US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2413

On October 16 2015 05:54 xDaunt wrote:

...which wouldn't surprise me. Like I've said before, no one who is paying attention mistakes Trump for a conservative.

On October 16 2015 05:33 jcarlsoniv wrote:


Well that's cuz Mexico is gonna pay for the wall.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Days before the Oct. 3 U.S. air attack on a hospital in Afghanistan, American special operations analysts were gathering intelligence on the facility — which they knew was a protected medical site — because they believed it was being used by a Pakistani operative to coordinate Taliban activity, The Associated Press has learned.

It's unclear whether commanders who unleashed the AC-130 gunship on the hospital — killing at least 22 patients and hospital staff — were aware that the site was a hospital or knew about the allegations of possible enemy activity. The Pentagon initially said the attack was to protect U.S. troops engaged in a firefight and has since said it was a mistake.

The special operations analysts had assembled a dossier that included maps with the hospital circled, along with indications that intelligence agencies were tracking the location of the Pakistani operative and activity reports based on overhead surveillance, according to a former intelligence official familiar with the material. The intelligence suggested the hospital was being used as a Taliban command and control center and may have housed heavy weapons.

After the attack — which came amidst a battle to retake the northern Afghan city of Kunduz from the Taliban — some U.S. analysts assessed that the strike had been justified, the former officer says. They concluded that the Pakistani, believed to have been working for his country's Inter-Service Intelligence directorate, had been killed.

No evidence has surfaced publicly to support those conclusions about the Pakistani's connections or his demise. The former intelligence official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

On October 16 2015 06:08 KwarK wrote:

And it'll beat China's wall.

The 22 states that didn't expand Medicaid eligibility as part of Obamacare last year saw their costs to provide health care to the poor rise twice as fast as states that extended benefits to more low-income residents.

It's a counterintuitive twist for those states whose governors, most Republicans who opposed the Affordable Care Act, chose not to accept federal funds to extend Medicaid to more people.

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey of Medicaid directors in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., showed that those that didn't broaden coverage saw their Medicaid costs rise 6.9 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The 29 states that took President Obama up on his offer to foot the bill for expanding Medicaid saw their costs rise only 3.4 percent.

That modest increase in Medicaid spending in the expansion states came even as the rate of Medicaid participation rose 18 percent, three times as much as the states sitting out.

Before Obamacare, able-bodied adults who didn't have children weren't eligible for Medicaid. The expansion allows all adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty level to enroll. The federal government pays the entire bill for those people through 2016, after which the federal share tapers down to 90 percent.

In the first two years of eligibility, tens of millions of people have signed up for Medicaid in those states that participated.

There have been stark differences between states that take up the expansion and those that don't.

On October 16 2015 07:17 KwarK wrote:
Trump complained that other politicians don't beat China and that China are currently beating America. In the light of his other wall based comments it's pretty clear from context that he means the Great Wall of China beats anything America has. When Trump says he wants to make America great he means by building a Great Wall.

On an unrelated note it's always amazing to me how internet comments after a police shooting of an unarmed kid in America seem to form the consensus that the punishment for disobeying a police officer is death. Yes, you should comply with the police but I don't get why Americans (and I'm generalizing hugely here) think death is the consequence of failure to comply.

On October 16 2015 04:41 Gorsameth wrote:

Sometimes you need to burn down the forest so that new trees can grow.

On October 16 2015 07:17 KwarK wrote:
Trump complained that other politicians don't beat China and that China are currently beating America. In the light of his other wall based comments it's pretty clear from context that he means the Great Wall of China beats anything America has. When Trump says he wants to make America great he means by building a Great Wall.

On an unrelated note it's always amazing to me how internet comments after a police shooting of an unarmed kid in America seem to form the consensus that the punishment for disobeying a police officer is death. Yes, you should comply with the police but I don't get why Americans (and I'm generalizing hugely here) think death is the consequence of failure to comply.

On October 16 2015 07:46 hunts wrote:


Depends on how they are not complying. If they are not complying by coming at the officer, attempting to attack the officer, attempting to disarm the officer, etc... Then yes, death is quite reasonable. If not comply means simply running away or refusing to move, then no, a simple beating and a fine/jail time will suffice. Assuming the officer is asking them to do something reasonable and is legally allowed to do so.

On October 16 2015 07:46 hunts wrote:


Depends on how they are not complying. If they are not complying by coming at the officer, attempting to attack the officer, attempting to disarm the officer, etc... Then yes, death is quite reasonable. If not comply means simply running away or refusing to move, then no, a simple beating and a fine/jail time will suffice. Assuming the officer is asking them to do something reasonable and is legally allowed to do so.

On October 16 2015 08:52 KwarK wrote:

See, you just illustrated my point. None of those things are punishable by death. If a policeman feels forced to kill an unarmed citizen then he's lost total control over the situation. Like how badly do you have to fuck up at work that the least bad option presented to you is to kill someone. Cause that never happens to me at work.

On October 16 2015 07:22 GreenHorizons wrote:


What amazes me is how any sensible person could look at the statistics and think that there isn't something terribly wrong with our police and justice system surrounding this stuff.

On October 16 2015 09:05 hunts wrote:


I do feel like there is way too much police killing (both police killing citizens and citizens killing police) but your job is quite different from that of a police officer I imagine. Seeing as you generally are not armed and not attempting to arrest people, you probably would have to fuck up quite a bit at work to have someone try and reach for your gun. I don't think people should be killed simply for disobeying a cop, but often that disobeying is an attempt to take the cops weapon. And as for armed or unarmed, often times you can't tell if a person is armed or not until it's too late. You see someone reaching behind their back or into their coat, if you assume its a weapon and shoot them and they are unarmed, you're now the villain. If you do nothing and it is a weapon, you're now probably dead. It's a very tricky situation, and one that is very much fueled by asshole cops and asshole people who shoot cops. I think the whole body camera thing will help quite a bit, it will hopefully punish the cops who are assholes, and expose the people who are assholes to cops.

On October 16 2015 07:44 notesfromunderground wrote:


Pretty much. Give us Sanders or we push the button. I'm way more scared of Hillary Clinton than I am of anyone riding in the clown car. They are incompetent, corrupt, buffoonish, and evil. She is competent, corrupt, smarmy... and utterly, utterly evil.

It's funny, I think one of my seminar papers this quarter is going to be about forest burn zones (which I spent a lot time hiking/driving through this summer). So I'm very glad to see you employ this metaphor

On October 16 2015 09:40 Gorsameth wrote:
American police does not have some of the basic training police have in other area's of the world.
Things like de-escalation tactics, situational awareness and how to act to minimize risk to both yourself and others.

As an Englishman you (Kwark) know how police can and should act in a way that is safe for everyone involved, the problem is Americans have no idea there is even another way. They have never seen it and all they know is the 'wrong' way.