US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1624

Florida Attorney Steve Medina has been working on a case, pro bono, to expose the environmental corruption which has been taking place in Tallahassee and Putnam County, Florida.

Tons of toxic waste is being dumped into St. Johns River, daily, by the Koch Brothers company, Georgia-Pacific. Aspects of the deal allowing Georgia Pacific to massively assault the environment, were misleading, sometimes illegal, and unbeknownst to the local citizens. Florida Governor Rick Scott and former Governor (and Republican presidential hopeful), Jeb Bush, are also involved.

Last week, Steve Medina sent me the information below to break the story. The corruption evolves and unravels in a complicated and insidious manner and spans for about a decade, so enjoy the read. All of Medina’s reporting is backed up via extensive public records and court documents. With his permission, here is Steve Medina’s story:

We have learned recently that Florida Governor *Rick “Fifth Amendment” Scott is, how shall we say, ethically-challenged. Actually, that has been known for a long time, but who’s counting the past, this is Florida, land of forgiveness, opportunity, and no state income tax! Give them your relaxed, your wealthy, your huddled plutocrats yearning to breathe free. Put your wretched refuse beneath their teaming shores. Send these, the multi-homed, tempest-tossed, to them: Their elected officials snuff out their lamp beside the golden door.You may know Florida’s immediately past commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement seems to have been given the heave ho by Governor Scott not only for patently political reasons but without particular attention to Florida law. http://www.dailykos.com/… (In Florida, if you are Governor Scott, perhaps you would not want an FDLE commissioner who actually investigates things, especially potential white collar crimes involving public corruption.)

Meanwhile, you probably don’t know that, for the past two years, thanks to Governor Scott, a veritable fountainhead of toxic waste has been directly dumped every day into the heart of “Florida’s American Heritage River,” http://upf.com/… the St. Johns. As discussed below, it is released through what is contended in a legal action to be an illegally-approved pipeline, the circumstances of which Governor Scott, as the current chairperson of Florida’s Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund, refuses to investigate.

To investigate these circumstances would be to investigate the highly questionable actions of yet another state agency, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. These actions in turn reach back into the Jeb Bush administration (1999-2007), when then Governor Bush and the Florida Cabinet, over the objection of then Attorney General Charlie Crist, gave preliminary approval for a Georgia-Pacific pipeline from its Palatka paper mill to the St. Johns River.

Tons of toxic waste travel through the pipe to the heart of the St. Johns River every day. The approval was “finalized” through what Florida citizens and environmental groups are calling a grossly misleading newspaper public notice that aimed to cut-off public challenges to the pipeline easement, which the Trustees’ agent, the FDEP, eventually granted.

Ironically, or maybe not, the benefactors of the spewing are Charles G. and David Koch, the foremost, or at least two of the richest, purveyors of “freedom” according to Ayn Rand. Since late 2005, Koch Industries has owned Georgia-Pacific. It began buying up Georgia-Pacific assets the year before. http://www.nytimes.com/… The Koch Brothers have since been active in educating Georgia-Pacific employees about the right way to vote.

On February 05 2015 11:30 IgnE wrote:
This is just typical jonny evasion. Just disagree with everything his opponent says until after 5 pages of back and forth he's backed into a corner and abruptly ends the conversation. It's tiresome. No one likes people who spend so much time avoiding what they think is the crux of the matter in an effort to either a) avoid taking a position or b) confuse the opposition.

Forty-four percent disagree, saying unvaccinated kids should be allowed to attend public schools.

Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein rushed to meetings on Capitol Hill on Wednesday trying to calm a furor created by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress next month and quell a Democratic revolt that has dozens threatening a boycott.

It didn't work.

If anything, Democrats finished the day more frustrated. According to a source in the room, one Jewish Democratic member of Congress even accused Dermer of being insincere when he claimed not to have anticipated the partisan uproar he’d ignite when he skirted protocol and went around the White House and scheduled the speech only with House Speaker John Boehner.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest, meanwhile, dangled the possibility that the White House would have Vice President Joe Biden skip the speech in what the West Wing acknowledges would be a serious snub.

