In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On September 24 2015 14:34 cLutZ wrote: Lolz. Regulation. Regulation. Patents+ regulation. Is the answer to all those.
Ah yes, whenever there's anything wrong with the free market, just say that it's actually due to "regulations".
Never mind the fact that your economic ideology relies on a fantasy world where human beings won't exploit one another like they have throughout all of human history.
Free markets exist beside regulation, no matter what internet free market worshipers say. And it accepts that government supported monopolies are necessary sometimes, like electricity, airports and train lines. If there is one thing that is true about free market theory on the internet and in politics, its that most people talking about it haven't read Adam Smith. Because he clearly states when the free market isn't effective and why. For example, he says that the free market fails when the consumer does not have enough information. Yet you hear a lot of folks(but not everyone) who claim to all about the free market dislike regulations requiring greater disclosure and transparency.
In the cases of the cLutZ is referencing, all the companies are using government regulations to enforce their dominance in the market. While also pushing to not regulated further. Facebook and Google are just running free and no one can challenge them for a number of reasons, but none are regulation.
Yes, and people seem to complain much less about FB and Google, because, in large part, they know that the dominance of those companies is due (not entirely, but mostly) to them delivering a superior product. I just was trying to point out that, in general, a huge % of the time that I see people complain about the free market, it is often a complaint about some of our least free sectors, such as banking, healthcare, telecommunications, and the like.
I would also point out that they are not "critical" to anyone’s life. You can get by without using Google and facebook. Ever. It is very hard to get by without internet, power or water. They have positioned themselves to be high quality, optional services that work on the back of other infrastructure(internet), thus avoiding the need to be regulated. It is easy to avoid regulation when the entire service you provide is intangible and optional.
And Google has been very careful to avoid the need for regulation by self policing their search services. It could easily have gone the other way had other people been running the company.
Best part of the speech was when the Republicans jumped up about the Sanctity of life only for the Pope to say the US should abolish to the Death Penalty.
On September 25 2015 00:21 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Best part of the speech was when the Republicans jumped up about the Sanctity of life only for the Pope to say the US should abolish to the Death Penalty.
That is going to be on B-roll for a while. Very enjoyable.
On September 24 2015 13:53 LimpingGoat wrote: I'm a solid liberal and I want to vote for Trump.
Change my view
Can you elaborate on why you think Trump's policies and philosophies would be better for this country than Bernie Sanders's? To me, it doesn't really think like Trump has thought a lot of things through, and he's just winging it because he has no political experience.
I don't, but I think Trump is a more viable general election candidate.
On September 24 2015 13:53 LimpingGoat wrote: I'm a solid liberal and I want to vote for Trump.
Change my view
Can you elaborate on why you think Trump's policies and philosophies would be better for this country than Bernie Sanders's? To me, it doesn't really think like Trump has thought a lot of things through, and he's just winging it because he has no political experience.
I don't, but I think Trump is a more viable general election candidate.
He isn't. He unfavorables among all minorities are in the 60-70%. He rates poorly among independents, women and almost every group you need to win a general election. The polls now are only for winning the Republican primaries, which are increasingly requiring Republicans hurt themselves in the general election. He is unelectable unless the Democrats run an ax murderer.
Republican leaders think they have a plan to avert a government shutdown. They now just have to hope that the hardliners pushing for one won't find a way to thwart it -- and there are many ways they could make things go wrong.
With a week to go before the deadline to pass a spending bill expires, GOP leaders in the House and Senate must guide a short-term funding bill through a delicate legislative process. Their plan depends on outmaneuvering the group of 30 or so conservative lawmakers vowing to block any funding legislation that includes money for Planned Parenthood. They must also sidestep Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) who is openly threatening to make trouble in the Senate.
In the end, even the best-laid plans would only get a stop-gap bill through Congress. A long-term deal would still need to be worked out, and deep divisions remain unbridged. But it would buy time, avoid a needless government shutdown, and forestall the political firestorm Republicans would face heading into the 2016 elections.
Both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) have made clear they believe that a shutdown over Planned Parenthood -- accused by anti-abortion activists of harvesting fetal tissue for profit -- is a political loser for their party. But their attempts to let conservatives express their anger through alternative anti-abortion bills have done little to diffuse the shutdown talk, leaving Boehner in particular dependent on Democratic votes to pass legislation to keep the government open.
