US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8250

On July 30 2017 05:45 IgnE wrote:


yeah im sure kids and teens are totally rational consenting agents . . .

and what is this fascist logic?: "tolerance of socially aberrant behavior is just a norm too. we might as well enforce sameness for the good of society"

On July 30 2017 05:55 GreenHorizons wrote:


I mean he could be talking about single-payer of some sort. I do wonder if Trump just said "You know, these Republicans Reps are idiots, I'm just going to do whatever Democrats want to do if they win in 2018" what Democrats would run on Trump signing?

On July 30 2017 06:03 zlefin wrote:

I'd guess none would; I mean, trump has proven himself extremely unreliable, and his word is worthless.
it's also strategically valuable to hammer trump, so I'd expect that to keep happening.

On July 30 2017 06:11 GreenHorizons wrote:


It's not like they would have anything to lose. Hammering Trump isn't going to get you any more votes for Democrats at this point (save the elusive check from Trump to Russia with "Cheating so I win the 2016 election" in the memo line).

I too expect Democrats to continue to try the same thing expecting different results.

On July 30 2017 06:14 zlefin wrote:

well, I'm not sure what you mean by "run on trump signing" then; because since it's a meaningless promise, I don't see why anyone would depend on it in the slightest.
and hammering trump may well get you more votes as things shift; it'll also be used as a bludgeon against republicans in general, or attempts will be made thereto.

On July 30 2017 06:02 Nyxisto wrote:


This Foucauldian nonsense of thinking every person with a mental illness is some kind of free spirit locked up by evil society is so annoying. Treating people who cannot read two paragraphs of text because their attention span is impaired isn't fascism any more than treating obesity is because you can't get up the stairs.

On July 30 2017 06:17 GreenHorizons wrote:


Either he signs stuff they run on in 2018 or they run on putting someone who will in office for 2020, they aren't depending on him lol.

No one will tell you hammering Trump gets you votes, best case scenario, it reduces turnout for the person you're attacking. A net result of less people participating in our democracy, fundamentally undermining it.

On July 30 2017 06:24 zlefin wrote:

really? noone will tell you that? yes, it' smore likely to reduce turnout for the person you're attacking; but that's not fundamentally undermining democracy at all, that's just a nonsense claim.

On July 30 2017 06:26 GreenHorizons wrote:


No one that I've seen. Do you have something showing otherwise?

How is intentionally reducing the voting population not undermining a participatory democracy?

Getting answers to Freedom of Information Act requests is often a protracted and tiring process, but how long a wait is too long?

One federal judge just came up with an answer: 17 years.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler bluntly rejected the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s proposal that documentary filmmaker Nina Seavey wait until the year 2034 to get all the law enforcement agency’s records for a request pertaining surveillance of anti-war and civil rights activists in the 1960s and 1970s.

The request involved an unusually large amount of material — about 110,000 pages of records at the FBI and more at other agencies — but Seavey said waiting almost two decades for the complete files wasn’t viable for her.

“Literally, they were talking 17 years out. I’m 60 years old. You can’t do that math,” the George Washington University professor and documentarian told POLITICO this week. “It wasn’t going to work for me.”

The FBI said it has a policy of processing and releasing large requests at a pace of 500 pages a month, while Seavey, represented by D.C. transparency lawyer Jeffrey Light, had proposed 5,000 pages a month. (At one point, the FBI thought it had about 150,000 pages of responsive records, which would’ve meant a 25-year wait.)

Justice Department lawyers and the FBI argued that going faster than 500 pages a month would disrupt the agency’s workflow and create the possibility of a few massive requests effectively shutting down the rest of the their FOIA operation.

Kessler didn’t buy it.

“Neither proffered justification is persuasive,” the Clinton appointee wrote. “In the name of reducing its own administrative headaches, the FBI's 500-page policy ensures that larger requests are subject to an interminable delay in being completed. Under the 500-page policy, requestors must wait 1 year for every 6,000 potentially responsive documents, and those who request tens of thousands of documents may wait decades.”

