US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9041

On October 21 2017 21:05 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:

source

Preparing for something big needing so many extra pilots on short notice?

I wonder what type of pilots they mean when they say they are short 1500. Surely a fighter pilot is still a wanted job? So probably boring drone operators or something?

Also how does 'calling people back from retirement' work? Can they force you to do something you don't want to? Is this like a focused draft order?

On October 21 2017 21:16 GreenHorizons wrote:


Basically the contract they sign says retirees can be recalled to active service any time for the rest of their lives. Various conditions can reduce the likelihood of being recalled. There are various other ways someone who considers themselves "out of the service" can be recalled to active duty as well.

On October 21 2017 21:05 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:

source

Preparing for something big needing so many extra pilots on short notice?

I wonder what type of pilots they mean when they say they are short 1500. Surely a fighter pilot is still a wanted job? So probably boring drone operators or something?

Also how does 'calling people back from retirement' work? Can they force you to do something you don't want to? Is this like a focused draft order?

On October 21 2017 23:27 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
Will we finally know who killed Kennedy? (My bet is that it was Cruz's father).

Source

On October 22 2017 00:33 Danglars wrote:

Where's my story about how he's upgrading from pleasing white supremacists to pleasing conspiracy nuts?

On October 22 2017 00:33 Danglars wrote:

Where's my story about how he's upgrading from pleasing white supremacists to pleasing conspiracy nuts?

In the hours after President Donald Trump said on an Oct. 17 radio broadcast that he had contacted nearly every family that had lost a military service member this year, the White House was hustling to learn from the Pentagon the identities and contact information for those families, according to an internal Defense Department email.

The email exchange, which has not been previously reported, shows that senior White House aides were aware on the day the president made the statement that it was not accurate — but that they should try to make it accurate as soon as possible, given the gathering controversy.

Not only had the president not contacted virtually all the families of military personnel killed this year, the White House did not even have an up-to-date list of those who had been killed.

The exchange between the White House and the Defense secretary’s office occurred about 5 p.m. on Oct. 17. The White House asked the Pentagon for information about surviving family members of all servicemembers killed after Trump’s inauguration so that the president could be sure to contact all of them.

Capt. Hallock Mohler, the executive secretary to Defense Secretary James Mattis, provided the White House with information in the 5 p.m. email about how each servicemember had died and the identity of his or her survivors, including phone numbers.

The email’s subject line was, “Condolence Letters Since 20 January 2017.”

Mohler indicated in the email that he was responding to a request from the president’s staff for information through Ylber Bajraktari, an aide on the National Security Council. The objective was to figure out who among so-called Gold Star families of the fallen Trump had yet to call. Mohler’s email said that the president’s aides “reached out to Ylber looking for the following ASAP from DOD.”

Trump had said in a Fox News Radio interview earlier that day that he had contacted the families of “virtually everybody” in the military who had been killed since he was inaugurated.

“I have called, I believe, everybody — but certainly I’ll use the word virtually everybody,” Trump said.

Since then, the Associated Press contacted 20 families and found that half had not heard from Trump. It is not clear how many of the families that have heard from the president received the calls this week, since the controversy over his contacts with military families erupted. It is not clear when the White House first asked for data on Gold Star families, but it is clear that the answers had not been provided before Tuesday.

The Pentagon email indicates that 21 military personnel had been killed in action during Trump’s tenure, and an additional 44 had been killed by means other than enemy fire, such as ship collisions that took 17 sailors’ lives in the Pacific this summer.

Trump has clearly been active in reaching out to military families who have suffered the ultimate loss, as the AP reports show.

But the White House-Pentagon email scramble Tuesday undermines the veracity of Trump’s statement about his record of contacting all Gold Star families. The internal document also sheds light on how the White House staff, on this and other occasions, has had to go into damage-control mode when the president makes inaccurate statements.

On Oct. 18, the day after the president’s aides had sought and received the Gold Star family data from the Pentagon, a reporter at a White House press conference asked Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders whether Trump had in fact contacted all the families.

“The president’s made contact with all of the families that have been presented to him through the White House Military Office,” she replied. “All of the individuals that the president has been presented with through the proper protocol have been contacted through that process.”

That language is hedged. “Made contact” does not mean a phone call necessarily, and “through that process” could mean letters of condolence or other forms.

The administration echoed Sanders’ language Friday night.

“The White House ensured that the President had contacted all families of soldiers killed in action that had been presented to him through existing protocols,” spokesman Raj Shah said in an email.

On October 22 2017 01:18 Toadesstern wrote:


"all families presented to him" is also something entirely different from "all families"...

"Mounting evidence suggests that Monsanto knew about the hazards posed by glyphosate exposure, but failed to disclose this information to the public. Any time a corporation markets a harmful product to consumers as safe for use, it must be held accountable for the damage caused by that product.
Glyphosate is the product of both modern chemistry and a profoundly corrupt corporate culture. It is sad for our country and our people that such a powerful economic leader can only be trusted to put private greed before public health."

In fact, the only legal basis for allowing GE foods to be marketed in the U.S. is the FDA’s claim that these foods are inherently safe, a claim which is patently ridiculous. Documents released as a result of a lawsuit against the FDA reveal that the agency's own scientists warned their superiors about the detrimental risks of GE foods. But their warnings fell on deaf ears.

Between 1997 and 2002 the number of peanut allergies doubled, and the number of hospitalizations related to allergic reactions to food increased by 265 percent.
Between 1997 and 2011, food allergies (of all types) among children rose by 50 percent. Today, an estimated 15 million Americans and 17 million Europeans have some form of food allergy. Incidence of celiac disease and other forms of food intolerance have also become more common.
So is there something "foreign" in our food today that wasn't there before? Absolutely. There's a whole host of ingredients that could cause problems, including food dyes, artificial flavors, preservatives, various additives and, of course, GMOs.

Contrary to other nations, certain U.S. states are actually passing legislation that protects the use of genetically engineered seeds and allows for their unabated expansion!

Bills like these are essentially bought and paid for through the millions of dollars Monsanto and other biotech companies spend lobbying the U.S. government each year.

"Reform efforts" are in actuality little more than fake efforts to appease the critics. For example, the system forbids lobbyists from taking a Congressman to sit-down lunch for 25 dollars, but allows them to take him to a fundraising lunch—where food is served standing up—and give him 25,000 dollars extra to boot. So despite "reform efforts" to stop lobbyists from plying politicians with free meals, they still have all the same access, and all the same interaction with that Congressman—they just have to stand up to do it...

And while there have been efforts at reform, the system has never actually changed and continues to this day because the people who make the reforms are the people within the system itself

Alright, now that we've been labeled as "enablers of domestic eco-terrorism" as well—again by simply reporting on research that is published in peer-reviewed journals and interviewing educated researchers and professionals in the field—let's take a look at who's behind the name calling. The first author of this hit-piece is Jay Byrne, whose author's bio identifies him as president of v-Fluence Interactive Public Relations, Inc. Why does Mr. Byrne fail to mention in his bio that he was a former Monsanto executive?

Why are doctors who profit from vaccines the spokesmen for public health? Can government health agencies really be trusted to protect our children when they are so wedded to the pharmaceutical industry?