US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4766

On August 18 2016 05:05 Plansix wrote:
Jill and her Green party can’t even get elected in her home state, let alone nationally. That shows just how appealing her views are. And its not like she is running in crazy conservative land.

On August 18 2016 05:07 ticklishmusic wrote:
isnt lexington one of the whitest and wealthiest towns in the US?

its also absolutely disgusting a physician would hedge on vaccines.

On August 18 2016 05:14 GreenHorizons wrote:


The support for her ideas and her polling clearly aren't the same thing (you know that). Just stop with the "she's anti-science" propaganda though.

Maybe some of the same problems with our political system that prevent something with 90%+ support from voters from getting passed has something to do with it, just maybe...

Donald Trump, whose faltering presidential bid appears to be reaching a crisis point, is reshuffling his campaign’s senior leadership for the second time in two months.

The Republican nominee tapped pollster Kellyanne Conway as campaign manager and Breitbart News Chairman Stephen Bannon as campaign chief executive — two advisers who seem destined to clash over letting Trump be Trump.

Trump has known Conway, who initially worked on Ted Cruz's presidential campaign, for several years, but he has only recently come to know Bannon, mostly through Breitbart's fawning coverage of his campaign.

"He hasn’t had Trump’s ear forever, but Trump respects him," said a campaign source, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "If you counted all the lipstick on Trump’s backside, most of it would be Breitbart red. So he’s earned his way to where he is."

Bannon also has the backing of Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the father-daughter donor duo that bankrolled Cruz super PACs last year and are now funding a super PAC attacking Hillary Clinton, as well as Roger Stone, the longtime Trump confidant who is a regular contributor to Breitbart.

While the campaign and Trump loyalists are framing the new hires as an expansion and not a shakeup or demotion of campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, they come as the campaign is sliding in polls due to a string of controversies stemming from Trump's own impolitic pronouncements — and after Manafort and other more experienced senior staffers have failed to persuade Trump to tone down his message and commit to paid television ads.

Bannon, who has encouraged Trump's combative campaign style and defended even his most mendacious statements, is not likely to push Trump or his populist message toward the political center. Conway, on the other hand, has been gently leaning on Trump to temper his tone and explaining how some of his ad-libs and attack lines are having an adverse effect, according to campaign sources.

On August 18 2016 05:00 GreenHorizons wrote:

@Ticklish, she's not hedging as much as being consistent. She doesn't think we should trust test results from people who have a financial interest in certain results, have to say the alternative sounds a lot crazier to me.

On August 18 2016 05:14 GreenHorizons wrote:


The support for her ideas and her polling clearly aren't the same thing (you know that). Just stop with the "she's anti-science" propaganda though.

On August 18 2016 04:49 TheYango wrote:
I don't think Jill is anti-science, just that her party does a lot of pandering to people who are.

On August 18 2016 05:00 GreenHorizons wrote:


Seriously, did she need to put a trigger warning for her use of trigger warning for ya?

Her and the Greens "sucking" is not being anti-science.

@Ticklish, she's not hedging as much as being consistent. She doesn't think we should trust test results from people who have a financial interest in certain results, have to say the alternative sounds a lot crazier to me.

On August 18 2016 05:00 GreenHorizons wrote:
@Ticklish, she's not hedging as much as being consistent. She doesn't think we should trust test results from people who have a financial interest in certain results, have to say the alternative sounds a lot crazier to me.

On August 18 2016 05:14 Nevuk wrote:

The one in KY? No. I live there. It is definitely not particularly wealthy, though there are some horse racing related things and a university, there is no particular industry aside from them. It doesn't seem super white either, though it may be for a large city. It is very gay and very religious though (weird combination).

On August 18 2016 05:49 TheYango wrote:

Then she should recognize that the debunked Wakefield paper, which is the root of the anti-vaxx hysteria, is guilty of precisely that.

But I'm sure she knows that, and she's just pandering to those people to get their votes.

On August 18 2016 05:30 GGTeMpLaR wrote:


That is so anti-science you should have put a trigger-warning on it

On August 18 2016 05:54 Mohdoo wrote:
And perhaps she could recognize the NSF as well as individual universities have their own funding. Pesticides and genetic modification does not rely on industry for funding. Some funding is provided to some studies, but it is incredibly easy to find a study done by a university that got the money from their sports programs.

Donald Trump offered a blunt explanation for why he wants retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn at his side as he gets his first classified briefing at FBI headquarters on Wednesday — he doesn't trust intelligence information coming from those currently in charge.

"I think he's a great guy. I've gotten to know him. He's been a real fan of mine and defender of mine and he's a terrific guy, a terrific general — tough, smart. Feels like I do about illegal immigration, in particular," Trump told Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt in Milwaukee on Tuesday night. "He wants to make sure the right people are coming into our country, not the people that we're probably taking in right now. We don't even know who we're taking in. I mean, we have people coming into our country, we have no idea who they are, where they come from and he's somebody that I believe in."

