US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7266

On April 05 2017 09:31 KwarK wrote:
I'm sure they'll regret saying that as soon as Trump gets a map and someone to point out where Syria and Iraq are.

The U.S. military is trying to figure out whether certain heavy weapons are putting U.S. troops in danger.

The concern centers on the possibility of brain injuries from shoulder-fired weapons like the Carl Gustaf, a recoilless rifle that resembles a bazooka and is powerful enough to blow up a tank.

A single round for the Carl Gustaf can weigh nearly 10 pounds. The shell leaves the gun's barrel at more than 500 miles per hour. And as the weapon fires, it directs an explosive burst of hot gases out of the back of the barrel.

For safety reasons, troops are trained to take positions to the side of weapons like this. Even so, they get hit by powerful blast waves coming from both the muzzle and breech.

"It feels like you get punched in your whole body," is the way one Army gunner described the experience in a military video made in Afghanistan. "The blast bounces off the ground and it overwhelms you."

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military recognized that the blast from a roadside bomb could injure a service member's brain without leaving a scratch. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops sustained this sort of mild traumatic brain injury, which has been linked to long-term problems ranging from memory lapses to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Also during those wars, the military began to consider the effects on the brain of repeated blasts from weapons like the Carl Gustaf. And some members of Congress became concerned.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, a congresswoman from upstate New York and a member of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, says she was once told of a soldier whose ears bled after using the Carl Gustaf.

"Obviously," Slaughter says, "we have to know. What kind of damage is that doing to soldiers in training and on the battlefield?"

The military got some hints about the risks of firing heavy weapons from a program it launched in Afghanistan.

In 2011, the Army equipped thousands of troops with blast gauges — coin-sized sensors worn on the head and shoulders.

The gauges, made by a company in Slaughter's district, were designed to measure the intensity of a blast from a roadside bomb. But they also revealed worrisome levels of blast exposure in some troops who were merely firing certain heavy weapons.

Last year, the military quietly pulled the blast gauges from wide use, saying they hadn't been useful in detecting brain injuries. Slaughter thinks that was a mistake.

"I don't understand the Pentagon's circular argument," Slaughter says. "They aren't using the gauges because they don't have the data to prove how effective they are. But it doesn't take a great brain to understand you will not get the data if you don't use the gauges."

The military declined several requests for an interview about the blast gauge program and the risks from firing weapons.

But in an email, an Army spokesperson said that the Department of Defense is still using blast gauges in research, including some studies that look at "cumulative low-level blast" effects.

And a scientist who works for a private company hired by the military to study blast exposure confirms that ongoing research includes studies of exposures during weapons training.

"The reason that these studies are being done is that at some point someone has said, 'I don't feel quite right,' " says Laila Zai, director of neuroscience research at Applied Research Associates.

But it's really tricky to turn these anecdotes into usable data. Even results from the Army's blast-gauge program in Afghanistan are hard to interpret because there were so many variables on the battlefield, Zai says.

For example, she says, buildings and other structures tend to reflect blast waves from a weapon — and that can result in much greater exposure than when the weapon is fired in an open field.

So Zai has been working with a researcher from the Navy. "What he's doing is putting sensors on people undergoing shoulder-mounted weapons training," she says. "And he's looking to see if the overpressure [the force of a blast] generated by various training scenarios ever overwhelms the threshold of safety."

It's all part of a five-year, $30 million effort by the Office of Naval Research to help the military figure out how much blast exposure is too much.

Last year, a military study showed that firing heavy weapons could temporarily impair learning and memory. Now, Slaughter says, the military needs to find out whether these short-term effects can lead to long-term injuries among members of the service.

"If we can save them from a lifetime of brain damage," she says, "for heaven's sake, it's our obligation to do it."

On April 05 2017 18:12 Biff The Understudy wrote:

You guys are unnecessarily sarcastic. Give the guy credit, he said that with him in office, ISIS would be destroyed in 30 days, and he.... OH NO!!!

On April 05 2017 16:52 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:

What the...

I guess this is how you kill evil globalism, just make sure nobody wants to come to you anymore. Then you can focus more easily on Bannons crazy nationalism agenda.

On April 05 2017 12:51 Buckyman wrote:
The danger of a living document approach is that it erodes the rule of law principle.

The rule of law principle is that it should be possible to tell, before taking an action, whether that action is legal and what penalties one might face if it isn't, if one is sufficiently familiar with the law and the precedent.

This isn't perfectly attainable in practice because some laws are ambiguous and haven't been clarified.

However, it's a different matter if a law might mean something five years from now that it doesn't today, and your actions today will be judged by what it means in the future rather than what it means now. This is inherently unfair.

Conversely, the closer the interpretations are to the plain meaning of the text, as understood at the time of the action if not at the time when it was written, the less people get screwed by reinterpretation.

More than half of Americans approve of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), according to a Gallup poll out Tuesday, marking the first time the law has gained majority support since Gallup began tracking public opinion on it in 2012.

