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.
The venues that will host the presidential debates are drawing up plans for a three-person forum that would provide a lectern for a third-party candidate to stand on stage next to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
The directive comes from producers working for the Commission on Presidential Debates and it’s meant, they say, to force the university hosts to be prepared and not as a reflection of the state of the race. But it could give supporters of Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein hope as they push an alternative to the historically unpopular major party nominees.
“With [former Gov.] Gary Johnson polling in some places more than double digits, they might have, some of our production people may have said, ‘Just in case, you need to plan out what that might look like,’” Commission on Presidential Debates co-chair and former Bill Clinton White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry told POLITICO. "We won’t know the number of invitations we extend until mid-September."
To participate in one of the four general-election debates (three for president, one for vice president), candidates must be eligible for the presidency and "appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College,” the commission announced last year. They also must have a level of support nationally of at least 15 percent as "determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations' most recently publicly-reported results at the time of the determination."
Johnson is hovering around 8.8 percent in national polls, according to RealClearPolitics’ average, whereas Stein, when included in polling, is at around 3.8 percent. Despite being below the 15 percent cutoff, there might be some flexibility in getting someone like Johnson on stage. Frank Fahrenkopf, McCurry’s Republican counterpart and co-chair on the commission, told CNBC last week that the commission may “consider giving an inch” to a third-party candidate if he or she is close enough to the cutoff point.
If they get the polling numbers, sure. But if not, keep them away. We want people who have some reason to be there, not some pat on the back. If a candidate is polling at 15%+ nationally, sure. If not, it really doesn't make sense.
Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will "absolutely" commit to three presidential debates with Hillary Clinton, but he suggested that he'd try to renegotiate the terms first.
“I will absolutely do three debates,” Trump said in a phone interview with Time. “I want to debate very badly. But I have to see the conditions.”
He went on to imply that he may try to change the terms of the debates.
“I renegotiated the debates in the primaries, remember? They were making a fortune on them and they had us in for three and a half hours and I said that’s ridiculous,” Trump said.
During the Republican primaries, Trump planned to skip two debates, although the second debate he planned to skip was ultimately canceled.
Trump said he also reserved the right to object to the Commission on Presidential Debates' choice of moderators, telling Time that "certain moderators would be unacceptable, absolutely."
A commission official told Time that while certain "fine points" could be negotiated, the format as announced was non-negotiable.
Trump previously objected to the debate schedule, saying that it was rigged by the Democrats because two of the debates were scheduled to occur during NFL games.
On Monday, Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, John Podesta, said that she plans to participate in all three presidential debates and challenged Trump to "show up" and do the same.
On August 10 2016 03:31 oBlade wrote: So the VA sets a budget, full of money to be wasted on green bullshit, requests it from Congress, the projects go over budget and take 3x as long if they get finished at all, and this is the fault of Congress - let me guess, Republicans? Not the people who run the VA appointed by the Obama administration, not the appropriations committee in 2010 when it looks like this started and both houses were blue.
You do realize that the VA has a budget of like 150 billion right? The budget for mental health alone is 7.5 billion (note: I think this needs to be higher).
On August 10 2016 03:31 oBlade wrote: So the VA sets a budget, full of money to be wasted on green bullshit, requests it from Congress, the projects go over budget and take 3x as long if they get finished at all, and this is the fault of Congress - let me guess, Republicans? Not the people who run the VA appointed by the Obama administration, not the appropriations committee in 2010 when it looks like this started and both houses were blue.
You do realize that the VA has a budget of like 150 billion right?
Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger jeopardized US efforts to stop mass killings by Argentina’s 1976-83 military dictatorship by congratulating the country’s military leaders for “wiping out” terrorism, according to a large trove of newly declassified state department files.
The documents, which were released on Monday night, show how Kissinger’s close relationship to Argentina’s military rulers hindered Jimmy Carter’s carrot-and-stick attempts to influence the regime during his 1977-81 presidency.
