US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1702

On March 06 2015 07:50 GreenHorizons wrote:


Disbanding doesn't mean that all the officers are banned from ever being police again (although I could see a case for that). It just means it has to be taken over by new leadership and that officers need to be rehired. It could also mean that the county just takes over and it wouldn't be hard for them to move some people around and get some new hires. It would make sense to require any former FPD that wanted to join the new force be retrained and monitored to make sure they are following new expectations.

But it's far more unreasonable and impractical to expect the residents to trust a department that has not been disbanded or significantly restructured. Regardless of what is done, if the realities don't significantly change it will be pointless.

On March 06 2015 07:52 Gorsameth wrote:

In other words your plan is the same as mine, Replace key personal and through them work on changing the department.

Call it what is it.

The people get trust by actions, not word and calling it a disbanding will do nothing for these people. They want to see action so show them change by treating them differently. Not with political talk. They have probably heard that for decades already.

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus said Thursday it will phase out the show's iconic elephants from its performances by 2018, after growing public concern about how the animals are treated led to the decision, The Associated Press reported.

Executives from Feld Entertainment, Ringling's parent company, said the decision to end the circus's century-old tradition of showcasing elephants was difficult and debated at length. Elephants have often been featured on Ringling's posters over the decades.

"There's been somewhat of a mood shift among our consumers," said Alana Feld, the company's executive vice president. "A lot of people aren't comfortable with us touring with our elephants."

Within two hours of the announcement, animal rights groups took credit for the decision, saying that the pressure put on the circus ultimately led to Feld's decision.

"For 35 years PETA has protested Ringling Bros.' cruelty to elephants," Ingrid E. Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, wrote in a statement.

"We know extreme abuse to these majestic animals occurs every single day, so if Ringling is really telling the truth about ending this horror, it will be a day to pop the champagne corks, and rejoice,” Newkirk wrote. “If the decision is serious, then the circus needs to do it NOW."

Feld owns 43 elephants, and 29 of the giant animals live at the company's 200-acre Center for Elephant Conservation in central Florida. Thirteen animals will continue to tour with the circus before retiring to the center by 2018. One elephant is on a breeding loan to the Fort Worth Zoo.

Another reason for the decision, company President Kenneth Feld said, was that certain cities and counties have passed "anti-circus" and "anti-elephant" ordinances. The company's three shows visit 115 cities throughout the year, and Feld said it's expensive to fight legislation in each jurisdiction. It's also difficult to plan tours amid constantly changing regulations, he said.

On March 06 2015 08:01 zlefin wrote:
You could always go the crazy way, and draft local people into the police force so it's representative

Gov. Sam Brownback (R) and the Republican-controlled legislature in Kansas is inching ever so slowly toward expanding Medicaid under Obamacare. If Kansas did expand Medicaid, it would be the latest in a list of deep-red states—including Arkansas, Utah, and Indiana—to actually take federal dollars through Obamacare, despite having conservative legislatures and fire-breathing, anti-ACA Republican governors.

The chances of Brownback, who is facing an enormous budget deficit, signing into law a bill expanding Medicaid in the state is still far from a sure thing, but it became slightly more likely during some legislative maneuvering last week. Conservative legislators were forced to agree to hold a hearing on expanding Medicaid in exchange for getting state Rep. Jim Ward (D) to drop an amendment to an bill that would have simply expanded Medicaid in the state to 138 percent of the poverty line.

Brownback, who had previously expressed strong opposition to Obamacare, signaled Wednesday he wasn't totally opposed to a Medicaid expansion.

"I haven’t said we’ll take it. I haven’t said we wouldn’t," Brownback said according the Lawrence Journal-World. "Last year, I signed the bill that the Legislature passed [saying] that the Legislature had to approve any Medicaid expansion. I think that’s the way to go because it’s going to involve long-term costs. And the Legislature, that’s their primary authority."

Now, the conservative Kansas state legislature will hold a hearing on a proposal being crafted by the Kansas Hospital Association in talks with Brownback's staff that would expand Medicaid in the state through Obamacare. It's an odd situation given that Brownback, a conservative governor who's gotten plenty of national attention for standing by his unusually deep tax cuts, has previously opposed expanding Medicaid through Obamacare.

The specific plan that's been in the works between the Kansas Hospital Association and Brownback's staff is meant to be acceptable to a Republican governor like Brownback, according to Ward, the Democratic state representative. It's similar to other plans used in Republican-controlled states to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act.

The plan, according to Kansas's KCUR, would use federal Medicaid funds to let adults with low incomes buy private insurance coverage. Most important, though, is that the proposal strikes a law passed by conservative Republicans that bars the governor of Kansas from expanding Medicaid without first getting legislative approval.

On March 06 2015 08:22 Wolfstan wrote:


Having locals make up the police is definitely the best solution. Why they had officers commuting from other cities is beyond me.

On March 06 2015 08:22 Wolfstan wrote:


Having locals make up the police is definitely the best solution. Why they had officers commuting from other cities is beyond me.

On March 06 2015 08:22 Wolfstan wrote:


Having locals make up the police is definitely the best solution. Why they had officers commuting from other cities is beyond me.

On March 06 2015 08:33 dAPhREAk wrote:
they could also use the recruiting tool of "get attacked by local residents, defend yourself, get villified by the media and sued by the family of the attacker" plus low salary and meager benefits because we're a poor city. added benefit of not getting paid at all because we are about to go bankrupt from class action civil lawsuits. i for one will line up for such excellent job opportunities.

i think the thread needs to bring itself back to reality.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie defended himself on Thursday against complaints his administration approved a sweetheart deal for ExxonMobil to settle an environmental contamination case for a fraction of the money the state had sought.

