US Politics Mega-thread - Page 973

On April 03 2014 13:20 GreenHorizons wrote:
There is just so many interesting tidbits wrapped up in your response I'm going to have to come back to them later.

However, I did want to say kudos again for realizing conservatives should of been embracing Green Energy alternatives and recycling way back to Carter, instead of dismissing them, or deriding them and/or Carter for embracing what you now see as a necessary inevitability even if it is generations later than it could of been.

""We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. We will have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve now." Carter -1977

"Drill baby drill' anyone?

We probably could of reduced our need to fund despots, dictators, and 'terrorists' in order to get their oil too.

I just had to take a moment to appreciate the new direction conservatives are planning to head in being bullish on Green Energy, getting serious about recycling, and identifying 46% of American Christians and nearly 60% of the Republican party as 'religious fundamentalists'

Thank you Jonny for leading the way

On April 03 2014 14:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

If you want to continue the discussion you need to drop the childish partisan crap. It's really disgusting and I'm not going to be a part of it.

On April 03 2014 14:35 Danglars wrote:
The growth of HSAs was the organic change to eliminating the middleman. You estimate your costs, you pay for catastrophic risk insurance, you're in control. Government plans, repeatedly underfunded and oversold on their supposed merits are the inefficient middlemen now. Their absurd changes to minimum requirements aren't responsive to the needs of the people, just the top-level planners. The VA hospital system here shows just how wasteful and poor government is managing health care. So firstly I wonder where the US government has ever shown itself capable of managing even on par with its private counterparts. Now when you talk 'social minimum,' that's been up for debate since Washington starting its weaving requirements on taxation and rules. Frankly, you could make the case that its the detached politicians influenced by special interests that act to their own political advantage (to be thought of as caring and sensitive) rather than for their constituents. I doubt very much if a good scrap and restart approach would have any success if it was Washington in its current state designing socialized medicine.

On April 03 2014 15:05 GreenHorizons wrote:


I didn't see anything particularly partisan or childish, let alone disgusting? But if that's all you got for a response then I'm content with what has been established thus far.

On April 03 2014 16:12 IgnE wrote:
Wolfstan taking a surprising position.

On April 03 2014 16:20 Wolfstan wrote:


He's basically saying that you should have a discussion with Jonny and not the conservative stereotype.

I don't particular care enough about the discussion regarding limited resources vs. consumption but I'd start by adding to the energy figures. I'm just too lazy to google crop yield per acre US 1900, US 2000 and Bangladesh 2000. Also birth rates US 1900, US 2000, Bangladesh 2000. Charts for Recycling, Conservation of land and crime per capita would be cool too. Even without those statistics I am fairly confident we are already making headway and whether or not the planet can take 7 billion people consuming at US 2000 is sustainable or not; blowing up the last 100 years of progress and increases in lifestyle is not an option.

The soldier who opened fire Wednesday at Fort Hood, Texas was carrying a semiautomatic handgun that wasn't registered with the military base, according to an Army official.

Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, the senior officer at Fort Hood, said in a press conference that the suspect had a .45- caliber Smith and Wesson semiautomatic pistol. The weapon had been purchased recently and was not registered on base, he said.

Milley also said concealed-carry of weapons was not allowed on base. House Homeland Security Chair Michael McCaul (R-TX) said hours after the shooting that had troops been allowed to concealed-carry on base, they would have been able to defend themselves.

The suspect killed three fellow service members and wounded 16 others before committing suicide. Milley said there was no indication that the mass shooting had ties to terrorism.

Views on drugs and drug policy in the United States have shifted significantly in the last few years, as Americans become more amicable to the idea of lenient punishment for drug users than ever before, according to a new survey.

The poll, Pew Research Center’s first comprehensive look at drug policy since 2001, suggests that Americans are not only supportive of less harsh laws for marijuana, but also for hard drugs like cocaine and heroin.

Drug reform advocates say the survey shows the public has had a harsh reaction to the expensive and largely ineffective policies of the “war on drugs.” But they also say the survey only tells half the story: while public perception may have shifted, many policies that people seem to disagree with remain in place, with few signs from politicians that they are willing to reverse course anytime soon.

“The public is definitely pretty far ahead of politicians,” said Jag Davies of the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization that promotes alternatives to current drug policy. “Elected officials have been so scared for so long, but they’re starting to realize it’s to their benefit to reevaluate (their policies).”