Carter officials were infuriated by Kissinger’s attendance at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina as the personal guest of dictator Jorge Videla, the general who oversaw the forced disappearance of up to 30,000 opponents of the military regime.
At the time, Kissinger was no longer in office, having been replaced by Zbigniew Brzezinski after Carter defeated Gerald Ford in the 1977 presidential election, but the documents reveal that US diplomats feared his praise for Argentina’s crackdown would encourage further bloodshed.
During his years as secretary of state, Kissinger had encouraged Argentina’s military junta to stamp out “terrorism”. In contrast, Carter and Brzezinski made human rights a cornerstone of US foreign policy and were exerting pressure on Argentina’s military regime by withholding loans and sales of military equipment.
The newly-declassifed cables, show how Kissinger lauded Videla and other officials for their methods during his 1978 visit. “His praise for the Argentine government in its campaign against terrorism was the music the Argentine government was longing to hear,” says one of the documents.
Another diplomat cable describes how, during a lunch with Videla, “Kissinger applauded Argentina’s efforts in combatting terrorism” and lamented that ‘it was unfortunate many Americans thought Argentina was a soft drink’ (sic). He said this indicated that Americans are not aware of Argentine history nor of its struggle against terrorism.”
Kissinger even held a private meeting with Videla without the presence of the US ambassador to Buenos Aires, Raúl Castro, at which human rights and Carter’s foreign policy were discussed. “Videla prearranged it so Kissinger and the interpreter would meet with him privately half an hour before ambassador’s arrival,” one cable shows.
On August 10 2016 03:39 farvacola wrote: Lol, the willful ignorance as to "government waste" needed to focus on the VA in lieu of the DoD is quite hilarious.
On August 10 2016 03:31 oBlade wrote: So the VA sets a budget, full of money to be wasted on green bullshit, requests it from Congress, the projects go over budget and take 3x as long if they get finished at all, and this is the fault of Congress - let me guess, Republicans? Not the people who run the VA appointed by the Obama administration, not the appropriations committee in 2010 when it looks like this started and both houses were blue.
You do realize that the VA has a budget of like 150 billion right?
Indeed, there's a whole hell of a lot of waste.
That's a valid concern, but you're changing the subject.
On August 10 2016 03:39 farvacola wrote: Lol, the willful ignorance as to "government waste" needed to focus on the VA in lieu of the DoD is quite hilarious.
Nobody said that.
Precisely; what folks like you don't say when discussing "government waste" speaks volumes as to your actual interest in addressing the problem.
On August 10 2016 03:31 oBlade wrote: So the VA sets a budget, full of money to be wasted on green bullshit, requests it from Congress, the projects go over budget and take 3x as long if they get finished at all, and this is the fault of Congress - let me guess, Republicans? Not the people who run the VA appointed by the Obama administration, not the appropriations committee in 2010 when it looks like this started and both houses were blue.
You do realize that the VA has a budget of like 150 billion right?
Indeed, there's a whole hell of a lot of waste.
That's a valid concern, but you're changing the subject.
Hardly, you're the one who brought up the other billions of dollars of the VA budget. I was just talking about the solar panel projects I linked.
On August 10 2016 03:39 farvacola wrote: Lol, the willful ignorance as to "government waste" needed to focus on the VA in lieu of the DoD is quite hilarious.
Nobody said that.
Precisely; what folks like you don't say when discussing "government waste" speaks volumes as to your actual interest in addressing the problem.
And right now you're not talking about HIV/AIDS in Africa, so that pretty well shows us you don't care about those issues!
On August 10 2016 03:31 oBlade wrote: So the VA sets a budget, full of money to be wasted on green bullshit, requests it from Congress, the projects go over budget and take 3x as long if they get finished at all, and this is the fault of Congress - let me guess, Republicans? Not the people who run the VA appointed by the Obama administration, not the appropriations committee in 2010 when it looks like this started and both houses were blue.
