US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8508

On August 21 2017 03:43 Liquid`Drone wrote:
being the first to develop a killer robot does indeed sound like an amazingly difficult task. But isn't the thing with electronics and programming that it's kinda easy to replicate? I mean missile technology does seem like a pretty damn well guarded secret, but they also blow up, so you can't reverse engineer one.

LOS ANGELES — While President Donald Trump continues to dismantle Obama-era climate policies, an unlikely surge of Republican lawmakers has begun taking steps to distance themselves from the GOP’s hard line on climate change.

The House Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan backwater when it formed early last year, has more than tripled in size since January, driven in part by Trump’s decision in June to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord.

And last month, 46 Republicans joined Democrats to defeat an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill that would have deleted a requirement that the Defense Department prepare for the effects of climate change.

The willingness of some Republicans to buck their party on climate change could help burnish their moderate credentials ahead of the 2018 elections. Of the 26 Republican caucus members, all but five represent districts targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee next year.

But it has also buoyed activists who view the House members’ positioning as a rare sign of GOP movement on climate change.

“Strangely, President Trump helped us,” said Bob Inglis, a former Republican congressman whose views on climate change contributed to his defeat in a South Carolina primary in 2010. “His withdrawal from Paris dramatically increased the number of [internet] searches about climate change and increased interest … People are getting more and more uncomfortable with the nuttiness of these positions.”

In a Republican-held Congress, Inglis said, voting to reject a Republican-backed amendment to the defense authorization bill was “a big step for these members … Members of Congress who are attuned to their districts apparently are picking up on the reality that Americans on both left and right are concerned about climate change.”

If the Republican Party is undergoing a shift on climate, it is at its earliest, most incremental stage. Rejection of mainstream climate science remains widespread within the GOP. Trump has called climate change a “hoax,” and he infuriated environmentalists again this week when he repealed a flood standard for federally funded infrastructure projects.

The Climate Solutions Caucus itself represents only a minority of the Republican conference. And its members have been criticized by environmental activists for their records on issues ranging from oil drilling to climate research, some posting lifetime scores in single digits on the League of Conservation Voters’ environmental scorecard.

Rep. Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat who founded the climate caucus with fellow Floridian Carlos Curbelo, a Republican, said Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement was so jarring that “some of my colleagues were looking for ways to show that they actually do want to respond.” But at least two Republican members of the caucus — Reps. Tom Reed and Claudia Tenney of New York — supported Trump’s withdrawal from the accord.

“I tend to call it the ‘Climate Peacocks Caucus’ … people who express great concern and then vote the wrong way,” said R.L. Miller, founder of the super-PAC Climate Hawks Vote. “Obviously, the caucus is growing in popularity. But my overall sense is that it is being used as political cover. It is no coincidence that the Republicans who joined are on that red-to-blue flip-able list.”

Alex Taurel, deputy legislative director at the League of Conservation Voters, said “there is a wide variety of support for action on climate change, and not just sort of rhetorically accepting the science.”

Still, in their vote on the defense authorization bill, Republicans fought to keep language declaring “climate change is a direct threat to the national security of the United States and is impacting stability in areas of the world.”

Taurel said it is “still too early to know what that vote kind of signifies. But if it represents a harbinger that the caucus is going to start to support things together to reduce carbon pollution, then that’s a real development.”

Curbelo, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the House, said this week that the Climate Solutions Caucus has grown faster than he expected and that “two years ago, I don’t think you could find more than two or three Republicans in the House who were willing to go on record in a significant way” on climate change. He said the group is now focused on “blocking and tackling … opposing anti-climate legislation.”

“I think the next phase, and hopefully we can get to that this Congress, is to turn the caucus into an ideas factory, get behind proactive legislation,” Curbelo said. “I think the vast majority of House Republicans are shifting toward accepting the science and openness toward at least modest policy prescriptions.”

For Republicans, the most politically palatable opening on climate change appears to be on spending, not regulation. Rep. John Faso, a top target of Democrats in New York, said Republicans should push in their infrastructure talks for money to help local and state governments “harden their infrastructure” to gird against climate change. He also suggested including incentives for agriculture-friendly carbon sequestration programs in the farm bill.

On August 21 2017 04:49 Kyadytim wrote:

Hey Danglars, why are you so attached to this? Less than 0.1% of the protesters were arrested. That's not a very significant portion. Also, as far as I've found, no one was even sent to the hospital for injuries. You know what else is comparable? The infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate in the United States, at around 0.6% and 0.25%, respectively. Why aren't you interested in talking about those constantly? Are you like Donald Trump in that you need easily digested visuals to hold your attention?

On August 21 2017 04:49 Kyadytim wrote:

Hey Danglars, why are you so attached to this? Less than 0.1% of the protesters were arrested. That's not a very significant portion. Also, as far as I've found, no one was even sent to the hospital for injuries. You know what else is comparable? The infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate in the United States, at around 0.6% and 0.25%, respectively. Why aren't you interested in talking about those constantly? Are you like Donald Trump in that you need easily digested visuals to hold your attention?

You have good reason to be upset that this president couldn’t meet that modest standard. If you’re on the political right, moreover, you may be even more upset by a poll that says two-thirds of Republicans actually approve of Trump’s response. They believe he ascribed blame accurately.

Well, he didn’t. Does that make the poll result irrational?

I don’t think so. It is not that two-thirds of the Right really think “very fine people” make common cause with the KKK. And it’s not that they really see two sides equally at fault. It is that, regardless of comparative fault, they know there were two sides out there. And they know the media has tried to obscure that fact. The poll is less indicative of settled belief than of gut reaction.

People are fed up. If you dare notice the radical Left, you are not an observer of objective fact, you are a neo-Nazi sympathizer. If you dare notice that many of the “peaceful protesters” were swinging batons and spraying chemicals, you need a re-education course in “unconscious racism.”

On August 21 2017 04:49 Kyadytim wrote:

Hey Danglars, why are you so attached to this? Less than 0.1% of the protesters were arrested. That's not a very significant portion. Also, as far as I've found, no one was even sent to the hospital for injuries. You know what else is comparable? The infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate in the United States, at around 0.6% and 0.25%, respectively. Why aren't you interested in talking about those constantly? Are you like Donald Trump in that you need easily digested visuals to hold your attention?

On August 21 2017 05:56 Introvert wrote:
https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/899357433461714945

With Bannon out, it's time for the generals to step in!

+ Show Spoiler +

On August 21 2017 06:29 Danglars wrote:

Dems and generals. It's looking pretty sparse for an advising team.

On August 21 2017 03:42 Gahlo wrote:

Couldn't you already just strap a triggered bomb onto a drone from someplace like Best Buy and pilot into position?

On August 21 2017 03:43 Plansix wrote:

It is only a matter of time before someone tries that. I am sort of surprised it hasn't happened yet.