US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6397

On December 10 2016 11:45 kwizach wrote:

About Brazile, did you even read the rest of my post?

On December 10 2016 11:45 kwizach wrote:

About Brazile, did you even read the rest of my post?

With regards to the debate schedule, the announcement on the number of sanctioned debates was made on the 5th of May 2015, weeks before Sanders even announced his candidacy. The DNC did try to limit the number of debates in this election, just like the RNC did, because the main takeaway from the 2012 Republican primary was that too many debates could seriously hurt the eventual nominee. This would have been true regardless of who was running.

In any case, I don't see the point of re-hashing this endlessly. If anything, what was most interesting about the releases of the DNC and Podesta e-mails was the lack of understanding about the workings of political organizations usually displayed by the people who were outraged.

On December 10 2016 12:28 GreenHorizons wrote:


This right here is what's wrong with Hillary supporters in a nutshell. Kwiz knows they stacked the deck in plenty of ways for Hillary and that it happened before Bernie announced (as if Hillary would learn from Sanders press conference that he was running, or that it wouldn't be helpful to start tilting the game early) doesn't really matter to the point.

Everyone knows the DNC and the Democratic party did everything they could to help Hillary beat Sanders, that DWS and Donna pretending to be neutral, was just that, pretending, so it doesn't do anyone any favors to pretend that by some stretch of interpretation they played fair.

On December 10 2016 12:28 GreenHorizons wrote:
It's this type of parsing that's leading to what NBC is doing now with Trump's show and being oblivious to why it's absurd.

On December 10 2016 11:45 kwizach wrote:

About Brazile, did you even read the rest of my post?

With regards to the debate schedule, the announcement on the number of sanctioned debates was made on the 5th of May 2015, weeks before Sanders even announced his candidacy. The DNC did try to limit the number of debates in this election, just like the RNC did, because the main takeaway from the 2012 Republican primary was that too many debates could seriously hurt the eventual nominee. This would have been true regardless of who was running.

In any case, I don't see the point of re-hashing this endlessly. If anything, what was most interesting about the releases of the DNC and Podesta e-mails was the lack of understanding about the workings of political organizations usually displayed by the people who were outraged.

On December 10 2016 12:40 kwizach wrote:

Here we go again with the vague and unsubstantiated accusations. You said the evidence was in the e-mails that were leaked. I referred to the two cases which warranted a mention, and neither correspond to the kind of DNC operation you were referring to. What else is there, GH? What e-mails are you referring to precisely? Where is the evidence of the DNC actively undermining the Sanders campaign? Don't dodge the issue, stop with the equivocation, and either present us with your evidence or just admit that it's your "general impression" and we can leave it at that.


This is completely irrelevant.

On December 10 2016 13:27 GreenHorizons wrote:

DWS resigned from the DNC chair for overseeing what's been interpreted by everyone but Hillary supporters inappropriate conduct from the DNC, and Hillary immediately hired her and campaigned for her. Hillary's camp was aware that Donna cheated for them and they thought it was a good idea to make her interim DNC chair. Which iirc was just Donna denying and CNN getting rid of her and Clinton's camp just pretending it didn't happen/justifying it.

On December 10 2016 13:29 kwizach wrote:

Stop deflecting. What else than what I mentioned is there, GH? What e-mails are you referring to precisely? Where is the evidence of the DNC actively undermining the Sanders campaign? Don't dodge the issue, stop with the equivocation, and either present us with your evidence or just admit that it's your "general impression" and we can leave it at that.

On December 10 2016 13:34 GreenHorizons wrote:

The email from Donna, coupled with the idea that she should be interim chair is a pretty clear indication to anyone not living in denial that the DNC was undermining the Sanders campaign (and an honest democracy).

To put it more plainly, the DNC thought putting in someone who cheated for Hillary into the top job was a good idea.

Your parsing is like asking for email evidence of the farmer undermining the chickens security by locking a fox in the hen house. It's self-apparent.

On December 10 2016 13:58 kwizach wrote:

I addressed the Brazile issue earlier, so I'll just refer you to my previous post -- it has nothing to do with a DNC conspiracy against Sanders. It's interesting to note that the Donna Brazile story came out on the 31st of October, though, while you had already spent months declaring that the e-mails released by wikileaks proved the DNC actively undermined the Sanders campaign. The fact that you are utterly incapable of coming up with the slightest bit of evidence from those e-mails (or from elsewhere) to substantiate your accusation demonstrates quite clearly that your claims are not based on factual evidence.

As I already explained at length, preferring one candidate over the other is not the same as acting upon that preference to undermine the rival candidate(s). When you manage to uncover evidence that the latter happened, feel free to post it. In the meantime, I'll leave you to your transparent deflections and prevarications, as well as to your tiresome attacks against HRC supporters.

On December 10 2016 14:34 GreenHorizons wrote:


You (and some Hillary supporters) see the ousting of DWS and the replacement with someone the Hillary camp knew was cheating for them as "nothing to do with a DNC conspiracy" everyone else see's it for what it is.