You do realize that the VA has a budget of like 150 billion right?
Indeed, there's a whole hell of a lot of waste.
That's a valid concern, but you're changing the subject.
Hardly, you're the one who brought up the other billions of dollars of the VA budget. I was just talking about the solar panel projects I linked.
Let me lay this out to you as simply as possible:
1. VA has a big budget, this includes waste and various inefficiencies
2. Money is not the issue, there is plenty of money for medical treatment
3. Spending on non-medical projects is not an issue, these are budgeted separately
See here. 88% of the discretionary budget (66 billion) goes to medical care. Solar panels would go into construction, which is just over 1%. It would make much more sense to do performance improvement/ cost rationalization on the big piece of the pie rather than harping on the what's basically crumbs. Doing the reverse is a poor use of time and effort and either plain out stupid or driven by some agenda.
On August 09 2016 11:29 Nevuk wrote: Sounds like she was giving him a chance to pivot, then after he blew up on Khan realized that there was 0 chance of it.
The thing is the media has stacked everything on one side. There is no "pivot" Trump can do that they'll accept, and if they don't write it, then it's not in the narrative that people can point and go "Look, he Pivoted(TM), now it's okay to vote for him." I realized that after the great convention speech that the media found so frightening. This all makes a climate where random people believe they have something to gain by anti-endorsing.
The media is run by children, and it's a shame because there's an important role they ought to play in politics and everything else. The process should benefit the people by guiding all politicians to improve. But they've basically predetermined from the outset to never treat a certain candidate seriously. But instead it's tabloid and propaganda because nobody's independent. That's why Trump can just bypass the media.
According to investigators, all of the projects were supposed to be finished in about seven to 12 months but instead were completed—or remain expected to be completed—on average, within 42 months.
The contracts for the 11 projects reviewed by investigators totaled about $95 million, though some have become more expensive because of poor planning and delays. The VA spent more than $408 million on its “green management program” solar panel projects between fiscal years 2010 and 2015, according to annual budget records. During the same period, veterans died waiting for care at VA hospitals where employees were using dishonest record keeping practices to conceal long waits for care.
Your logic regarding Trump's lack of an attempted pivot is strangely shaped in the form of a pretzel.
On August 09 2016 11:29 Nevuk wrote: Sounds like she was giving him a chance to pivot, then after he blew up on Khan realized that there was 0 chance of it.
The thing is the media has stacked everything on one side. There is no "pivot" Trump can do that they'll accept, and if they don't write it, then it's not in the narrative that people can point and go "Look, he Pivoted(TM), now it's okay to vote for him." I realized that after the great convention speech that the media found so frightening. This all makes a climate where random people believe they have something to gain by anti-endorsing.
The media is run by children, and it's a shame because there's an important role they ought to play in politics and everything else. The process should benefit the people by guiding all politicians to improve. But they've basically predetermined from the outset to never treat a certain candidate seriously. But instead it's tabloid and propaganda because nobody's independent. That's why Trump can just bypass the media.
According to investigators, all of the projects were supposed to be finished in about seven to 12 months but instead were completed—or remain expected to be completed—on average, within 42 months.
The contracts for the 11 projects reviewed by investigators totaled about $95 million, though some have become more expensive because of poor planning and delays. The VA spent more than $408 million on its “green management program” solar panel projects between fiscal years 2010 and 2015, according to annual budget records. During the same period, veterans died waiting for care at VA hospitals where employees were using dishonest record keeping practices to conceal long waits for care.
Your logic regarding Trump's lack of an attempted pivot is strangely shaped in the form of a pretzel.
It's okay to be a giant turd because if you step back a little and be a slightly smaller turd people will still think you're a turd. So just keep being a giant turd.
