In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
Conservative donors have engaged a major GOP consulting firm in Florida to research the feasibility of mounting a late, independent run for president amid growing fears that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination.
A memo prepared for the group zeroes in on ballot access as a looming obstacle for any independent candidate, along with actually identifying a viable, widely known contender and coalescing financial support for that person. The two states with the earliest deadlines for independent candidates, Texas and North Carolina, also have some of the highest hurdles for independents to get on the ballot, according to the research.
“All this research has to happen before March 16, when inevitably Trump is the nominee, so that we have a plan in place," a source familiar with the discussions said. March 16 is the day after the GOP primary in Florida, a winner-take-all contest that Marco Rubio supporters have identified as a must-win to stop Trump's early momentum.
“It’s critical some serious attention is given to this,” the source said.
The document, stamped “confidential,” was authored by staff at Data Targeting, a Republican firm based in Gainesville, Fla. The memo notes that “it is possible to mount an independent candidacy but [it] will require immediate action on the part of this core of key funding and strategic players.”
Data Targeting did not respond to a request for comment on the memo.
On February 27 2016 00:44 oneofthem wrote: liberals should be supporting the nsa etc right now, because if there is a large terrorist attack right now say hi to prez trump.
again one they did not see coming and/or did not warn us about! and oh boy keeping up with this thread is damn exhausting, especially after work + another rep debate ^^
On February 27 2016 00:44 oneofthem wrote: liberals should be supporting the nsa etc right now, because if there is a large terrorist attack right now say hi to prez trump.
again one they did not see coming and/or did not warn us about! and oh boy keeping up with this thread is damn exhausting, especially after work + another rep debate ^^
A natural gas leak in the mountains above Los Angeles was one of the worst accidental discharges of greenhouse gases in US history. A new study shows the months-long disaster resulted in 97,100 metric tonnes of methane being dumped into the atmosphere.
The analysis shows that the leak from the Aliso Canyon storage facility spewed out 60 tonnes of natural gas an hour at its peak, creating enough methane each day to fill a balloon the size of the Rose Bowl, the 92,500-capacity stadium in Pasadena. A total of 5bn cubic ft of natural gas was released.
The methane emissions from the leak, caused by a ruptured pipe, effectively doubled the methane emissions of the entire Los Angeles metropolitan area, creating enough pollution to match the annual output of nearly 600,000 cars.
The gas blow-out occurred near the Porter Ranch on 23 October last year, prompting the evacuation of more than 5,700 local families. The leak took 112 days to plug, highlighting concerns over the climate impact of failures in ageing gas infrastructure.
Methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas, with a warming impact more than 25 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. The emissions from the Aliso Canyon leak were equivalent to the annual methane output of a medium-sized European Union country, according to the study, published in Science.
Governor Jerry Brown of California took until January to declare a state of emergency over the leak, angering residents, who complained about the eggy smell, nosebleeds and headaches, and climate activists, who claim methane emissions should be taken far more seriously.
Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and the University of California measured the emissions from the leak using data gathered from 13 research flights that provided real-time measurements of methane and ethane, two components of natural gas.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham is disgusted with the GOP’s embrace of Donald Trump: “My party has gone batshit crazy.”
In no-holds-barred remarks at a celebratory dinner Thursday night, the South Carolina senator and unsuccessful presidential candidate said the GOP has lost all semblance of sanity and predicted the party will suffer irrevocable losses in November if it backs Trump.
Graham said the GOP has its best chance in years to win as Democrats are likely to nominate Hillary Clinton, who has been damaged by questions about her trustworthiness. But his party is about to blow it, he said.
“The most dishonest person in America is a woman, who’s about to become president. How could that be? My party has gone batshit crazy,” Graham said.
The plain-spoken Graham has repeatedly engaged in name-calling with Trump. Earlier Thursday, Graham called the GOP front-runner a “nut job” and insisted his party would go down like the Titanic if it backed the billionaire businessman.
Hours later, at the Washington Press Club Foundation’s annual congressional dinner, attended by more than 750 lawmakers, journalists and congressional aides, Graham made a scathing attack on the GOP and several of his former presidential rivals. The dinner traditionally is a joke-filled affair with lawmakers poking fun at each other.
Of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has alienated Republicans and Democrats alike, Graham said, “A good Republican would defend Ted Cruz after tonight. That ain’t happening. If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you.”
Reading from notes, Graham said, “I was asked the hardest question of my political life. Do you agree with Donald Trump that Ted Cruz is the biggest liar in politics? Too close to call.”
“I know exactly when Ted’s going to drop out of the race. March 12th. That’s Canadian week at Myrtle Beach, when all of our Canadian friends get 10 percent off,” he said.
Graham called 44-year-old Florida Sen. Marco Rubio “boy wonder” and suggested he was politically malleable.
