US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1680

On February 28 2015 16:11 lastpuritan wrote:


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/world/europe/boris-nemtsov-russian-opposition-leader-is-shot-dead.html

Is that all the pressure US can put on as a nation?

Biden, Kerry, Psaki and Marie Harf are saying everything they want (mostly political) when such thing happen in a smaller country.

On February 28 2015 15:47 Falling wrote:
A Banling's Thoughts on the Current State of This Thread


It may be a necessary reminder that sincerely held beliefs on the far, far extreme from your political spectrum is not the same thing as a troll. That word has been thrown around too casually of late.

But I'm not as concerned with people using a naughty word so much as the shift in tone in this thread. There has always been jabs back and forth (for instance Igne vs Johnny), but it has become more cutting and more personal. I think the turning point was the anti-vaxx debate and the arrival of hannahbelle, which has brought out the worst in this thread on all sides.

I'm actually rather sick/tired of reading vaccination debates circled around again and again in the US Politics thread. I get why it's in US Politics (or at least why it was in US Politics a month ago), but at this point I'd almost rather see it's own separate thread. Of course, once a separate thread was made, I suspect everyone else outside of US Politics would wonder what is the point of having such a thread... except if they wanted to see a forum war of everyone vs hannahbelle. And they might be right about there being little point- this thread has become a pin hannahbelle to the wall- partially because she/he? has done a poor job providing support for the anti-vaccine stance, but it has gone much beyond that, such has trying to hound out unrelated beliefs.

Proposal
Here is what I propose. Drop the vaccine argument for the time being. If it comes back up in the news in a large capacity, then fine. But just give the vaccine a rest. If the vaccine argument is dropped, then I would request people stop trying to pin hannahbelle to the wall. Then, for hannahbelle, I would recommend you drop trying to pigeon-hole the 'liberals' of this thread- I'm getting a Michael Savage disdain vibe from you when you speak to other posters that are left relative to you. Yes, you said 'they started it', and indeed they need to settle down, but as someone new to the thread you've come in pretty hot and I'd like you to bring more light and less heat to the politics thread.

tldr Find a topic other than vaccines to discuss for awhile.

On February 28 2015 16:21 hannahbelle wrote:


It's been amateur hour at the executive branch for six years. Why would things change now?

On March 01 2015 00:27 kwizach wrote:

No it hasn't. And I'm not sure what else you're expecting the administration to do in this case.

On March 01 2015 00:27 kwizach wrote:

No it hasn't. And I'm not sure what else you're expecting the administration to do in this case.

On March 01 2015 01:58 hannahbelle wrote:


That's the problem with being inept. If you are incompetent long enough, you paint yourself into corners from which there is no good way to emerge. That is the case with the US right now with many issues.

Ukraine for instance. There is no good course of action with regards to Ukraine because of the last six years of bungling. Obama/Clinton decide they should hit the reset button with Russia, despite the reality of the situation, and guess what? We get a reset to 1930's Russia. But because of that, we know have a situation where Russia is invading a sovereign nation (that Obama promised to defend if they demilitarized several years earlier let's not forget) and we have no good course of action other than some sanctions, which, btw, the Russian's were laughing at. Only the dramatic drop in oil prices has caused any discomfort to the Russian economy.

Libya is another case. Obama supported the overthrow of Gaddafi, and now we have a lawless country, overrun with Islamic jihadis, and littered with the corpses of our dead state department personnel. Libya was even less of a threat to the US than Iraq was. Hell, Libya even promised to give up its high powered weapondry post-9/11.

Egypt is case three. A firm US ally in the region, Obama supports the overthrow of the Egyptian government, despite widespread reports and intelligence assessments that the "arab spring" in Egypt had the Muslim Brotherhood as one of its major participants. It was no secret to anyone but the most naïve leftist ideologue that is Mubarak falls that the MB would rise to power. At least when the neo-Cons run foreign policy, we only topple dictators that DON"T like us.

Syria is case four. Anyone remember the red line that came for not? The constant indecision on support rebels. This is another place where the path is not clear, but right now, we have no path. Obama, and his cronies, just waffle back and forth, yes there was a redline, no there wasn't. We support the opposition, we don't support them, we don't even know what opposition we support, etc.

