US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1875

With the Supreme Court taking up same-sex marriage next week, support for protection of marriage equality is as high as it's ever been with 61 percent of Americans in favor, according to a new Washington Post/ABC poll.

The survey also finds specific support for same-sex marriage rights across the states.

Sixty-two percent of Americans say states should have to recognize same-sex marriages performed legally in other states, while sixty-one percent say states should not be allowed to ban same-sex marriages. Even 45 percent of Republicans said they oppose allowing individual state bans.

Question wording may play a role. The survey asked respondents to interpret something of a mouthful: whether they "support or oppose allowing individual states to prohibit same-sex marriages."

As The Washington Post noted, other polls, phrasing the options a little differently, have found considerably more support for giving states the option to make their own decisions on same-sex marriage, with Republicans especially amenable to supporting states' discretion over a national ruling.

A recent CBS News poll found that while 60 percent of Americans thought same-sex marriage should be legal, 56 percent, including more than three-quarters of Republicans, believed the decision should be left up to individual states. A McClatchy/Marist survey last year found that while half of Americans thought federal law should decide the legality of same-sex marriage, just 36 percent of Republicans agreed.

And in an AP-GfK survey earlier this year, Americans were evenly split on whether the Supreme Court should rule that same-sex marriage must be legal nationwide.

On April 24 2015 09:06 Stratos_speAr wrote:


Technically, a democracy is a really broad term and Millitron is right.

However, it's all a pretty useless act of semantics, since "democracy" entails a specific set of ideals in contemporary political discourse.

On April 24 2015 09:06 Stratos_speAr wrote:

Let's be honest with ourselves.

The U.S. isn't much better.

On April 24 2015 23:35 Doodsmack wrote:
So what are people's thoughts on this Hillary Clinton news? There's no smoking gun at this point, only correlation. Is it just that the Clinton Foundation is a taker of money from all over the place and a Sec State deals with people all over the place? Or is it a real scandal?

On April 24 2015 23:35 Doodsmack wrote:
So what are people's thoughts on this Hillary Clinton news? There's no smoking gun at this point, only correlation. Is it just that the Clinton Foundation is a taker of money from all over the place and a Sec State deals with people all over the place? Or is it a real scandal?

On April 25 2015 01:06 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
That hope died when Huntsman couldn't win a primary due to being too sane on topics such as Respecting the president, diplomacy and not war etc.

On April 24 2015 07:35 WolfintheSheep wrote:

Corsica, until they were invaded.

France, following the revolution, even though it did fall to pieces quite quickly. There's a reason why the government established in the mid 19th century was called the Second Republic.


And of course the British Parliament and American government, which you've already dismissed as being not real democracies.

Last year, Rep. Bill Shuster approached fellow Republican Rep. Tom Graves with a request. The powerful Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman wanted to take over Graves’ moribund Travel Transparency Act, an industry-friendly bill that would allow airlines to advertise the base price of a ticket without including fees and taxes.

The bill had gone nowhere under Graves (R-Ga.) — it didn’t even muster a hearing in committee. Once the Pennsylvania congressman took over, though, it moved at lightning speed: He introduced a revised version of the bill in March of last year, the same day he met with an airline industry group that supported it. A month later, Shuster shepherded the measure through his transportation panel in roughly 10 minutes. It sailed through the full House three months later without a roll call vote.

The legislation wasn’t only a priority for Shuster: It was a top issue for Airlines for America, and for Shuster’s girlfriend, Shelley Rubino, the organization’s vice president and a top airline lobbyist. Shuster’s panel oversees the airline industry, and Rubino’s group spends millions of dollars lobbying Congress on behalf of major U.S. airlines. Rubino herself lobbied for the legislation, according to disclosure forms.

Shuster’s relationship with Rubino was disclosed last week by POLITICO, but at the time the legislation was going through the House, it was being kept secret. His relationship with her — and his dealings with her employer — have raised new questions about Shuster’s advocacy on behalf of the airline industry. The ties go beyond Shuster and Rubino: The wife of Shuster’s chief of staff is a top executive for Airlines for America, which is known as A4A. And the congressman recently hired an A4A lobbyist to run the committee’s aviation panel.

Both Shuster and Rubino moved swiftly last spring to get the revised Transparent Airfares Act of 2014 across the finish line. The industry group worked with Shuster on tweaking the bill. Shuster and A4A used nearly identical graphics to promote the legislation. And Shuster’s verbiage on the House floor was strikingly similar to A4A’s talking points.

A year later, Graves says he has no idea why his bill was ignored before Shuster took it over. “I don’t know the answer to that. I really don’t."

On April 25 2015 01:36 oneofthem wrote:

haven't read all of your discussion but did you really invoke no true scotsman when it comes to calling china a democracy? there's reason why it's only an informal fallacy, please do not invoke it as substitution for real discussion.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama made a surprise appearance in a media conference call with Labor Secretary Tom Perez on Friday to push back on what he called "dishonest" criticism from progressives — apparently including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — that the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a "secret" deal.

"What I am averse to is a bunch of ad hominem attacks and misinformation that stirs up the base but ultimately doesn't serve them well. And I'm going to be pushing back very hard if I keep hearing that stuff," Obama told a small group of reporters on the call.

Of all the criticisms, "The one that gets on my nerves the most is the notion that this is a secret deal," he said. "Every single one of the critics saying this is a secret deal, or send out e-mails to their fundraising base that they're working to stop a secret deal, could walk over and see the text of the agreement."

Obama didn't mention Warren by name, but he didn't have to. Two days ago Warren sent her supporters a fundraising email to whip up opposition to fast-tracking a trade deal. "The government doesn't want you to read this massive new trade agreement," Warren wrote. "It’s top secret."

The president noted that the text of the TPP has been available "for weeks." He said some components are still being negotiated and that Congress will have months to review it and decide whether or not to approve the deal.

Obama's remarks were a fierce rebuttal to progressives, who have been pounding him for pursuing the TPP agreement and have been tapping into the deep reservoir of liberal skepticism toward global trade deals.