US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2525

On November 14 2015 02:53 Trainrunnef wrote:
dozens of older episodes of South Park were caricatures of the conservative ideologies so not sure how it makes any case other than pointing out which arguments are the most popular at the time. remember.... "They took our jobs!"

On November 14 2015 03:11 Nyxisto wrote:
I don't think shows along the lines of South park have mocked conservatives a lot, wasn't there even the term "Southpark Republican" around at some point? I think that's actually quite a funny thing among conservatives in many countries right now, they just love to maneuver themselves into the victim role. Everything nowadays is a war on Christmas, war on the family, the traditional values and so on. Pretty ironic for people who demand not to be offended all the time.

A Utah judge reversed his decision to take a baby away from her lesbian foster parents and place her with a heterosexual couple after the ruling led to widespread backlash.

Judge Scott Johansen signed an order, which was released on Friday, that will allow the nine-month-old baby to stay with April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce, a married couple who live in the city of Price.

It comes after Johansen said in court on Tuesday that the baby would be removed from the couple’s home. Utah officials and the couple filed court challenges demanding the judge rescind the order.

In his first decision, Johansen cited research that shows children do better when raised by heterosexual families. However, the American Psychological Association has said there’s no scientific basis that gay couples are unfit parents based on sexual orientation.

Messages left with Jim Hunnicutt, a lawyer for the couple, and the Utah Division of Child and Family Services seeking comments on the judge’s revised order were not immediately returned Friday.

Hoagland and Peirce are among a group of same-sex married couples who were allowed to become foster parents in Utah after last summer’s US supreme court ruling that made gay marriage legal across the country. State officials don’t keep an exact count but estimate there are a dozen or more foster parents who are married same-sex couples.

A full transcript of Johansen’s initial ruling has not been made public and may not be because court records of cases involving foster children are kept private to protect the kids. Johansen is precluded by judicial rules from discussing pending cases, Utah courts spokeswoman Nancy Volmer has said.

Johansen has drawn the ire in Utah for past rulings that were criticized as arbitrary. He once sent a teenager to juvenile detention over a poor report card, and in 2012 he reduced a 13-year-old girl’s community service hours only after she had her ponytail chopped off in court – a punishment for the teenager’s part in cutting a three-year-old’s hair.

On November 14 2015 03:42 Plansix wrote:
This judge sounds like a winner:



Hopefully the couple can get an injunction quickly and this judge can be sent packing before she does more damage.

On November 14 2015 03:11 Nyxisto wrote:
I don't think shows along the lines of South park have mocked conservatives a lot, wasn't there even the term "Southpark Republican" around at some point? I think that's actually quite a funny thing among conservatives in many countries right now, they just love to maneuver themselves into the victim role. Everything nowadays is a war on Christmas, war on the family, the traditional values and so on. Pretty ironic for people who demand not to be offended all the time.

Pope Francis’s campaign for the climate has won hearts and minds in the United States in just a matter of months, suggests a recent survey of Americans’ attitudes to climate change. Yale University researchers are calling it another example of “The Francis Effect.”

The number of people who are worried about global warming has increased by 8% among Americans and 11% among Catholics, according to a November report by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. The report draws on a nationally representative survey of of 900 respondents.

Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who say global warming is happening grew from 62% in March to 66% in October this year. And there’s been an even bigger increase in the number of American Catholics who recognize global warming: from 64% in March to 74% in October.

Pope Francis spoke movingly about the issue in September before the United Nations General Assembly in New York, when he warned that “a selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged.”

In the survey report, researchers credit Pope Francis for much of the shift in public opinion:

Our findings suggest that the Pope’s teachings about global warming contributed to an increase in public engagement on the issue, and influenced the conversation about global warming in America; we refer to this as The Francis Effect.

Many of those surveyed (17% of Americans and 35% of American Catholics) said the Pope’s views on global warming had influenced their own.

Johansen has drawn the ire in Utah for past rulings that were criticized as arbitrary. He once sent a teenager to juvenile detention over a poor report card, and in 2012 he reduced a 13-year-old girl’s community service hours only after she had her ponytail chopped off in court – a punishment for the teenager’s part in cutting a three-year-old’s hair.

On November 14 2015 04:19 Dangermousecatdog wrote:

What? I don't even understand how that can be possible and I read the following article from link.

On November 14 2015 02:16 xDaunt wrote:

I find it hilarious that so many people have zero clue why the debate is what it is despite the fact that I've explained it (as have others) in painstaking detail over the past several pages. And it's even funnier how people taking the opposite side are completely oblivious as to their role all in all of this. But given that it apparently is lost on so many of you still, let me reiterate:

When the charge of racism is so casually thrown around, things are bound to get ugly, and the semantics of the debate are bound to become the debate itself.

And again, it's not my side that brought out the R-word.

On November 14 2015 04:42 WhiteDog wrote:

And you cannot blame them for it. You can't force anyone to see let alone feel as you do.
I personally consider that most accusation of racism in our media are complete bull, and yet in concrete situation I have faced situation of racism (not against me) that made me completly mad (I personally feel like it's outrageous that some people can dress up as "african mama" or "black face").
The problem is that, in our days, there is such an hysteria, in the media and everywhere else, around what is politically okay and what is not, that people overreact in certain situation when hearing certain complex comment (try talking about women with a feminist, you can't say anything), a situation that lead, at the other side of the spectrum, to a relative boredom and insensitivity when actual racism is actually happening.