US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2728

On January 12 2016 01:18 Deathstar wrote:
He's a 60 year old billionaire. What is money to him at this point.

On January 12 2016 01:18 Deathstar wrote:
He's a 60 year old billionaire. What is money to him at this point.

On January 11 2016 15:26 Zooper31 wrote:
I haven't visited this thread since Obama got elected for his 2nd term.

I still can't believe Trump is still running and is so far ahead for the republican nomination that he actually has a chance at winning.

This has to be some sort of horrible distorted reality like the movie Idiocracy. He is such a hate filled, racist, rich pompus asshole and he's actually popular!

On January 12 2016 03:27 zeo wrote:

Hope!
Change!
Yes we can!
I'll show everyone how not racist I am by voting for a black guy!
Change! Change! Change! Hope! Hope! Hope! Yes we can!
He'll close down Guantanamo! Get our troops back! World peace!
No more racism ever! It's a new era!
Yes we can!

People would vote for someone without a platform and only soundbites? Shocking!

As the armed siege of an eastern Oregon wildlife refuge entered its second week, the rightwing militia faced increasing pressure to surrender – including from former supporters of the occupation’s leader.

Ammon Bundy, the Nevada rancher who organized the takeover of the Malheur national wildlife refuge headquarters, avoided reporters all weekend as some of the protesters began to leave the occupation and as local residents and activists who had previously backed Bundy demanded that he and his militiamen retreat.

“We’re gonna figure some way to get him out,” Travis Williams, a 46-year-old Harney County rancher, told the Guardian Saturday night. Williams had met and collaborated with Bundy last month in advance of a large rally to protest the prosecution and imprisonment of local cattle ranchers Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven. But he and other local allies of Bundy were shocked when Bundy and fellow out-of-state men hijacked the protests and formed a heavily armed militia that seized a number of buildings at the federal wildlife sanctuary, located 30 miles away from the town of Burns.

By Friday night, Williams and other Harney County residents who were previously aligned with Bundy were publicly requesting that the Nevada rancher and the rest of the occupiers leave the refuge and allow community representatives to take over the cause of fighting for increased local control of federally managed lands.

On January 12 2016 03:45 ZasZ. wrote:


At least Obama's soundbites were uplifting and positive. And McCain/Romney were not exactly challenging titans, so I didn't need any extra incentive to "not be racist" and vote for Obama.

Sure, he's been a mediocre president at best, but I am still confident he was better than any of the alternatives. I could have accepted McCain with a real human for a running mate, but alas.

On January 12 2016 07:11 Souma wrote:
Wait, the next Democratic debate is this weekend during the NFL playoffs?

:|

On January 12 2016 07:22 Souma wrote:
Maybe she's actually a Bernie supporter and this is her way of ensuring that the Bernie base gets riled up and turns out for the vote.

Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer pressed Barack Obama on Monday to go out with a bang and make global warming central to the message of his last State of the Union address.

In a conference call with reporters, Steyer said the speech offered one of the last high-visibility moments for Obama to make his case to the American public for a transformation of the US energy and climate system.

The last year was a banner year for climate change – with the Paris climate agreement, the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, an effective ban on Arctic drilling, and the finalisation of rules cutting carbon pollution from power plants, Steyer told the call.

“This is a great opportunity to make that case and make sure that the moves we made are decisive and irrevocable,” Steyer said. “He is obviously not going to get specific climate legislation through by the end of his administration … This is a chance for him to really address Americans and explain to them what he has been doing, why it still needs to be done, and why it is so important.”

On Monday, Steyer’s NextGen Climate teamed up with fellow activists Van Jones, founder of Green for All and briefly green jobs adviser for Obama; Mona Mangat, board chair of Doctors for America; and Michael Breen, chief executive of the Truman national security project, for the release of a new report casting climate change as a threat to national security and public welfare.

“To truly address poverty, we must address climate change once and for all. The economic burden of climate change will not be shouldered by all families equally,” the report Threat Multiplier: Climate Change and the State of Our Union, said.

The report extends the idea first embraced by the Pentagon nearly a decade ago that global warming deepened existing risks to the international order. (By 2014, the Pentagon had elevated climate change as an “immediate risk” to national security and its infrastructure).

It points out the public health risks posed by air pollution, water shortages and drought – all of which will be exacerbated by climate change, and notes the Pentagon’s concerns about national security.

Hillary Clinton today proposed a 4 percent surtax on the highest-earning Americans, as she seeks to boost taxes for the wealthiest Americans.

The proposal, which she announced in Iowa, would raise an estimated $150 billion over a decade, a Clinton aide said, and comes after the Democratic front-runner said that she would build on the so-called Buffett Rule that seeks to ensure that the middle class doesn't pay a higher tax rate than top earners.

The surtax would hit those with annual income of more than $5 million, and would affect roughly 0.02 percent of taxpayers.

Clinton is calling the plan a “fair share surcharge.” The Clinton aide cast the approach as a simple way to raise effective tax rates on the wealthiest, who can rely on tax planning and find ways to game the tax system.

The IRS recently announced that the 400 highest earners paid an average rate of less than 23 percent in 2013. They paid less than 17 percent in 2012, before the fiscal cliff deal raised taxes on the wealthy.

Clinton has said she will solely use tax hikes on the wealthy to pay for a variety of domestic initiatives, including expanded paid family leave. Her main rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has called for a slight but broad increase in the payroll tax to boost family leave.

Clinton’s camp says she will roll out more proposals this week to force the wealthy to pay more in taxes.

On January 12 2016 09:12 Deathstar wrote:
The people with the most money are the ones with the most power. I don't see how that tax can possibly be passed under the state of our current system.