US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7344

On April 16 2017 23:45 ticklishmusic wrote:
there;s a bit of a disconnect b/w 50 state strategy and threatening to primary joe manchin

On April 17 2017 00:16 Mohdoo wrote:


Joe Manchin is definitely bad for the party, though. Public interest in politics is definitely up. It is a lot easier to hear about what's going on everywhere. Manchin does absolutely nothing for the party and only creates cynicism. Young people struggle to connect with the democratic party because of people like Manchin who are just downright not even remotely progressive.

On April 17 2017 00:16 Mohdoo wrote:


Joe Manchin is definitely bad for the party, though. Public interest in politics is definitely up. It is a lot easier to hear about what's going on everywhere. Manchin does absolutely nothing for the party and only creates cynicism. Young people struggle to connect with the democratic party because of people like Manchin who are just downright not even remotely progressive.

On April 17 2017 00:58 zlefin wrote:

i'm not sure if it's godo for the party. I agree Manchin isn't progressive; but it's good for the country in general if parties are larger and more flexible in who they let in. some of our current problems stem from the shrinkage in the ideological area covered by parties.

On April 17 2017 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:

On the other hand some of the current biggest problems stem from a party being to flexible in who they let in and as a result the government is paralysed because the 'ruling' party is at war with itself.

President Donald Trump on Twitter Sunday lashed out against citizens who'd taken to the streets to exercise their First Amendment rights.

While claiming that thousands of people who on Saturday demanded Trump finally release his full tax returns were "paid" protesters, Trump tweeted, "The election is over!"

"Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies," Trump tweeted a day after thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in more than 150 cities across the country.

An hour after wishing his 28 million followers a Happy Easter, Trump hailed his November win and called out those making his undisclosed tax history an issue.

"I did what was an almost an impossible thing to do for a Republican-easily won the Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are brought up again?" Trump said on Twitter.

The president then followed up by repeating an unsubstantiated claim he's made before that some of the protesters against him were "paid," an allegation that became popular in some right-wing circles in the build up to the 2016 presidential election, before noting that the election was "over."

Trump himself used paid actors to pose as rally attendees during his campaign, and has talked at length about the election results since his victory while criticizing his former rival Hillary Clinton.

More than four months after winning the presidency, Trump continued to attack Clinton at a rally in Nashville, Tennessee, this March.

The Tax Day protesters called for Trump to release his tax returns — something nearly all major presidential candidates have done since the 1970s — and call on lawmakers to represent their interests over those of major corporations

Trump and his administration have repeatedly dismissed calls for him to release his taxes, first claiming he couldn't because he was being audited, then saying the issue was more of interest to journalists and liberal politicians.

But a poll from the Pew Research Center in January found that more than two-thirds of all Americans believe the president has an obligation to release his tax returns.

This is not the first time the president has tweeted such accusations in the wake of major demonstrations against him and his policies. On Nov. 10, Trump tweeted that protests against his victory were "unfair" and said "professional protesters, incited by the media" were turning out in the streets.

On April 17 2017 03:44 GreenHorizons wrote:
The idea that you have to be Trump light to get support in WV is a myth that Democrats and Republicans appreciate that you all still believe.

If it was true Bernie wouldn't have went in there and talked Trump supporters into supporting his agenda.

SALINAS, Calif. — This vast and fertile valley is often called the salad bowl of the nation for the countless heads of lettuce growing across its floor. Now California’s marijuana industry is laying claim to a new slogan for the valley: America’s cannabis bucket.

After years of marijuana being cultivated in small plots out of sight from the authorities, California cannabis is going industrial.

Over the past year, dilapidated greenhouses in the Salinas Valley, which were built for cut flower businesses, have been bought up by dozens of marijuana entrepreneurs, who are growing pot among the fields of spinach, strawberries and wine grapes.

“This is cannabis meets Big Ag,” said Steve DeAngelo, the executive director of one the nation’s largest marijuana dispensaries, who last year founded Harborside Farms to supply the business.

The 47-acre farm is dotted with greenhouses that emit the pungent smell of thousands of marijuana plants and warehouses where farmworkers who spent their careers tending to raspberry plants now sit in rows delicately trimming the leaves from harvested cannabis buds. When the last greenhouses are built here next year, the facility will be one of the largest legal marijuana farms in the world.

Harborside and other farms like it are a sign of a new chapter for America’s cannabis industry, in which marijuana is grown openly, like any other crop. Despite the federal ban on marijuana, leaders of the industry are taking a Manifest Destiny view, believing it is only a matter of time for pot to become as widely accepted as alcohol across the country.

California, with its ideal climate and vast market, is at the vanguard of the movement to normalize the drug and produce it cheaply and in abundance.

“California is destined to do with cannabis what we’ve done with every other fruit and vegetable,” Mr. DeAngelo said. “And that’s take half of the national market.”

The move to mass-scale farming is occurring just as some members of the Trump administration are advocating a revival of the war on drugs, including marijuana, which is now legal in some form or another in about 30 states. The federal ban precludes growers of California cannabis from legally shipping out of state, although tons of it seeps out anyway.

Terry Garrett, a cannabis analyst based in California, estimates that American consumers spend at least $50 billion a year on marijuana. By contrast, legal marijuana sales total around $7 billion, according to data compiled by BDS Analytics, a company that specializes in data on the cannabis market.

American cannabis laws and politics are starkly contradictory: Cannabis growers here, in Colorado and in the other states where cannabis cultivation is legal are regulated and taxed. But Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, recently compared cannabis to heroin. He and others in the Trump administration have threatened a crackdown.