On February 05 2015 14:31 IgnE wrote:
For the record, I agreed with jonny in principle that crucifying Rand Paul for a pandering throwaway line in an unscripted speech is not worth getting worked up about. But this stupid whack-a-mole game jonny forces on people who respond to him because he never sets forth a position is tiresome. I understand why you would want to occupy the infinite position of "Not A" if you were a lawyer in a courtroom jonny, but it makes conversations difficult when you are clearly pushing an agenda of some sort without ever affirming a positive.

On February 05 2015 14:31 IgnE wrote:
For the record, I agreed with jonny in principle that crucifying Rand Paul for a pandering throwaway line in an unscripted speech is not worth getting worked up about. But this stupid whack-a-mole game jonny forces on people who respond to him because he never sets forth a position is tiresome. I understand why you would want to occupy the infinite position of "Not A" if you were a lawyer in a courtroom jonny, but it makes conversations difficult when you are clearly pushing an agenda of some sort without ever affirming a positive.

On February 05 2015 14:31 IgnE wrote:
[...] But this stupid whack-a-mole game jonny forces on people who respond to him because he never sets forth a position is tiresome. I understand why you would want to occupy the infinite position of "Not A" if you were a lawyer in a courtroom jonny, but it makes conversations difficult when you are clearly pushing an agenda of some sort without ever affirming a positive.

On February 05 2015 10:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

They didn't. Rand Paul, in one fraction of one sentence, made a statement that could be interpreted that way. However, he clarified that he did not support the idea that vaccines caused autism.

On February 05 2015 14:50 coverpunch wrote:

This kind of stuff is why the Israelis are simultaneously the best and worst country in the world when it comes to global politics. It looks to me like Netanyahu got exactly what he wanted, which is his brand of "there's no such thing as bad publicity" and casting himself domestically as a victim of American partisan politics, even when he's right in the thick of it. It remains to be seen if he'll get what he really wants, which is a more aggressive US going after its enemies. It will also be curious if this does lasting damage to US attitudes toward Israel or if all these Democrats will be falling over themselves to support Israel when it becomes an issue for their presidential nominees.

In November, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus sent an email inviting committee members to attend the trip, which senior committee official Sean Spicer described Monday as “an opportunity [for participants] to see some of the historical sights of Israel and to advance their understanding of U.S.-Israel relations.” Time first reported on the trip in December and cited an RNC official who said that 60 committee members had RSVP’d to attend.

Spicer declined to name the committee members who are on the trip.

The visit is sponsored by the American Renewal Project, a group founded by evangelical activist David Lane, along with the AFA, a Christian group to which it has ties.

Lane has disparaged the “false God of Mormonism” and written that “Homosexual desire and marriage is unnatural and — more so — is a symptom of advanced cultural decay and precursor to the collapse of the Republican Party and the nation.” He has also professed his belief that “Christians must be retrained to war for the Soul of America and quit believing the fabricated whopper of the ‘Separation of Church and State.’” Attempts to reach American Renewal Project on Monday were unsuccessful.

The AFA has also come under criticism, in large part because of controversial remarks by Bryan Fischer, who until recently was a spokesman and director for the group. On multiple occasions, he has compared LGBT rights activists to the Nazi Party, saying in 2011, “They are Nazis. Do not be under any illusions about what homosexual activists will do with your freedoms and your religion if they have the opportunity. They’ll do the same thing to you that the Nazis did to their opponents in Nazi Germany.”

On February 05 2015 15:06 Danglars wrote:For the record, the previous couple pages of his responses and back and forths were an entertaining read. Some arguments were insufficient on their face or outright ignored important facets of the issue. It isn't so much a search to post something Jonny agrees with than to make a compelling, reasoned case not filled with ignorance (to Republican policy positions, aspects of the issue at hand, previous comments deliberately misinterpreted). You and others can turn that frustration inward and develop better arguments when you find they're based on questionable grounds.

