EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 2479
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. 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. | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
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kwizach
3658 Posts
On November 03 2015 12:54 IgnE wrote: I think more people have heard of Lessig than Chafee. [...] Chafee is just a clown. Chafee was a U.S. senator for eight years and the governor of a U.S. state (Rhode Island) from 2011 to 2015. He also managed to qualify for the first debate, something Lessig could not do, so clearly less people had heard of Lessig than Chafee. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain18134 Posts
On November 03 2015 20:21 oneofthem wrote: among other things, it is a forum for voicing ideas. excluding voices like lessig is pretty bad look. but maybe he was coming to ask questions that would be bad strategically who knows. the hillary machine marches on I don't really care whether he was going to ask good or bad questions. It's quite clear that you need a minimum of public support to be afforded a privileged position to ask questions in a political debate. He was unable/unwilling to get that minimum support. So why should he deserve a soapbox? Thee are hundreds of law professors out there who might have interesting questions, and certainly millions of American citizens who would like the opportunity to debate with Bernie, HRC and the rest. Why should Lessig be treated different when he can't even hit 1% in 3 polls. Even Bobby Jindal manages that. | ||
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farvacola
United States18839 Posts
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Yoav
United States1874 Posts
On November 03 2015 14:57 IgnE wrote: Bernie's and Hillary's policies only appear "pretty similar" because Hillary is a liar. No disagreement. But that just means that the R's get to choose from an actual variety of candidates, several of whom seem to mean much of what they say, against the D's who get one such candidate, who has no realistic shot at winning. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
The governor's race in Kentucky and a school-funding battle in Mississippi are among the top races Tuesday in what otherwise is a relatively low-key, off-year election cycle. Just two states are holding elections for governor while three have general state legislative elections. Yet decisions made by voters in several cities and states could be an important bellwether of sentiment ahead of next year's presidential elections. In Virginia, a swing state, Democrats are pushing to reverse a narrow Republican majority in the state Senate and empower Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe in negotiations with Republicans who control the state House. Houston and Philadelphia are among cities selecting mayors, while Salt Lake City voters will choose between the incumbent and a challenger who seeks to become the first gay person elected mayor of Utah's capital. Several city or state ballot initiatives will test voter preferences on school funding, marijuana, gay and lesbian rights, and the sharing economy. Closely watched is the battle for Kentucky's open gubernatorial seat, which features a two-term Democratic attorney general who vows to maintain the state's Medicaid expansion and a Republican businessman looking to upend the political dynamic in a Southern state where Democrats still control statewide offices. Republican Matt Bevin has been running as an outsider, wooing the state's conservative voters with a message of "vote your values and not your party." Democrat Jack Conway has been emphasizing his support for early education programs while saying that 400,000 people could lose taxpayer-funded health insurance if Bevin is elected. Also on the ballot is Drew Curtis, a businessman running as an independent. The governor's race in Mississippi has been largely overshadowed by a fight over a constitutional amendment that would allow people to sue the state to increase funding for public schools. Critics say it would take budget decisions away from Mississippi lawmakers and give the courts too much power. The Legislature has put forward its own ballot measure that would prohibit "judicial enforcement" of school funding. The outcome could prompt similar efforts in other states where education remains a key challenge for lawmakers as they look to balance their budgets with tax revenues that have yet to rebound to pre-recession levels. Elsewhere, voters in Ohio will consider whether to allow the use of marijuana for recreational and medicinal use. San Francisco voters will decide a citizen-backed initiative to restrict the operations of Airbnb, the room-rental site, and a $310 million bond package for affordable housing. In Washington state, a proposal backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen would add state penalties for anyone who imports certain animal products for commercial purposes, such as elephant ivory or rhino horns. Source | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
On November 03 2015 19:32 kwizach wrote: Chafee was a U.S. senator for eight years and the governor of a U.S. state (Rhode Island) from 2011 to 2015. He also managed to qualify for the first debate, something Lessig could not do, so clearly less people had heard of Lessig than Chafee. I'm going to put my KwarK hat on here and point out that it's logically possible for more people to have heard of Lessig than Chafee. Just fewer people might have wanted him to be the Democratic candidate. | ||