“I’m not saying he would change his positions, but he would change his positions,” said Graham, who worked with Rubio on a sweeping immigration bill on which the presidential candidate has backtracked.
In closing, Graham declared himself the Dr. Jack Kevorkian of the GOP presidential campaign, referring to the euthanasia activist who died in 2011. Graham’s own presidential bid faltered, and he had to drop out. He endorsed Jeb Bush, who subsequently quit.
Graham then pulled out a white baseball cap emblazoned with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan and endorsed the New Yorker.
“I endorse Donald Trump and hope the Graham magic still exists,” he said.
On February 27 2016 00:44 oneofthem wrote: liberals should be supporting the nsa etc right now, because if there is a large terrorist attack right now say hi to prez trump.
again one they did not see coming and/or did not warn us about! and oh boy keeping up with this thread is damn exhausting, especially after work + another rep debate ^^
There's really no point in having discussions with people who are so cowardly and scared that they would give up their and everyone else's rights to protect themselves from highly sporadic and not too impressive terrorist attacks.
On February 27 2016 00:44 oneofthem wrote: liberals should be supporting the nsa etc right now, because if there is a large terrorist attack right now say hi to prez trump.
again one they did not see coming and/or did not warn us about! and oh boy keeping up with this thread is damn exhausting, especially after work + another rep debate ^^
simplistic take on a dynamic situation. the french attacks would not have occurred in the u.s.
keep reflexively reacting to anything not in line with privacy blah it is entertaining
right back at your wet "totalitarian/surveillance society" dream blah
as if san bernardino did not happen/were not bad enough...
far from totalitarian here. if you privacy hawks do not even acknowledge the security problem it is just a waste of time.
what problem? I read that last year 600 kids or something like that died in the US due to gun accidents. Terrorists haven't killed that many kids in ten years in the US. Twenty thousand people or something die prematurely annually due to pollution. Genuine question what giant problem is there that requires erosion of privacy rights?
Ted Olson is one of the most prominent lawyers working in America today. He argued on behalf of George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore, and was the solicitor general for most of Bush's first term. A star conservative lawyer, he surprised many when he joined the fight to legalize same-sex marriage, taking up the battle against California's Prop. 8 (and allying with David Boies, who argued for Gore in Bush v. Gore).
Now he's representing Apple in the company's battle with the FBI, which has asked the tech giant to help federal investigators circumvent some of the security features in an iPhone 5C that was used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.
In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition, Olson said the iPhone was expressly designed to prevent the sort of thing the government is asking for.
"What in the law requires us to redesign the iPhone, to rewrite code, to provide an Achilles' heel in the iPhone?" Olson said. "It was designed to protect the secrecy and privacy of individuals who use the iPhone."
He argues that while Apple is obligated to assist in federal investigations, there is a limit to what the government can require it to do:
"A landlord is required to unlock a door. But a landlord isn't required to build a door or to build a key or to build a lock.
"What the government is asking Apple to do here is to redesign this particular iPhone, to take weeks of its engineers to put together a system to disable the systems that Apple put into the system in the first place. ... They want various features to be changed so you could get around the passcode."
The FBI is specifically asking Apple to write software that investigators could load on this phone that would allow them to try out many possible passcodes. Currently, if they try to guess the phone's PIN, they risk triggering an auto-delete feature that would destroy the phone's data. There's also a mandatory delay between entering incorrect passcodes, and they must each be entered manually.
On February 27 2016 00:44 oneofthem wrote: liberals should be supporting the nsa etc right now, because if there is a large terrorist attack right now say hi to prez trump.
again one they did not see coming and/or did not warn us about! and oh boy keeping up with this thread is damn exhausting, especially after work + another rep debate ^^
simplistic take on a dynamic situation. the french attacks would not have occurred in the u.s.
keep reflexively reacting to anything not in line with privacy blah it is entertaining
right back at your wet "totalitarian/surveillance society" dream blah
as if san bernardino did not happen/were not bad enough...
far from totalitarian here. if you privacy hawks do not even acknowledge the security problem it is just a waste of time.
between "acknowledging a security problem" - which is I believe very much acknowledged by just about anyone - and building a surveillance state even the stasi agents could have never imagined in their wildest dreams... I would guess there can be some middle ground, no?
and no, people not knowing that their constitutionally guaranteed privacy(or security from intrusion?) - on massive scales - is violated and therefore no harm is done is _not_ an ok way to approach this.
thinking big data and all information/"noise" out there can be translated into actionable intelligence... that's hybris. and will backfire on many fronts very, very hard. heck, it already has.
Ted Olson is one of the most prominent lawyers working in America today. He argued on behalf of George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore, and was the solicitor general for most of Bush's first term. A star conservative lawyer, he surprised many when he joined the fight to legalize same-sex marriage, taking up the battle against California's Prop. 8 (and allying with David Boies, who argued for Gore in Bush v. Gore).