Now we have the latest of the State Department endangering Jordan by releasing information to the public about their support in the war against ISIS. We have the Pentagon releasing details of high level special operations that is an unprecedented breach in OPSEC. We have the government violating its long term stance on not negotiating with terrorist to secure the return of a deserter, all while not informing Congress, in clear violation of the law. And then to top it off, the recent revelations that Hillary was accepting money from foreign governments during her time as Secretary of State.

The bottom line is, when you are incompetent for long enough, you find yourself in positions that have no good outcome. Obama has destroyed any coherent American foreign policy. It's so bad that even Japan is doubting our will to protect them against China, and as a result, is moving towards beefing their own military up and altering their pacifist stance. Right now, our foreign policy seems to be "give the bird to our allies and cosy up to nations, like Iran, that hate us".

Like I said. Amateur hour.

On March 01 2015 02:13 kwizach wrote:

I'm not interested in your blatantly dishonest simplifications of various foreign policy issues and how the administration dealt with them. We're talking about the murder of Nemtsov. You complained about the US' reaction to the murder. Tell us what else exactly you're expecting the administration to do in this case.

On March 01 2015 03:06 hannahbelle wrote:


There is nothing dishonest in my post. Every line is factually true.

I would give Russia another reset button. I think they want to invade the Baltic States this time around.

On March 01 2015 03:19 xDaunt wrote:

I always get a kick whenever people try to defend Obama's foreign policy record. Pretty much everyone agrees that he has been horrible on that front. It is literallly the one area where there is some concensus on Obama.

The Obama administration and two states plan to appeal a federal judge’s order that returned legal protection to gray wolves in the Great Lakes region.

Michigan filed its appeal Friday with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., a day after Wisconsin did the same. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service filed notices earlier in February to strip legal protections for the species, which it said has exceeded recovery goals. This was the latest of four attempts since 2003.

In December, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said the management plans of the three states that allow sport hunting of the wolf (Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota) don’t provide enough protection, and noted that the animal had not repopulated its historic range.

The gray wolf was removed from the endangered species list in 2011 following a decades-long federal government campaign to repopulate the animals after they were nearly wiped out in the early 20th century. After its removal from the endangered list, management of the species was turned over to state wildlife agencies.

The population of gray wolves is estimated at 3,700 in the Great Lakes region and less than 17,000 nationwide, with by far the largest population in Alaska.

Unlike states in the Great Lakes region, Oregon did not allow hunting even as the gray wolf began to repopulate the area. Officials in Oregon's Department of Fish and Wildlife said Tuesday that its gray wolf population has grown to at least 77 animals over the past six years. Gray wolves first began returning to Oregon in 2008 and have spread across the Pacific Northwest state and begun breeding.

“The wolf population continues to grow and expand, and for the first time we’ve had wolf reproduction in southern Oregon,” Michelle Dennehy, spokeswoman for the state wildlife department, said. “And we had eight breeding pairs last year. We also documented six new pairs of wolves, and 26 pups.”

Conservationists lauded the comeback, while warning against policies in other states that allowed wolf hunting. “For the third year in a row, Oregon was the only state with a meaningful wolf population that did not (hunt) wolves,” Rob Klavins, Northeast Oregon Field Coordinator for conservation group Oregon Wild, said in a press release on Tuesday.

On February 28 2015 09:07 GreenHorizons wrote:


Source

What is with Republicans and Rape?

On March 01 2015 04:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

They're against it. Where does that leave the Democrat opposition?

On March 01 2015 03:47 Gorsameth wrote:

I always get a kick whenever people try to defend Obama's foreign policy record. Pretty much everyone agrees that he has been horrible on that front. It is literallly the one area where there is some concensus on Obama.

While there is plenty to complain about Hannahbelle was asked about the murder of Nemtsov which he has no answer to and the list of points he gave is ignorant to the point that it might aswell be lies.

Heck he is saying the US should have backed a dicator who was trying to beat a massive popular uprising with police brutality. That sure would have made the US look great in the eyes of the world... Obama already held off on supporting the protestors for a considerable time.

Syria is a shitstorm that has no answer, Public army support to the dicator is out of the question (tho probably not in Hannahbelle's eyes) and the 'good' opposition cant take over the country and keep it safe from the bad even with international support.

Libya, wasn't that mostly France acting there with pretty small US involvement?