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kwizach
3658 Posts
On November 04 2015 02:03 IgnE wrote: I'm going to put my KwarK hat on here and point out that it's logically possible for more people to have heard of Lessig than Chafee. Just fewer people might have wanted him to be the Democratic candidate. Of course it's possible. It's also possible every single citizen in the U.S. secretly wanted Lessig to be both the Democratic candidate and the next president of the U.S., but decided to answer something else when polled. Or perhaps we could accept what's more probable, namely that this wasn't the case and that more people had heard of Chafee. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
On November 04 2015 02:19 kwizach wrote: Of course it's possible. It's also possible every single citizen in the U.S. secretly wanted Lessig to be both the Democratic candidate and the next president of the U.S., but decided to answer something else when polled. Or perhaps we could accept what's more probable, namely that this wasn't the case and that more people had heard of Chafee. More people outside of Rhode Island have heard of Lessig. Had you heard of Chafee before this year? | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
Americans are becoming less religious, judging by such markers as church attendance, prayer and belief in God, and the trend is more pronounced among young adults, according to a poll released on Tuesday. The share of U.S. adults who say they believe in God, while still high compared with other advanced industrial countries, slipped to 89 percent in 2014, from 92 percent in 2007, according to the Pew Research Center's religious landscape study. The proportion of Americans who say they are "absolutely certain" God exists fell even more, to 63 percent in 2014, from 71 percent in 2007. The percentage of Americans who pray every day, attend religious services regularly and consider religion important in their lives are down by small, but statistically significant, measures. The trend is most pronounced among young adults, with only half of those born from 1990 to 1996 absolutely certain of their belief in God, compared with 71 percent of the "silent generation," or those born from 1928 to 1945. Younger people are less likely to pray daily, at 39 percent, compared with "silent generation" adults, at 67 percent. Young adults are also much less likely to attend religious services, the survey found. On the other hand, 77 percent of Americans continue to identify with some religious faith, and those who do are just as committed now as they were in 2007, according to the survey. Two-thirds of religiously affiliated adults say they pray every day and that religion is very important to them, the survey found. The survey also found religious divides among the political parties, with those who are not religiously affiliated accounting for 28 percent of Democrats, compared with 14 percent of Republicans. About 38 percent of Republicans identify as evangelical Protestants — the largest religious group in the party, the survey found. Catholics make up 21 percent of each major political party. Source | ||
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farvacola
United States18839 Posts
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kwizach
3658 Posts
On November 04 2015 02:27 IgnE wrote: More people outside of Rhode Island have heard of Lessig. Had you heard of Chafee before this year? Rhode Island is part of the U.S., last time I checked. I had heard of neither candidate. Why is this important to you again? Shouldn't this be about Lessig's message on campaign finances instead of about how his popularity measures up to Chafee's? | ||
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Jormundr
United States1678 Posts
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ragz_gt
9172 Posts
http://www.salon.com/2015/11/03/donald_trump_on_escalating_his_feud_with_john_oliver_i_dont_like_to_let_things_die/ Trump insisting that he refused to be guest on John Oliver's show while not knowing the show doesn't have guests is hilarious. | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
On November 04 2015 02:57 kwizach wrote: Rhode Island is part of the U.S., last time I checked. I had heard of neither candidate. Why is this important to you again? Shouldn't this be about Lessig's message on campaign finances instead of about how his popularity measures up to Chafee's? The point is that Lessig was trying to qualify under rules that had previously been set out and now the rules have been changed to permanently exclude him. If he reached 5% in the polls tomorrow he wouldn't be on stage. And in response to the Hillary Machine's shameless attack on democracy people like you are saying "well he doesn't even qualify under the new rules so he doesn't deserve to be up there." Like what? | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45110 Posts
