US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2654

On December 13 2015 00:31 farvacola wrote:

Making sense of your political perspective isn't difficult. Understanding the US bankruptcy code, for example, is difficult. Figuring out why some dude thinks that only a "left wing lens" portrays Trump as a nationalistic racist when both nazis and Republicans themselves find him distasteful is easy.

On August 14 2013 07:44 Danglars wrote:
Racism and sexism aren't huge societal problems in desperate need of solution since most of society has moved on.

On December 13 2015 00:21 Deathstar wrote:
First amendment applies to citizens. Are you implying that the people of this world are citizens of the US and by default entitled to enter this country? Get real

On December 13 2015 07:48 GreenHorizons wrote:
Don't you all remember racism and sexism aren't huge societal problems!?

The Supreme Court would shit all over this nonsense proposal. It is a direct affront to the 1st Amendment -- and to the very reason "America" was ever created.

On December 13 2015 07:28 radscorpion9 wrote:
I think it makes way more sense to think of Trump as a fearful person who thinks that too many Muslims have a chance to be radicals and therefore none should be let in, then to simplistically think of him as a racist who

On December 13 2015 11:26 bo1b wrote:

Wow you held onto that one for a while.

On December 13 2015 11:30 DemigodcelpH wrote:


No. He's definitely a racist.

According to a 1990 Vanity Fair interview, Ivana Trump once told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that her husband, real-estate mogul Donald Trump, now a leading Republican presidential candidate, kept a book of Hitler's speeches near his bed.

And now you're seeing this manifest in his policy proposals that go beyond just being far-right like the modern GOP, and are actually extreme-right genuinely fascist.

LE BOURGET, France — After years of preparation and two weeks of tireless negotiations, after all the speeches and backroom compromising, one misplaced word brought the momentum toward a historic global deal on climate change to a halt Saturday — for at least a few hours.

Obama administration lawyers discovered early in the day that the latest draft text had a potentially deal-killing tweak: Deep into the document, in Article 4, was a line declaring that wealthier countries "shall" set economy-wide targets for cutting their greenhouse gas pollution.

That may not sound like such a headache-inducing roadblock, but in the world of international climate negotiations, every word counts. In previous drafts, the word "shall" had been "should" — and in the lingo of U.N. climate agreements, "shall" implies legal obligation and "should" does not. That means the word change could have obliged the Obama administration to submit the final deal to the Senate for its approval. And inevitably, the GOP-led chamber would kill it on sight.

"When I looked at that, I said, 'We cannot do this and we will not do this,'" Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters afterward. "'And either it changes or President Obama and the United States will not be able to support this agreement.'”
And so the scrambling began. With the clock ticking and the start of the talks' final meeting already delayed by several hours, top U.S. negotiators huddled in a cavernous plenary hall in this suburb of Paris trying to get the language changed. At the same time, supporters of the deal feared that re-opening the text would lead to a flood of revisions from other countries, possibly swamping the entire effort.

In the end, the U.S. persuaded the summit's French hosts to change the wording, and the tweak was read aloud by a delegate in the plenary hall, lost in a package of other technical revisions. Minutes later, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius banged his gavel and the most significant international climate change deal in history won the resounding approval of 196 governments, representing nearly every country on the planet.

The 11th-hour kerfuffle capped an often-torturous 13 days of negotiations that stretched through the night and into the early morning almost every day this week. This year's talks weren't marked by the sharp-toothed bickering that has defined two decades of climate negotiations, including the 2009 failure in Copenhagen that has shadowed Obama's climate efforts for the past six years. But they weren't smooth sailing either.

One U.S. official told POLITICO that even as late as Friday night, the talks were “dicey" — and not just because of the wording error, which a different senior administration official called "understandable in an environment when the French presidency’s staff have been working non-stop through the two weeks."

Another speed bump was defusing objections from China.

On December 13 2015 11:28 UrsusRex wrote:


You have got to be kidding me. The U.S Supreme court ruled it was okay to imprison Japanese, Italian and German Americans without trial and to sell their property without compensation during WWII. Jimmy Carter banned the entry of all Iranian Americans during the Iran hostage crisis. The Supreme Court has ruled that forced sterilization of American women is justified because they are deemed to have low intelligence, look up the U.S. supreme court decision Buck V Bell for proof. The elastic clause of the constitution basically gives the U.S. president the power to ignore all due process for any national security reason and the supreme court has upheld the legality of this on every single occasion. President Abraham Lincoln suspended the constitution during the civil war to deal with Confederates and anti war protesters.

