US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2032

On June 11 2015 16:20 zlefin wrote:
also the EPA isn't partisan.

On June 11 2015 16:20 zlefin wrote:
There's no good answer for what to do when your government, or parts thereof, fail to do there job (or fail to do it in a vaguely competent way).
Building a better system would certainly be helpful though; the current system has a serious lack of ways to address systemic issues, it only has ways to address individual issues.

also the EPA isn't partisan.

On June 11 2015 16:22 GreenHorizons wrote:


I'm not for it, I'm for electing people who don't throw snowballs in the senate and think they made a point. I'm for desperately trying to help people who think electing morons like that is a good idea.

Rebellion was your idea.

On June 11 2015 16:30 cLutZ wrote:

Yes it is. Under Bush it made the exact opposite determinations on almost everything. The law hasn't changed at all, and the science hasn't either (if anything it has become more hostile to regulation).

And the current system is fine for dealing with issues, they just dont deal with issues in the way you would want.

No, it was your idea, because you are the one who supports a dictatorship (in the event that another form of government doesn't create the result you think is correct). I simply revealed to you what you already believe.

On June 11 2015 16:42 GreenHorizons wrote:


Dictators don't peacefully transition power to the next elected person. Seeing as how I strongly support that, I don't think many dictators would consider me very supportive.

Dictators probably take offense to the idea that CO2 emissions regulations is all it takes to be called a dictator in America.

On June 11 2015 16:55 cLutZ wrote:


That is what is so disturbing: That you deem the "transgression" of disagreeing with you on environmental policy to be sufficient reason for a coup.

On June 11 2015 14:26 cLutZ wrote:
The EPA is a partisan organization...

Jeb Bush has come under fire this week for a suggestion he made two decades ago that women who give birth out of wedlock should be publicly shamed.

Mr Bush, who will officially declare his candidacy for the White House on Monday, devoted a chapter in his 1995 book Profiles in Character to the idea that "irresponsible behaviour" should be curtailed through shame.

"One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations," he wrote, "is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behaviour, no reason to feel shame."

The book was published before Mr Bush held public office, but has returned to the headlines this week after the Huffington Post reported on the chapter in question, titled "The Restoration of Shame".

In it he described the phenomenon of single-motherhood as essentially contagious, whereby a young woman who sees an unmarried friend or neighbour become pregnant will be more likely to do the same herself.

The cure, Mr Bush contends, is "ridicule".

"There was a time when neighbours and communities would frown on out of wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful," he wrote.

Mr Bush pointed to "shotgun weddings" and a classic of American literature to emphasise his point.

On June 11 2015 21:29 ticklishmusic wrote:
The EPA is a government agency like any other, it has enabling legislation to delegate powers from Congress, plenty of review from the 3 branches of government, and a rulemaking process. Stop treating it like it's operating by some weird 1984 standard when they're just doing their jobs zzz

It follows that everything airborne, from Frisbees to flatulence, qualifies as an "air pollutant." This reading of the statute defies common sense

On June 12 2015 03:42 zlefin wrote:
Bureaucratic overreach and power grabs are not the same thing as being partisan.

On June 12 2015 04:01 cLutZ wrote:


In America it is, because one party uniformly is in favor of expanded bureaucratic power.

On June 12 2015 04:12 Chocolate wrote:

I think he had a valid point but expressed it the wrong way

It's silly that he was right in a way but people are going to give him shit for it. I would never vote for him but it's dumb that this is a big deal. Children of single parents have pretty substantially worse outcomes in life

On June 12 2015 04:24 zlefin wrote:

that is sheer and utter nonsense, so I laugh at it, haha!
You have a biased view of things, and I don't see any way to enlighten you.

Last September the Obama administration produced an FBI report that said mass shooting attacks and deaths were up sharply—by an average annual rate of about 16% between 2000 and 2013. Moreover, the problem was worsening. “The findings establish an increasing frequency of incidents,” said the authors. “During the first 7 years included in the study, an average of 6.4 incidents occurred annually. In the last 7 years of the study, that average increased to 16.4 incidents annually.”

The White House could not possibly have been more pleased with the media reaction to these findings, which were prominently featured by the New York Times, USA Today, CNN, the Washington Post and other major outlets. The FBI report landed six weeks before the midterm elections, and the administration was hoping that the gun-control issue would help drive Democratic turnout.

But late last week, J. Pete Blair and M. Hunter Martaindale, two academics at Texas State University who co-authored the FBI report, acknowledged that “our data is imperfect.” They said that the news media “got it wrong” last year when they “mistakenly reported mass shootings were on the rise.”

On June 12 2015 08:35 kwizach wrote:
First, I would dispute that the EPA has overreached any more than plenty of other governmental agencies. Second, there is nothing intrinsically Democratic or partisan about bureaucratic overreach. That's almost one of the defining characteristics of bureaucracies and organizations in general.

On June 12 2015 09:02 Danglars wrote:
I agree in part. I know many Republicans in the Capitol would see the bureacraric power and reach remain at today's levels and expand--provided their appointed directors headed those agencies. As Clutz pointed out, there is a party more aligned with expanded power with an agenda more in line with it. The EPA is also just one of the alphabet soup of govt agencies that has seized power for itself, but perhaps it stands above the rest in its ability to cripple industry and cement its gains through changing administrations. Now, since you agree enlargement is the tendency of these groups, the next step is to constrain the development with legislation and cutbacks.