US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2895

On February 12 2016 06:12 ticklishmusic wrote:
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/697852256557928448

Come on guys, that was funny.

On February 12 2016 06:18 jcarlsoniv wrote:


Gotta give her credit for the dank robo-rubio memes

Legislation that would ban coal, oil and gas extraction on US public land has been introduced in Congress in a timely act of Democratic defiance to the legal threat looming over Barack Obama’s plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

The Keep it in the Ground Act would prohibit the digging or drilling for fossil fuels on federal land or waters. A Senate version of the act has the support of several senior Democrats, including presidential nominee Bernie Sanders.

The bill, which has 16 Democratic co-sponsors in total, states that global warming has already had a “significant impact” on the US economy and that to avoid a dangerous 2C (about 4F) increase in global temperatures, at least 80% of carbon from known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground.

Introduction of the bill is a symbolic act as it has no chance of passing a Congress dominated by Republicans who have accused the US president of waging a “war on coal” that harms American jobs. But the bill is a signifier of Democratic intent to aggressively push forward climate change policy, beyond even that proposed by the Obama administration.

“Our nation’s capacity to transition towards clean energy sources is expanding at a record pace,” said congressman Jared Huffman, who introduced the bill. “However, there is still much to be done to break our unhealthy dependence on fossil fuels.

“Our oceans and our public lands, including the fossil fuel deposits beneath them, belong to the American people, not to the oil and gas industry, and it’s time that the law reflects that fact. There is an urgent need to keep fossil fuels in the ground if we want to protect the planet for future generations.”

Marissa Knodel, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “Keeping unleased fossil fuels in the ground on public lands and waters is the first step towards avoiding the worst impacts of climate disruption and safeguarding our natural heritage.”

On Tuesday, Obama’s plan to use the Environmental Protection Agency to limit emissions from power plants suffered a setback when the supreme court decided to block the initiative following a legal challenge launched by 29 states. The White House said it is confident the unusual decision to “stay” a regulation was a “bump in the road” and that the US will be able to meet its commitments made at the landmark Paris climate deal in December.

On February 12 2016 05:50 Plansix wrote:
Separating kids in grade school isn’t that productive, IMO. A lot of education at that age is about learning to socialize and deal with other people. Of course history is important, but really we are teaching kids hot to control themselves and function in an educational setting. And advanced students at that age might not stay advanced. That is the problem with separating them so early, you might have to send them back.

But this call be been addressed with smaller classrooms sizes and more direct education. It’s a lot easier to challenge the advanced students if you only have 15 students. But challenging advanced students is always a problem, but one that isn't hard to solve if you have time.

On February 12 2016 06:57 IgnE wrote:


Teach them to control themselves so they can sit in an office and be supervised by managers.

On February 12 2016 06:57 IgnE wrote:


Teach them to control themselves so they can sit in an office and be supervised by managers.

and he understood that as "YOU HAVE TO TEACH ALL THE STUDENTS EXACTLY THIS WAY, ITS THE LAW!"

On February 12 2016 07:31 Falling wrote:

It's funny that a one way to do multiplication came up as a problem because I understood it, Canadian pedagogy tends to follow the lead of research from the States (and west coast Canada tends to look at west coast US is doing.) And up here, we've had a wave of teach them a hundred strategies to do the same thing... to the point that we're now backing off because it confused the hell out of a lot of students except the really gifted ones. I assumed our development was mimicking what was going on south-side, but maybe not. Seems like it was a bad teacher that cleaved too closely to the one textbook or something. I've always been taught and taught others that 5x3 and 3x5 gets the same answer so I can't see why a teacher would care enough to mark it wrong if it was 3 5's or 5 3's.

On February 12 2016 07:43 GreenHorizons wrote:
Lee Fang is going hard on the CBC PAC endorsement. Exposing that the PAC is full of lobbyist, for everything from private prisons to drug companies.

Can't say I'm surprised it's true or that mainstream media outlets have totally ignored it.

On February 12 2016 07:49 Plansix wrote:
So the CBC is a PAC that just happens to have the same name acronym as the Congressional Black Caucus? And just happens to work with them. Are they for real with this shit? PACs are required to not directly work with politicians, but maybe we should make it so they can't have the same name as a group of politicians. CNN refers to them as the "political arm of the Congressional Black Caucus". They are Congress members, all their arms are political. Its like their only job.

We cannot regulate super PACs fast enough. This is some clown show stuff that just needs to stop. What voter has time to figure out this non-sense specifically designed to confuse people?

On February 12 2016 07:53 ticklishmusic wrote:


Aaaaaand you're wrong.

The board of the CBC PAC is made up of 7 Congresspeople, 11 directors and 2 employees of the PAC. The 11 directors, which you refer to as lobbyists, are successful businesspeople. You know, because they have careers. Typically, a board of directors of ANY organization is made up of engaged and successful people with something to contribute [hint, it's not always money]. Obviously they have interests related to their businesses, but to dismiss and essentially slander them as a bunch of lobbyists is pretty shameful behavior.

The vote was 18 for Hillary, 2 abstaining and zero for Sanders.

The CBC, as a CMO is NOT allowed to endorse a candidate because they receive support and funding from the federal government. Hence the fact they have a PAC, same reason we have the Senate Democratic PAC and many others. However, 37 (or something like that) or the 40-something members have endorsed Clinton. 2 have endorsed Sanders, and the others haven't declared-- one is Republican and probably won't endorse either. The CBC PAC endorsement is the closest you're going to get to an endorsement from the CBC itself. They're putting people on the ground and putting money into this.

By the way, how do you feel about John Lewis, who was one of Freedom Riders and the last living member of the big six behind the March on Washington? He's getting fucking railed by your fellow supporters for what he said today.

On February 12 2016 07:52 cLutZ wrote:


I think there are really two problems. First is that its really always been a mystery how a person can get the correct answer in math but be marked off for not doing it the "right" way. If your way is so superior then your test will either demonstrate this by A) having problems that are not solvable by whatever ad hoc approach the kid is using, or B) imposing strict time constraints that weed out ineffective methods like counting on your fingers.

But also, another problem is that a lot of elementary school teachers don't even know math, and they are basically robots who also think they are super-smart because they talk to 8 year olds all day.

On February 12 2016 08:04 GreenHorizons wrote:


You really going to tell me they aren't lobbyists?

The members of the Congressional Black Caucus weren't consulted. Many initial reports neglected to even make the distinction between the caucus and the PAC.

John Lewis is capable of dealing with far worse than anything he's gotten today. Infantilizing him is more offensive to me than the few out of line comments I've seen.

I'm disappointed that he would endorse Hillary after she is backing Rahm (among other problems) but I'm not surprised, he backed her against Obama too. He's a civil rights era hero but it doesn't mean he can't be called out for things like his unnecessary jab at Sanders or talking about meeting with Hillary and Bill when his own book says he met Bill in the 70's.

I wouldn't personally call him a "Sell-out" but one would have to be oblivious to politics to think money had nothing to do with it. I mean he literally did it right after "the money" said it was endorsing Hillary too. Even if it's exclusively an issues based endorsement (incredibly hard to believe) at minimum it was terrible optics.