US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3706

On April 30 2016 07:15 jcarlsoniv wrote:


What's our national reptile?

The Obama administration has warned the US will need to deal with a wave of “climate refugees” as the Arctic continues to warm, joining with the Canadian government to express alarm over how climate change is affecting indigenous communities.

Sally Jewell, US secretary of the interior, painted a stark picture of communities relocating and lives disrupted in her first official visit to Canada. The Arctic, which is warming at twice the rate of the global average, has just recorded its lowest recorded peak ice extent after what’s been called a “warm, crazy winter”.

“We will have climate refugees,” Jewell said. “We have to figure out how to deal with potentially relocating villages. There’s real tangible support we need to do from a government basis, working alongside indigenous communities as they make very difficult choices about what is right for them.

“We can’t turn this around. We can stem the increase in temperature, we can stem some of the effect, perhaps, if we act on climate. But the changes are under way and they are very rapid.”

The escalating Arctic temperatures, diminishing ice and rising sea levels are having consequences for humans as well as other animals such as polar bears and walruses. The ability to catch fish and travel – or even to hold the famed Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska – is at risk.

Jewell said the remote town of Kivalina in Alaska is “washing away”. The coastal town, located around 80 miles above the Arctic circle, has been visited by Barack Obama following warnings its 400-strong population will have to be moved due to thinning ice that exposes the town to crashing waves.

On April 30 2016 07:26 zeo wrote:
Flag was stolen from a Trump supporter btw. Really great message this is sending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlWdlJGFsA4

In an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy, a new poll shows that most young people do not support capitalism.

The Harvard University survey, which polled young adults between ages 18 and 29, found that 51 percent of respondents do not support capitalism. Just 42 percent said they support it.

It isn't clear that the young people in the poll would prefer some alternative system, though. Just 33 percent said they supported socialism. The survey had a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.

The results of the survey are difficult to interpret, pollsters noted. Capitalism can mean different things to different people, and the newest generation of voters is frustrated with the status quo, broadly speaking.

All the same, that a majority of respondents in Harvard University's survey of young adults said they do not support capitalism suggests that today's youngest voters are more focused on the flaws of free markets.

"The word 'capitalism' doesn't mean what it used to," said Zach Lustbader, a senior at Harvard involved in conducting the poll, which was published Monday. For those who grew up during the Cold War, capitalism meant freedom from the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes. For those who grew up more recently, capitalism has meant a financial crisis from which the global economy still hasn't completely recovered.

A subsequent survey that included people of all ages found that somewhat older Americans also are skeptical of capitalism. Only among respondents at least 50 years old was the majority in support of capitalism.

Although the results are startling, Harvard's questions accord with other recent research on how Americans think about capitalism and socialism. In 2011, for example, the Pew Research Center found that people ages 18 to 29 were frustrated with the free-market system.

In that survey, 46 percent had positive views of capitalism, and 47 percent had negative views — a broader question than what Harvard's pollsters asked, which was whether the respondent supported the system. With regard to socialism, by contrast, 49 percent of the young people in Pew's poll had positive views, and just 43 percent had negative views.

On April 30 2016 07:49 oneofthem wrote:
i'm (morbidly) fascinated by a sanders v trump election.

On Wednesday, at a “Millennial Town Hall” at Georgetown University, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) fielded a tricky question from a young Republican.

What “reasons for optimism,” the student asked, could Ryan offer to conservative millennials disgusted by the leading GOP presidential candidates?

Ryan’s response was telling. He encouraged young people to ignore the “political personality,” and instead “Look at the ideas. Look at the platform that is being advanced.”

“We win ideas contests,” Ryan declared triumphantly.

With all due respect, Mr. Speaker: No, no you don’t.

At least not among millennials.

The GOP is poised to permanently lose a generation of voters, and not (only) because of its odious and uncommonly disliked presidential front-runner. New survey data suggest that young people have become increasingly averse to just about every plank in today’s creaky Republican Party platform.

By now it’s well known that young Americans are considerably more liberal than the Republican Party on most social issues, particularly gay rights. The GOP’s own 2012 election “autopsy,” which proposed ways to broaden the party’s base, emphasized that Republicans must change their “tone” on social issues that young people see “as the civil rights issues of our time.”

The latest youth poll from Harvard’s Institute of Politics, though, indicates that LGBT-related policies aren’t the only ones on which young people and Republican traditionalists part ways.

As their rabid support for Bernie Sanders might indicate, young people have also become much more supportive of big government and expanded social welfare programs.

Compared with responses from the past few years, today’s 18- to 29-year-olds are more likely to believe that “basic health insurance is a right for all people,” that “basic necessities, such as food and shelter, are a right that government should provide to those unable to afford them” and that “the government should spend more to reduce poverty.”

More broadly, other surveys have found that young people have more favorable views of socialism than of capitalism — the only age group for which this is true.

On April 30 2016 08:55 kwizach wrote:
Pretty funny seeing at least one Bernie supporter declaring they'd support Trump over Hillary. It's basically an indication you don't actually care much about policy issues (or, possibly, that you're ignorant on the subject).

Also, although he can - and should - obviously be opposed on plenty of other levels, including his absolutely terrible policy proposals, his laughable (and outright embarrassing) ignorance of the issues, and his wildly contradictory claims and positions, Trump has also clearly displayed xenophobia/racism and sexism. Saying that it's more important to criticize him on policy is one thing, but let's not pretend he hasn't made plenty of bigoted statements.

On April 30 2016 09:05 WhiteDog wrote:

I hate that kind of stupid behavior.

On April 30 2016 08:55 kwizach wrote:
Pretty funny seeing at least one Bernie supporter declaring they'd support Trump over Hillary. It's basically an indication you don't actually care much about policy issues (or, possibly, that you're ignorant on the subject).

Also, although he can - and should - obviously be opposed on plenty of other levels, including his absolutely terrible policy proposals, his laughable (and outright embarrassing) ignorance of the issues, and his wildly contradictory claims and positions, Trump has also clearly displayed xenophobia/racism and sexism. Saying that it's more important to criticize him on policy is one thing, but let's not pretend he hasn't made plenty of bigoted statements.

On April 30 2016 08:55 GoTuNk! wrote:


I've always despised fans of big government when looking at latin america and its consequences which are painfully obvious.The fact that young Americans are turning on that path makes me feel particularly uneasy.