On August 10 2016 03:31 oBlade wrote: So the VA sets a budget, full of money to be wasted on green bullshit, requests it from Congress, the projects go over budget and take 3x as long if they get finished at all, and this is the fault of Congress - let me guess, Republicans? Not the people who run the VA appointed by the Obama administration, not the appropriations committee in 2010 when it looks like this started and both houses were blue.
You do realize that the VA has a budget of like 150 billion right?
Indeed, there's a whole hell of a lot of waste.
That's a valid concern, but you're changing the subject.
Hardly, you're the one who brought up the other billions of dollars of the VA budget. I was just talking about the solar panel projects I linked.
Let me lay this out to you as simply as possible:
1. VA has a big budget, this includes waste and various inefficiencies
2. Money is not the issue, there is plenty of money for medical treatment
3. Spending on non-medical projects is not an issue, these are budgeted separately
See here. 88% of the discretionary budget (66 billion) goes to medical care. Solar panels would go into construction, which is just over 1%. It would make much more sense to do performance improvement/ cost rationalization on the big piece of the pie rather than harping on the what's basically crumbs. Doing the reverse is a poor use of time and effort and either plain out stupid or driven by some agenda.
My considered position is the government wasting money is bad. You might defend this because you think it's small potatoes, but it's all small potatoes. It's cumulative. Government departments are incompetent when it comes to spending. There isn't just a $500 billion check to shred and go poof, there, waste is gone.
On August 09 2016 11:29 Nevuk wrote: Sounds like she was giving him a chance to pivot, then after he blew up on Khan realized that there was 0 chance of it.
The thing is the media has stacked everything on one side. There is no "pivot" Trump can do that they'll accept, and if they don't write it, then it's not in the narrative that people can point and go "Look, he Pivoted(TM), now it's okay to vote for him." I realized that after the great convention speech that the media found so frightening. This all makes a climate where random people believe they have something to gain by anti-endorsing.
The media is run by children, and it's a shame because there's an important role they ought to play in politics and everything else. The process should benefit the people by guiding all politicians to improve. But they've basically predetermined from the outset to never treat a certain candidate seriously. But instead it's tabloid and propaganda because nobody's independent. That's why Trump can just bypass the media.
According to investigators, all of the projects were supposed to be finished in about seven to 12 months but instead were completed—or remain expected to be completed—on average, within 42 months.
The contracts for the 11 projects reviewed by investigators totaled about $95 million, though some have become more expensive because of poor planning and delays. The VA spent more than $408 million on its “green management program” solar panel projects between fiscal years 2010 and 2015, according to annual budget records. During the same period, veterans died waiting for care at VA hospitals where employees were using dishonest record keeping practices to conceal long waits for care.
Your logic regarding Trump's lack of an attempted pivot is strangely shaped in the form of a pretzel.
What would a "pivot" look like to you, what sort of things would you expect for it to qualify?
On August 10 2016 03:31 oBlade wrote: So the VA sets a budget, full of money to be wasted on green bullshit, requests it from Congress, the projects go over budget and take 3x as long if they get finished at all, and this is the fault of Congress - let me guess, Republicans? Not the people who run the VA appointed by the Obama administration, not the appropriations committee in 2010 when it looks like this started and both houses were blue.
You do realize that the VA has a budget of like 150 billion right?
Indeed, there's a whole hell of a lot of waste.
That's a valid concern, but you're changing the subject.
Hardly, you're the one who brought up the other billions of dollars of the VA budget. I was just talking about the solar panel projects I linked.
Let me lay this out to you as simply as possible:
1. VA has a big budget, this includes waste and various inefficiencies
2. Money is not the issue, there is plenty of money for medical treatment
3. Spending on non-medical projects is not an issue, these are budgeted separately
See here. 88% of the discretionary budget (66 billion) goes to medical care. Solar panels would go into construction, which is just over 1%. It would make much more sense to do performance improvement/ cost rationalization on the big piece of the pie rather than harping on the what's basically crumbs. Doing the reverse is a poor use of time and effort and either plain out stupid or driven by some agenda.