As for Iran hating the US? yeah they hate you. And they have every reason to do so lol, sadly Iran is probably the best way to try and restore some resemblance of order in the middle east but because of the irrational hatred from the west any cooperation is impossible.

On March 01 2015 05:10 GreenHorizons wrote:


Ok Johnny I'll bite.

+ Show Spoiler +

Source

If that's "against it" I'd rather take the opposition's side...

Today’s vote by a bitterly divided Federal Communications Commission that the Internet should be regulated as a public utility is the culmination of a decade-long battle by the Left. Using money from George Soros and liberal foundations that totaled at least $196 million, radical activists finally succeeded in ramming through “net neutrality,” or the idea that all data should be transmitted equally over the Internet.

The final push involved unprecedented political pressure exerted by the Obama White House on FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, head of an ostensibly independent regulatory body. “Net neutrality’s goal is to empower the federal government to ration and apportion Internet bandwidth as it sees fit, and to thereby control the Internet’s content,” says Phil Kerpen, an anti-net-neutrality activist from the group American Commitment. The courts have previously ruled the FCC’s efforts to impose “net neutrality” out of bounds, so the battle isn’t over. But for now, the FCC has granted itself enormous power to micromanage the largely unrestrained Internet. Back in the 1990s, the Clinton administration teamed up with Internet pioneers to promote a hands-off approach to the new industry and keep it free from discriminatory taxation. Many still prefer that policy. Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the MIT Media Lab and the charity One Laptop Per Child, says that net neutrality “doesn’t make sense” because “the truth is, not all bits [of data] are created equal.” Will Marshall, head of the Progressive Policy Institute (which was once a favorite think tank of Clinton Democrats), issued a statement that net neutrality “endorses a backward-looking policy that would apply the brakes to the most dynamic sector of America’s economy.”

But such voices have been drowned out by left-wing activists who want to manage the Internet to achieve their political objectives. The most influential of these congregate around the deceptively named Free Press, a liberal lobby co-founded in 2002 by Robert McChesney, a University of Illinois communications professor. His goals have always been clear. “At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies,” he told the website SocialistProject in 2009. “But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.” Earlier in 2000, he told the Marxist magazine Monthly Review: “Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism.” When I interviewed him in 2010, he admitted he is a socialist and said he was “hesitant to say I’m not a Marxist.”

In essence, what McChesney and his followers want is an Unfree Press — a media world that promotes their values. “To cast things in neo-Marxist terms that they could appreciate, they want to take control of the information means of production,” says Adam Therier of the blog TechLiberation. Certainly McChesney seems blind to the dangers of media control on the left. In 2007, he co-authored a remarkable survey of the media under Hugo Chávez’s already clearly thuggish regime in Venezuela: “Aggressive, unqualified political dissent is alive and well in the Venezuelan mainstream media, in a manner few other democratic nations have ever known, including our own.”

Despite his astonishingly radical goals, McChesney’s Free Press group was able to leverage foundation cash and academic “research” into an influential force behind net neutrality. Julius Genachowski, President Obama’s first FCC chairman, hired Free Press’s Jen Howard as his press secretary. The FCC’s chief diversity officer, Mark Lloyd, has co-authored a Free Press report demanding regulation of political talk radio. The FCC’s National Broadband Plan cited research from Free Press and other left-wing groups backing net neutrality more than 50 times.

The battle for control of the Internet isn’t over. Over two-thirds of the House and Senate are on record as opposing FCC regulation of the Internet, and a new president could change the policy overnight in 2017 even if the courts don’t block it. But for now, the “media reform” movement led by McChesney and his allies can claim bragging rights for their Saul Alinsky–style outflanking maneuver on Internet regulation. They financed the research behind the idea, installed their political allies in power, got the government to consider them experts on the issues they cared deeply about, and finally ran roughshod over both Congress and an initially reluctant FCC chairman. Conservatives should study how the Left won on this issue even as they acknowledge and fight the illegitimacy of many of the results.

On March 01 2015 06:02 hannahbelle wrote:


Source

Another side of "net neutrality".

On March 01 2015 06:41 Acrofales wrote:


That is one of the most laughably inaccurate descriptions of net neutrality I have ever read.

PS. I am not interested in who lobbied for what and how many fringe group crackpots are on either side of the argument. Buy the bit I bolded basically states that net neutrality is basically the exact opposite of what net neutrality actually is.