Fifty-five percent of Americans say that former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare reform law should remain in place, though 40 percent say it needs significant changes. Still, the new rate is up significantly from November, when only 42 percent said they approved of the law.

ObamaCare seems have grown on independents the most in recent months. In November, right after the 2016 election, only 40 percent of independents said they approved of the law. But in Gallup's most recent poll, that number has jumped to 57 percent — a 17-point increase in five months.

The apparent wave of approval for ObamaCare comes less than two weeks after the failure of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the GOP's plan to repeal and replace the ACA. The measure was backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and the White House early on, but was ultimately withdrawn amid weak Republican support.

After the AHCA's defeat last month, Ryan and Trump signaled that they would move away from healthcare reform and focus instead on other policy areas, such as tax reform. But the GOP's longtime promise to do away with ObamaCare has since been revived, with Republican lawmakers in the planning phases of a new healthcare overhaul.

While the ACA has gained significant traction in recent months, the law is still an intensely divisive issue among Democrats and Republicans. Of the Republicans surveyed by Gallup, only 17 percent approved, but 86 percent of Democrats voiced approval of the law.

Other polls have recently shown majority approval for ObamaCare. Pew Research put support for the law at 54 percent in a survey released in February.

The Gallup poll was based on phone interviews with 1,023 U.S. adults in all 50 states, and was conducted April 1-2. Its margin of error is plus or minus 4 points.

Members of the conservative Freedom Caucus are demanding to be included in negotiations on tax reform to keep it from meeting the same embarrassing fate as the GOP’s effort to repeal Obamacare.

The head of the ultra-conservative group said Monday evening that lawmakers need to see the draft of a tax overhaul bill before it’s leaked to the media — which is what happened on the health care repeal bill. That measure failed in large part because it was written by leadership, and Freedom Caucus members felt they had no input.

“When a member sees the text for the first time in a leaked draft from Politico, therein is a problem,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.).

House Ways and Means members are working on a reform bill even as it remains unclear what role the White House will play in shaping the outcome — and as even Republicans are divided among themselves over key parts of a plan. As rumors swirled on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that the Trump administration is studying ways to pay for tax cuts that could include a carbon tax or a value-added tax, the Ways and Means Committee continues to plan to move a bill of its own this spring.

Meadows praised outreach to date from Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and the head of the panel’s tax subcommittee, Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.). But Brady has been noncommittal about when a draft might be released.

Brady pledged to hold hearings, including one that will focus on the most controversial element of the House GOP blueprint: the provision known as border adjustability that would tax imports but not exports.

He’s also reaching across the aisle, scheduling meetings this week with the moderate New Democrats and Ways and Means Democrats to solicit their ideas — though bipartisan cooperation remains a long shot.

“Because we don’t have a very short month, month-and-a-half timetable as we did in health care, I think that helps us on tax reform,” Brady told Politico.

“Compressed timetables are more difficult,” he said. “You don’t have the opportunity to do a hearing, to invite input, to have plenty of time to go back home and listen to constituents.”

Meadows said he wants to see draft legislation more than anything else as part of a “member-driven, inclusive, text-driven debate,” and he wants to get it from a colleague on Capitol Hill, not from anywhere else.

Members of the Freedom Caucus aren’t the only rank-and-file Republicans who want to avoid the Obamacare model this time around.

One of the signal moments of the Obamacare fiasco was Sen. Rand Paul’s slapstick search for a copy of the House health care bill, which was drafted in secret. It was made available privately to House members, but the episode exposed a big shortcoming in the House process.

Rushing headlong into health care over a matter of a few weeks played a part in bringing down the bill before it ever was brought to the floor for a vote, members of the Freedom Caucus and some lawmakers on the Ways and Means panel said. They didn’t trust what was in it, particularly as changes were made to appease one group or another, leaving others to wonder whether they could digest the final product.

They couldn’t.

There shouldn’t be any surprises on taxes, said several Republicans on Ways and Means. Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) said the time is ripe to release more details on the tax plan, which the committee so far has largely developed behind closed doors with House GOP leaders.

On April 05 2017 21:13 farvacola wrote:

If all originalists are all also conservatives that have a personal interest in originalist views of the law, how exactly does originalism restrain those who practice it?

On April 05 2017 20:15 SoSexy wrote:


As far as wrong predictions are concerned, I'll never forget election day in this thread. Someone said that if Trump was elected, we would have a thermonuclear war in 4 months. Luckily, my bunker is almost ready.

On April 05 2017 05:19 Danglars wrote:
Yes if you want to structure society such that sick people in hospitals present a unique moral case for extra-judicial conduct, your morality is bankrupt and you have idiotic views on how to run society. And, that makes you the "clueless moron or thoroughly vile."

And you suspend your critical thinking skills to lap up some very thinly sourced oppo dumps like it was religious text.

Let's be actually clear: You think he's a racist so only read him to find alleged racism and swallow it up.