On December 10 2016 16:37 LegalLord wrote:
Frankly, there really isn't any joy to be found in rehashing the gripes people has with the presidential election loser by going over allegations of foul play. Not only has it lost all relevance but it just leads so directly into a game of "show proof" "here" "no that's not proof enough give me real proof" "that was real proof" and so on game that really just gets on people's nerves and has no purpose.

It ends up being a game of semantic deflection that some are convinced is a real argument but really is just annoying and best avoided.

On December 10 2016 16:37 LegalLord wrote:
Frankly, there really isn't any joy to be found in rehashing the gripes people has with the presidential election loser by going over allegations of foul play. Not only has it lost all relevance but it just leads so directly into a game of "show proof" "here" "no that's not proof enough give me real proof" "that was real proof" and so on game that really just gets on people's nerves and has no purpose.

It ends up being a game of semantic deflection that some are convinced is a real argument but really is just annoying and best avoided.

On December 10 2016 18:12 Thieving Magpie wrote:


I am unsure if emails existing that don't talk about what a person is accused of can be called proof, and I doubt records of communication talking about unrelated topics can be called semantics. But I get your point. Some old guy no one voted for outside of facebook is considered to have had a movement by people who posted about him on facebook.

On December 10 2016 10:25 Simberto wrote:


But here you have a problem. Once you have enough people who are not capable of thinking critically and distinguishing real news from random shit, they will vote to keep education as bad as possible, otherwise they would have to confront their problem, which they do not.

Thus you have an education system that is incapable of acknowledging even a hundred year old science, and instead requires teaching "the controversy", where children are taught some random crap, because some people are not capable of accepting the fact that life was not literally created in 7 days about 6000 years ago. How is someone who is taught all their live that there is no such thing as fact, that the scientific method does not work, and that every opinion is equal supposed to critically consume media?

You have a whole party that works on "feelings over facts" now.

Of course, such a system can not work forever. At some point, it is going to crash into people on the outside who have not chosen to be willfully uneducated, and at that point it has to either adapt to reality very quickly, or it will be dispatched eventually. Even if it is hard to imagine, no empire lasts forever. And if you choose to cripple your nation intellectually, you will be replaced eventually.

President-elect Donald Trump's Energy Department transition team sent the agency a memo this week asking for the names of people who have worked on climate change and the professional society memberships of lab workers, alarming employees and advisors.

The memo sent to the Energy Department on Tuesday and seen by Reuters on Friday, contains 74 questions including a request for a list of all department employees and contractors who attended the annual global climate talks hosted by the United Nations within the last five years.

It asked for a list of all department employees or contractors who have attended any meetings on the social cost of carbon, a measurement that federal agencies use to weigh the costs and benefits of new energy and environment regulations. It also asked for all publications written by employees at the department's 17 national laboratories for the past three years.

"This feels like the first draft of an eventual political enemies list," said a Department of Energy employee, who asked not to be identified because he feared a reprisal by the Trump transition team.

"When Donald Trump said he wanted to drain the swamp it apparently was just to make room for witch hunts and it's starting here at the DOE and our 17 national labs," the employee said.

Trump transition team officials declined to comment on the memo, which was first reported by Bloomberg.

Republican Trump, a New York businessman and former reality TV star who has never previously held public office, said during his election campaign that climate change was a hoax perpetrated by China to damage U.S. manufacturing. He said he would rip up last year's landmark global climate deal struck in Paris that was signed by Democratic President Barack Obama.

Since winning the Nov. 8 election, however, Trump has confused observers by saying he will keep an "open mind" about the Paris deal. He also met with former Vice President Al Gore, a strong advocate for action on climate change.

Contenders to head the Energy Department under Trump include Kevin Cramer, a Republican U.S. representative from oil producing North Dakota, Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat from the same state, and Joe Manchin, a Democrat from coal-producing West Virginia.

The memo also asked for the names of the 20 top salaried employees at the department's labs, and a list of all websites maintained or contributed to by lab staff during work hours.

A list of projects at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy which funds research into high risk clean energy projects that could revolutionize energy markets, was also requested.

"They're certainly sending an aggressive signal here with some of these questions and they need to be careful," said Dan Reicher, a professor at Stanford University who also serves as an advisor to U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

"I worry about some of the questions being sent that could unnecessarily alienate key career staff, because they need the career staff and lab professionals to get the daily work done," said Reicher.

The Energy Department employs more than 90,000 people working on nuclear weapons maintenance and research labs, nuclear energy, advanced renewable energy, batteries and climate science.

Two sources at the Environmental Protection Agency, where many climate regulations are formed, said no similar memo has been sent to that agency by the Trump administration.

Democratic Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts warned the Trump transition team about taking actions against any employees named in any response the department might send.

"Any politically motivated inquisition against federal civil servants who, under the direction of a previous administration, carried out policies that you now oppose," would call into question the Trump team's commitment to the rule of law and a peaceful transition, Markey said in a letter to Trump.