US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2102

On July 15 2015 01:11 ZasZ. wrote:


That would be a simpler approach but there are valid uses for bottled water. There are parts of the US, like New Orleans, with truly atrocious public water supplies. If I lived there and didn't have easy access to non-tap water, I would be pissed. The tap water there tastes like literal ass, which makes sense because it has passed through roughly forty asses on its way down the Mississippi.

In a similar vein, bottled water is great for places that do not have great treated water or reliable infrastructure, such as overseas and especially for the military. But the marketing scam that resulted in ordinary Americans thinking their tap water was somehow toxic or inferior to bottled water is a crying shame. Not only is it an environmental disaster, but it undermines the whole point of municipal water providers.

Adding insult to injury is that now big water is throwing its weight around trying to keep the National Park Service from making a positive change to our National Parks. The worst aspects of our political system are on display here.

On July 15 2015 01:55 farvacola wrote:
Given that Republicans have time and time again reminded us that they prefer obstruction to compromise, the "closeness" of this deal to whatever it is people who read the Weekly Standard want is entirely immaterial.

On July 15 2015 02:23 xDaunt wrote:

Look on the bright side. Obama's deal guarantees greatly increased demand in the Middle East for the goods and services of the American defense industry. Gotta shrink that trade deficit!

On July 15 2015 03:22 Danglars wrote:
When you look at the nature of some of these compromises, you have to think if swallowing just a smaller dose of poison (all in the name of being friends, of course) is a good idea. It's similar to holding that government expenses should be cut, other side proposes 100 bil increase, and then you settle for 50 bil with smiles and handshakes all around. All this left wing talk about obstruction is political talking points about a party intent on pushing an agenda, and only occasionally willing to settle for slower implementation than originally desired. In a word, democrats here and elsewhere are unwilling to accept Republicans are being elected by the People specifically to oppose the entirety of what's being proposed.

On July 15 2015 03:36 Adreme wrote:


Before they used to be able to sit in a room and hammer out agreements and you hear time and time again from retired Senators and members of the House how they regret the death of bipartisanship so unless all these retired members are part of these hypothetical talking points then the points might have some merit.

On July 15 2015 03:42 Plansix wrote:

Someone find that video of the Senator crying on the floor of the due to the lack of bipartisanship. Or the speech giving by the long standing Republican friend of Teddy Kennedy and stories of them buying each others wives flowers every year. The era where the House worked against the Senate, rather than along party lines. That era is dead.

The current set of Republicans and Democrats are jokes in comparison. But I dislike this batch Republicans more for their flat out loathing of government and the process. They turned compromise into a dirty word and we have yet to recover.

On July 15 2015 04:15 cLutZ wrote:

Whats the compromise between +1 and -1 if you are starting at 0? Show me a compromise between Bernie Sanders and Tom Cotton that isn't one of them betraying a bedrock principle they stand for.

On July 15 2015 04:22 Plansix wrote:

Opening arguments like this are what got us into this problem in the first place. People that base their political careers on "bedrock principles" are worthless politicians. Even Jefferson compromised once he was elected President, betraying his bedrock principles in order to move the country forward. That's why its called public service. It is understood that your bedrock principles come second and your duty office comes first. That includes angering the people that elected you and maybe not getting re-elected.

So, the fact that they won't betray their principles is why their are lesser than those that came before them.

On July 15 2015 01:21 Danglars wrote:
The crux of the issue is that Iran came and did not offer us what we wanted. To highlight the conservative side,
(Kristol at the Weekly Standard)

We had the counter-arguments already in this thread, best we can ever hope for etc etc. Just don't imagine this is everybody's idea of something even close to what we wanted.

“Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president.” July 15, 2007

"This is going to be a two month war, not an eight year war." March 28, 2003

"There has been a certain amount of pop sociology... that the Shi'a can't get along with the Sunni... there's almost no evidence of that at all.” April 4, 2003 (Fox News w/ Bill O’Reilly)

"“The first two battles of this new era are now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably.” April 28, 2003

“… there are hopeful signs that Iraqis of differing religious, ethnic, and political persuasions can work together. This is a far cry from the predictions made before the war by many, both here and in Europe, that a liberated Iraq would fracture into feuding clans and unleash a bloodbath.” March 22, 2004

“… the continuing debates over the terms of a final constitution, have in fact demonstrated something remarkable in Iraq: a willingness on the part of the diverse ethnic and religious groups to disagree--peacefully--and then to compromise.” March 22, 2004

On July 15 2015 04:40 cLutZ wrote:


What if they are also convinced that those bedrock principles are, in fact, what would move the country forward?

