US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2701

Barack Obama will defend the Paris climate change agreement and forge ahead on his environmental agenda until his final days in the White House, according to analysts. And there is very little Obama’s opponents in Congress can do to stop him – unless they win the elections and install a Republican in the White House in 2017.

Republicans’ initial attempts to derail the Paris agreement fell flat, with Congress failing to deliver on threats to cut off climate aid to developing countries or block the deal.

But Obama still has a fight on his hands – from lawsuits and new resolutions intended to undermine the Paris agreement – during an election year which could give an unusual degree of attention to climate change.

After an epic year in 2015, with the Paris climate agreement in December and the final release of rules cutting carbon emissions from power plants in August, Obama is expected to keep pushing his climate agenda in 2016, racing to roll out new regulations on the oil and gas industry before leaving office.

“My sense is that when it comes to the climate issue, broadly, the president will look for every opportunity to advance his agenda,” said David Sandalow, a fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, and a former Obama Administration official. “He has been relentless on this issue and with results.”

Before the Paris summit, Republicans in Congress vowed repeatedly to overturn Obama’s plan to cut carbon emissions from power plants, moving two resolutions to strike down the rules. As 150 leaders converged on Paris for the start of the global warming negotiations, congressional Republicans threatened repeatedly to undo the agreement in Congress, and to block climate aid Obama had pledged to developing countries.

The US earlier this year committed $3bn to help developing countries cut carbon emissions and move to cleaner fuels.

On December 30 2015 05:26 ticklishmusic wrote:
Stalin has nice hair, Stalin 2016

On December 30 2015 06:02 Slaughter wrote:
Isn't it possible to have socialist policies that guarantee certain core things for its citizens but still be capitalist? I don't get why people go hardcore on one ideology or another. I think if you do some of the things that Sanders proposes to make the bottom level of the population have a better quality of life you could still have the capitalist system where people could get and maintain being super rich. To suggest that implementing some of these programs to aid the lower classes will somehow murder all wealth creation seems outlandish (and in reality affects a tiny minority of the population but hey they have all the money and therefore like 90% of the say).

People taking Sander's ideas to their ideological extreme is so stupid. You wouldn't find many people agreeing with taking capitalism to its logical extremes either but no one is throwing that out there.

The State of Texas continued its scorched-earth strategy in dealing with Planned Parenthood this week by stopping more than half a million dollars in federal funding the organization uses for HIV prevention and screening across the Greater Houston area.

That money, some $600,000 every year, comes from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but is administered by state health officials. And for nearly three decades, that money has gone to Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast to fund HIV testing and counseling, condom distribution and referral services to connect anyone who has the virus with specialized care.

That will end on December 31, when the organization's current contract is set to expire, according to a tersely worded letter Planned Parenthood received late Monday from the Texas Department of State Health Services. “There will be no further renewals of this contract,” the letter states, without further explanation.

On December 30 2015 06:24 Gorsameth wrote:

That's kinda how Europe works yeah. A capitalist society with a socialist safety net to catch those who fall to far.

A large part of the US still hasn't gotten over the cold war.

LANSING — Gov. Rick Snyder apologized to the City of Flint Tuesday for the Flint drinking water crisis that has left children poisoned by lead and announced he has accepted the resignation of Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant.

Snyder said in a news release there will be other personnel changes at DEQ and the moves he announced are among "initial steps" he is taking to assure the safety of Flint residents, with more action to come.

“I want the Flint community to know how very sorry I am that this has happened," Snyder said. "And I want all Michigan citizens to know that we will learn from this experience, because Flint is not the only city that has an aging infrastructure."

The governor, who had previously stood by his DEQ director amid the controversy, said,

"Dan Wyant has offered his resignation, and I’ve determined that it’s appropriate to accept it."

Before joining the Snyder administration as DEQ director, Wyant was president and chief operating officer of the Edward Lowe Foundation, which promotes entrepreneurship and helps business owners grow their companies. Before that, he served as director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture under both Gov. John Engler and Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Snyder acted after receiving a strongly worded letter Tuesday morning, highly critical of the DEQ, from a task force he appointed Oct. 21 to investigate the tragedy.

The governor said he acted based on interim findings of the Flint Water Advisory Task Force, which is continuing its work.

On December 30 2015 07:43 CannonsNCarriers wrote:
You guys are taking this socialist/capitalist dichotomy too seriously. The real choice is between mixed-market capitalism (the West) and state capitalism (China). Mixed-market capitalism has private property and a strong legal system, along with a tax supported public sector (USA, England, Germany). State capitalism has state ownership of mega corporations to fund the state with limited directed taxation (Russia, Saudi Arabia, China). Within mixed-market capitalism, there is a continuum of higher tax, higher service states (Germany, Norway) to lower tax, lower service states (USA). "Socialism" doesn't exist as a functioning entity and arguably never did outside of the USSR.

On December 30 2015 05:26 ticklishmusic wrote:
Stalin has nice hair, Stalin 2016

Trump spending $$$ could get the vote out for him, which is the weakest link in his campaign

On December 30 2015 09:08 m4ini wrote:
First time i hear the EU is low regulation. Especially the comparison to the FDA is off, since EU law is a lot stricter than rulings of the FDA. GMO etc, or even ridiculously dumb stuff like a ban on "not correctly shaped bananas and cucumbers". And that's not made up, that was a law from 1995 to 2008.

edit: or when it comes to labels, in fact.