US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2028

On June 08 2015 13:29 GreenHorizons wrote:


Especially when the most basic things like "Hey, tell us if you shoot/kill someone" get push back from the Police unions and politicians on the right, as if that's far too much to ask for.

On June 08 2015 14:20 Wegandi wrote:


The second part is not necessarily true. Wisconsin has some of the best police accountability laws and they were pressed for and passed by the more right-leaning folks. Where is the left at on these things? California is pretty atrocious. So is most of the North East. It pulls across ideological lines and there is far too much 'law and order' folks in this country who cheer on this sort of bellicose sycophantism on the behalf of the Government goons that people call police.

Bernie Sanders scored 41 percent in a straw poll vote at the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention this weekend — finishing a close second to Hillary Clinton, who won 49 percent.

The Vermont senator received 208 of 511 delegate votes at the state convention in Milwaukee on Saturday, while Clinton won votes from 252 of the delegates, leaving her just short of a majority. Both Vice President Joe Biden and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who announced his candidacy late last month, received 3 percent of the vote. Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, who is considering a bid, won 2 percent of the vote, while former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, who announced his long-shot candidacy last week, received 1 percent.

The result is another encouraging sign for Sanders, who is drawing large crowds in early nominating states such as Iowa and New Hampshire. In the two weeks since he announced his candidacy, the Vermont senator has seen an uptick in the polls against Clinton — who remains the heavy favorite — and Sanders is showing signs he could pick up some supporters of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the progressive icon who has said repeatedly that she will not run for president in 2016.

On June 08 2015 11:23 GreenHorizons wrote:


You can see in the video he commands him to remove his hands (doesn't say slowly) and when he does he shoots and it was ruled justified.

Your description just isn't what happens.

I've had an officer say if I put my hands in my pockets again he'll shoot me. That was when I was like 14 and he had already searched me for weapons and I was just nervously putting my hands in my hoodie.

Here's another example.

On June 08 2015 15:19 screamingpalm wrote:
I don't see a remedy for police issues anytime soon. It takes a "special" type of person to get into that line of work. I have a feeling there's a large segment of ex-military that join as well, bringing all the mental issues vets suffer from, and suddenly finding themselves in a position of authority after being treated like a PoS from authority before. As a rule of thumb, I steer well clear of anyone who says they are "proud" of their military service (I am a vet).

It will take much more tragedy and suffering before anything changes, as is standard in this country. Maybe next time some asshole will completely flip and not stop at simply drawing his weapon on kids...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-policeman-suspended-after-pulling-gun-on-teen-at-pool-party/ar-BBkO43v

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has signed a bill that cuts off funding for the state’s courts if they overturn a 2014 law on the selection of chief district judges.

The new law provides funding for state courts for the next two years, but a nonseverability clause takes away the money if the courts stay or strike down the 2014 law, report the Wall Street Journal Law Blog and a press release by the Brennan Center for Justice.

The 2014 law gives district judges rather than the state supreme court the power to choose chief judges in the district courts. The chief judges have authority over district court budgets, hiring and case assignments. Lawmakers passed the 2014 law after the Kansas Supreme Court found that education funding was inadequate under the Kansas Constitution. A pending suit claims the selection system in the 2014 law violates a Kansas constitutional provision giving the state supreme court “general administrative authority over all courts in this state.”

Brennan Center for Justice counsel Matthew Menendez said in a press release that the new funding law is an “unconstitutional attempt to intimidate Kansas judges.”

On June 08 2015 23:05 lastpuritan wrote:


this video solely kills the weak theory of "do whatever the cops tell you and you'll live" inanity, but of course not every police is like him, and this is not important because it happened to another guy who is irrelevant.

On June 09 2015 09:24 Falling wrote:

The gas station video is really eye opening to me.

If I were to develop a Survival Guide on How to Not Get Shot by American Police, it would be to under no circumstances comply with any action ordered by police aside from freeze in one spot. Don't take your hand out of your pocket or anything. Just freeze entirely. The alternative could be your death sentence.

Then, perhaps you could carefully narrate your actions, walking through exactly what you are going to do before you do it, confirming and double confirming. "Get Your License" = do NOT get license. DO freeze in one spot. Then say license is in vehicle, do you want me to get it, if double confirmed, narrate that you are now going to get your license and slowly proceed to get license while still narrating your actions.

Trouble is, I think this is rather counter-intuitive to a normal reaction to your average law abiding citizen, which is to jump to do whatever is ordered of them by the guy with the gun and the uniform. Unless you have been in that situation before, I don't know that you are operating in the front of your brain so much and are more likely immediately (and unfortunately, quickly) obey. (I can definitely see how those quick movements could look like someone going for a gun.) That's a tall order to stay alive because it's (unintentionally) the reverse psychology of Simon Says, but with disastrous results.