Rand Paul: Free College For Students Is Like “Offering Them Heroin” Republican presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Rand Paul, went completely off his rocker during a radio interview with Iowa’s Jeff Angelos. During his interview the Libertarian-lite senator warned America’s youth of the dangers of a free college education, by comparing it to free heroin. “The main thing I would say is that nothing’s free,” Paul said. “If someone offers you something for free, treat it as if they’re offering you heroin and think about the repercussions of what is free and what is a drug, an addicting drug like heroin and the ramifications of that. There’s nothing free. It just means somebody else is gonna pay for it, you don’t see them. So the plumber, the welder, the carpenter, the people who don’t go to college are being asked to pay for your education.” Rand Paul is obviously desperately grasping for attention with this outrageous metaphor. Free college is exactly nothing like heroin. Millions of young people in this country are drowning in debt, and the Republican Party has no interest in helping them succeed in life. On top of that, if we implemented the plan as, say, Bernie Sanders envisions it, the money for it would come from taxing Wall Street transactions. As the student debt crisis spirals out of control, millions of young men and women are financially ruined before they even have a chance to begin their lives. This financial hardship has led to suicides that few people are talking about. In 2007, after racking up more than a hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt and being unable to find a job in his field, Jason Yoder took his own life. More than 65 studies worldwide have found a strong correlation between debt and depression which can lead to suicide. The American Association of Suicidology said: “Economic strain and personal financial crises have been well documented as precipitating events in individual deaths by suicide.” So, in reality we can conclude that a free college education would actually be much healthier than Rand Paul’s plans. Furthermore, Paul’s claim that “the plumber, the welder, the carpenter” who didn’t go to college are going to be forced to pay for your college education is as wrong as his heroin comparison. President Obama has expressed his desire to offer free community college and trade school education to students who maintain a certain GPA. The skilled-workers that Paul is referring to are called “skilled” because they had to go to school and obtain a license to practice their profession. Those workers are EXACTLY the students who would benefit from a free education. Rand Paul is just like the rest of the Republican party who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. He claims that he doesn’t support the plan to make college free, because he is “fiscally responsible” or whatever other spin he puts on, but that isn’t the reality at all. It’s no coincidence that the GOP is fighting to change the content of history and science books in public schools and to defund public schools and turn them into for-profit voucher programs. Studies prove that the less education a person has, the more likely they are to vote for right-wing candidates. That’s the real reason Republicans like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and the rest of the party do not support free college education — and it’s exactly why it is so important that we continue to fight for it. ~ http://www.occupydemocrats.com/rand-paul-free-college-for-students-is-like-offering-them-heroin/ This is disappointing considering the only two Republican candidates who I even remotely respect right now are Kasich and Paul. Note: the website is obviously biased in its analysis of Republicans, so I underlined Paul's quote to put an emphasis on the stuff he actually said. Furthermore, I underlined the other statements regarding how even trades/ vocational jobs would still benefit, which Paul is ignoring. Plumbers and welders and carpenters (and everyone else who doesn't have kids in public schools) already pay taxes into public school systems that they're not using, just like how we pay for other public servants that we might not need to use (e.g., firefighters). It's part of being a community and understanding that we should be helping our society grow as a whole. And seeing as how student loan debt is $1 trillion now, which is more than credit card or auto loan debt + Show Spoiler +, there's a real issue that needs to be addressed. And I'd like to think that if college students can graduate relatively debt-free and find jobs, then they can start contributing to the economy and paying back into the system that helped them out. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11651 Posts
On November 04 2015 03:14 ragz_gt wrote: Speak of Brit with a pickle http://www.salon.com/2015/11/03/donald_trump_on_escalating_his_feud_with_john_oliver_i_dont_like_to_let_things_die/ Trump insisting that he refused to be guest on John Oliver's show while not knowing the show doesn't have guests is hilarious. Well, saying that they don't have guests is not exactly true. In the episodes i have watched, people who are not John Oliver do appear in guest roles from time to time, either to make a point or in specific cases even as an interview. I specifically remember there being Snowden (Not physically, John Oliver actually visited him in Russia) and a trans man from Uganda on various occasions. I think there were some others, too. | ||
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farvacola
United States18839 Posts
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