the right direction for helping reduce income inequality,” said Cara Noel, spokeswoman for NYC Central Labor Council, adding that it will likely put some people on the path to becoming self-sufficient.

The term living wage refers to the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet needs that are considered basic. De Blasio’s order comes amid a national movement of low-wage workers advocating for higher pay.

"We're doing something urgent that takes effect today," de Blasio said Tuesday at a news conference, adding that he would also move to raise the state’s overall minimum wage.

Calling the order "one part of a bigger strategy," he said, “We need to move united from here to Albany to raise the state minimum wage to $10.10.”

Under the executive order the living wage will be raised from $10.30 to $11.50 for workers in New York City who already receive benefits including health insurance. For those without benefits, the amount will increase from $11.90 to $13.13, according to The New York Times.

On October 01 2014 08:43 Mindcrime wrote:


worked for reagan

The government on Tuesday revealed in vast detail the financial ties between American medicine and the drug and medical device industries, publishing millions of records listing $3.5 billion in payments to doctors and hospitals over a five-month period.

About 4.4 million records were available for search and download in the new Open Payments database, reflecting payments and other financial relationships that drug and device manufacturers had with 546,000 doctors and 1,360 teaching hospitals during the last five months of 2013.

In its first hours, the website was tortuously slow. And it was incomplete: About 40 percent of the records do not identify the recipient because CMS could not match data provided by manufacturers with existing databases.

Data for a full 12-month period will be available in June, and missing recipients will be identified sometime next year, CMS said. Other data were delayed because manufacturers said they contained trade secrets.

A basic search for Sovaldi — the $80,000-per-pill hepatitis C cure that has the insurance industry up in arms — shows that Gilead Sciences made almost 2,000 identified payments related to the drug, totaling nearly $400,000. The expenditures ranged from $7.62 for Karam Mounzer, a Philadelphia physician, for “food and beverage,” to two payments of $3,750 in speaking fees to Bruce Bacon, a St. Louis doctor, via his consulting firm.

The release could be viewed two ways: as a detailed view of the underbelly of U.S. medicine, or a flawed, sloppy release of partial information that will confuse rather than elevate understanding. The American Medical Association said Open Payments could distort the nature of relationships between industry and doctors that were vital to the advancement of medicine.

On October 01 2014 12:01 Danglars wrote:
Wait, you mean unaccountable federal bureaucracies can be incompetent? Say it aint so! Why why why ... they had rules in place!

I mean, I thought knowing that it violated Secret Service protocols would be enough!!!

On October 01 2014 11:25 Introvert wrote:


There should be a better comparison somewhere. One that would be more apt is Obama saying "we have no boots on the ground" and then later having everyone find out that, whoops!, there were boots on the ground. After that, he would blame his commanders or CoS.

I don't think the two situations are too similar.

I think the article is more likely referring to things like the IRS scandal or Fast and Furious.

As a matter of fact, it's mentioned later in the article.


+ Show Spoiler +

And, as the article said, it's worked! This is also similar to the issues with Bill Clinton. if you just drag stuff out long enough, people lose interest. That way, when the truth does come out, it doesn't hurt you. (Maybe it even helps you!)

Kansas Tea Party supporters are threatening to sit out the state’s pivotal Senate election, potentially dealing another blow to the reelection hopes of Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.).

Though schisms within the GOP base rarely have such an outsized impact on a general election contest, the lack of support from the conservative base could be devastating to the vulnerable Roberts’s chances against surging independent Greg Orman.

Multiple sources tell The Hill that a group of Tea Party leaders in the state are meeting Wednesday to try to decide whether they should go to bat for the incumbent this fall or sit out of the race entirely.

Aware of the vulnerabilities it faces, the Roberts campaign has been engaged in a full-court press to mend fences with conservatives over the past few weeks and regain some of the trust lost during the bitter primary fight against radiologist Milton Wolf, whom the senator beat by a closer-than expected margin.

“It all comes back to whether or not there’s an agreement reached. I don’t know if there’s going to be,” said Steve Shute, a city councilman in Gardner, Kan., and Tea Party activist.