My considered position is the government wasting money is bad. You might defend this because you think it's small potatoes, but it's all small potatoes. It's cumulative. Government departments are incompetent when it comes to spending. There isn't just a $500 billion check to shred and go poof, there, waste is gone.
Waste is an intrinsic part of organizations. Have you worked for a big company? Medium sized company? It is just straight up impossible to eliminate waste. Reduce waste, keep waste down best you can, but this idea that there is some way of actually eliminating government waste is silly. Making cuts to an organization does not make it less wasteful.
On August 10 2016 03:31 oBlade wrote: So the VA sets a budget, full of money to be wasted on green bullshit, requests it from Congress, the projects go over budget and take 3x as long if they get finished at all, and this is the fault of Congress - let me guess, Republicans? Not the people who run the VA appointed by the Obama administration, not the appropriations committee in 2010 when it looks like this started and both houses were blue.
You do realize that the VA has a budget of like 150 billion right?
Indeed, there's a whole hell of a lot of waste.
That's a valid concern, but you're changing the subject.
Hardly, you're the one who brought up the other billions of dollars of the VA budget. I was just talking about the solar panel projects I linked.
Let me lay this out to you as simply as possible:
1. VA has a big budget, this includes waste and various inefficiencies
2. Money is not the issue, there is plenty of money for medical treatment
3. Spending on non-medical projects is not an issue, these are budgeted separately
See here. 88% of the discretionary budget (66 billion) goes to medical care. Solar panels would go into construction, which is just over 1%. It would make much more sense to do performance improvement/ cost rationalization on the big piece of the pie rather than harping on the what's basically crumbs. Doing the reverse is a poor use of time and effort and either plain out stupid or driven by some agenda.
My considered position is the government wasting money is bad. You might defend this because you think it's small potatoes, but it's all small potatoes. It's cumulative. Government departments are incompetent when it comes to spending. There isn't just a $500 billion check to shred and go poof, there, waste is gone.
On August 09 2016 11:29 Nevuk wrote: Sounds like she was giving him a chance to pivot, then after he blew up on Khan realized that there was 0 chance of it.
The thing is the media has stacked everything on one side. There is no "pivot" Trump can do that they'll accept, and if they don't write it, then it's not in the narrative that people can point and go "Look, he Pivoted(TM), now it's okay to vote for him." I realized that after the great convention speech that the media found so frightening. This all makes a climate where random people believe they have something to gain by anti-endorsing.
The media is run by children, and it's a shame because there's an important role they ought to play in politics and everything else. The process should benefit the people by guiding all politicians to improve. But they've basically predetermined from the outset to never treat a certain candidate seriously. But instead it's tabloid and propaganda because nobody's independent. That's why Trump can just bypass the media.
According to investigators, all of the projects were supposed to be finished in about seven to 12 months but instead were completed—or remain expected to be completed—on average, within 42 months.
The contracts for the 11 projects reviewed by investigators totaled about $95 million, though some have become more expensive because of poor planning and delays. The VA spent more than $408 million on its “green management program” solar panel projects between fiscal years 2010 and 2015, according to annual budget records. During the same period, veterans died waiting for care at VA hospitals where employees were using dishonest record keeping practices to conceal long waits for care.
Your logic regarding Trump's lack of an attempted pivot is strangely shaped in the form of a pretzel.
What would a "pivot" look like to you, what sort of things would you expect for it to qualify?
You are right that waste is bad, but not really criminal bad. It’s just something we should avoid. But solar panels are just a distraction because ending the entire project would have done nothing. That money is a drop in the bucket relative to the entire VA’s national budget. Spending money on solar power isn’t kill vets, but it does make for good political hay since 95 million seems like a lot of money.
So yeah, focusing on this issue is pretty dumb. Maybe fix the VA's management that controls the much larger budget and find like one person to get the solar panel thing back on track.