The survey, conducted in February and released on Wednesday, finds that 67 percent of Americans think the government should focus less on punishment and more on treatment for drug users, including users of heroin and cocaine.

On April 04 2014 03:37 Acertos wrote:
To contribute to the debate about wealth and minimal wages, here is an article about a book regarding capital accumulation and its consequencies. Definitely worth the long read, interpretations should be taken with caution.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2014/03/31/140331crbo_books_cassidy?currentPage=all

On April 03 2014 15:59 Wolfstan wrote:


That's why you grab the low hanging fruit left in the wake of obamacare. I am a conservative living in a world of socialized medicine and the ideas can be congruent with each other.

Put the healthcare file under state jurisdiction.
California wants to include transgender operations in state hospitals? South Carolina doesn't have to, problem solved. Let the states put "social minimum" to an election issue. Let private healthcare do the rest.
Virginia tax base can't afford to salary state doctors New York's cost of living rates? Doesn't have to, problem solved. That doctor can move to New York or go into private healthcare if he has greater salary expectations.

Take the healthcare spending at 15% of GDP and set to grow under Obamacare, plus underfunding of entitlements and shrink it to 10% of GDP, bringing it in line with the rest of the developed world.

Funding healthcare from taxes is a lot more palatable to me than the system currently set up in the US. Take money from my cheque in exchange for doctors, teachers, emergency services and infrastructure that I can use and I will vote for that person whether I feel I'm getting enough value for the transaction. I would not be cool with money being withheld from me for old, poor losers who are not me via Medicare and Medicaid. THEN force me to pay for private insurance I don't need as the healthy, wealthy male demographic so that old, poor, and sick losers can get cheaper insurance premiums. THEN budget out of pocket medical expenses and insurance deductibles from my remaining paycheque for healthcare I DO need.

It is too easy to pick apart Obamacare but conservatives won't be taken seriously if they are not willing to provide alternatives. Repealing it won't work if you are only going to go back to the broken mess before. State operated health care can be just as a conservative and prudent use of taxpayer dollars as infrastructure and investment in technology.

On April 04 2014 08:58 IgnE wrote:


Whitedog and others have already cited that book and posted related interviews.

As for the minimum wage gap:

The one thing that we can agree on is that the data doesn't show either way whether increasing the minimum wage will affect employment. Looking at all of the data, it's about a wash. Some show increases, some show decreases, and some show no effect.

Therefore we should make the decision based on some other criterion. Like public policy and fairness. If you ignore unemployment, the minimum wage should be raised because it benefits those most in need. There aren't any good arguments for not raising the minimum wage when you ignore the potential effect on unemployment, which is unknowable, and our best estimates indicate that it is as likely to have a positive as a negative effect.

On April 04 2014 13:07 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

I don't think you ignore the uncertainty over job losses, I think you manage it.

Ex. raise the min wage by less than you'd like, collect data, if job losses are hard to see, raise it some more. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted Tuesday to declassify the executive summary of a report detailing the CIA's George W. Bush-era torture and interrogation program, a move that will push the White House into the center of a fierce debate over how much to reveal about the agency's contentious post-9/11 actions.

The committee's vote was 11-3, with Democrats joined by several Republicans.

"The report exposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain on our history that must never again be allowed to happen," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the committee's chair, said in a statement.

"It is now abundantly clear that, in an effort to prevent further terrorist attacks after 9/11 and bring those responsible to justice, the CIA made serious mistakes that haunt us to this day," said Feinstein. "We are acknowledging those mistakes, and we have a continuing responsibility to make sure nothing like this ever occurs again."

The committee began work on its 6,200-page report in 2009 and finished it in December 2012. Since then, however, the report has been caught in the middle of back-and-forth accusations between Senate Democrats and the CIA. In the latest, most public and most contentious episode, Feinstein accused the CIA of spying on Senate staffers as they were producing the report, and both sides have sent criminal referrals on the matter to the Justice Department.

The committee voted to declassify a 480-page executive summary of the report, as well as 20 findings and conclusions. The process could take weeks or months. The White House said later Thursday that the CIA will take the lead role on declassifying the information, the Guardian reported -- leaving much of the fate of the highly critical report in the agency's own hands.