US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4242

On July 12 2016 00:51 JinDesu wrote:
Anti-abortion groups have been stating that the won't support Trump if he selects Mike Flynn as VP already.

On July 12 2016 01:19 Plansix wrote:

Just think of the GOP decided that winning the votes of women nationwide was more important than catering to the ever shrinking number of anti-abortion advocates.

On July 11 2016 05:07 Cowboy24 wrote:

Once again, we have no proof or evidence that Castile told the cop any such thing.

Alton Sterling also had a gun (confirmed illegal) and was actively reaching for the gun when the cops shot him. That one is open and shut, justified homicide. Guarantee no charges will be filed.

On July 12 2016 01:46 Broetchenholer wrote:
So, are you talking about the Sterling case because it is more controversial or are the hardliners on the forum not willing to discuss Philando Castile? I find it hard read stuff like "he chose his path when he resisted arrest". First i don't see any resisting arrest, the video starts when he is body slammed into a car. Second, i don't see any movement towards a gun or any indication that while on the floor he tries to struggle. You might see something i don't or you might now a source i don't but if you don't, better not judge based on assumptions you can't prove. There doesn't even be an official source if he was actually armed. Better talk about Philando Castile, i am sure both sides of the party should agree that his death was not his fault.

On July 12 2016 02:00 LegalLord wrote:
Personally I think referring to the Republican or Democratic parties before FDR is disingenuous. His presidency marked the modern era for both parties and before his presidency, they were both different, to say the least.

Here's a typical scenario when you have a medical problem. You go to your doctor's office, then have to run across town to a lab for a blood test and then you also have to get an appointment for an X-ray or MRI. There's a good chance this will all require a phone call — or a lot of phones calls — with your insurance company.

It's a hassle and it's time-consuming.

But for many people it's even worse than that.

That's because about a third of working adults say their jobs don't come with paid sick leave, according to results from the latest poll by NPR, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

And for some of those people, taking care of their health needs can lead to a financial crisis.

Take Valerie Hesse, a catering chef in New Orleans. "I've had allergies — pollen and dust and everything else — since I was a kid," she tells Shots. "Over the years it got to the point where I was having frequent sinusitis, sinus infections, occasional bronchitis."

Hesse went to the doctor a lot to deal with sinus and ear infections. She tried to schedule the appointments around her work hours, and sometimes her doctor would give her a break and prescribe antibiotics over the phone.

But sometimes she'd be called in at the last minute. Or she'd have to work an extra shift.

"I had to reschedule, postpone, skip," she says. "I wasn't gonna get paid and you gotta work."

Over time, the constant congestion and infections were damaging her hearing, so last year Hesse decided to have surgery to fix the problem. Recovery took weeks.

By the time she was able to get back to work, she had a reputation as sickly and unreliable.

"The owner of the company told me that he had decided to make a management change," she says. "I was let go."

Hesse is now living off savings as she makes plans to open her own catering business. She says she needs to be her own boss to be able to take care of herself.

Our poll found that 32 percent of people in the U.S. are like Hesse. They don't get any paid sick days. And 24 percent have no paid vacation time.

So unless they work odd hours, people without either benefit lose income if they want to take care of their health.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - More than 100 people were arrested and 21 officers were injured after protesters brought I-94 to a screeching halt for more than five hours Saturday night.

Authorities say during the course of the protests on 94 and later, on Grand and Dale, 21 officers from multiple agencies suffered injuries. The injuries were primarily caused by fireworks, rocks, bricks, glass bottles and chunks of concrete that were directed at officers, some hitting them in the head. St. Paul Police said someone threw a Molotov cocktail at officers, as well.

On Sunday evening, St. Paul Police learned one of the officers injured last night had a large concrete block dropped on his head. That officer is now suffering from a spinal fracture.

In total, more than 100 people were arrested -- 52 were taken into custody for public nuisance and unlawful assembly during an incident around 4 a.m. at Grand and Dale in St. Paul and 50 were arrested for third-degree riot overnight on I-94. At least eight of the 50 people arrested by the State Patrol were from outside of Minnesota.