Greater enforcement of the federal ban does not appear to be imminent. Russ Baer, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said “nothing has changed in terms of our enforcement approach.”

The D.E.A. remains concerned about diversion of marijuana to the black market, Mr. Baer said, but its priorities are elsewhere.

“Our attention is so focused on the opioid epidemic right now,” he said. “That’s where we’ve committed the vast majority of our resources.”

The aggressive moves in the Salinas Valley into large-scale cannabis farming, replete with plans for conveyor belts and high-efficiency Dutch-built greenhouses, are already roiling the industry. Some are worried that the marijuana business is getting too big too fast and predict a glut of California marijuana and sharp price declines. Growers in recent years have already reported steady declines in wholesale prices of marijuana, although retail prices have remained relatively steady.

Small cannabis farmers who have operated for decades and fear they could be wiped out are among the most alarmed.

“We are watching the industrialization of commercial cannabis,” said Tawnie Logan, chairwoman of the board of the California Growers Association, an organization that lobbies for cottage growers’ access to the market. “For them, the name of the game is the profit margin.”

Ms. Logan said small growers were grateful for the legal battles that veterans of the industry like Mr. DeAngelo of Harborside had waged for the industry but felt betrayed by Harborside’s move to mass production.

“They say they are fighting for the little guy while they set up a 50-acre farm,” Ms. Logan said.

Outside the Salinas Valley, the majority of cannabis farms in California have growing areas that are smaller than 5,000 square feet. The Harborside growing areas will be more than 70 times as large, around 360,000 square feet, and will have a capacity of 100,000 plants, including the nursery.

The industrial cannabis farms in the Salinas Valley are beginning their operations during a period of legal limbo in California. Voters approved recreational marijuana in November, but California lawmakers will be working out detailed regulations in the coming weeks, including the question of whether to put a cap on the size of farms.

On April 17 2017 03:56 Mercy13 wrote:


It's easy to get them to support a progressive economic agenda. Much harder to get them to abandon the party which has perfected its appeal to WWC identity politics.

Trump voters aren't going to support a candidate that makes a big deal out of criminal justice reform, for example.

On April 17 2017 04:04 LegalLord wrote:
Trump has had an active Twitter night.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/853583417916755968
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/853595628655587334
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/853604334944354305
The man has zero consistency on any of his positions except that he is amazing and awesome. As of now we've mostly reached the point where the "let's give him a chance" folk (I may or may not fall into this category) have said "k he had his chance, fuck him." And with the Syria bombing and aftermath he royally pissed off his populist base. So I think we're dealing with a capricious president presiding over a disaster of his own making with absolutely no direction.

+ Show Spoiler +

On April 17 2017 04:03 GreenHorizons wrote:


WV voted 43% for Obama in 08. That's 4% less than Hillary got in Michigan in 16. These places aren't as immovable as you all make them sound. ~Half of the half of people who don't vote, don't vote because they don't have any one to vote for.

And sure they will if you frame it as protecting our constitutional rights. Or they'll have fun arguing why people shouldn't have their constitutional rights.

On April 17 2017 04:03 GreenHorizons wrote:


WV voted 43% for Obama in 08. That's 4% less than Hillary got in Michigan in 16. These places aren't as immovable as you all make them sound. ~Half of the half of people who don't vote, don't vote because they don't have any one to vote for.

And sure they will if you frame it as protecting our constitutional rights. Or they'll have fun arguing why people shouldn't have their constitutional rights.

On April 17 2017 04:24 ChristianS wrote:

I'm surprised you think that framing could possibly convince white Trump supporters to vote for criminal justice reform. In these people's minds the cops are generally fair and just, and it's a bunch of liberal hogwash when people try to argue that lethal force is being overapplied, or that criminal charges and sentencing for drug offenses are blatantly racist. This is confirmed by their own experiences with cops, which are mostly fairly positive because of their aforementioned whiteness.

So if a candidate wants to implement criminal justice reform to deal with these problems, they think the problems aren't real, and all these new reforms will endanger our boys in blue. If you try to frame it as protecting your 4th amendment rights, as the ACLU does, why wouldn't they hate you like they hate the ACLU does? Reforms to protect our constitutional rights only make sense if you don't trust cops to respect them, and they do.

On April 17 2017 04:51 GreenHorizons wrote:


Our resident conservatives don't really dispute that police departments across the country have been found to have systematically violated PoC's constitutional rights at a rate higher than they violate white people's rights. If you frame criminal justice reform around the idea that we all deserve our rights I think it will be more successful than you do.

But here's the thing, maybe you guys are right about the situation, even that shows that a progressive economic agenda could have success... so run a progressive economic platform at least. Don't try to sell us the idea you can't run a progressive economic platform because Manchin doesn't want to and he's too precious to pressure him to do otherwise.

Though I admit it fits the Democratic spineless brand to a T.

On April 17 2017 05:10 ChristianS wrote:
This is interesting. I'm surprised because I figured you'd be more cynical about white people's attitude than I am. As I see it a big part of the problem is that even white liberals tend to think that the police are still these benevolent shepherds, and it's just the occasional bad egg in police departments we need to watch out for. Whereas the BLM supporters I've talked to/heard interviews from tend to think the police are basically malevolent toward blacks, that the system is set up specifically to oppress minorities, and that the modern criminal justice system is basically slavery by another name.

Those are some radically different interpretations for people that are supposed to be on the same side of this issue. The result is that the white liberals can usually be bothered enough to support body cams or more training or something, but they don't usually feel that strongly about it, and they seem to think that if that stuff happened the brutality would all magically go away.

Am I wrong about any of this?