You really do not know U.S. law as well as you think. Not only does the Donald Trump have the authority to ban all Muslim immigration he has the authority to throw all American Muslims in prison without trial and to sell all their belonging without convicting them of a crime and to hold them there until the war on terror is over. Its what we did to Japanese Americans for aiding downed Japanese fighter pilots in Hawaii and for giving the Japanese information on the West Coast, The Trump could easily make the case that doing this for Muslims is necessary and his right to do so has already been confirmed in the supreme court decision Korrematsu V United States of America.

On December 13 2015 11:31 GreenHorizons wrote:


I didn't hold onto it, just figured I could go back and find someone saying something to that effect and show how ridiculous of a position it was then and now. The more common phrasing was "Racism is over, we have a black president and AG" or some variation of that. They were wrong then, they are wrong now.

Racism, sexism, and bigotry of many kinds are still serious societal problems and people who don't think so are part of that problem.

Interesting. You know that Korematsu has been officially cleared as precedent by a confession of error, right? And that it's by no means cut and dry that a court that isn't 8/9 appointed by the person that signed the executive order would rule the same way?

Ted Cruz has opened up a 10-point lead over Donald Trump in Iowa, according to an influential poll of likely Republican caucus-goers.

In the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll out Saturday evening, Cruz took 31 percent of Republicans polled, with Trump at 21, Ben Carson at 13, Marco Rubio at 10, Jeb Bush at 6, and the rest polling at 3 percent or below.

Cruz’s support in Iowa has more than tripled over the past two months. His rise comes only days after a Monmouth University also had the Texas senator in first place in Iowa, earning 24 percent among those Republicans polled.

“Big shakeup,” J. Ann Selzer, the pollster who conducts the Iowa Poll for the Register and Bloomberg Politics, told the Register. “This is a sudden move into a commanding position for Cruz.”

Trump, apparently expecting a bump in Cruz’s numbers, tweeted minutes before the poll was released. But rather than focusing on Cruz’s expected lead in the Register poll, the national Republican frontrunner cited a different Iowa poll that still has him on top.

On December 13 2015 12:36 bo1b wrote:

I think sexism has decreased pretty substantially from the 70's. On the other hand I'm like 90% sure a race war is coming.

On August 08 2013 02:20 Danglars wrote:

The repeal votes that are sure to go down in defeat is grandstanding. Moderate Republicans love voting nonsense like this to campaign on their opposition, but will never take a hard step towards defunding. It's political posturing to no effect as usual. My goal is to stop policies that will do great harm to the health care industry. Of course, my esteemed opponents will connect every political opposition to a personal vendetta or the return of racism, sexism, and bigotry. That's almost as old as RINO Republicans; the Left caterwauling about mean mean Republicans and our war on the elderly, the children, and women.

I answered the charge on ACA incorporating Republican ideas well back when that falsehood was originally posted in the thread. You'd think every gun control measure was bipartisan if you spent 10 hours in the office with a member of the opposition party.


The center has been consistently pulled left. The previous positions are pounded by the media as extreme. I'm not going to argue the political taxonomy of the situation. Tea Party and other conservative efforts to elect representatives that reflect their views is a two-party system at its best. The left is fine playing softball with moderates that essentially will cave on command, and playing hardball with everyone that might actually represent a radical departure from their ideas.

The moderate RINO elements of the Republican party are entrenched and ignoring the demands of their base. Their strategy is to label their opponents as extreme nutcases. They are scared of the candidates that beat the RNC-supported candidates in primaries and went on to win the election. The war of words is easy to see through.

On August 14 2013 07:44 Danglars wrote:
Straw manning conservatives as a single disgraced Republican and everything else straw men is pretty cute. I love the caricatures. You're actually close on a couple points, I'll give you that. Racism and sexism aren't huge societal problems in desperate need of solution since most of society has moved on. The businesses that refuse to hire based on race and sex are the losers in capitalism. Most everyone still has the opportunity to improve their lot in life if they work hard. I say liberals have been waging a war on this ability with their idiotic policies, but it's still there.

Considering how HuffPo has had almost a post every three pages for the last hundred or so, I think it's time for some discussion from the right. Here's Mark Levin (conservative talk show host with over 7.5 million listeners a week, on Sean Hannity making a very quick case for why we're currently in a post-constitutional society that's less and less a representative republic.

2 Short Videos:Mark Levin on Hannity

I'll keep some barf bags handy for those of you having that reaction to Fox News.

On December 13 2015 13:11 Danglars wrote:

And as I said two years ago, and GH necro'd, they remain as useful political tools in the hands of the usual racebaiters.



