US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2239

On August 27 2015 02:12 whatisthisasheep wrote:

An african american person took exception to racial slur and decided to kill people because of it. People make racial slurs about jews and easten indians and japanesse all the time but they dont go around shooting people because they are NOT offended.

On August 27 2015 01:39 whatisthisasheep wrote:

So the shooter included that they made racist statements for no reason? That was his motive. The PC movement contributed to this motive, thus the PC culture has blood on its hands. Someone offending you dose not give you the right to kill them.

Often maligned for speaking too frankly, Vice President Joe Biden’s reputation for shooting from the lip might be one of his biggest weapons if he does decide to run against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Voters in a Reuters/Ipsos survey who said they were open to backing Biden for the nomination described him as an honest and forthright political veteran who is free of scandal despite decades in Washington.

Those perceived attributes could give Biden an edge over Clinton, whose "trustworthy" poll numbers have dropped as she struggles with perceptions that she has not been completely open about her use of a private email account for official business when she was secretary of state.

Clinton says she did nothing wrong and only used the private account because of convenience. The FBI is now investigating the security of the private server and any classified information on it.

Reuters spoke to 22 of the poll respondents who said they would support Biden. More than half used words like “honest,” “genuine” and “trustworthy” to describe why they like the former senator.

While many opinion polls have been throwing Biden's name into the mix for some months, few have examined the reasons for his relative popularity among many Democrats.

His fans appear willing to overlook the 72-year-old's tendency to commit gaffes, which would be a handicap on a presidential campaign.

"He says what he means. It’s not always good, but he’s upfront and honest," said Mary Lampron, 70, of North Providence, Rhode Island. “Maybe it’s not what he should say, but it’s what he thinks, which I admire,” she said.

In 2012, Biden surprised his boss, President Barack Obama, when he said he was "absolutely comfortable" with gay couples getting married, forcing Obama to publicly declare his own support for same sex marriage.

QUESTIONS ABOUT TRANSPARENCY

Eleven of the 22 poll respondents interviewed mentioned what they saw as Clinton's lack of transparency, or controversy surrounding her, as a mark against her candidacy.

According to Quinnipiac polls, 64 percent of voters surveyed in August said Clinton is not honest and trustworthy — up from 54 percent in April.

"I don’t support her because her credibility’s been in question. That’s the main issue. I don’t trust her," said Icie Farnsworth, 53, a lifelong Democrat from Martinsville, Virginia, who said she liked Biden's voting record on the economy, civil rights and education.

Last month Clinton blamed a "constant barrage of attacks that are largely fomented by and coming from the right." "People should and do trust me," she told CNN in an interview.

Biden has not said whether he will run for president, but speculation grew at the weekend that he may soon challenge Clinton for the Democratic nomination when he met with Senator Elizabeth Warren, a power broker among liberals.

It is late in the nomination contest and Biden is still way behind both Clinton and liberal Senator Bernie Sanders.

Only 13.3 percent of 690 Democrats in the Reuters/Ipsos online survey backed Biden while 47 percent supported Clinton and 24.9 percent were for Sanders, who has been attracting much larger crowds than Clinton.

All the same, the fact that Biden might be considering a run compounds Clinton's headaches.

"At a minimum, he definitely shakes the race up and makes Hillary’s path to the nomination arguably more difficult," said Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis, who is not working for any of the campaigns.

"People like him, people want to like him, he’s charismatic, and he’s got a very powerful personal story to say the least," Kofinis said.

Several people interviewed referred to Biden's son Beau, 46, who died of brain cancer in May. His death was another tragic chapter in the life of the vice president, who lost his first wife and his daughter in a car accident shortly after winning election to the U.S. Senate in 1972.

Though Clinton has wide policy experience, Biden's 36 years in the Senate and almost two terms as vice president count in his favor among supporters.

"I know she was first lady and has experience in the White House in that capacity, and I know she was secretary of state, but I think the experience he has is closer to what is needed for the presidency," said Dee Garletts, 72, of Bellevue, Washington.

Ruby Ellis, 74, of Lawrence, Kansas said she liked Biden because he was untainted by scandal. "He would just be a real refreshing person without problems behind him of any kind," she said.

On August 27 2015 02:12 whatisthisasheep wrote:

An african american person took exception to racial slur and decided to kill people because of it. People make racial slurs about jews and easten indians and japanesse all the time but they dont go around shooting people because they are NOT offended.

On August 27 2015 02:29 kwizach wrote:

If you actually believe that nobody in the groups you listed is offended when racial slurs are thrown at them, you are even more disconnected from reality than I thought. Also one African American shooting two people allegedly because he felt one had been racist towards him is in no way a reflection of how African Americans in general respond to racism.