“McConnell and Boehner truly see nothing to be gained by any kind of a shutdown at all,” Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center who worked for the U.S. Senate for 25 years, told TPM. “[McConnell] is very careful and methodical, and if Boehner didn’t have to deal with those 34 or 35 wayward souls in the House, there would be no question on his part.”
The current plan goes like this:
Thursday, after the Pope’s address, the Senate will vote on a short-term spending bill that defunds Planned Parenthood. That bill is expected to be filibustered by Democrats, and thus "prove" to conservative hardliners that blocking Planned Parenthood’s funding is, on a practical level, impossible. At least that's the theory. Then, McConnell will bring forward a “clean” continuing resolution, which would keep the government open for a few months -- likely through Dec. 11 -- with spending being maintained at essentially its current levels, including the funding for Planned Parenthood. That measure could be passed late this week, or early in the next week, giving the House a few days at most to pass the same legislation itself.
“If we are gong to avoid a shutdown, if we are going to get some sort of short term deal by the end of next week, this is the way it’s probably going to happen,” Molly Reynolds, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told TPM. “But there’s plenty of places along the way that the plan could go off the rails.”
At every turn, there is chance for hardliners to stall the process. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), for instance could delay the vote on the clean continuing resolution a day or two by objecting to a motion to take it up immediately, as he did in December. Cruz and two of the other GOP presidential candidates in the Senate have argued, against historical evidence, that Democrats would be blamed for a government shutdown.
FOR DECADES, AUTOMAKERS HAVE been caught between building an engine that squeezes a lot of energy out of the fuel it burns and one that has low emissions. It’s not an easy tension to resolve. “Negotiating both fuel consumption and emissions is a hard tradeoff,” says Anna Stefanopolou, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan.
When engineers at Volkswagen allegedly inserted a few lines of code into the diesel cars’ electronic brains to circumvent emissions testing, they found a solution to this existential automotive conflict. Drivers got low emissions during the test, and high performance the rest of the time. The only problem: It’s way outside of the rules. The company might have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for those pesky engineers—and the basic chemistry of the diesel engine.
According to the US EPA, those lines of code hid the fact that nearly half a million diesel VWs in the US spewed up to 40 times more nitrogen oxide from their tailpipes than testing indicated. Volkswagen has now confirmed that the problem actually affects approximately 11 million diesel cars worldwide. Diesel engines use a different mix of fuel than gasoline engines and don’t use spark plugs to induce combustion—relying instead on highly compressed, heated air and fuel injected as droplets. If a diesel engine doesn’t get enough oxygen to combust the fuel, it’ll emit all kinds of gunk—nitrogen oxides, uncombusted fuel, and particulate matter (soot, basically).
All that gunk is a big problem. Exposed to sunlight, nitrogen oxides convert to ozone—making smog. How much depends on a bunch of variables, like sunlight exposure and what happens to the hydrocarbon emissions (the uncombusted fuel), plus the temperature and local winds.
However much extra crap came from the VWs, it won’t be good. Exposure to nitrogen oxide and ozone is linked to increased asthma attacks, respiratory illnesses, and in some cases premature death. Ozone also worsens existing cardiovascular and lung disease.
Republican leaders think they have a plan to avert a government shutdown. They now just have to hope that the hardliners pushing for one won't find a way to thwart it -- and there are many ways they could make things go wrong.
With a week to go before the deadline to pass a spending bill expires, GOP leaders in the House and Senate must guide a short-term funding bill through a delicate legislative process. Their plan depends on outmaneuvering the group of 30 or so conservative lawmakers vowing to block any funding legislation that includes money for Planned Parenthood. They must also sidestep Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) who is openly threatening to make trouble in the Senate.
In the end, even the best-laid plans would only get a stop-gap bill through Congress. A long-term deal would still need to be worked out, and deep divisions remain unbridged. But it would buy time, avoid a needless government shutdown, and forestall the political firestorm Republicans would face heading into the 2016 elections.
Both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) have made clear they believe that a shutdown over Planned Parenthood -- accused by anti-abortion activists of harvesting fetal tissue for profit -- is a political loser for their party. But their attempts to let conservatives express their anger through alternative anti-abortion bills have done little to diffuse the shutdown talk, leaving Boehner in particular dependent on Democratic votes to pass legislation to keep the government open.
“McConnell and Boehner truly see nothing to be gained by any kind of a shutdown at all,” Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center who worked for the U.S. Senate for 25 years, told TPM. “[McConnell] is very careful and methodical, and if Boehner didn’t have to deal with those 34 or 35 wayward souls in the House, there would be no question on his part.”