On April 05 2017 12:46 Plansix wrote:

They are both bullshit arguments, but I prefer the living document argument. At least it doesn't try to tap into some unearned authority through the founding fathers.

On April 05 2017 21:41 LightSpectra wrote:


Medical marijuana is not "a unique moral case for extra-judicial conduct". This has nothing to do with the fact that marijuana is still illegal under federal law, since Sessions is on record to be against legalizing it on the federal level. This has to do with the fact that Jeff Sessions is representing the imbeciles in his state who have lapped up every reefer madness video they've ever seen with a Quranic obedience and thinks that people who use that particular medicine are moral degenerates.

Please, no bullshit here. You're called it a "thinly sourced oppo dump" because it paints somebody you like in a bad light. If the same article had been written about a Democrat you would be flinging monkeyshit about it, just like you do for every conspiracy theory about Hilary Clinton.

You're only denying he's a racist because he has an R by his name. You've said nothing to defend that proposition except that everyone who thinks otherwise is a gullible moron.

On April 05 2017 21:41 LightSpectra wrote:


Medical marijuana is not "a unique moral case for extra-judicial conduct". This has nothing to do with the fact that marijuana is still illegal under federal law, since Sessions is on record to be against legalizing it on the federal level. This has to do with the fact that Jeff Sessions is representing the imbeciles in his state who have lapped up every reefer madness video they've ever seen with a Quranic obedience and thinks that people who use that particular medicine are moral degenerates.



Please, no bullshit here. You've called it a "thinly sourced oppo dump" because it paints somebody you like in a bad light. If the same article had been written about a Democrat you would be flinging monkeyshit about it, just like you do for every conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton.



You're only denying he's a racist because he has an R by his name. You've said nothing to defend that proposition except that everyone who thinks otherwise is a gullible moron.

On April 05 2017 21:51 Danglars wrote:
No it's illegal and you're opposed to throwing people in jail over breaking the law in select circumstances. The very definition of a unique moral case for extra-judicial conduct.

Dig yourself deeper here, by all means. I stand by my criticism of the source articles and wonder why you linked them at all. It's quite fun to remind me again how thoroughly debased the racism charge is.

On April 05 2017 21:47 LightSpectra wrote:


IMO originalism is the only sensible approach because every other method mostly comes down to the Constitution meaning whatever the reader wants it to mean. The "living constitution" method is absolutely senseless for any other kind of legal documentation, so why should it be for this one?

I am in favor of a brand new Constitution to fix all of the problems that come with that, as opposed to the current status quo, where it's clay to be molded by the partisans of the POTUS and the Senate. The Founding Fathers envisioned the judicial branch to be the weakest of the three, but ironically it's now the strongest, and has a lifetime membership. This is not a healthy way to run a country.

On April 05 2017 21:56 LightSpectra wrote:


Read my post again. This has nothing to do with the fact that marijuana is still illegal under federal law, since Sessions is on record to be against legalizing it on the federal level. This has to do with the fact that Jeff Sessions is representing the imbeciles in his state who have lapped up every reefer madness video they've ever seen with a Quranic obedience and thinks that people who use that particular medicine are moral degenerates.



You've given no criticism of the article at all, you've merely said that it's an "oppo source dump". Which part of the article was wrong? Where's your source backing that claim up?

On April 05 2017 21:56 LightSpectra wrote:


Read my post again. This has nothing to do with the fact that marijuana is still illegal under federal law, since Sessions is on record to be against legalizing it on the federal level. This has to do with the fact that Jeff Sessions is representing the imbeciles in his state who have lapped up every reefer madness video they've ever seen with a Quranic obedience and thinks that people who use that particular medicine are moral degenerates.

You've given no criticism of the article at all, you've merely said that it's an "oppo source dump". Which part of the article was wrong? Where's your source backing that claim up?

On April 05 2017 00:53 LightSpectra wrote:


People like Danglars think we live in a post-racial age where there is no discrimination by police officers or employers or any other people, just left-wing politicians that use race to inflame tensions to win votes. These people really can't be rationed with. The best you can do is demonstrate just how out of touch they are and let everyone else realize that racism is truly alive and well.

On April 05 2017 22:01 Plansix wrote:

The problem with concept of “plain reading” argument is that the reading is still done by humans. There is no magical portal that allows us to see the true intent of the person who wrote the law. Or how they would feel it should be applied to modern day inventions like the internet or a grenade launcher. The debate between dead and living document are arguments that have developed in opposition of each other, rather than on. The relationship is symbiotic and lines up with political viewpoints on the role government. Both are looking for the intent of the law itself.

And I dispute the argument that the founding fathers thought that the Supreme Court would be the weakest branch. The only reason the court seems so powerful now is because of the diminished role of congress in the last 30 years. The judicial and executive branch have stepped up to fill the void.

On April 05 2017 22:13 Danglars wrote:
You amaze me. We're absolutely done here. Quranic obedience, moral degenerates, imbeciles. I'd be warned and banned for firing back in like manner.

Covered as much as I wished in the original response, not now in quote chain.