On February 05 2015 15:16 xDaunt wrote:

More accurately, the last couple of pages is what happens when people decide to argue and make a big deal out of a virtual non-story.

In the first Affordable Care Act case three years ago, the Supreme Court had to decide whether Congress had the power, under the Commerce Clause or some other source of authority, to require individuals to buy health insurance. It was a question that went directly to the structure of American government and the allocation of power within the federal system.

The court very nearly got the answer wrong with an exceedingly narrow reading of Congress’s commerce power. As everyone remembers, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., himself a member of the anti-Commerce Clause five, saved the day by declaring that the penalty for not complying with the individual mandate was actually a tax, properly imposed under Congress’s tax power.

I thought the court was seriously misguided in denying Congress the power under the Commerce Clause to intervene in a sector of the economy that accounts for more than 17 percent of the gross national product. But even I have to concede that the debate over structure has deep roots in the country’s history and a legitimate claim on the Supreme Court’s attention. People will be debating it as long as the flag waves.

But the new Affordable Care Act case, King v. Burwell, to be argued four weeks from now, is different, a case of statutory, not constitutional, interpretation. The court has permitted itself to be recruited into the front lines of a partisan war. Not only the Affordable Care Act but the court itself is in peril as a result.

At the invitation of a group of people determined to render the Affordable Care Act unworkable (the nominal plaintiffs are four Virginia residents who can’t afford health insurance but who want to be declared ineligible for the federal tax subsidies that would make insurance affordable for them), the justices have agreed to decide whether the statute as written in fact refutes one of the several titles that Congress gave it: “Quality, Affordable Health Care for All Americans.”

If the Supreme Court agrees with the challengers, more than seven million people who bought their insurance in the 34 states where the federal government set up the marketplaces, known as exchanges, will lose their tax subsidies. The market for affordable individual health insurance will collapse in the face of shrinking numbers of insured people and skyrocketing premiums, the very “death spiral” that the Affordable Care Act was designed to prevent.

On February 06 2015 00:09 oneofthem wrote:
it is funny how conservatives are quick to identify the potential consequences of something like gmo labeling yet fail to recognize the problem of handing public health over to cultists

California lawmakers have put forward legislation requiring parents to vaccinate all school children unless a child is deemed to be in danger due to a pre-existing medical condition. If passed, California would join only two other states with such stringent restrictions.

Parents could no longer cite personal beliefs or religious reasons to send unvaccinated children to private and public schools under the proposal introduced Wednesday after dozens of people fell ill from a measles outbreak that started in the state’s Disneyland resort. Indeed the only exemptions would be for children who could be at risk due to allergic responses or a weakened immune system caused by serious illness.

Mississippi and West Virginia are the only other states with such strict vaccine rules, though the California bill's chief author said he would consider including a religious exemption — a move likely to undermine efforts to protect children in the states from preventable diseases.

"People are starting to realize, ‘I'm vulnerable, my children are vulnerable,'" said Sen. Richard Pan, a Democratic pediatrician from Sacramento. "We should not wait for more children to sicken or die before we act."

Childhood vaccine has become an emotionally charged topic amid a measles outbreak that has sickened more than 100 people across the U.S. and in Mexico. No deaths have been reported.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, California is among 20 states that allow for personal belief exemptions and 48 that allow for religious exemptions.

A Washington state lawmaker introduced a bill Wednesday that would remove the personal belief allowance for an exemption in that state.

On February 06 2015 03:06 GreenHorizons wrote:



It's just astounding to me that for years Republicans have been trying to scrap the ACA but they still don't have a plan for all the people they would be screwing out of coverage, capless plans, pre-exsisting conditions, etc...

On February 06 2015 03:25 Millitron wrote:

Maybe they shouldn't have been given coverage in the first place though. Consider social security for a moment. Because so many people are now dependent on it, its practically political suicide to consider altering it in any meaningful way. It's conceivable that there could be serious problems with the institution that are now unfixable, because any politician who tried would be voted out immediately. This is the danger with entitlements.