The current plan goes like this:
Thursday, after the Pope’s address, the Senate will vote on a short-term spending bill that defunds Planned Parenthood. That bill is expected to be filibustered by Democrats, and thus "prove" to conservative hardliners that blocking Planned Parenthood’s funding is, on a practical level, impossible. At least that's the theory. Then, McConnell will bring forward a “clean” continuing resolution, which would keep the government open for a few months -- likely through Dec. 11 -- with spending being maintained at essentially its current levels, including the funding for Planned Parenthood. That measure could be passed late this week, or early in the next week, giving the House a few days at most to pass the same legislation itself.
“If we are gong to avoid a shutdown, if we are going to get some sort of short term deal by the end of next week, this is the way it’s probably going to happen,” Molly Reynolds, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told TPM. “But there’s plenty of places along the way that the plan could go off the rails.”
At every turn, there is chance for hardliners to stall the process. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), for instance could delay the vote on the clean continuing resolution a day or two by objecting to a motion to take it up immediately, as he did in December. Cruz and two of the other GOP presidential candidates in the Senate have argued, against historical evidence, that Democrats would be blamed for a government shutdown.
Worth reading for context is this Politico op-ed from Cruz. It's pretty clear Republican leadership is facing a possible revolt from within its own ranks, particularly the South, although it should already be obvious that Trump is tapping a large swath of Republicans that are really pissed off with the party. But this is a strange and scary place to take a firm stand, as in it's not a strong political place to make a rallying cry to get supporters fired up or attract new groups.
I think discussing the blame is also not too helpful. Everyone looks bad for a government shutdown and it's worth pointing out that there seem to be plenty of Democrats who are really pissed off with their party establishment too. A bona fide shutdown is only worse for Republicans in the sense that it throws a tough spotlight on Rubio and Cruz, who are the most viable establishment candidates. They haven't shown the chops to play political judo and turn this on candidates like Trump and Carson as to how they might deal with an unruly Congress (i.e. they can't) or even better, turn this into a uniting cause against Democrats and Obama.
The majority of the country doesn't want PP defunded and the majority of the country doesn't want a shut down. If the Republicans are just doing what their constituents want, so are the Democrats. The only one who is going to look bad is Cruz and his clown town buddies who can't accept how government functions and that they can't have their way all the time.
Republican leaders think they have a plan to avert a government shutdown. They now just have to hope that the hardliners pushing for one won't find a way to thwart it -- and there are many ways they could make things go wrong.
With a week to go before the deadline to pass a spending bill expires, GOP leaders in the House and Senate must guide a short-term funding bill through a delicate legislative process. Their plan depends on outmaneuvering the group of 30 or so conservative lawmakers vowing to block any funding legislation that includes money for Planned Parenthood. They must also sidestep Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) who is openly threatening to make trouble in the Senate.
In the end, even the best-laid plans would only get a stop-gap bill through Congress. A long-term deal would still need to be worked out, and deep divisions remain unbridged. But it would buy time, avoid a needless government shutdown, and forestall the political firestorm Republicans would face heading into the 2016 elections.
Both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) have made clear they believe that a shutdown over Planned Parenthood -- accused by anti-abortion activists of harvesting fetal tissue for profit -- is a political loser for their party. But their attempts to let conservatives express their anger through alternative anti-abortion bills have done little to diffuse the shutdown talk, leaving Boehner in particular dependent on Democratic votes to pass legislation to keep the government open.
“McConnell and Boehner truly see nothing to be gained by any kind of a shutdown at all,” Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center who worked for the U.S. Senate for 25 years, told TPM. “[McConnell] is very careful and methodical, and if Boehner didn’t have to deal with those 34 or 35 wayward souls in the House, there would be no question on his part.”
The current plan goes like this:
Thursday, after the Pope’s address, the Senate will vote on a short-term spending bill that defunds Planned Parenthood. That bill is expected to be filibustered by Democrats, and thus "prove" to conservative hardliners that blocking Planned Parenthood’s funding is, on a practical level, impossible. At least that's the theory. Then, McConnell will bring forward a “clean” continuing resolution, which would keep the government open for a few months -- likely through Dec. 11 -- with spending being maintained at essentially its current levels, including the funding for Planned Parenthood. That measure could be passed late this week, or early in the next week, giving the House a few days at most to pass the same legislation itself.
“If we are gong to avoid a shutdown, if we are going to get some sort of short term deal by the end of next week, this is the way it’s probably going to happen,” Molly Reynolds, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told TPM. “But there’s plenty of places along the way that the plan could go off the rails.”