On July 15 2015 04:35 Simberto wrote:
So your opinion is that politicians just should do whatever once they got elected, with whatever they got elected for being completely irrelevant and ignored? (I mean, that is usually how it works, but making that sound like some amazing selfless sacrifice sounds kind of weird to me)

A much better solution would be a system that does not grind to a halt if two sides disagree, especially if that system is a two-party system where making the other guy look bad is in the self-interest of the politicians (Which is also one of the reasons why a two party system sucks donkey balls)

So instead of asking your politicians to completely ignore their election promises, how about creating a system that actually enables them to act on those and make them reality? (Within reason yadayada human rights constitution....)

WASHINGTON -- More than 238,000 of the 847,000 veterans in the pending backlog for health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs have already died, according to an internal VA document provided to The Huffington Post.

Scott Davis, a program specialist at the VA's Health Eligibility Center in Atlanta and a past whistleblower on the VA's failings, provided HuffPost with an April 2015 report titled "Analysis of Death Services," which reviews the accuracy of the VA's veteran death records. The report was conducted by staffers in the VA Health Eligibility Center and the VA Office of Analytics.

Flip to page 13 and you'll see some stark numbers. As of April, there were 847,822 veterans listed as pending for enrollment in VA health care. Of those, 238,657 are now deceased, meaning they died after they applied for, but never got, health care.



While the number is large -- representing nearly a third of those listed as pending -- some of the applicants may have died years ago. The VA has no mechanism to purge the list of dead applicants, and some of those applying, according to VA spokeswoman Walinda West, likely never completed the application, yet remain on the pending list anyway. West said the VA electronic health record system has been in place since 1985, suggesting some of the data may be decades old and some of those people may have gone on to use other insurance.

About 81 percent of veterans who come to the VA "have either Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare or some other private insurance," said West. "Consequently, some in pending status may have decided to use other options instead of completing their eligibility application."

West said the VA electronic health record system has been in place since 1985,

On July 15 2015 04:49 Plansix wrote:

Then they are worthless to me because they have to deal with the rest of the country and that is done through compromise. I have no use in ideologs who use their "principles" as an excuse to not make hard decisions or compromise. The people who get elected claiming they will stop the tide of liberalism/conservatism are beyond worthless to me. I would vote for someone who told me straight to my face they would vote with what they felt was best, even if they lost my vote.



I said politicians should do what they feel is best for the country, even if it means losing an election by angering the people who voted for them. Some of our greatest leaders did just that.

On July 15 2015 05:07 cLutZ wrote:


They can't agree on what is best for the country. That is the whole point. Its not like Mitch McConnel goes to Harry Reid and says,
"I have this great immigration plan where we recall a bunch of troops from abroad and station them on the border, then erect a wall with the savings. With a benchmark for a pathway to legalization of illegals here after 5 years." Then Reid says, "What an ingenious plan good sir, it is 10x better than our current situation, however, I am torpedoing it because I have in my heart, a distaste for walls." No, he says, "No wall, pathway to citizenship, decommission all those troops. We need more Mexican-Americans ASAP."

Or, if you like the House:
Pelosi- "Hey John, we need to raise the top income bracket to 50% on income over $1,000,000/year,"
Boehner- "Hmm, I don't like it, what can you give me?"
Pelosi- "Pizza Party, and retirement age to 68."
Boehner- "69 and you got a deal."
Pelosi- "Sounds great. Now, if only if I wasn't so principled I could accept this deal."
Boehner- "You're right, go back to your hippie vineyards you succubus."

Someone find that video of the Senator crying on the floor of the due to the lack of bipartisanship. Or the speech giving by the long standing Republican friend of Teddy Kennedy and stories of them buying each others wives flowers every year. The era where the House worked against the Senate, rather than along party lines. That era is dead.

The current set of Republicans and Democrats are jokes in comparison. But I dislike this batch Republicans more for their flat out loathing of government and the process. They turned compromise into a dirty word and we have yet to recover.

On July 15 2015 05:22 Stratos_speAr wrote:


No, the solution is to be an adult.

You see, in the adult world, people have to work together to get a task done. When two or more people work together to get a task done, everyone has their own vision of how it is done. When this occurs, none of these visions will be the same. Because of this, the final product will be a compromise between all of the visions working on the project, and no one will be 100% happy.

This is called life. It is called being a mature adult. This is something that a lot of Republicans just don't understand at this point.