Police in riot gear warned the crowd several times that arrests would be made if they didn't clear the scene, and after tactics like inert smoke, tear gas and marking rounds failed to disperse the crowd, arrests began.

Those arrested were loaded onto buses and removed from the scene.

Interstate 94 was finally reopened around 1:49 a.m., after authorities removed debris from the highway.

On July 12 2016 03:02 Plansix wrote:


And I do not believe that any fire or emergency vehicle would be routed into that crowd or that the crowd would not let them through.

ABSTRACT

This paper explores racial differences in police use of force. On non-lethal uses of force, blacks and Hispanics are more than fifty percent more likely to experience some form of force in interactions with police. Adding controls that account for important context and civilian behavior reduces, but cannot fully explain, these disparities. On the most extreme use of force – officer-involved shootings – we find no racial differences in either the raw data or when contextual factors are taken into account. We argue that the patterns in the data are consistent with a model in which police officers are utility maximizers, a fraction of which have a preference for discrimination, who incur relatively high expected costs of officer-involved shootings.

A new study confirms that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement. They are more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed to the ground or pepper-sprayed by a police officer, even after accounting for how, where and when they encounter the police.

But when it comes to the most lethal form of force — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias.

“It is the most surprising result of my career,” said Roland G. Fryer Jr., the author of the study and a professor of economics at Harvard. The study examined more than 1,000 shootings in 10 major police departments, in Texas, Florida and California.

The result contradicts the mental image of police shootings that many Americans hold in the wake of the killings (some captured on video) of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; Laquan McDonald in Chicago; Tamir Rice in Cleveland; Walter Scott in South Carolina; Samuel DuBose in Cincinnati; Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La.; and Philando Castile in Minnesota.

In officer-involved shootings in these 10 cities, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both of these results undercut the idea that the police wield lethal force with racial bias.

And in the arena of “shoot” or “don’t shoot,” Mr. Fryer found that, in tense situations, officers in Houston were about 20 percent less likely to shoot suspects if the suspect were black. This estimate was not very precise, and firmer conclusions would require more data. But, in a variety of models that controlled for different factors and used different definitions of tense situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were either less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites.

On July 12 2016 03:22 zlefin wrote:
And I oppose that tea dumping; it's just wanton vandalism. They should't just boycotted it instead (or smuggled it)

On July 12 2016 00:18 ticklishmusic wrote:
I mean his meeting with the Republican members of Congress had a bunch of simply saying "uh yeah not going to go to that", him being openly antagonistic, and saying he wanted to protect article 12 of the constitution.

I think at this point it's quite possible that Trump has a higher chance of not being the nominee than being elected president.

On July 12 2016 03:11 GGTeMpLaR wrote:


I would think the crowd would be reasonable enough to let them through too; an ambulance or firetruck siren going off would be put in perspective.

If they've shut down the highway for 5 hours though there's probably a considerable amount of traffic clogged up, making it impossible even though they'd want to let it through. Just shutting down a busy highway for 5 minutes is enough to make it impassible and if an emergency vehicle gets stuck in this, the emergency just isn't going to be dealt with in a timely manner because people wanted to shut down a highway.

What about the emergency pregnancy without sirens as well, or someone trying to catch a flight at the airport? There's just countless numbers of lives being ignored here with no regard. Shutting down the highway is just a massive 'fuck you' to blanket 'everyone using highway at this time', which is essentially 'fuck you everyone who didn't come shut down this highway with me'.

Due to the continued protest activities in the city, Mayor (whatsisname) announced this morning that more than 6,000 hours of overtime have been worked by (city) officers, who will remain working on 12-hour shifts with no approved vacation time into the foreseeable future. Therefore, there will be no-off duty officers posted at any of the intersections usually covered in (neighborhood) during lunch or pm peak rush hour until the 12-hour shifts have ceased. Also, as reported by the media this morning, there is a planned protest to take place around the (subway) station starting at 7 p.m. this evening. Please plan your travel and commute accordingly. Please share this announcement as you see fit.