US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7677

On May 30 2017 07:57 Plansix wrote:

Then you have to cease the power structure for yourself. The hostile take over of the DNC is way easier if you got the numbers to back it up. And can prove those numbers exist by winning elections with them. Want someone like Booker to give up taking money from drug companies, get him elected by a large margin and then tell him to stop or you will find someone to replace him. It is a lot easier to pressure someone if they know you can hurt them.

And don't listen to your revolutionary friends on the subject of talking to white people. People vote for self interest and then decency, in that order. The problems of racism can't be the focus of political discussions if they are forced to compete with economic problems.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A Clearlake man is in custody on numerous charges for stabbing a man with a machete in a Saturday night attack that police said appeared to have been racially motivated.

Anthony Robert Hammond, 34, is being held in the Lake County Jail on $1 million bail for felony charges of aggravated mayhem, battery with serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, felony resisting executive officer, hate crime and two outside agency felony arrest warrants, and two misdemeanor charges of battery on a person, and obstructing or resisting a peace officer.

Sgt. Travis Lenz said that just before 8:15 p.m. Saturday Clearlake Police officers were dispatched to the Beachfront Apartments on Lakeshore Drive for a report of a male victim who had been stabbed with a machete.

Upon their arrival, officers discovered one black male victim who told them that a white male adult – later identified as Hammond – had been yelling racial slurs at numerous people located in the parking lot of the apartment complex, Lenz said.

Lenz said Hammond returned to his apartment, and then exited while holding a large machete. As he continued yelling racial slurs at the victim, Hammond struck the victim on the shoulder with the machete, causing serious bodily injury.

After the attack, Hammond retreated into his apartment, Lenz said.

The victim was transported from the scene by paramedics from Lake County Fire Protection District Station 70 to Adventist Health Hospital Clearlake, according to Lenz.

Lenz said Clearlake Police officers established a perimeter around the apartment to prevent Hammond’s escape and proceeded to evacuate all nearby residences.

After residents were evacuated, officers approached and were able to view through a window one male adult asleep on the couch, and Hammond attempting to conceal himself inside his refrigerator, Lenz said.

After being unsuccessful in concealing himself, Hammond ran into the rear bedroom of his residence, out of sight, Lenz said.

Lenz said officers were able to remove the male subject who was asleep on the couch from the residence but Hammond would not exit the residence.

Officers could see a pistol case which was open inside of the residence, yet did not view the firearm. Lenz said that led officers to believe Hammond was now armed with a pistol.

The Clearlake Police Department Detective Unit responded to the scene and began authoring a search warrant, which would allow officers to enter the residence, arrest Hammond and search his residence for any evidence related to the crime, Lenz said.

After a standoff that lasted several hours, Lenz said Hammond eventually complied with officers’ commands and exited the residence, where he was placed under arrest.

On May 30 2017 07:54 zlefin wrote:

the republicans mostly just ran on repeal. repeal and replace was always blatant BS anyways; as they had no actual alternative to replace it with, and everyone knew it, or should have known it.

On May 30 2017 08:03 GreenHorizons wrote:


If was Trump vs Booker I'd vote for neither and if Democrats think convincing us that voting for Booker is how we make him listen they got another thing coming.

On May 30 2017 08:14 Plansix wrote:

GH, this is why you will always lose and the GOP will always win. If you don't vote, no one gives a shit about you. Especially if you jump ship if your candidate loses the primary. The far right does the exact opposite and look at them.

On May 30 2017 08:14 Plansix wrote:

GH, this is why you will always lose and the GOP will always win. If you don't vote, no one gives a shit about you. Especially if you jump ship if your candidate loses the primary. The far right does the exact opposite and look at them.

On May 30 2017 08:23 Wulfey_LA wrote:


If GH were a real progressive he would vote for the candidate that would provide the most progress. Faced with a choice between a Republican that would actively move against all of his alleged policy positions and a Democrat that would advance some of them, he chooses to protest. He puts the purity of his vote over the consequences to others from his vote. I am saving this post of his as the prime example of Bernie/Stein/Nader fake leftism.

On May 30 2017 08:18 GreenHorizons wrote:


No one said anything about not voting. I said I would vote for neither. No, I don't submit to the idea that the two parties that we currently have are the only ones that will ever be in power. No, they can't force me to accept someone I oppose for a variety of reasons because the alternative is them celebrating Republicans passing a healthcare bill that would result in more dead Americans, because while they can be just as corportist as Republicans, they flat out suck at being obstructionists.

On May 30 2017 08:23 Wulfey_LA wrote:


If GH were a real progressive he would vote for the candidate that would provide the most progress. Faced with a choice between a Republican that would actively move against all of his alleged policy positions and a Democrat that would advance some of them, he chooses to protest. He puts the purity of his vote over the consequences to others from his vote. I am saving this post of his as the prime example of Bernie/Stein/Nader fake leftism.

