US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2471

More than 6,000 federal prisoners will be released starting Friday, after their terms for nonviolent offenses were reduced under new sentencing guidelines enacted last year. The new guidelines came amid a bipartisan push to scale back mass incarceration in the United States, but for many of the inmates, the release will also mean a new set of challenges.

Judicial reform advocates emphasized that the release would not suddenly introduce an unusual number of inmates into society, as the majority of them will first enter into halfway houses, while about 1,700 of them who are not U.S. citizens will be turned over to U.S. customs officials and may face deportation.

The release of the 6,122 inmates – who will be discharged over the next three days – does not amount to “opening up the floodgates,” said Holly Harris, executive director of the Justice Action Network, an alliance of conservative and liberal groups seeking to remove people from prison.

The challenge now is making sure that the released prisoners are able to re-enter society and become productive citizens, Harris told Al Jazeera. “If we’re going to talk about criminal justice reform comprehensively, then it’s about removing obstacles to inmates’ re-entry” into society, she said.

The new policy will grant early release for some 17,000 prisoners convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, and applies retroactively. But it represents just a small fraction of the 200,000 people in federal custody for various crimes.

On October 31 2015 04:32 KwarK wrote:
Minirant based upon a denial of coverage letter I got today.

The American health insurance has to change. I have no idea how the American people have tolerated this for so long but coming from a first world country to America has been a huge shock. I can only assume that that the majority of Americans are simply unaware of how wonderful it is to not be getting American healthcare. I have a health insurance card, I wanted to get a physical, I read the card and it told me to go onto the website to find a list of in network providers. I made an account and I found one on the list of providers which they will cover that do what I want. I called them, made an appointment and gave them my insurance number. I then went in, registered with that doctor, gave them my insurance card, they ran it and told me I wouldn't be paying. It turns out that while I am theoretically able to use that doctor under certain conditions I am not currently eligible under rules that the doctor's staff were unaware of when they told me I wouldn't be paying. And of course they can't tell me how much I'll owe because they have multiple prices for the same service and they're still trying to work out which one I qualify under. The amount of bureaucracy within this system is staggering.


Single payer. It has to happen.

More than five years after the single-payer system was scrapped from ObamaCare policy debates, just over 50 percent of people say they still support the idea, including one-quarter of Republicans, according to a new poll.

The single-payer option – also known as Medicare for all – would create a new, government-run insurance program to replace private coverage. The system, once backed by President Obama, became one of the biggest casualties of the divisive healthcare debates of 2009.

The idea remains extremely popular among Democrats, with nearly 80 percent in support, according to the poll, which was shared first with The Hill by the Progressive Change Institute.

“There is a hunger in America for big progressive ideas," spokesperson TJ Helmstetter wrote in a statement. "The state of our union is progressive, and the president would be smart to give America the big, popular, progressive economic ideas that people have been crying out for.”

Another proposed idea under ObamaCare – the public option – also retains wide approval.

Only 13 percent of people said they opposed the public option, which would give individuals the choice of buying healthcare through Medicare or private insurers.

On October 31 2015 04:32 KwarK wrote:
Minirant based upon a denial of coverage letter I got today.

The American health insurance has to change. I have no idea how the American people have tolerated this for so long but coming from a first world country to America has been a huge shock. I can only assume that that the majority of Americans are simply unaware of how wonderful it is to not be getting American healthcare. I have a health insurance card, I wanted to get a physical, I read the card and it told me to go onto the website to find a list of in network providers. I made an account and I found one on the list of providers which they will cover that do what I want. I called them, made an appointment and gave them my insurance number. I then went in, registered with that doctor, gave them my insurance card, they ran it and told me I wouldn't be paying. It turns out that while I am theoretically able to use that doctor under certain conditions I am not currently eligible under rules that the doctor's staff were unaware of when they told me I wouldn't be paying. And of course they can't tell me how much I'll owe because they have multiple prices for the same service and they're still trying to work out which one I qualify under. The amount of bureaucracy within this system is staggering.


Single payer. It has to happen.

The FBI flew surveillance flights over Baltimore during the unrest that followed the death of Freddie Gray and over Ferguson, Missouri following the death of Michael Brown, using advanced surveillance techniques including infrared cameras, documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have revealed.

The internal documents from the FBI and the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) show that one Cessna aircraft circling over the Baltimore protests – which was registered to an FBI shell company named “NG Research” – carried an infrared camera mount as well as an FLIR Talon multi-sensor camera system, which includes thermal imaging technology and laser illumination.