On August 10 2016 03:39 farvacola wrote: Lol, the willful ignorance as to "government waste" needed to focus on the VA in lieu of the DoD is quite hilarious.
Dat evil solar power killing vets through goverment waste.
On August 10 2016 03:31 oBlade wrote: So the VA sets a budget, full of money to be wasted on green bullshit, requests it from Congress, the projects go over budget and take 3x as long if they get finished at all, and this is the fault of Congress - let me guess, Republicans? Not the people who run the VA appointed by the Obama administration, not the appropriations committee in 2010 when it looks like this started and both houses were blue.
You do realize that the VA has a budget of like 150 billion right?
Indeed, there's a whole hell of a lot of waste.
That's a valid concern, but you're changing the subject.
Hardly, you're the one who brought up the other billions of dollars of the VA budget. I was just talking about the solar panel projects I linked.
Let me lay this out to you as simply as possible:
1. VA has a big budget, this includes waste and various inefficiencies
2. Money is not the issue, there is plenty of money for medical treatment
3. Spending on non-medical projects is not an issue, these are budgeted separately
See here. 88% of the discretionary budget (66 billion) goes to medical care. Solar panels would go into construction, which is just over 1%. It would make much more sense to do performance improvement/ cost rationalization on the big piece of the pie rather than harping on the what's basically crumbs. Doing the reverse is a poor use of time and effort and either plain out stupid or driven by some agenda.
My considered position is the government wasting money is bad. You might defend this because you think it's small potatoes, but it's all small potatoes. It's cumulative. Government departments are incompetent when it comes to spending. There isn't just a $500 billion check to shred and go poof, there, waste is gone.
Waste is an intrinsic part of organizations. Have you worked for a big company? Medium sized company? It is just straight up impossible to eliminate waste. Reduce waste, keep waste down best you can, but this idea that there is some way of actually eliminating government waste is silly. Making cuts to an organization does not make it less wasteful.
Usually it's used as a talking point to try to say that you don't have to change anything and you can still have everything you want.
On August 10 2016 03:31 oBlade wrote: So the VA sets a budget, full of money to be wasted on green bullshit, requests it from Congress, the projects go over budget and take 3x as long if they get finished at all, and this is the fault of Congress - let me guess, Republicans? Not the people who run the VA appointed by the Obama administration, not the appropriations committee in 2010 when it looks like this started and both houses were blue.
You do realize that the VA has a budget of like 150 billion right?
Indeed, there's a whole hell of a lot of waste.
That's a valid concern, but you're changing the subject.
Hardly, you're the one who brought up the other billions of dollars of the VA budget. I was just talking about the solar panel projects I linked.
Let me lay this out to you as simply as possible:
1. VA has a big budget, this includes waste and various inefficiencies
2. Money is not the issue, there is plenty of money for medical treatment
3. Spending on non-medical projects is not an issue, these are budgeted separately
See here. 88% of the discretionary budget (66 billion) goes to medical care. Solar panels would go into construction, which is just over 1%. It would make much more sense to do performance improvement/ cost rationalization on the big piece of the pie rather than harping on the what's basically crumbs. Doing the reverse is a poor use of time and effort and either plain out stupid or driven by some agenda.
My considered position is the government wasting money is bad. You might defend this because you think it's small potatoes, but it's all small potatoes. It's cumulative. Government departments are incompetent when it comes to spending. There isn't just a $500 billion check to shred and go poof, there, waste is gone.
I'm not sure why you're pretending you're the only one who is against waste. I'm pretty sure everyone is.
Why cherrypick a random green power initiative that makes up a tiny portion of non medical spend and not look at the $50 billion of medical spend? You could probably renegotiate a contract for sterile disposable medical supplies or something and save 10 times the amount. That would also have the benefit of being ongoing savings instead of reducing expenses on what's basically a one time project.