New Jersey officially announced Thursday that it had reached a settlement agreement in which Exxon would pay $225 million in damages related to pollution from its refinery facilities in the Garden State, a figure that former state officials said was far less than the $8.9 billion they had originally wanted.

he controversy comes on the heels of the likely presidential contender’s comments about vaccines and dredges up previous questions about political favors in the wake of the so-called Bridgegate scandal.

In a statement, Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts blasted a New York Times op-ed piece by Bradley Campbell, a former commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, that was critical of the deal, saying it was “irresponsible, disingenuous, and baldly political.”

The $225 million settlement proposal was the largest in state history, Roberts said, and was on top of the millions that Exxon was obligated to pay to clean up and remediate the environmental damage.

The settlement, first reported by The New York Times last week before details were released by the N.J. attorney general’s office, has thrown environmentalists and Democrats into a tizzy.

“The Christie administration has now, with this misguided decision to settle, undone years of hard work and effectively told corporate polluters that they can degrade New Jersey communities with little, if any, consequence,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, the New Jersey Democrat who leads his party on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In the op-ed, Campbell wrote that Christie’s move was “an embarrassment to law enforcement and good government” that came as a judge weighed the state’s claim for damages in the case that had run more than a decade.

“Former colleagues of mine in state government … have told me that Mr. Christie’s chief counsel inserted himself into the case, elbowed aside the attorney general and career employees who had developed and prosecuted the litigation, and cut the deal favorable to Exxon,” Campbell wrote.

And Campbell noted that the Republican Governors Association received $500,000 from Exxon in 2014, when Christie was chairman.

A disclosure confirms the contribution from Exxon, which was not the only money the RGA received from fossil fuel interests. Around the same time, the group took in $2.5 million from David Koch; $500,000 from Devon Energy; $275,000 from Duke Energy; and a quarter-million apiece from CONSOL Energy, the Peoples Natural Gas Co. of Pennsylvania, FirstEnergy and Hess Corp.’s John Hess.

In his statement, Roberts did not address the RGA donation but noted that Campbell was a Democratic appointee who worked for the Clinton administration and former N.J. Gov. Jim McGreevey.

On March 06 2015 09:17 GreenHorizons wrote:



You mean where we pretend this wouldn't be the only thing running on right wing outlets if it was happening to white republicans? Like the shit storm republicans raised over PAC's not getting certain tax status.

Because obviously not being able to skirt around paying taxes is a way bigger deal than not being able to walk your own streets without fear of having your rights trampled on. Give me a break!


All the shit that has come out and we're already back to "black people don't want to be police" and "we don't really know why?"

Seriously... it's not hard to figure out. You might want to start by asking retired black officers. I'm amazed they even got 2 black people to participate in their sanctioned thuggary.

On March 06 2015 08:33 dAPhREAk wrote:
they could also use the recruiting tool of "get attacked by local residents, defend yourself, get villified by the media and sued by the family of the attacker" plus low salary and meager benefits because we're a poor city. added benefit of not getting paid at all because we are about to go bankrupt from class action civil lawsuits. i for one will line up for such excellent job opportunities.

i think the thread needs to bring itself back to reality.

On March 06 2015 09:34 dAPhREAk wrote:

i thought we discussed this. you take something simple and blow it way the fuck out of proportion and start talking about them "republicans." you are the liberal version of the tea party.

and i just told you why nobody, including blacks, wants to work in ferguson. its not a we dont know why, its an everybody fucking knows why nobody wants to work in this shitberg.

also, the guy above just posted an article talking about why recruiting minorities is difficult. they dont want to work in shitberg either.

On March 06 2015 09:38 GreenHorizons wrote:


Pretending that there wouldn't be calls to move mountains, if that's what it took, to right the injustice if it was a struggling white community being abused at the hands of the police let alone black police is delusional.

You guys telling me having bosses that trade racist emails co-workers who openly share racist comments and incidents and being forced to rob/persecute your own community isn't a large part of it? I am just awestruck at this shit.

On March 06 2015 09:48 dAPhREAk wrote:

and where did i tell you that? or by "you guys" were you referring to the "republicans" again.

i don't think anyone with a second choice would want to work in this shitberg, white or black. it wasn't a desirable location before the recent events, and it isn't getting better. the idea that you can just fire the PD and replace it with do-gooders is so fucking laughable that i laugh, because its laughable.

and of course there would be calls for blood if a white community was persecuted, just like there are calls for blood because of ferguson. but when you ask them to reach for their wallets, see how silent the room becomes, in both cases.

On March 06 2015 09:52 GreenHorizons wrote:

You and others are suggesting that the reason black people don't want to work for a racist department that abuses the people they police is that it's a shitty town (among other bs reasons). It's so ridiculous I can't believe it's actually being said.

On March 06 2015 09:38 GreenHorizons wrote:


Pretending that there wouldn't be calls to move mountains, if that's what it took, to right the injustice if it was a struggling white community being abused at the hands of the police let alone black police is delusional.

You guys telling me having bosses that trade racist emails co-workers who openly share racist comments and incidents and being forced to rob/persecute your own community isn't a large part of it? I am just awestruck at this shit.