US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2079

On July 03 2015 02:43 Mohdoo wrote:
To the Sanders supporters:

How do you guys see a general election going? Maybe times are changing socially, but I have seen no indication that independents are any less fiscally conservative than before.

On July 03 2015 02:52 bookwyrm wrote:


Starts off with 10,000 in Madison, slowly gains momentum until he rolls into a crushing victory in November.

the vanishing middle class is tired of having their wealth redistributed upwards by regressive monetary policy and austerity. Bernie's message will resonate with them and he will crush every debate anyone dares enter into with him

Clinton is going to desperately try to avoid being put in a room with him where she actually has to talk to him. Just watch her squirm when it happens

I don't understand this attitude of how we can't support bernie because then maybe hillary clinton won't get elected. If Hillary Clinton is the democratic nominee I will vote for the republican candidate no matter how horrendous, because she is just that bad. Hillary Clinton will always be the worse of two evils.

On July 03 2015 03:28 Stratos_speAr wrote:


I definitely don't see how Clinton is worse than pretty much any of the Republican candidates (who are all a bunch of hypocritical clowns), but yea, Clinton isn't exactly a "good" candidate. She has a really sketchy history concerning the emails, Benghazi, just being a Clinton, etc. On top of that, she isn't exactly a progressive candidate. She's a complete corporate sell-out and will be just another centrist candidate that won't do anything to actually make positive change. The only thing going for her is that her husband was a decent president and that she's a woman.

Comparing Sanders to Santorum is ridiculous as well. Santorum is a right-wing extremist that showed his complete ignorance concerning both foreign and domestic policy (remember all of his comments about Obamacare and European healthcare?) and is also a complete religious nutjob that doesn't care one iota about anyone's rights unless they are Christian.

On July 03 2015 03:42 heliusx wrote:
You're going to need a third option because one of those is highly unlikely and the other is a child's fantasy.

On July 03 2015 03:46 Mohdoo wrote:


It's not ridiculous to compare Sanders to Santorum. You guys are getting so caught up in hearing someone be progressive that you're losing sight of what it actually means to lose the general election. I'd imagine that 99 percent of Sanders supporters would prefer Clinton over Bush or Walker. And yet everyone is going nuts wanting to see Sanders blow up Clinton and force her into awkward situations. What exactly do you think 8 years of Bush would look like? Walker? Santorum is easily compared to Sanders because Republicans said all the same things about him as you are saying about Sanders. He's a "true progressive" just like Santorum is a "true conservative".

Santorum is the reason Romney had to come out against planned parenthood and other things just to survive. He alienated independents in all the same way you guys are hoping Clinton has to do the same thing. It makes no sense.

Nothing you think and nothing Sanders thinks matters if Bush or Walker end up winning. It's all for nothing. It's just a courageous expression of progressive thought at the expense of the white house. It's overly romantic and doesn't actually make sense.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said he would wait for a third and final federal court ruling declaring bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional before recognizing gay marriages in the state, and Thursday morning a district judge gave him just that.

Thursday, federal District Judge Martin Feldman reversed his previous ruling upholding the state's gay marriage ban, as reported by The Times-Picuyane.

Louisiana's laws and constitutional amendment prohibiting marriage for gay couples violates the Fourteenth Amendment, the judge said.

The order was a procedural motion to address the litigation specific to Louisiana in light of the Supreme Court's gay marriage decision, which effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide Friday.

Friday, the Jindal administration said it would wait for direction from the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals before recognizing the marriages of gay couples in the state. Wednesday, after the appeals court ordered the reversal of the previous district court decision in favor of the state's same-sex marriage ban, the governor's office delayed the recognition of gay marriage yet again, until the district court formally struck down Louisiana's ban.

On July 03 2015 10:01 Falling wrote:
Any time he talks about electoral reform, I like him more. I think this is where there is an overlap on issues between Bernie and Rand Paul- and why a lot of mainstream candidates are uninteresting to me.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government and Gulf Coast states have reached an $18.7 billion settlement agreement with the oil company BP for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The settlement deal, announced by the Department of Justice on Friday, includes penalties for all remaining federal and state claims, such as civil penalties for violations of the Clean Water Act and for damages to natural resources. It is the largest settlement with a single company to date, according to DOJ.

The 2010 spill lasted 87 days and dumped more than 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. BP and the federal government had previously reached a $4 billion settlement over criminal charges stemming from the accident, which killed 11 workers.

The settlement has been reached in principle, DOJ said, but will still need to be approved by federal court.

“Since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill -- the largest environmental disaster in our nation’s history -- the Justice Department has been fully committed to holding BP accountable, to achieving justice for the American people and to restoring the environment and the economy of the Gulf region at the expense of those responsible and not the American taxpayer," Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement Friday. "If approved by the court, this settlement would be the largest settlement with a single entity in American history; it would help repair the damage done to the Gulf economy, fisheries, wetlands and wildlife; and it would bring lasting benefits to the Gulf region for generations to come."

The settlement includes $5.5 billion in civil penalties stemming from violations of the Clean Water Act and $7.1 billion for additional natural resource damages, both to be paid over a 15-year period. It also includes $5.9 billion in economic and other claims for Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and 400 local government entities.

Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP’s chairman, said in a statement that the agreement will provide "a path to closure for BP and the Gulf." After considering the potential costs of continuing litigation over the spill, he said, the company's board decided that the settlement would be the best way to "set a clear course for the future."

"It resolves the company's largest remaining legal exposures, provides clarity on costs and creates certainty of payment for all parties involved," Svanberg said.

Environmental groups offered a mixed response to the agreement. Collin O’Mara, president of the National Wildlife Federation, called the settlement "a victory for the wildlife of the Gulf" that "brings to a close the long legal ordeal that had left restoration efforts in limbo and it gives us certainty moving forward."

But other groups said the total fines were nowhere near what the feds could have forced BP to pay.

On July 03 2015 03:30 bookwyrm wrote:
Because I would rather elect a republican to just burn the place down than elect clinton for more neoliberalism masquerading behind a shallow facade if identity politics. I would rather just have the government self destruct than let the democratic party machine continue to run it

Its bernie sanders or a revolution. Those are the two options in my view. I'm willing to let bernie give it a shot first

On July 03 2015 06:39 GreenHorizons wrote:
Comparing Sanders to Santorum is a dead giveaway that one has no clue who Bernie is, what he represents, or why he is resonating.

Bush is obviously going to win the republican primary yet, you don't have republicans talking about how they should stop the infighting, and they have Trump in second place....Trump.

I sincerely think people are just sad all that oppo and those negative talking points they've been saving for years might be allowed to go to waste. The RNC is ready to run against Hillary, they have neg ads and everything already produced up and ready to go. If she's not running in the general they are hosed.