I personally don't think the reprobates resurrecting issues of race & sex will ever shut up shop. It's been a political gold mine despite slowing yields. If a drunk guy slings an racist epithet, that's proof of pervasive racism. Quick: hang some progressive faculty for not being quick enough to bow down and supplicate.

There is no Trump if the harpies didn't shriek racist/sexist at every tangentially raised issue. The words are now robbed of meaning, as I'm betting most people realize now at some core level. Even Trump's repetition of political correctness would grow old if the country wasn't constantly reminded that a bunch of petulant children can make fools of themselves on college campuses with impunity because they're largely black and minorities. The list goes on. The race card is definitely showing its age in this election.

On December 13 2015 12:56 UrsusRex wrote:


That confession of error was only in regards to admitting the U.S. suppressed evidence in Korematsu's trial and was basically a left wing apology after the fact that did not challenge the underlying right to inter people because of their group identity. They only admitted they were wrong to defend the interment because it was unnecessary that's a huge difference than saying it was illegal.

Its true the supreme court could revisit the decision but I honestly don't think they would and just because a group has a religion doesn't also mean they could not be targeted for being loyal to another nation or political system. Just because people feel that this is wrong and want it to be wrong does not change that it is the law as it stands today. I have no idea what the 14th amendment has to do with what I said U.S. citizenship does not mean your constitutional rights can not be suspended.

Barack Obama has signed the death warrants of an unknown number of American citizens living abroad and killed their American children in bombing attacks, all without trial or indictment of a crime or proof of their criminal activity. You want to believe in the U.S. as a nation of restrained laws and democracy the reality is those laws are as strong wet tissue paper once the president invokes national security interests no matter how much you disapprove of it.

If Donald Trump gets elected and says all Muslims have to leave their homes and be put in to camps they will be and all U.S. law and supreme court precedent supports this as do the action of all previous U.S. presidents. Just because people dispute something does not change standing precedent, once the door has been opened other people can walk through it.

Five years after a high-profile deal was struck to remove four hydroelectric dams and improve conditions on one of the West Coast's prime salmon rivers, the agreement is on the verge of collapse for lack of action by Congress.

A crucial part of the Klamath River pact expires Dec. 31 unless Congress approves it, which appears less likely with each passing day because of Republican opposition.

The 2010 deal — backed by the dams' owner, PacifiCorp, along with the states of California and Oregon and the federal government — was hailed as the path to peace on a river that has long been marked by strife between tribal, agricultural and fishery interests.

But its death wouldn't stop campaigns to decommission the dams that block historical salmon rearing and spawning grounds on the river's upper reaches.

"It's not the end," said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), whose congressional district includes the lower Klamath. "If anything it may be the beginning of a new and potentially more productive push to get these dams out by way of the [dam relicensing] process and the Clean Water Act authority the state of California has."

The Klamath agreements have been controversial since their inception. Siskiyou County, in which three of the dams are located, and GOP congressmen have opposed dismantling private utility company dams that are a source of electricity and local property taxes.

California's Hoopa Tribe was part of the initial talks but refused to support the accord on the grounds that it didn't guarantee sufficient flows for struggling coho and Chinook salmon populations. And environmentalists complained that it allowed continued farming in wildlife refuges.

Originally set to expire in 2012 without congressional approval, the pact was extended to give Congress more time to act. Last year Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer — all Democrats — introduced authorizing legislation.

But when Republican Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, whose district includes the upper Klamath, released a draft House bill this month, it reflected the deep ideological chasm that has thwarted congressional action.

Although the draft included some provisions of the agreements, it omitted dam removal and added a clause that Democrats called a poison pill: giving 100,000 acres of timber land in the Fremont-Winema National Forest to Klamath County, Oregon, and another 100,000 acres of the Klamath National Forest to California's Siskiyou County.

On December 13 2015 11:31 GreenHorizons wrote:


I didn't hold onto it, just figured I could go back and find someone saying something to that effect and show how ridiculous of a position it was then and now. The more common phrasing was "Racism is over, we have a black president and AG" or some variation of that. They were wrong then, they are wrong now.

Racism, sexism, and bigotry of many kinds are still serious societal problems and people who don't think so are part of that problem.

On December 13 2015 22:59 DickMcFanny wrote:
I disagree with Clinton that Trump is no longer funny.

"Most people don't even know what a billion is. They think a million is a billion, they don't even know the difference. Folks, a billion is a lot of millions. It's a HUNDRED millions!" and the crowd goes wild.