Nate Wessler, a staff attorney at the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology project, told the Guardian that while the supreme court had upheld the use by agencies of surveillance planes, it had not considered their use in light of the high level of sophistication of the equipment now on board.

“That’s what really raises part of the concern here,” he said. “We know at least one of these planes was equipped with infrared cameras – we don’t know how powerful [they are], but if it is used to gain info about the interior of homes, then a warrant is clearly required under supreme court precedent.”

FBI director James Comey confirmed to Congress last week that surveillance flights had taken place over Ferguson and Baltimore during the protests. The capabilities of the aircraft involved was not revealed.

In June, the Associated Press reported that the FBI maintained a fleet of at least 50 aircraft flying such surveillance missions over cities across the US. At the time, the FBI claimed the planes were not equipped for mass surveillance.

However, the documents obtained by the ACLU, which were obtained following requests under the Freedom of Information Act, show the agency is holding on to all surveillance tapes collected during the unrest in Baltimore and Ferguson.

On October 31 2015 04:32 KwarK wrote:
Minirant based upon a denial of coverage letter I got today.

The American health insurance has to change. I have no idea how the American people have tolerated this for so long but coming from a first world country to America has been a huge shock. I can only assume that that the majority of Americans are simply unaware of how wonderful it is to not be getting American healthcare. I have a health insurance card, I wanted to get a physical, I read the card and it told me to go onto the website to find a list of in network providers. I made an account and I found one on the list of providers which they will cover that do what I want. I called them, made an appointment and gave them my insurance number. I then went in, registered with that doctor, gave them my insurance card, they ran it and told me I wouldn't be paying. It turns out that while I am theoretically able to use that doctor under certain conditions I am not currently eligible under rules that the doctor's staff were unaware of when they told me I wouldn't be paying. And of course they can't tell me how much I'll owe because they have multiple prices for the same service and they're still trying to work out which one I qualify under. The amount of bureaucracy within this system is staggering.


Single payer. It has to happen.

The chief operating officer of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's struggling presidential campaign is out, according to a Friday report in the Wall Street Journal.

Christine Ciccone was responsible for logistics and got paid about $12,000 a month.

“We are grateful to have had Christine on the team, we respect her immensely,” Bush spokesman Tim Miller told the Journal.


This comes about a week after reports that Bush was downsizing his staff at the campaign's Miami headquarters and slashing payroll by 40 percent.

The talks of money trouble come despite the fact that the super PAC supporting Bush's candidacy, Right to Rise, is one of the best funded among 2016 candidates.

On October 31 2015 05:15 ragz_gt wrote:
If his last name was not Bush he would dropped out by now.

On October 30 2015 11:43 Plansix wrote:

Mostly you're derailing the thread and backing filling relevance.

On October 31 2015 05:31 IgnE wrote:


Oh jesus dude. Does talking about meaningful topics instead of meaningless political theatre really bother you?

I am pretty sure that most people in this thread think they can tell how intelligent someone is by talking to them, even if they won't admit it. But then again maybe the ceiling on that is someone's own intelligence level.

Sometimes I listen to Trump and he sounds like the most intelligent and the most honest GOP candidate on stage. Other times, like when I read this: mobile.nytimes.com I think that Trump is actually just a tremendously insecure rich boy who spends too much time worried about what people think about him to ever spend time seriously thinking about anything.

On October 31 2015 03:23 frazzle wrote:

You're suggesting the black voters support stop and frisk? Or are you saying we just need to do whether black communities want it or not it because it works? This poll suggests blacks don't support it by a wide margin. That was in 2012.

On October 31 2015 05:31 IgnE wrote:


Oh jesus dude. Does talking about meaningful topics instead of meaningless political theatre really bother you?

I am pretty sure that most people in this thread think they can tell how intelligent someone is by talking to them, even if they won't admit it. But then again maybe the ceiling on that is someone's own intelligence level.

Sometimes I listen to Trump and he sounds like the most intelligent and the most honest GOP candidate on stage. Other times, like when I read this: mobile.nytimes.com I think that Trump is actually just a tremendously insecure rich boy who spends too much time worried about what other people think about him to ever spend time seriously thinking about anything.

Carson is a good example of a person who gets by solely on an unfounded "authority figure" status. Anyone with half a brain listening to him actually speak should know that he doesn't even pass the sniff test, but tons of people who would rather defer to his "expert surgeon" aura end up uncritically labeling him as intelligent despite the evidence every time he opens his mouth.