On August 10 2016 03:31 oBlade wrote: So the VA sets a budget, full of money to be wasted on green bullshit, requests it from Congress, the projects go over budget and take 3x as long if they get finished at all, and this is the fault of Congress - let me guess, Republicans? Not the people who run the VA appointed by the Obama administration, not the appropriations committee in 2010 when it looks like this started and both houses were blue.
You do realize that the VA has a budget of like 150 billion right?
Indeed, there's a whole hell of a lot of waste.
That's a valid concern, but you're changing the subject.
Hardly, you're the one who brought up the other billions of dollars of the VA budget. I was just talking about the solar panel projects I linked.
Let me lay this out to you as simply as possible:
1. VA has a big budget, this includes waste and various inefficiencies
2. Money is not the issue, there is plenty of money for medical treatment
3. Spending on non-medical projects is not an issue, these are budgeted separately
See here. 88% of the discretionary budget (66 billion) goes to medical care. Solar panels would go into construction, which is just over 1%. It would make much more sense to do performance improvement/ cost rationalization on the big piece of the pie rather than harping on the what's basically crumbs. Doing the reverse is a poor use of time and effort and either plain out stupid or driven by some agenda.
My considered position is the government wasting money is bad. You might defend this because you think it's small potatoes, but it's all small potatoes. It's cumulative. Government departments are incompetent when it comes to spending. There isn't just a $500 billion check to shred and go poof, there, waste is gone.
Waste is an intrinsic part of organizations. Have you worked for a big company? Medium sized company? It is just straight up impossible to eliminate waste. Reduce waste, keep waste down best you can, but this idea that there is some way of actually eliminating government waste is silly. Making cuts to an organization does not make it less wasteful.
Usually it's used as a talking point to try to say that you don't have to change anything and you can still have everything you want.
Reducing waste is always a goal and of course it should be addressed. The main problem with the discussion in politics is that the wastefulness is used as an excuse to cut or end programs entirely, rather than fix or update them. Solar panels on VA buildings for provide power is likely a good idea. My parent’s business is almost entirely powered by solar panels. The tech is sound.
But the article and discussion isn’t pushing to fix things, only complain that they are broken and something must be done.
On August 09 2016 11:29 Nevuk wrote: Sounds like she was giving him a chance to pivot, then after he blew up on Khan realized that there was 0 chance of it.
The thing is the media has stacked everything on one side. There is no "pivot" Trump can do that they'll accept, and if they don't write it, then it's not in the narrative that people can point and go "Look, he Pivoted(TM), now it's okay to vote for him." I realized that after the great convention speech that the media found so frightening. This all makes a climate where random people believe they have something to gain by anti-endorsing.
The media is run by children, and it's a shame because there's an important role they ought to play in politics and everything else. The process should benefit the people by guiding all politicians to improve. But they've basically predetermined from the outset to never treat a certain candidate seriously. But instead it's tabloid and propaganda because nobody's independent. That's why Trump can just bypass the media.
According to investigators, all of the projects were supposed to be finished in about seven to 12 months but instead were completed—or remain expected to be completed—on average, within 42 months.
The contracts for the 11 projects reviewed by investigators totaled about $95 million, though some have become more expensive because of poor planning and delays. The VA spent more than $408 million on its “green management program” solar panel projects between fiscal years 2010 and 2015, according to annual budget records. During the same period, veterans died waiting for care at VA hospitals where employees were using dishonest record keeping practices to conceal long waits for care.
Your logic regarding Trump's lack of an attempted pivot is strangely shaped in the form of a pretzel.
What would a "pivot" look like to you, what sort of things would you expect for it to qualify?
Talk less about his own ego and picking fights with hecklers, spend more time talking about the presidency he's running for and what he's actually doing.
You know, like every other presidential candidate.
The bar is so low that he literally just needs to start talking about what he's supposed to be talking about.
EPT