On June 09 2015 09:49 GreenHorizons wrote:


I just think it's kind of funny that no one had anything to say about it ~6 months ago when it was first posted here. I find it a bit peculiar that people would be surprised by what they saw at this point.

On June 09 2015 09:51 Falling wrote:

For myself, I'm a little more on and off in the political thread that I was even a couple years ago.

President Obama is once again poised to go it alone on labor policy, this time on overtime. The Labor Department is expected in the coming weeks to release a rule making millions more Americans eligible for overtime work — currently, all workers earning below $455 a week, or $23,660 a year, are guaranteed time-and-a-half pay for working more than 40 hours a week. The law may raise that as high as $52,000, Politico reports.

The rule would also change the regulations outlining which employees earning above that threshold are eligible — currently, employers can exempt some employees above that threshold if those workers could be considered "white collar."

This would add to a series of workplace policies that, failing congressional approval, the president has expanded in limited form through executive order — upping the minimum wage among federal contractors and attempting to shrink the gender wage gap among federal contractors. He also mandated paid leave for federal workers.

This particular rule change would be a long time in coming — Obama had in March 2014 directed the Labor Department to overhaul the overtime regulations.

President George W. Bush made an “unrealistic” decision to try to build a democracy in Iraq, one of his top Cabinet members told a British newspaper.

“I’m not one who thinks that our particular template of democracy is appropriate for other countries at every moment of their histories,” former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld toldThe Times.

“The idea that we could fashion a democracy in Iraq seemed to me unrealistic. I was concerned about it when I first heard those words.”

Rumsfeld added that President Obama’s strategy to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has not been helpful, according to Bloomberg.

“If leaders aren’t willing to [confront ISIS], why the hell should a guy with a wife and kids in the community put himself at risk?” he said.

Rumsfeld served as Bush’s first Defense secretary, heading the Pentagon during the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of his main responsibilities was developing the wars' plans and publicly touting the strategies.

“This was the man stoking the fires for going into Iraq on the day of 9/11,” veteran journalist Bob Woodward said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“He was the chief spokesman and agitator that we don’t just do Afghanistan, where bin Laden was, but we are going to do Iraq. He was pushing it and kind of sandpapered the whole war plan down.”

When asked about the timing of these comments, more than a decade after the war, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told “Morning Joe” that Rumsfeld might have been trying to give GOP candidates that have been dogged by questions about the war “wiggle room.”

On June 09 2015 18:02 Velr wrote:
What shocks me personally about this is, how normal you guys seem to think that a cop would fire his gun if you disobey.

If i get stopped/controlled by a cop or they raid some "half-legal" Party in the Woods. No one is even thinking about them actually using their guns, they are not exactly welcomed, there is no open hostility but people make it clear that no one wants them around here.
The Police is not exactly liked by many People here, but you still respect/obey them. Not because they could shoot you (that tought is seriously alien here) but because outright resistance will get you into all sorts of legal Trouble and won't do you any good anyway.

Republicans in Congress are worried the Supreme Court will hand them a major headache this month if it rules against the federal health insurance exchanges in more than 30 states, ending subsidies for millions of people.

While the Affordable Care Act remains broadly unpopular, two new polls show a majority of Americans don’t want to do away with its subsidies, a core component of the law.

This poses a conundrum for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). They are under pressure from colleagues up for reelection in swing states and districts to extend the subsidies, at least temporarily, if the court strikes them down. But doing so would risk a backlash from the conservative base.
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision in King v. Burwell, which could strip 6.4 million people of health insurance subsidies, in late June.

States that would be hardest hit by a ruling against the law include the Senate battlegrounds of Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin.

“The politics of the King vs. Burwell case are extremely treacherous and tricky for Republicans because if the subsidies are thrown out by the court, Republicans are in the position of having to create a fix that would be seen as a problem by their most conservative supporters,” said John Ullyot, a GOP strategist and former senior Senate aide.

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll found that a majority of the public, 55 percent, does not want the court to block federal subsidies for people in states that have not set up their own exchanges. Only 38 percent said they wanted the subsidies ended.

On June 09 2015 18:02 Velr wrote:
What shocks me personally about this is, how normal you guys seem to think that a cop would fire his gun if you disobey.

If i get stopped/controlled by a cop or they raid some "half-legal" Party in the Woods. No one is even thinking about them actually using their guns, they are not exactly welcomed, there is no open hostility but people make it clear that no one wants them around here.
The Police is not exactly liked by many People here, but you still respect/obey them. Not because they could shoot you (that tought is seriously alien here) but because outright resistance will get you into all sorts of legal Trouble and won't do you any good anyway.