US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1558

On January 04 2015 06:23 farvacola wrote:
Jonny, to what degree do you think the United States is like or is heading towards Nazi Germany?

Legislators in the 24 states where Republicans now hold total control plan to push a series of aggressive policy initiatives in the coming year aimed at limiting the power of the federal government and rekindling the culture wars.

The unprecedented breadth of the Republican majority — the party now controls 31 governorships and 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers — all but guarantees a new tide of conservative laws. Republicans plan to launch a fresh assault on the Common Core education standards, press abortion regulations, cut personal and corporate income taxes and take up dozens of measures challenging the power of labor unions and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Before Election Day, the GOP controlled 59 partisan legislative chambers across the country. The increase to 68 gives Republicans six more chambers than their previous record in the modern era, set after special elections in 2011 and 2012.

Republicans also reduced the number of states where Democrats control both the governor’s office and the legislatures from 13 to seven.

Republicans in at least nine states are planning to use their power to pass “right to work” legislation, which would allow employees to opt out of joining a labor union. Twenty-four states already have such laws on the books, and new measures have been or will be proposed in Wisconsin, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Ohio, Colorado, Kentucky, Montana, Pennsylvania and Missouri.

In Tennessee, voters gave the legislature new powers to regulate abortion, and state House Speaker Beth Harwell (R) has said her chamber will take up three measures requiring mandatory counseling, a waiting period and stricter inspections of clinics.

Conservative activists also are targeting Common Core, the national education standards adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia over the past few years. Opposition from parent and community groups has become a hot political issue on the right over the past year, leading three states — Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina — to drop out of the program.

Some states will attempt to join those three in leaving the program altogether. Others will try to change testing requirements or prevent the sharing of education data with federal officials. In recent interviews, several Republican governors who support Common Core say they expect debate in their forthcoming legislative sessions.

“The biggest concern and opposition you hear from conservative legislators is, ‘We don’t want Washington dictating curricula,’ ” said Utah state Sen. Curtis Bramble, a Republican.

Republicans also are likely to take up measures diluting the power of the EPA, which has proposed state-by-state targets for reducing carbon emissions. A dozen states have challenged proposed EPA regulations on power plants in federal court.

New Republican governors in states such as Arkansas and Arizona and legislators in North Carolina, North Dakota and elsewhere will prioritize cutting personal or corporate income tax rates. States that have experienced a revenue boom from energy taxes will have to contend with falling receipts as the price of oil declines. Tax revenue in other states is coming in slower than expected, presenting a challenge in many of the 49 states that require balanced annual budgets.

“With the increasing costs of Medicaid and education, balancing the budget is going to be a challenge,” said South Dakota state Sen. Deb Peters (R), who chairs the Appropriations Committee.

Yeah, you can go ahead and pretend that you ignore a potential candidate's rhetoric, for today. The moment you get all riled up in the face of liberal rhetoric (Warren, my dear, that's your cue) that is tactical on its face, I expect a 180 will be in order.

DUBAI, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Iran denied on Saturday that it had reached an agreement with the United States to ship its surplus enriched uranium to Russia under new concessions aimed at clinching a comprehensive nuclear deal with six world powers.

The Associated Press, citing diplomats, said on Friday Tehran and Washington had tentatively agreed on a formula to ship to Russia much of the material that could potentially lead to manufacture of atomic arms by the Islamic republic.

It said negotiators had drawn up a catalog for the first time at their December meeting in Geneva outlining areas of potential accord and differences in their 12-year nuclear dispute.

Iran's foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said "no agreement on any nuclear topic" had been reached.

"Such news is spread out of political motives and its goal is to tarnish the climate of the talks and make it more complicated to reach a settlement," the state IRNA news agency quoted her as saying.

The semi-official ISNA agency, citing an "informed source," also denied the report: "The topic of transferring (enriched) uranium abroad has been circulating for a while, but we haven't had any agreement in this regard."

The head of Iran's atomic energy agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, told worshippers at Friday prayers that the long nuclear conflict was drawing to an end.

"Have no doubt that the nuclear issue will be resolved in Iran's favor and we will soon celebrate Iran's victory," he was quoted as saying by Mehr News.

Iran and the six powers "P5+1" -- the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany -- are to resume low-level talks on Tehran's nuclear activities in Geneva on Jan 15, but wide gaps remain in their positions.

An interim accord struck on Nov. 24, 2013, yielded steps by Iran to curb aspects of its sensitive nuclear activity, including higher-grade enrichment, in return for a measure of relief from economic sanctions. But last November, the two sides failed for a second time to meet a self-imposed deadline on ending the standoff and extended the period until June 30, 2015.

Among sticking points are the scope of uranium enrichment, the number of centrifuges and pace and sequencing of sanctions relief.

On January 04 2015 11:15 Nyxisto wrote:
sure the US is not suddenly going to turn into a classical dictatorship, but the agencies and the police and prison sector and whatever are simply completely out of control and not just out of line. I honestly wonder how big the percentage of people is that work either in the military, intelligence, security and prison/police sector. Not a rhetorical question, I couldn't actually find a number.

On January 04 2015 11:58 oneofthem wrote:
well shit 500k prison guard is still pretty crazy

On January 04 2015 09:53 tadL wrote:
For this you would first need an army that can win wars ^^

On January 04 2015 07:01 farvacola wrote:

Yes, that's exactly what I'm getting at! Surface level, broad stroke descriptions of government agencies and hot topic current events are about all conservatives like Carson can conjure up when asked to justify a Nazi comparison. Let me be clear; if you think that the bloating of US executive authority, as exemplified by the CIA torture debate, the NSA's information gathering, or a mere gesticulation towards the ATF or DEA

On January 04 2015 13:15 Nyxisto wrote:
Well 1% is less than I thought, I wonder what the "contribution" to the GDP of these sectors is though. Also crazy that apparently about 1% of the American population is in prison. (and 3% of people are either in prison or on probation&parole)

On January 04 2015 13:15 Nyxisto wrote:
Well 1% is less than I thought, I wonder what the "contribution" to the GDP of these sectors is though. Also crazy that apparently about 1% of the American population is in prison. (and 3% of people are either in prison or on probation&parole)