US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2986

On February 22 2016 13:52 Rebs wrote:


And pray tell where you have observed this real fascism so that we can benefit from your onhand experience ?

Although I do agree, calling it fascism is rather severe.

On February 22 2016 23:14 IgnE wrote:
I don't think he's a joke.

Leading researchers have called on the world’s largest association of earth and space scientists to reject sponsorship from ExxonMobil, because of the oil company’s record of funding climate denial.

In a letter made available to the Guardian, climate scientists James Hansen (formerly of Nasa), Michael Mann (Penn State), Kerry Emanuel (MIT) and more than 100 other researchers said they were deeply troubled by the “well-documented complicity of ExxonMobil in climate denial and misinformation”.

The scientists urged the American Geophysical Union to reject funding from Exxon, as a matter of scientific integrity. The AGU’s annual meetings are among the largest of their kind, drawing about 25,000 scientists.

Exxon is under criminal investigation in New York and California for misleading investors and the public about the dangers of climate change.

The Guardian, Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times reported last year that the oil company knew about climate risks and factored them into planning as early as the 1970s – but continued to fund organisations rejecting established science well into the 2000s.

“In part [thanks] to Exxon, the American public remains confused and polarized about climate change,” the letter said. “And thanks in part to Exxon, climate science­-denying members of Congress and lobby groups operating at the state level remain a major obstacle to US efforts to mitigate climate change.”

The letter said that history should disqualify Exxon as a sponsor, because of AGU rules barring financial ties to scientific disinformation.

About 4,000 AGU members will gather in New Orleans on Monday for an oceans meeting.

The AGU said in a blogpost that it would review Exxon’s current activities, and take up the issue at a board meeting in April. Last year, the association decided there was no reason to cut financial connections with the oil company.

Exxon said news reporting about it’s activities was “inaccurate and deliberately misleading”.

On February 22 2016 23:51 Plansix wrote:
It is normally too late to discuss concerns about fascism once your country is in a police state.

Edit: The Apple, FBI show down is part of the democratic process. Apple is protesting what it sees as an overstep of government authority. The government is trying to enforce an order obtained through public due process to protect its citizens. Once both sides calm down a bit and start talking, a compromise will likely be reached. Trump railing against it shows he doesn’t really respect or understand protests.

Muted Response to Bernie Sanders at South Carolina Church


WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. — The problem began as soon as Bernie Sanders walked into the dining room of the revered, and predominantly black, Brookland Baptist Church. Instead of flocking to him, as people do at his large college rallies, many of church’s 780 members looked up for a moment, then quietly went back to eating their Sunday feast — unmoved as Mr. Sanders, the Democratic senator from Vermont, tried to work the room.

He made remarks at a microphone next to a buffet table offering chicken, collard greens and dinner rolls. The line at the table kept moving as Mr. Sanders and Benjamin T. Jealous, a former N.A.A.C.P. president, spoke. The Brookland Baptist congregation proved to be a tough crowd.

“We have in America today a broken criminal justice system,” Mr. Sanders said, pausing briefly after this line from his stump speech, which is usually met with applause. Here it garnered very little.

His visit underscored Mr. Sanders’s difficulty in strengthening his support among black voters in South Carolina, who make up more than half of registered Democrats heading into the state primary this Saturday. While some applauded politely as he offered now-familiar lines about racial discrimination, the loudest claps came when he talked about President Obama.

On February 23 2016 00:09 puerk wrote:

is it clear already how the data on the one undestroyed and government owned work phone of the terrorist can protect citicens from anything?

On February 22 2016 23:51 Plansix wrote:
It is normally too late to discuss concerns about fascism once your country is in a police state.

Edit: The Apple, FBI show down is part of the democratic process. Apple is protesting what it sees as an overstep of government authority. The government is trying to enforce an order obtained through public due process to protect its citizens. Once both sides calm down a bit and start talking, a compromise will likely be reached. Trump railing against it shows he doesn’t really respect or understand protests.

On February 23 2016 00:20 Simberto wrote:
I still like the safe maker analogy. I don't think a court order can force a safe maker to deliberately make their safes less safe by having a key for every single one of them at house somewhere.

The solution is simple. Either the FBI figure a way out to open encrypted phones, or they are out of luck. Because even if they manage to bully apple into corrupting their security (which is not going to be easy), there are ways to encrypt a phone that they simply can't find someone to bully into making a back door for them, like open source encryption. I am very much against the government forcing tech companies to make stuff less secure for everyone just so they can spy onto their population better.

President Barack Obama said it best this week.

When it comes to who gets to appoint Supreme Court justices, the Constitution is pretty freaking clear.

"I'm amused when I hear people who claim to be strict interpreters of the Constitution suddenly reading into it a whole series of provisions that are not there," Obama said.

But in the blatant declaration that Obama should not even put forward a new Supreme Court nominee to fill the vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia's death, Republicans are continuing to delegitimize a president that they have long sought to undercut. Many observers view the Supreme Court emerging drama in the Senate as the pinnacle of the drawn out, deep-seated and racially tinged effort to block America's first black president from leaving a lasting legacy on the country that elected him twice.

Obama's presidency has been marked repeatedly by moments where opponents have sought to define him as "other." As recently as September 2015, 43 percent of Republican voters still believed Obama was Muslim despite Obama's strong and consistent public affirmations of his Christian faith. Twenty percent of Americans still thought Obama had been born outside of the United States despite the fact that the president has publicly turned over his birth certificate identifying that he was born in Hawaii.

"Clearly, you have an element in the Republican Party who is very uncomfortable with diversity in this country," says Cornell Belcher, the president of Brilliant Corners Research & Strategies and a former pollster for both the Democratic National Committee and the Obama campaign.

Some congressional actions against Obama have been blatantly demeaning and disrespectful, from the time Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) screamed "you lie" in a visceral outburst at Obama as he delivered a health care address before Congress in 2009 or the time Rep. Steve King said in 2008 before Obama was even elected that that if Barack "Hussein" Obama won the White House, terrorists "would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11."

Earlier this month, the Senate and House budget committees broke with decades-old tradition and decided not to invite the president's budget director to testify before their respective committees about the president's budget, a move that one senior staffer to a Congressional Black Caucus member concluded came "from a dark place."

The Supreme Court fight has resurfaced uncomfortable and troubling questions about the nature of the opposition to Obama and the willingness of his opponents to defy norms and conventions that previous presidents were accorded.

On February 22 2016 23:34 oneofthem wrote:
fascism as practiced heavily involves the military. the u.s. military isn't going to control the civilian government, and as much as people get paranoia about the security agencies they are pretty small and limited as well. a security state like russia is far closer to fascism than the u.s.