US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3841

On May 18 2016 23:32 SolaR- wrote:


Hardly. And i didn't decide, I said it was likely.

If you understand how simple most humans think, it really isn't that hard to fathom

On May 18 2016 23:47 farvacola wrote:
Superficial statement 1: "I voted for President Obama because he is black."

Superficial statement 2: "[I] think it is likely that a lot of white and black people supported Obama just because he [is] black."

Though one is slightly more abstract, both statements rely on the fundamental premise that President Obama's blackness, a superficial characteristic, should be regarded as a figurative electoral concern relative to his '08 and '12 victories. Granted, it'd be difficult to argue that Obama's race played little or no role in his being elected, but in terms of superficiality, a spade is a spade.

On May 18 2016 23:30 farvacola wrote:
Asserting that a black president was elected by "a lot of white and black people" on the basis of race is just as superficial as voting for a president because of his race.

The Obama administration is shoveling out regulations nearly one-third faster in its final year than during the previous three — all to beat a May 23 deadline to prevent a President Donald Trump from overturning them.

A total of 195 regulations have been pushed through since Jan. 1 at an estimated cost of $69.5 billion to the nation’s businesses, according to the conservative American Action Forum. One of the most significant — a sweeping rule that will extend overtime pay to more than four million people without any input from Congress — was released Tuesday night.

“This regulatory onslaught has only gotten worse in the administration’s final months,” complained Rep. John Kline (R.-Minn.), who chairs the House committee on Education and the Workforce.

The whoosh of final rules on everything from e-cigarette use to greenhouse gas emissions exceeds the pace during the same period in the Clinton administration. The goal is to deny Trump the opportunity to kill those regulations under an expedited process should he be elected president and Congress remain in Republican control.

Obama has used his regulatory authority in the face of a hostile Congress to edge the country closer toward the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, for instance, by readying the first methane regulation of the oil and gas industry. He’s also pushing the country leftward on a long-sought labor wish list by enacting a rule protecting workers from silica dust as well as by broadening access to overtime pay — measures that Democrats have been unable to push through a Republican-controlled Congress. The rules may seem arcane in many cases, but their impact is often large, prompting fierce (and in most instances unsuccessful) resistance from lawmakers.

Ever since the nation’s second president John Adams, lame-duck presidents have used their last days to impose their agendas on successors. But only since George W. Bush has there been a rush to complete regulations fully six months before Election Day.

On May 19 2016 00:28 Jaaaaasper wrote:
Damn it turns out the Sanders campaign did in fact encourage their supporters to pull that shit in Nevada. And they wonder why people think the Bern outs are going to turn Phildelphia into a shit show

www.reddit.com

On May 18 2016 23:53 xDaunt wrote:

Two of the biggest drivers of Obama's 2008 victory were his race and and his vacuous, soaring rhetoric. You're giving the voters a little too much credit.

On May 19 2016 01:28 ZasZ. wrote:


Source? I would think one of the biggest drivers of both his 2008 and 2012 victories were the Republicans putting up extraordinarily weak candidates along with a lunatic VP in 2008. For me personally, my decision was made for me in both years and I found myself saying "Obama is only OK, but jesus the Republicans are so much worse." In 2008, I was planning on giving McCain a shot until he picked up Palin.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has sold off its entire holding in oil giant BP, in a move welcomed by fossil fuel divestment campaigners.

Bill Gates has called the selling off of coal, oil and gas stocks a “false solution” to climate change, but the known investments of his foundation in major fossil fuel companies has fallen by 85% since 2014.

The foundation, which has spent many billions of dollars improving global health, sold its $187m stake in BP between September and December 2015, according to recent regulatory filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

It had previously dumped its entire $824m holding in ExxonMobil. BP posted a record $6.5bn annual loss in February while ExxonMobil is under investigation about whether it lied in the past to investors about the threat of climate change.

The Guardian’s Keep it in the Ground campaign has called on the Gates foundation to divest its $40bn endowment from fossil fuels.

Climate change poses the greatest threat to health in the 21st century, according to doctors, and to avoid catastrophic impacts, most known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground. If the world’s governments succeed as promised and halt global warming, those reserves could become worthless, and divestment campaigners argue there are both financial and moral reasons for divestment.

“We are thrilled that the Gates foundation continues to divest from fossil fuel stocks, but it’s time to divest the rest. Investing in oil companies is completely inconsistent with the Gates foundation mission to ensure that everybody has the chance to live a healthy, productive life,” said Alec Connon, an organiser for the Gates Divest campaign, a coalition of scores of social justice groups, politicians and faith leaders in Washington State, where the Foundation is based.

Mike McGinn, who as mayor of Seattle in 2013 was the first mayor to commit a city to divestment, said: “They’re moving their financial capital - now it’s time to use their moral capital and publicly commit to divestment.

On May 19 2016 02:02 xDaunt wrote:

What do you mean "source?" That 2008 election was retardedly hyped for the very reasons that I set forth. How can anyone forget it? It was a media and pop culture phenomenon. The republicans probably weren't going to win anyway with all of the electoral headwinds that they were facing that year. But you can't possibly overlook the fact that Obama was awarded a fucking Nobel Peace Prize on the merits of teleprompted speeches.

On May 18 2016 23:53 xDaunt wrote:

Two of the biggest drivers of Obama's 2008 victory were his race and and his vacuous, soaring rhetoric. You're giving the voters a little too much credit.

On May 19 2016 02:19 Plansix wrote:

The 2008 election was lost by the Republicans as much as it was won by Obama. They ran a terrible VP, crippled McCain on his more moderate issues by pulling him right in the general election, where independents were tired of the right. And they failed to separate themselves from the Bush administration or prove that things were going to be any different. The GOP across the board got crushed during that election.

And then the Dems got slammed in the mid term because they can't figure out how to get voters out without a general election.