Kessler’s 12-page opinion issued last week noted that there is a legal provision to hold a FOIA request at bay when an agency faces “exceptional circumstances,” but the FBI did not invoke it.

“The agency's desire for administrative convenience is simply not a valid justification for telling Professor Seavey that she must wait decades for the documents she needs to complete her work,” the judge wrote.

Kessler also said the figures the FBI gave the court didn’t really prove that speeding up large requests would slow down smaller ones.

“If the FBI really wanted to demonstrate that processing larger FOIA requests would impact the processing of other requests there are numerous data points it could provide the Court…Instead, the limited data the FBI has provided suggests exactly the opposite,” she wrote, calling the workload information provided to the court “unilluminating.”

The judge also said the FBI’s policy of treating multi-part requests as a single request when doling out the 500 pages a month creates a perverse incentive to break up a request in order to game the system.

Ultimately, Kessler ordered the FBI to process 2,850 pages a month, which should get Seavey the records she’s seeking within three years.

Seavey said she was heartened by the ruling, which she believes will help other requesters in a similar predicament.

“The import of this case is much bigger than we anticipated,” she said. “She said the government’s case was without merit and untenable…She allowed this case to be used as precedent.”

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment on the decision.

It’s not the first FOIA case to produce staggering estimates of how long the government would need to make records public. Last year, the State Department rebuffed a request for emails of aides to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying it could take 75 years to work through the material.

Seavey’s film project focuses on what she called the “ripple effects” of the May 4, 1970, shooting of four students by national guardsmen at Kent State University in Ohio.

Seavey said she is going through records now every day from similar requests filed with the CIA and the National Archives.

“What I’m finding in this material is really astonishing,” she said, adding with a laugh: “I’d say it’s worth the wait, but I probably started this ten years ago.”

On July 30 2017 06:28 zlefin wrote:

Noone you've seen isn't a metric into which I'd put any weight at all.
I'll say it here, hammering trump gets you votes (not many, a tiny number, but positive). there. that's someone saying it.

because you're not reducing the voting population; you're simply presenting info that results in some people deciding there's no vote they want to make, so they chose to not vote. they're free to exercise their vote as they see fit still. I see no basis for your claim that it's undermining democracy if some people simply choose not to vote because they don't like any of the options.
also, such a thing would make all attacks inherently bad; which is rich given how much you've engaged in attacking people, and hence it is inconsistent with everything you've done and said (or would require you to say you're trying to undermine democracy)

On July 30 2017 06:22 IgnE wrote:


and what is their attention impaired by?

teenagers raised on tv and smart phone flash games have a mental illness that is cheapest and best to treat with amphetamines

to "restore normal brain chemistry"

On July 30 2017 06:33 Plansix wrote:

There are some days you drop some ignorant shit in this thread, but this takes the cake.

On July 30 2017 06:33 Plansix wrote:

There are some days you drop some ignorant shit in this thread, but this takes the cake.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will sign a package of stiff financial sanctions against Russia that passed Congress with overwhelming support, the White House said Friday. Moscow has already responded, ordering a reduction in the number of U.S. diplomats in Russia and closing the U.S. Embassy’s recreation retreat.

Trump’s willingness to support the measure is a remarkable acknowledgement that he has yet to sell his party on his hopes for forging a warmer relationship with Moscow. His vow to extend a hand of cooperation to Russian President Vladimir Putin has been met with resistance as skeptical lawmakers look to limit the president’s leeway to go easy on Moscow over its meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

by an overwhelming margin, 419-3. Both were veto-proof numbers.

The White House initially wavered on whether the president would sign the measure into law. But in a statement late Friday, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump had “reviewed the final version and, based on its responsiveness to his negotiations, approves the bill and intends to sign it.”

Never in doubt was a cornerstone of the legislation that bars Trump from easing or waiving the additional penalties on Russia unless Congress agrees. The provisions were included to assuage concerns among lawmakers that the president’s push for better relations with Moscow might lead him to relax the penalties without first securing concessions from the Kremlin.