At every turn, there is chance for hardliners to stall the process. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), for instance could delay the vote on the clean continuing resolution a day or two by objecting to a motion to take it up immediately, as he did in December. Cruz and two of the other GOP presidential candidates in the Senate have argued, against historical evidence, that Democrats would be blamed for a government shutdown.
Worth reading for context is this Politico op-ed from Cruz. It's pretty clear Republican leadership is facing a possible revolt from within its own ranks, particularly the South, although it should already be obvious that Trump is tapping a large swath of Republicans that are really pissed off with the party. But this is a strange and scary place to take a firm stand, as in it's not a strong political place to make a rallying cry to get supporters fired up or attract new groups.
I think discussing the blame is also not too helpful. Everyone looks bad for a government shutdown and it's worth pointing out that there seem to be plenty of Democrats who are really pissed off with their party establishment too. A bona fide shutdown is only worse for Republicans in the sense that it throws a tough spotlight on Rubio and Cruz, who are the most viable establishment candidates. They haven't shown the chops to play political judo and turn this on candidates like Trump and Carson as to how they might deal with an unruly Congress (i.e. they can't) or even better, turn this into a uniting cause against Democrats and Obama.
To be clear, Cruz isn't an establishment candidate. The GOP leadership detests him because he keeps pulling stunts like this. That's why he and Trump are so buddy buddy.
Regardless of whether or not you think Cruz and the other hard liners are right (I don't), I can't believe that the GOP leadership didn't see this and other stunts like this coming when they decided to take the Tea Party tiger by the tail in 2008. It actually scares me that they didn't.
Guess they should have read the letter high school me wrote to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2008. Maybe if I had written it to the National Review I could say "I told you so."
Edit: For the record I would be equally disgusted with a Democratic Congress forcing government shutdowns over gun control or no voter ID laws or even single-payer healthcare. Just a stupid way to practice government in my opinion.
On September 25 2015 02:49 TheTenthDoc wrote: Regardless of whether or not you think Cruz and the other hard liners are right (I don't), I can't believe that the GOP leadership didn't see this and other stunts like this coming when they decided to take the Tea Party tiger by the tail in 2008. It actually scares me that they didn't.
Guess they should have read the letter high school me wrote to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2008. Maybe if I had written it to the National Review I could say "I told you so."
Edit: For the record I would be equally disgusted with a Democratic Congress forcing government shutdowns over gun control or no voter ID laws or even single-payer healthcare. Just a stupid way to practice government in my opinion.
Their political strategy is similar a small child trying to hide by closing their eyes. If wish hard enough, the Democrats won't be part senate or executive office.
A day after announcing her opposition to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Hillary Clinton unveiled a more comprehensive agenda for the US energy infrastructure that seeks to transform the US into “the clean energy superpower of the 21st century”.
The Democratic presidential candidate detailed her proposals on Wednesday in both a blogpost on Medium and a fact sheet distributed by Clinton’s campaign.
Clinton’s plan calls for the existing energy infrastructure in the US to be modernized through a series of steps, such as repairing or replacing oil and gas pipelines that are outdated and risk both oil and methane leaks and other hazardous accidents.
The flaws highlighted by Clinton in the country’s energy infrastructure, including pipeline spills, rail car explosions, and the exposure to cyber-attacks, mirror the findings of the first-ever quadrennial energy review conducted by the Obama administration and released in April.
In addition to exposing the vulnerabilities in energy transmission, storage and distribution infrastructure, the review produced recommendations that included accelerating pipeline replacement, enhancing maintenance programs for natural gas distribution systems, and developing a more modern electric grid.
Clinton said her plan would invest in “grid security and resilience”, and create a threat assessment team to protect against cyber-attack through improved coordination.
As reported by racist, reactionary, right wing rag, Breitbart "News". Bringing back yellow journalism one hit piece at a time. They don't attack ideas, they attack the people with those ideas because its easier. Someone should ask them about their forced settlement with Shirley Sherrod.
Complete lack of integrity to not differentiate between legal and illegal immigration. Fact is the USA takes in roughly 1 million immigrants a year LEGALLY, people of all colors from many different countries. To imply the USA treats immigrants poorly and to tell us to treat immigrants better than we did during the colonial times is extremely dishonest and just wrong.
Also found it hilarious how the pope has not mentioned anything about the millions of aborted babies a year in the US. The guy is a left-wing fraud.
EPT