Now he's representing Apple in the company's battle with the FBI, which has asked the tech giant to help federal investigators circumvent some of the security features in an iPhone 5C that was used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.
In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition, Olson said the iPhone was expressly designed to prevent the sort of thing the government is asking for.
"What in the law requires us to redesign the iPhone, to rewrite code, to provide an Achilles' heel in the iPhone?" Olson said. "It was designed to protect the secrecy and privacy of individuals who use the iPhone."
He argues that while Apple is obligated to assist in federal investigations, there is a limit to what the government can require it to do:
"A landlord is required to unlock a door. But a landlord isn't required to build a door or to build a key or to build a lock.
"What the government is asking Apple to do here is to redesign this particular iPhone, to take weeks of its engineers to put together a system to disable the systems that Apple put into the system in the first place. ... They want various features to be changed so you could get around the passcode."
The FBI is specifically asking Apple to write software that investigators could load on this phone that would allow them to try out many possible passcodes. Currently, if they try to guess the phone's PIN, they risk triggering an auto-delete feature that would destroy the phone's data. There's also a mandatory delay between entering incorrect passcodes, and they must each be entered manually.
Alabama’s governor and legislature Thursday blocked Birmingham’s attempts to raise the city’s minimum wage as they swiftly approved legislation to strip cities of their ability to set hourly pay requirements.
The Alabama senate passed the legislation on a 23-11 vote that largely broke along party lines. Governor Robert Bentley signed the bill into law about an hour later. The legislation voids a Birmingham city ordinance attempting to raise the city’s minimum wage to $10.10, the city’s legal department said Thursday afternoon.
Alabama has no state minimum wage and uses the federal minimum of $7.25. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since July 2009. An American working full time – 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year – at that wage would earn about $15,080 a year.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, 29 states have raised their minimum wage above the federal minimum wage. There are also 23 local governments that have increased their wages – including those in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco in California, Chicago in Illinois, Portland in Maine and Seattle in Washington. Only cities have made efforts to raise their minimum wage as high as $15 an hour.
The Obama administration has been supportive of efforts to raise the minimum wage at the local level, the US labor secretary Tom Perez told the Guardian in an interview last year. The administration also supports a proposal currently stuck in Congress that would raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
Alabama’s governor and legislature Thursday blocked Birmingham’s attempts to raise the city’s minimum wage as they swiftly approved legislation to strip cities of their ability to set hourly pay requirements.
The Alabama senate passed the legislation on a 23-11 vote that largely broke along party lines. Governor Robert Bentley signed the bill into law about an hour later. The legislation voids a Birmingham city ordinance attempting to raise the city’s minimum wage to $10.10, the city’s legal department said Thursday afternoon.
Alabama has no state minimum wage and uses the federal minimum of $7.25. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since July 2009. An American working full time – 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year – at that wage would earn about $15,080 a year.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, 29 states have raised their minimum wage above the federal minimum wage. There are also 23 local governments that have increased their wages – including those in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco in California, Chicago in Illinois, Portland in Maine and Seattle in Washington. Only cities have made efforts to raise their minimum wage as high as $15 an hour.
The Obama administration has been supportive of efforts to raise the minimum wage at the local level, the US labor secretary Tom Perez told the Guardian in an interview last year. The administration also supports a proposal currently stuck in Congress that would raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
Alabama’s governor and legislature Thursday blocked Birmingham’s attempts to raise the city’s minimum wage as they swiftly approved legislation to strip cities of their ability to set hourly pay requirements.
The Alabama senate passed the legislation on a 23-11 vote that largely broke along party lines. Governor Robert Bentley signed the bill into law about an hour later. The legislation voids a Birmingham city ordinance attempting to raise the city’s minimum wage to $10.10, the city’s legal department said Thursday afternoon.
Alabama has no state minimum wage and uses the federal minimum of $7.25. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since July 2009. An American working full time – 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year – at that wage would earn about $15,080 a year.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, 29 states have raised their minimum wage above the federal minimum wage. There are also 23 local governments that have increased their wages – including those in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco in California, Chicago in Illinois, Portland in Maine and Seattle in Washington. Only cities have made efforts to raise their minimum wage as high as $15 an hour.
The Obama administration has been supportive of efforts to raise the minimum wage at the local level, the US labor secretary Tom Perez told the Guardian in an interview last year. The administration also supports a proposal currently stuck in Congress that would raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
Look, the federal government forced us to pay poor people more money per hour and we accept that because the Supreme court forced us to. There is no way we are letting these dippy little cities tell anyone we have to do more than the bare minimum. That is why its called minimum wage….duh?!?
Republicans, making sure government stagnated until everyone riots.
EPT
