US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1751

On March 21 2015 02:06 oneofthem wrote:

im proposing a more comprehensive national id system. would help with crime and immigration control as well

On March 21 2015 02:14 Introvert wrote:


It'd have to be opt in, I think. I don't think you could Constitutionality require it for all citizens. There aren't many things that the government can force you to just for being a citizen. The draft and taxes are the only real examples I can think of.

On March 21 2015 02:22 oneofthem wrote:
it could be based off of existing federal programs like social security.

On March 21 2015 02:25 xDaunt wrote:

I think it would be pretty easy to make a national ID system constitutional as a component of existing federal taxation and benefits schemes. It's not like a new national ID database would need to contain any information that the federal government doesn't already have.

An employee of Florida’s environmental protection department was forced to take a leave of absence and seek a mental health evaluation for violating governor Rick Scott’s unwritten ban on using the phrases “climate change” or “global warming” under any circumstance, according to a complaint filed against the state.

Longtime employee Barton Bibler reportedly included an explicit mention of climate change in his official notes from a Florida Coastal Managers Forum meeting in late February, during which climate change, rising sea levels and the possible environmental impact of the Keystone XL Pipeline were discussed.

On 9 March, Bibler received a formal reprimand for “misrepresenting that ‘the official meeting agenda included climate change’”, according to a statement from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), a nationwide non-profit that champions public employees’ rights and providers resources and guidance to whistleblowers using its network of members across the country.

Bibler was instructed to stay away from the office for two days and told he could return to work only after a mental health evaluation from his doctor verified his “fitness for duty”, the complaint said. In the letter to Florida’s inspector general, Candie Fuller, the state’s Peer director calls for a full investigation to the matter.

Bibler told the Miami Herald that he “didn’t get the memo” about the gag order, so when he introduced himself by congratulating other officials on the call for the “exciting” work they were doing to address climate change, the “reaction was mostly shock”.

News of the governor’s ban on the phrases first surfaced in early March, when the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting found that the ban came from the top after Scott took office and appointed Herschel Vinyard Jr as DEP director.

Guardian requests for comment from Scott, the Florida inspector general and the environmental protection department were not immediately returned on Thursday, but Scott and representatives from his office have ardently denied such a policy exists.

(also I am not sure why voter lines came up since that clearly effects all voters, so it's entirely irrelevant)

On March 21 2015 03:36 GreenHorizons wrote:


That's supposed to be a joke right? I mean, you know how ridiculous that sounds?

ASHINGTON -- The Department of Interior released new rules for hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas on public lands in the United States on Friday, the first significant update to the regulations in three decades.

"Decades-old regulations don't take into account current technology for hydraulic fracturing," said Interior Sec. Sally Jewell in a call with reporters Friday. The new rules will require companies drilling on public lands to disclose the chemicals they are using to the Bureau of Land Management, will set higher standards for the storage of wastewater from the fracking process, and will require validation of well integrity.

There are 100,000 oil and gas wells on public lands across the U.S., according to the department, and 90 percent of those in operation use hydraulic fracturing, a process that uses a high-pressure stream of water, sand and chemicals to tap into oil and gas reserves. Friday's final rule applies only to development on public lands, however, not to the much more prolific development of state and private land. The Bureau of Land Management oversees 756 million acres of public land across the country.

"It's important that the public has confidence that it's being done safely," said Jewell. "I don't think anybody would say it's common sense to keep regulations in place that were created 30 years ago."

Under the rules, companies drilling on public lands will need to disclose the chemicals they are using through FracFocus, an industry-sponsored website, and submit that information within 30 days of beginning the fracking operation. BLM Director Neil Kornze said that the rule does allow for "limited exceptions for disclosure" under trade secret laws, but that BLM will be able to access a listing of all chemicals in the event of a spill or other accident.

The Department of Interior said it received 1.5 million comments on the draft version of the rules, which were released in May 2013.

Complaints about the new rules came from all directions Friday. A group of five environmental organizations, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity, issued a statement calling the rules "toothless," and argued that they give too much leeway for the further development of public lands in an era when climate change considerations should be pushing the U.S. away from fossil fuels.

Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement that the regulation "lets industry off the hook." "Rather than raising the bar, the Bureau settled for the lowest common denominator ... Half measures aren't a realistic response to the situation we face today," he said.

But industry backlash has been just as swift. The American Petroleum Institute, the industry's leading trade organization, criticized the rules as "duplicative." "Despite the renaissance on state and private lands, energy production on federal lands has fallen, and this rule is just one more barrier to growth," said Erik Milito, API's director of upstream and industry operations, in a statement.

On March 21 2015 02:34 Introvert wrote:


I could see that. Many benefit programs already require some form of ID. To extend it to every citizen I think would be harder, but you're the lawyer so I'll take your word for it

On March 21 2015 03:36 GreenHorizons wrote:


That's supposed to be a joke right? I mean, you know how ridiculous that sounds?

On March 21 2015 06:39 Acrofales wrote:


What is going on here. I thought the two of you were opposed to any form of unnecessary government (and especially federal) meddling? How is having a national ID database not against that philosophy?

On March 21 2015 08:25 Millitron wrote:
Does anybody else find it odd that people whine and cry about voter ID's preventing people from voting, but nobody seems to care that you have to spend hundreds of dollars and huge amounts of paperwork to carry a gun? Both voting and bearing arms are constitutional rights, but somehow it's OK to have hundreds of dollars and months of paperwork to exercise one of them.

Making showing any valid ID mandatory to vote is disenfranchising, but somehow hundreds of dollars in fees and months of paperwork to carry a gun isn't. Don't poor people have the right to bear arms? The 2nd Amendment doesn't say "...shall not be infringed, unless you can't afford it in which case fuck you".

On March 21 2015 06:44 Acrofales wrote:

Honestly, no. I don't know how ridiculous that sounds. I still don't understand how requiring an ID card causes long voter lines. The two seem completely unrelated.

The only reason I can think of is that for some reason a reduction in polling stations in certain areas was added on as a waiver to some voter ID law. Which is your typical US bullcrap of adding shit onto laws as riders where it doesn't belong and has nothing to do with anything.

Here, please pass this law on water management... oh, and it has an anti-abortion rider on it too, so you have to pass that too if you want the water management law (this is a fictional example, and I don't want to imply that it's only republicans pulling this type of stupid stunt).

On March 21 2015 08:35 WolfintheSheep wrote:

Is there some kind of Godwin's Law about all US constitution discussions leading to the 2nd Amendment?

On March 21 2015 08:25 Millitron wrote:
Does anybody else find it odd that people whine and cry about voter ID's preventing people from voting, but nobody seems to care that you have to spend hundreds of dollars and huge amounts of paperwork to carry a gun? Both voting and bearing arms are constitutional rights, but somehow it's OK to have hundreds of dollars and months of paperwork to exercise one of them.

Making showing any valid ID mandatory to vote is disenfranchising, but somehow hundreds of dollars in fees and months of paperwork to carry a gun isn't. Don't poor people have the right to bear arms? The 2nd Amendment doesn't say "...shall not be infringed, unless you can't afford it in which case fuck you".