On May 30 2017 08:27 Plansix wrote:

This post does not change anything. This is why you will lose every time. You throw away the only power you have over them. You have already declared that if Booker does well in the primaries that he should 100% not give a shit about anything you want. Of course, he is the worst example of this and even I would have reservations about voting for him too. But I would get over it if there was even a hint my vote could turn the tide in a swing state.

If you listen to politicians and the people who work on elections, they are most concerned with people that are going to vote every single time. The elderly. The wealthy. Parents on school issues. It is hard enough getting these people to vote for them. They don't have time to chase down votes that might not happen. This is the part about you that drives me crazy. You want change so badly, but then you do the exact thing that assures the change you want won't happen. You want these politicians to behave different, but you give them zero reason to listen to you.

On May 30 2017 08:35 GreenHorizons wrote:


Well voting for him to turn the tide in a swing state and me voting for him are two completely different propositions. I've said before that people in those situations have a tougher choice and I respect (even if I happen to disagree) either way they come down.

But I have some bad news, you may be right that Democrats are so stubborn they will continue to ignore us (they've shown this to be the plan so far) but we're not caving either. You and others are right that it will likely get worse before it gets better, but plenty of us are going to be at the vanguard of that experience. You'll eventually come to appreciate that we understand the risks we are taking and the consequences of our actions and have calculated them to be less damaging than the perpetuation of the status quo.

I'm sure throughout history at every great moment there were those telling others to "be patient", "be congenial", "play nice", "wait for your moment", etc... But those great moments happened because some brave people (much more brave than I imagine myself to ever be). said "go fuck yourselves! we refuse to accept these conditions any longer, even if our protest means our immediate conditions suffer."

EDIT: @P6 good on separating Sanders, but lay off Nader. He didn't cost anyone an election and the people most thankful for third parties should be Democrats because without Perot you would have never got Clinton.

On May 30 2017 08:23 Wulfey_LA wrote:


If GH were a real progressive he would vote for the candidate that would provide the most progress. Faced with a choice between a Republican that would actively move against all of his alleged policy positions and a Democrat that would advance some of them, he chooses to protest. He puts the purity of his vote over the consequences to others from his vote. I am saving this post of his as the prime example of Bernie/Stein/Nader fake leftism.

On May 30 2017 08:41 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:


that's not what exit polls of Perot voters show. of those that voted they would have split roughly 50-50 for Clinton and Bush. a good chunk of them would have stayed home

fivethirtyeight did an entire mini documentary about it.

On May 30 2017 08:52 GreenHorizons wrote:


There's more to Perot's participation than just the exit polls, but point taken. Haven't watched the whole thing yet but it's pretty funny they have Carville and his wife opposing each other in it.

Nonetheless, Merkel's plans to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang this week reflect Berlin's willingness to work with other countries if Washington proves problematic on climate and trade policy.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the West had become weaker as Washington increasingly put U.S. interests first. He said Trump's administration, for example, was unlikely to do much to tackle the causes of the migrant crisis - climate change, wars and persecution.

He referred to the "loss of the U.S. as an important nation" and said that while it was important to maintain dialogue with Washington, Europe needed to become stronger and Germany needed to be more prepared to work with its EU peers.

Juergen Hardt, the German government's coordinator for transatlantic policies, said Trump's administration was irritating foreign allies.

"Never before has there been so much uncertainty about the political course, and so many contradictions in the president's statements, four months after the inauguration of a new U.S. president," Hardt told Reuters.

"That weakens America and irritates its partners," said Hardt, the foreign policy expert in parliament for Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats.

On May 30 2017 09:11 Toadesstern wrote:
follow up on merkel's stance on Trump the other day I guess:

source: www.reuters.com

(posting this in here instead of the EU thread because of the "Obama made us look weak abroad" from a couple people)

On May 30 2017 08:08 Nebuchad wrote:


Blatant BS as opposed to what? Almost everything Trump said was blatant BS, he still got elected, seems weird to suddenly assume that people were aware that he was lying on this specific instance (especially given how they react today)

On May 30 2017 09:50 zlefin wrote:

which is why I also said should have known it. that some people chose to believe a proven con-man who was offering obvious bs, when everyone warned them what it was, and provided rigorous proof of that, is to a considerable extent on them.

ignorance of the law is not an excuse as they say; neither should ignorance count for much in defence here either, when it was proven so thoroughly. they voted for ignorance and non-solutions, so they got ignorance and non-solutions.

On May 30 2017 09:57 Nebuchad wrote:


Okay but I wasn't trying to excuse it, was I? I was just saying that it seems foolish to assume they're trying to only repeal healthcare and not replace it when all of the signs point to the opposite being true.

On May 30 2017 08:45 Nebuchad wrote:


People defending the system of the country where liberalism is the left talking to us about what fake leftism is.

The Trump administration is planning to disband the Labor Department division that has policed discrimination among federal contractors for four decades, according to the White House’s newly proposed budget, part of wider efforts to rein in government programs that promote civil rights.