Earhardt followed up by asking whether Trump trusts "intelligence."

"Not so much from the people that have been doing it for our country. I mean, look what's happened over the last 10 years. Look what's happened over the years. It's been catastrophic. And, in fact, I won't use some of the people that are sort of your standards, you know, just use them, use them, use them, very easy to use them, but I won't use them because they've made such bad decisions," said Trump, who will also be joined by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at the inaugural briefing. "You look at Iraq. You look at the Middle East. It's a total powder keg. It's a — if we would have never touched it, it would have been a lot better. I mean, we would have been much better off. On top of which, we've spent probably $4 trillion. Nobody even knows what we've spent. So, no, I have great people, and Gen. Flynn is one of them."

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and a Trump supporter, said he agreed with Trump's decision to have Flynn accompany him for the briefing.

On August 18 2016 05:54 GreenHorizons wrote:


I guess so, and you have Ticklish ignoring that pesticide/GMO safety doesn't start and end at consumer consumption. Arguing with Hillary supporters feels more like arguing with 90's Republicans every day.

Ignoring externalities is usually a right wing thing but Hillary's got them signing on to a anti-science pro fracking transition team leader.

It's so obvious that the "anti-science" thing is a red herring.

Let's think about it for just a second, which "anti-science" position would be more detrimental? The one that wants more research done on the impacts of GMO's and pesticides beyond consumption and a moretoreum that would be a non-starter, or the one that thinks fracking doesn't cause environmental damage (with a republican house and senate, [and too many Democrats] that agree)?

On August 18 2016 05:58 TheYango wrote:

Again, I'm sure she knows these things, she practiced medicine close to such institutions for 20 years.

The "don't trust test results from researchers with a vested interest in them" thing is a way to be deliberately vague and tell the anti-science people what they want to hear without actually being anti-science. The anti-science people will interpret it the way they want, and if she gets called out on it by anyone else, it's vague enough that she can blame it on biased media spin.

Hence why I think she's personally not anti-science, she's just pandering to those people because the anti-vaxx people are a convenient group for her party to appeal to.

On August 18 2016 05:58 TheYango wrote:

Hence why I think she's personally not anti-science, she's just pandering to those people because the anti-vaxx people are a convenient group for her party to appeal to.

On August 18 2016 06:05 GGTeMpLaR wrote:


Here comes the spin on why this makes him literally the reincarnation of Hitler and anyone is crazy to not vote for Clinton over him

On August 18 2016 06:06 ticklishmusic wrote:


Or maybe there is actually a pretty significant body of peer-reviewed research on GMO's, pesticides and whatever other thing you want to bring up. My educational background (half of it anyways) was in this stuff, so I'm coming from a reasonably knowledgeable position here.

On the heels of appeals court ruling that restored a week's worth of early voting in North Carolina, the executive director of the state's Republican Party emailed a memo to members of local elections boards urging them to push for "party line changes" that cut back on early voting hours, The News and Observer reported.

The memo, sent by NCGOP executive director Dallas Woodhouse on Sunday, said that Republican board members "should fight with all they have to promote safe and secure voting and for rules that are fair to our side."

“Our Republican Board members should feel empowered to make legal changes to early voting plans, that are supported by Republicans,” Woodhouse wrote. “Republicans can and should make party line changes to early voting.”

Last month, a panel of judges on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 2013 law passed by the state's Republican legislature that cut back early voting in the state from 17 days to 10 days, ruling that it intended to discriminate against African Americans. Other voting restrictions in the law were struck down as well. The state has asked the Supreme Court to halt parts of the ruling and allow North Carolina to keep its cutbacks to early voting, among other provisions.

The memo came as local election boards are working on schedules for early voting that take into account the appeals court decision. Per the News and Observer:

County elections boards are developing new early voting schedules in response to a federal court ruling that threw out the state’s voter ID law. In addition to revoking North Carolina’s photo ID requirement, the ruling requires counties to offer 17 days of early voting.

The voter ID law limited early voting to a 10-day period, but counties were required to offer at least the same number of voting hours as they did during the 2012 election. The court ruling eliminates that floor on hours – meaning that counties can legally provide fewer hours and fewer early voting sites than they did in the last presidential election.

Woodhouse's memo warmed that "Democrats are mobilizing for a fight over early voting locations and times."

"They are filling up election board meetings and demanding changes that are friendly to democrats and possibly voter fraud," he wrote.

Among the recipients of his memo were Republican officials who sit on the three-member county boards that approve election schedules in each county. In North Carolina, the governor appoints members to the State Board of Elections which in turn appoints members to the county boards, where two members are allowed to be members of the same party and are typically recommended by the state party chair. Because North Carolina has a Republican governor, two out of the three on each board are currently Republican, according the News and Observer.

Woodhouse went on to write in the memo that cutbacks to early voting hours were necessary because the extra week allowed for same-day registration, which the appeals court decision also brought back after it was eliminated by the 2013 law.