“The longer this delays, to find results, the greater risk there is that Kansas turns blue or purple,” said Shute, who’s been acting as a moderator between conservatives and the campaigns of Roberts and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R).

On October 01 2014 12:03 IgnE wrote:


Yeah you would think we were dealing with private corporations based on this level of incompetence.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed the nation's first statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery and convenience stores, driven to action by pollution in streets and waterways.

A national coalition of plastic bag manufacturers immediately said it would seek a voter referendum to repeal the law, which is scheduled to take effect in July 2015.

Under SB270, plastic bags will be phased out of checkout counters at large grocery stores and supermarkets such as Wal-Mart and Target starting next summer, and convenience stores and pharmacies in 2016. The law does not apply to bags used for fruits, vegetables or meats, or to shopping bags used at other retailers. It allows grocers to charge a fee of at least 10 cents for using paper bags.

State Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, credits the momentum for statewide legislation to the more than 100 cities and counties, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, that already have such bans.

The law marks a major milestone for environmental activists who have successfully pushed plastic bag bans in cities across the U.S., including Chicago, Austin and Seattle. Hawaii is also on track to have a de-facto statewide ban, with all counties approving prohibitions.

"This bill is a step in the right direction — it reduces the torrent of plastic polluting our beaches, parks and even the vast ocean itself," Brown said in a signing statement. "We're the first to ban these bags, and we won't be the last."

Plastic bag manufacturers have aggressively pushed back through their trade group, the American Progressive Bag Alliance, which aired commercials in California blasting the ban as a cash-giveaway to grocers that would lead to a loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma prison officials unveiled new execution procedures Tuesday to replace those used in April when an inmate writhed and moaned before being declared dead 43 minutes after his lethal injection began — a situation that renewed debate over what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The new guidelines allow the state to keep using midazolam, a sedative used in flawed executions earlier this year in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona, although it calls for increasing by five times the dose it gave Clayton Lockett in April. Other changes include more training requirements for prison staff and members of the execution teams, and having contingency plans in case of problems with execution equipment or an inmate's medical condition. The new protocols also reduce the number of media witnesses from 12 to five.

An investigation ordered by Gov. Mary Fallin after Lockett's execution that was conducted by the Department of Public Safety blamed his lengthy death on the poor placement of a single intravenous line in his groin and a decision by the warden to cover the IV site with a sheet. The investigation recommended more training for prison staff and a contingency plan, both of which are included in the new procedures.

The director of the Department of Corrections, Robert Patton, declined to comment on the protocol changes, citing ongoing litigation.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Dale Baich, who represents 21 death row inmates who have sued the state Department of Corrections to block their executions, said the new protocols do not solve Oklahoma's execution problems.

"We still do not know what went wrong with Mr. Lockett's execution," Baich said. "Discovery and fact-finding by the federal courts will address those issues.

"The prisoners still do not have access to information about the source of the drugs, the qualifications of the executioners, or how the state came up with the different drug combinations."

Under the new guidelines, Oklahoma can continue to administer midazolam, a sedative often given to patients before surgery and commonly known as Versed, as part of three-drug and two-drug protocols.

A normal dose in medical settings is usually less than 5 milligrams. Oklahoma's previous protocol called for 100 milligrams. The new recommended dosage of 500 milligrams matches that of at least one other state, Florida, which also uses the drug as part of its procedures.

Baich also said cutting the number of media witnesses "reduces public accountability and makes the process less transparent."

A federal judge had expressed concern earlier this month that Oklahoma will not be able to implement new guidelines and training for executions before three inmates are scheduled to die this fall.

Charles Warner, who has been set for execution the same night as Lockett, is now scheduled to die Nov. 13. Oklahoma has also set execution dates for Richard Glossip on Nov. 20 and for John Marion Grant on Dec. 4.

Lockett's execution raised new concerns about lethal injection drugs and the secretive process many states use to obtain them. President Barack Obama called the botched execution "deeply disturbing" and called for a review of how the death penalty is applied in the United States.

On October 02 2014 02:38 WhiteDog wrote:

Wouldn't be cost efficient I think.