The legislation is aimed at punishing Moscow for interfering in the 2016 presidential election and for its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria, where the Kremlin has backed President Bashar Assad. It also imposes financial sanctions against Iran and North Korea.

Before Trump’s decision to sign the bill into law, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the bill’s passage was long overdue, a jab at Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress. McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has called Putin a murderer and a thug.

“Over the last eight months what price has Russia paid for attacking our elections?” McCain asked. “Very little.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Friday said it is ordering the U.S. Embassy in Russia to reduce the number of its diplomats by Sept. 1. Russia will also close down the embassy’s recreational retreat on the outskirts of Moscow as well as warehouse facilities.

Meanwhile, some European countries expressed concerns that the measures targeting Russia’s energy sector would harm its businesses involved in piping Russian natural gas. Germany’s foreign minister said his country wouldn’t accept the U.S. sanctions against Russia being applied to European companies.

A spokesman for the European Commission said Friday that European officials will be watching the U.S. effort closely, vowing to “remain vigilant.”

Trump had privately expressed frustration over Congress’ ability to limit or override the power of the president on national security matters, according to Trump administration officials and advisers. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.

But faced with heavy bipartisan support for the bill in the House and Senate, the president had little choice but to sign the bill into law. Trump’s communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, had suggested Thursday that Trump might veto the bill and “negotiate an even tougher deal against the Russians.”

But Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said that would be a serious mistake and called Scaramucci’s remark an “off-handed comment.” If Trump rejected the bill, Corker said, Congress would overrule him.

“I cannot imagine anybody is seriously thinking about vetoing this bill,” said Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “It’s not good for any president — and most governors don’t like to veto things that are going to be overridden. It shows a diminishment of their authority. I just don’t think that’s a good way to start off as president.”

Still, signing a bill that penalizes Russia’s election interference marks a significant shift for Trump. He’s repeatedly cast doubt on the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia sought to tip the election in his favor. And he’s blasted as a “witch hunt” investigations into the extent of Russia’s interference and whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow.

The 184-page bill seeks to hit Putin and the oligarchs close to him by targeting Russian corruption, human rights abusers, and crucial sectors of the Russian economy, including weapons sales and energy exports.

The bill underwent revisions to address concerns voiced by American oil and natural gas companies that sanctions specific to Russia’s energy sector could backfire on them to Moscow’s benefit. The bill raised the threshold for when U.S. firms would be prohibited from being part of energy projects that also included Russian businesses.

Lawmakers said they also made adjustments so the sanctions on Russia’s energy sector didn’t undercut the ability of U.S. allies in Europe to get access to oil and gas resources outside of Russia.

The North Korea sanctions are intended to thwart Pyongyang’s ambition for nuclear weapons by cutting off access to the cash the reclusive nation needs to follow through with its plans. The bill prohibits ships owned by North Korea or by countries that refuse to comply with U.N. resolutions against it from operating in American waters or docking at U.S. ports. Goods produced by North Korea’s forced labor would be prohibited from entering the United States, according to the bill.

The sanctions package imposes mandatory penalties on people involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The measure would apply terrorism sanctions to the country’s Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted against the sanctions bill.

On July 30 2017 06:38 IgnE wrote:


please explain both my position and yours

On July 30 2017 06:40 m4ini wrote:


Is that in regards to ADHD etc?

Which factually was reported in 1902 already in the UK, long before TV/Smartphone? Factually accepted (that doesn't mean it didn't exist beforehand, just that the APA acknowledged that it is a mental disorder) in the US as a mental disorder somewhere in the 60s - again, long before smartphones, in a time where kids were outside rather than watching TV constantly?

On July 30 2017 06:32 GreenHorizons wrote:


Well you're wrong and your assessment is worthless but you're right that it does mean someone said it.

Yeah, I would say running a predominately attack oriented campaign is inherently bad.

On July 30 2017 06:46 Plansix wrote:

Yes. And his assertion that the drugs used to treat it are attempting to restore some sort of imbalance is the peek of misunderstanding. They are to do nothing of the sort.