Seriously, does the above post not warrant a warning? He is clearly painting a racist picture of African Americans and depicting them as inherently more violent than everyone else.

Incarceration Trends in America

From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people
Today, the US is 5% of the World population and has 25% of world prisoners.
Combining the number of people in prison and jail with those under parole or probation supervision, 1 in ever y 31 adults, or 3.2 percent of the population is under some form of correctional control

Racial Disparities in Incarceration

African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population
African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites
Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population
According to Unlocking America, if African American and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates of whites, today's prison and jail populations would decline by approximately 50%
One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime
1 in 100 African American women are in prison
Nationwide, African-Americans represent 26% of juvenile arrests, 44% of youth who are detained, 46% of the youth who are judicially waived to criminal court, and 58% of the youth admitted to state prisons (Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice).

Drug Sentencing Disparities

About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug
5 times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites
African Americans represent 12% of the total population of drug users, but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 59% of those in state prison for a drug offense.
African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months). (Sentencing Project)

Contributing Factors

Inner city crime prompted by social and economic isolation
Crime/drug arrest rates: African Americans represent 12% of monthly drug users, but comprise 32% of persons arrested for drug possession
"Get tough on crime" and "war on drugs" policies
Mandatory minimum sentencing, especially disparities in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine possession
In 2002, blacks constituted more than 80% of the people sentenced under the federal crack cocaine laws and served substantially more time in prison for drug offenses than did whites, despite that fact that more than 2/3 of crack cocaine users in the U.S. are white or Hispanic
"Three Strikes"/habitual offender policies
Zero Tolerance policies as a result of perceived problems of school violence; adverse affect on black children.
35% of black children grades 7-12 have been suspended or expelled at some point in their school careers compared to 20% of Hispanics and 15% of whites

On August 27 2015 02:51 kwizach wrote:

I'm familiar with the existence of these disparities in crime rate statistics -- the point is that you seem completely oblivious to the fact that they do not mean that Africans Americans are inherently more violent than other groups. Criminologists have put forward various explanations for these disparities, and they don't rely on the racist idea that African Americans are biologically more violent than others. You're clearly trying to brush aside socio-economic factors to single out African Americans as a "violent race".

On August 27 2015 02:57 whatisthisasheep wrote:

Unlike Jews, Eastern Indians, and Japanese, Africans do not put heavy emphasis on Education and raising a intact family. If they did, they could break their cycle of poverty. Its not good for the government to make them feel like they are being held down by anything else but themselves.

The pay disparity between men and women is lower among union members than among American workers as a whole but it still exists, according to a new analysis of data released Wednesday.

Culling figures from the Census Bureau and Labor Department, among other sources, researchers from the non-profit Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) found that women in labor unions “earn 88.7 cents on the dollar compared with their male counterparts, a considerably higher earnings ratio than the earnings ratio between all women and men in the United States."

As of 2013 women overall earned roughly 78 cents on the dollar compared to men, according to an April report from the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors. The IWPR report found that unionized women make 30.9 percent more than their non-union counterparts on average, among full-time workers.

IWPR study director Ariane Hegewisch, one of the report’s authors, said unionized women derive other benefits as well.

“Particularly with issues that happen to be in the news lately, such as scheduling predictability, and health and safety, there’s an advantage for women to be in unions,” Hegewisch told Al Jazeera.

Prior research has found that unpredictable work hours — something less common in unionized shops, where collective bargaining contracts often regulate schedules and mandate overtime pay — put particular stress on women, because they tend to assume a disproportionate share of the childcare and housekeeping duties outside work.

While unionization was found to soften workplace inequities, it does not eradicate them; the gender wage gap among unionized workers is smaller but still present.

On August 27 2015 02:57 whatisthisasheep wrote:

Unlike Jews, Eastern Indians, and Japanese, Africans do not put heavy emphasis on Education and raising a intact family. If they did, they could break their cycle of poverty. Its not good for the government to make them feel like they are being held down by anything else but themselves.

ISLA VISTA, CA—In the days following a violent rampage in southern California in which a lone attacker killed seven individuals, including himself, and seriously injured over a dozen others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Tuesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said North Carolina resident Samuel Wipper, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this guy from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what he really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past five years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”

On August 27 2015 03:35 ticklishmusic wrote:
^you should probably cite the onion so people know it's satire

On August 27 2015 03:35 ticklishmusic wrote:
^you should probably cite the onion so people know it's satire