US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1732

On March 15 2015 05:05 dAPhREAk wrote:
seven democrats went across party lines. the eighth appears to be a procedural strategy. they blocked the nomination.

this was an embarrassment for obama.

Given the historic low temperatures and snowfalls that pummeled the eastern U.S. this winter, it might be easy to overlook how devastating California's winter was as well.

As our “wet” season draws to a close, it is clear that the paltry rain and snowfall have done almost nothing to alleviate epic drought conditions. January was the driest in California since record-keeping began in 1895. Groundwater and snowpack levels are at all-time lows. We're not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we're losing the creek too.

Data from NASA satellites show that the total amount of water stored in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins — that is, all of the snow, river and reservoir water, water in soils and groundwater combined — was 34 million acre-feet below normal in 2014. That loss is nearly 1.5 times the capacity of Lake Mead, America's largest reservoir.

Statewide, we've been dropping more than 12 million acre-feet of total water yearly since 2011. Roughly two-thirds of these losses are attributable to groundwater pumping for agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley. Farmers have little choice but to pump more groundwater during droughts, especially when their surface water allocations have been slashed 80% to 100%. But these pumping rates are excessive and unsustainable. Wells are running dry. In some areas of the Central Valley, the land is sinking by one foot or more per year.

As difficult as it may be to face, the simple fact is that California is running out of water — and the problem started before our current drought. NASA data reveal that total water storage in California has been in steady decline since at least 2002, when satellite-based monitoring began, although groundwater depletion has been going on since the early 20th century.

Right now the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing. California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain.

On March 15 2015 05:23 GreenHorizons wrote:


It's almost always roughly the same group of Democrats. If Republicans get Democratic votes in the Senate you can count on it usually being Joe Manchin and whoever from his crew he can rally. Usually Pryor, Casey, Heitkamp, Donnelly, etc... Keystone, climate, debo, etc.. You see several of the same names come up time and time again.

The only reason I bring it up is that it seems inconsistent for conservatives to rally around the idea that he shouldn't have been nominated because of who he defended or how he did it (within the constraints of the law). Unless they would see similar insult in SAE employing McVeigh's former lawyer to defend racist's right to be racists

On March 15 2015 05:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

SAE getting a lawyer and Obama nominating an AG don't seem to be related.

On March 15 2015 05:49 GreenHorizons wrote:


The action isn't much, but the opposition to it is. Either conservatives/the few democrats shouldn't of used Debo's Clients/his legal strategies against him or it's fair to be critical of Jones for his defense of McVeigh.

I'm saying it would be wrong to hold it against either of them. Conservatives seemed to be ok with it though, when it happened to Debo. Maybe conservatives are upset with their senators doing so and just didn't mention it?

On March 15 2015 05:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Unless Jones is also up for a similar position you don't have a point.

On March 15 2015 05:56 GreenHorizons wrote:


I don't think the position has much to do with what opposition is based off of?

On March 15 2015 06:11 zlefin wrote:
I don't see how the position is the issue. It's not the issue I see. Could you elaborate on your reasoning?

On March 15 2015 06:16 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Congress has approval over the position. It's part of their job to review and decide if the person would be a good fit or not. If he was not up for the job, he would not have been criticized.

On March 15 2015 06:16 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Congress has approval over the position. It's part of their job to review and decide if the person would be a good fit or not. If he was not up for the job, he would not have been criticized.

On March 15 2015 07:11 zlefin wrote:
That letter sounds biased to me, and not entirely in conformance with the facts. I can certainly understand the FOP personally disliking the man, but the tone reeks of tribalism by the FOP.
My issue with the cruz statement is also the way it is said; it was with the vehemence of one who objects to the actions, rather than a much softer statement simply noting that the nominee wouldn't work well in the position.

On March 15 2015 06:55 zlefin wrote:

The issue to my eye is that of being against lawyers who were doing their job.
Is that clear? I can elaborate further if it is not.

On March 15 2015 06:52 GreenHorizons wrote:


If you think congressional approval has anything to do with what I was talking about, I think this was over before it started.

We aren't talking about the fact they critiqued him, we were supposed to be talking about what they critiqued.

On March 15 2015 07:24 zlefin wrote:
His past work demonstrates he is a skilled attorney who's active in the civil rights area.
And I'm not incorrect, they actual reason they are against him is because of him doing his job.

We all should agree that violent criminals should be punished and we all should agree that those who go out of their way to celebrate, to lionize, convicted cop killers are not suitable for major leadership roles at the Department of Justice.