US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1867

On April 21 2015 08:34 ZeaL. wrote:
We already ration organs but in other ways. For example, if someone needs a new liver because they drank too much or were IV drug abusers, they need to wait much longer than someone who needs a new liver due to hemochromatosis for example. This is only logical, people who killed their own livers through alcoholism are more likely to kill their livers again through continued alcoholism whereas those who get liver failure through congenital or infectious disease modes are more likely to keep their new liver going longer. Until organs can be produced like drugs there can and should be continued rationing.

However, rationing organs for past criminal behavior is another story.

On April 22 2015 02:52 Shin_Gouki wrote:


The hippocratic oath and due process prohibits you to ratio organs based on race or criminal background. The heart transplant could have turned the kid into a scholar. There wasn't a guarantee he would have continued to walk his dark path the way he did.

On April 22 2015 03:31 whatisthisasheep wrote:
The Supreme Court of the United States just ruled that Cops can’t hold suspects to wait for a drug-sniffing dog anymore. Jay-Z must be somewhere smiling Nice that the 4th amendment has received some extra protection!

http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/239513-court-rules-cops-cant-hold-suspects-to-wait-for-dog

On April 22 2015 05:09 KOFgokuon wrote:


This only helps when you get to court to throw out any evidence obtained, on a day-to-day basis the police can and will still hold you indefinitely and make you wait if they want to

On April 22 2015 05:28 whatisthisasheep wrote:

That is true...IF you don't exercise your rights. If you don't consent to search and ask to be free to go they have to let you go without probable cause.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkpOpLvBAr8

On April 22 2015 05:35 GreenHorizons wrote:



lol... Riiight. Until suddenly exercising your rights turns into failure to comply and your face down on the concrete with a knee on your neck, and a cop punching you, and another cop saying they are going to shoot you if you don't stop trying to block the punches from hitting you in the face....

On April 22 2015 05:37 ZasZ. wrote:


GH, he forgot to clarify that the video works for white people. The rest of the populace is screwed and just has to hope for decent police officers.

On April 22 2015 05:35 GreenHorizons wrote:



lol... Riiight. Until suddenly exercising your rights turns into failure to comply and your face down on the concrete with a knee on your neck, and a cop punching you, and another cop saying they are going to shoot you if you don't stop trying to block the punches from hitting you in the face....

On April 22 2015 05:47 whatisthisasheep wrote:

My name has never been more appropriate than it is right now. If you don't defend yourself nobody else will. Enjoy being a victim.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Monday relentlessly mocked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) after the Texas senator claimed that he had been pushing McCain to hold an Armed Services Committee hearing about Second Amendment rights on military bases.

“I was fascinated to hear that, since I haven’t heard a thing about it from him, nor has my staff heard from his staff," McCain told reporters, according to the Huffington Post.

McCain was responding to a question about a Politico report in which Cruz said he was "pressing" for hearings to discuss whether soldiers should be able to carry their personal concealed weapons onto military bases.

“I’d be glad to discuss the issue and see if we need a hearing, but it came as a complete surprise to me that he had been pressing me," McCain told reporters, according to The Hill.

On April 22 2015 05:58 whatisthisasheep wrote:
Randy Newman wrote a song about this line of thinking. Police are public servants. They work for us. We are their employers. They don't get to do whatever they want to us if we don't let them.

On April 22 2015 05:58 whatisthisasheep wrote:
Randy Newman wrote a song about this line of thinking. Police are public servants. They work for us. We are their employers. They don't get to do whatever they want to us if we don't let them.

An animal rights group has been granted a court hearing in which it will argue that two chimpanzees who live at a New York state university cannot be held captive because they are autonomous, intelligent creatures.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe in Manhattan issued an order late Monday, called a writ of habeas corpus, requiring the State University of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island to defend its right in court to keep the primates, Hercules and Leo. A writ of habeas corpus requires a person to be released from unlawful imprisonment.

It's the first time, according to NPR, that animals have had a writ of habeas corpus issued on their behalf, and in New York, these writs can only be issued for persons.

Though critics of granting animals personhood have warned against reading too much into the judge's habeas corpus decision.

Richard Cupp, a law professor at Pepperdine University critical of animal personhood, told the blog i09, "The judge may merely want more information … These kinds of claims are new terrain for judges, and we should be cautious about drawing conclusions as to judicial intent based on the format used to schedule hearings."

In what it said was the first case of its kind in the world, the the Nonhuman Rights Project claims that because chimpanzees are autonomous, intelligent creatures, their captivity amounts to unlawful imprisonment under the law. They want the pair of chimps, who are used in research on physical movement at the university, to be sent to a sanctuary in Florida.

Under the law, such orders can be granted only to 'legal persons,' so Jaffe would need to find that chimpanzees have at least some limited rights traditionally reserved for humans — and granting a writ of habeas corpus could be a first step. Jaffe did not explain the reason for issuing the order in Monday's brief decision.

The university did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.

On April 22 2015 05:58 whatisthisasheep wrote:
Randy Newman wrote a song about this line of thinking. Police are public servants. They work for us. We are their employers. They don't get to do whatever they want to us if we don't let them.

Officials are investigating a shocking video that purports to show a U.S. marshal destroying the phone of a recording bystander.

The video was uploaded to YouTube on April 19 in South Gate, California, within Los Angeles County. In the clip, recorded from a building across the street, a bystander appears to be filming and talking to uniformed officials responding to a report of a biker gang meeting. A man wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a weapon then grabs her phone, slamming it to the ground before kicking it down the street.

The U.S. Marshals Service identified the man as a U.S. marshal, but his name has not been released.

“The U.S. Marshals Service is aware of video footage of an incident that took place Sunday in Los Angeles County involving a Deputy U.S. Marshal," a spokesperson for the Marshals Central District of California office told The Huffington Post in an emailed statement. "The agency is currently reviewing the incident."

It's unclear whether the individual recording was affiliated with six people arrested during the police response, according to NBC Los Angeles. But it's perfectly legal to film officers in all 50 states as long as you don't interfere with their work.

On April 22 2015 05:45 GreenHorizons wrote:The obvious thing we need to do is put body cameras on cops, an overwhelming majority of Americans want them. So being that body cameras are a sensible option and they are overwhelmingly supported by all Americans of every stripe, we can rest assured it will be years before we actually do anything about it on a national level if at all.