U.S. Politics

[StefanAVFC]

9 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

respectfully , You can't swallow every line on Twitter and present it as fact , and when I suggest that the evidence put forward is flawed  , reply that I buy into a "school of thought "

I'm not really remotely interested in Trump ..or defending him .. I'm making a case against accepting "schools of thought " when they are presented to you in 140 words (or whatever it is)

 

 

Obviously that's my entire argument. My entire viewpoint is based on tweets. I lack any degree of critical thinking that I base my entire agenda on... Twitter.

I'm done. Impossible to have any sort of debate without whataboutism or some condescending comment.

Edited January 24, 2017 by StefanAVFC

[villaglint]

I feel stupid but I don't know what gas lighting is....

Too scared to Google it

Edited January 24, 2017 by villaglint

[OutByEaster?]

Here's an interesting article on the policy direction of the Trump administration from Naomi Klein.

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/24/get-ready-for-the-first-shocks-of-trumps-disaster-capitalism/

Quote

 

We already know that the Trump administration plans to deregulate markets, wage all-out war on “radical Islamic terrorism,” trash climate science and unleash a fossil-fuel frenzy. It’s a vision that can be counted on to generate a tsunami of crises and shocks: economic shocks, as market bubbles burst; security shocks, as blowback from foreign belligerence comes home; weather shocks, as our climate is further destabilized; and industrial shocks, as oil pipelines spill and rigs collapse, which they tend to do, especially when enjoying light-touch regulation.

All this is dangerous enough. What’s even worse is the way the Trump administration can be counted on to exploit these shocks politically and economically

 

This sort of policy is always unpopular with your average voter in the street - that's why it's necessary to wait for disasters, or occasionally to generate disasters, or it would appear, to pay a man with stupid hair to point at someone and say "She's fat" so no one notices.

 

[VILLAMARV]

[Xann]

2 hours ago, maqroll said:

His second day on the job, and he's already signed an executive order to push through the Dakota pipeline...

Really?

Already a focal point. Other protesters might get on board?

The army vs shit loads of women.

It could dwarf the last scrap.

 

[villakram]

3 hours ago, maqroll said:

His second day on the job, and he's already signed an executive order to push through the Dakota pipeline...

I would hold off on necking that bottle of JD. He has signed to re-negotiate the pipelines. Now this could well, and may likely, mean: Get in bulldozer, drive over squishy corpses of communist protesters or... 

if the pipeline is really all that important, well then instead of costing $ by delaying, just pay the cost for a re-route and away they go (fingers crossed!).

There is such an interesting battle going on now. Solar prices are falling through the floor and the fossil producers are trying their hardest to up supply and be competitive on price, well the American ones anyway. The rest of the OPEC bunch will try play the cartel oil price game until their dying day. These pipelines could well be huge white elephants.

[HanoiVillan]

3 hours ago, maqroll said:

Sanders running as a Dem was a colossal mistake. 

In no way is this a plausible opinion to hold. 

If he had run as an independent, we would not be talking about his policies or arguments two months after the election. 

[villakram]

6 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

In no way is this a plausible opinion to hold. 

If he had run as an independent, we would not be talking about his policies or arguments two months after the election. 

Sanders should have knifed Clinton and ran as an independant, the opening was there. Throwing his lot in with her was betrayal.

[HanoiVillan]

This meme that dastardly Clinton stole the nomination from innocent Sanders who was really the people's favourite is very tiresome, lacking as it does almost any actual evidence to support it. 

[tonyh29]

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

This meme that dastardly Clinton stole the nomination from innocent Sanders who was really the people's favourite is very tiresome, lacking as it does almost any actual evidence to support it. 

I dunno about Jeremy Sanders being the people's champion but I thought there was enough leaked evidence to support the idea that the nomination was rigged , even if it wasn't stolen ? 

[maqroll]

13 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

In no way is this a plausible opinion to hold. 

If he had run as an independent, we would not be talking about his policies or arguments two months after the election. 

What was done to him by the Dems proves my point. Joining up with them was a massive mistake, it's self evident. He's a sitting US senator, not some fringe figure, and as such would have commanded plenty of attention. 

[Davkaus]

I'm not aware of it being tied directly to Clinton, but it's pretty much beyond doubt that the DNC were set against Sanders, and actively trying to win the nomination for Clinton, when they were meant to be impartial. 

Did you completely miss Debbie Schultz resigning in disgrace as chairwoman of the DNC, then days later taking a job on Clinton's campaign? 

[LondonLax]

2 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

Until just now I'd never heard the word "cuck" .. is it a Yoof thing ?

It started out as a porno/swingers term, short for the adjective 'cuckold' (as in the cuckoo bird who lays its eggs in other birds nests). 

The men's rights guys use it to mean a man who is weak/submissive and lets another man take 'their' woman. 

Now it is used by angry right wing types to belittle men who express a progressive opinion or any support for feminist ideas (usually also in conjunction with the terms 'beta male', 'social justice warrior' and/or 'white knight' :P)

Edited January 24, 2017 by LondonLax

[ml1dch]

15 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I'm not aware of it being tied directly to Clinton, but it's pretty much beyond doubt that the DNC were set against Sanders, and actively trying to win the nomination for Clinton, when they were meant to be impartial. 

Well, given he spent 36 years as a senator, unaffiliated to the Democratic party, and only joined the party in 2015 in order to try and be President you might have forgiven the party machinery for wondering whether it was the Democratic party that he was actually interested in representing.

[Davkaus]

11 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Well, given he spent 36 years as a senator, unaffiliated to the Democratic party, and only joined the party in 2015 in order to try and be President you might have forgiven the party machinery for wondering whether it was the Democratic party that he was actually interested in representing.

That's a decision meant to be made by their voters, not by the DNC.

[Rodders]

https://www.buzzfeed.com/legacy_mobile/dinograndoni/trump-usda?utm_term=.xl8npVqDm8#.ynrLV9Ge5o

Quote

The US Department of Agriculture has banned scientists and other employees in its main research division from publicly sharing everything from the summaries of scientific papers to USDA-branded tweets as it starts to adjust to life under the Trump administration, BuzzFeed News has learned.

According to an email sent Monday morning and obtained by BuzzFeed News, the department told staff — including some 2,000 scientists — at the agency’s main in-house research arm, the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), to stop communicating with the public about taxpayer-funded work.

“Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents,” Sharon Drumm, chief of staff for ARS, wrote in a department-wide email shared with BuzzFeed News.

“This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,” she added.

Indeed, the last tweet from ARS’s official account was sent the day before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

 

 Follow

USDA-ARS 

 

✔@USDA_ARS

Join us 4 Farm Science Day @USDA_ARS’ Maricopa, AZ lab 4 fun farm & science activities, Feb. 18, 10 am w/ @UofA.

6:14 PM - 19 Jan 2017

Though the terse internal note did not explicitly mention the new presidential administration, department scientists around the country interpreted it as a message from Trump that changes were coming to the department.

The memo was also met with some confusion. When asked if the notice constituted a halt on the publication of academic articles, one regional director told scientists that research papers could be published in academic journals and presented at conferences, but that all media interviews must be approved by the office of communications in Washington.

In a statement on Tuesday to BuzzFeed News, the department acknowledged sending an internal email that halted the release of “informational products like news releases and social media content” on Monday. “Scientific publications, released through peer reviewed professional journals are not included,” he added.

“As the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientific in-house research agency, ARS values and is committed to maintaining the free flow of information between our scientists and the American public as we strive to find solutions to agricultural problems affecting America,” Christopher Bentley, a spokesperson for ARS, said in the statement.

Though some Agricultural Research Service work touches on sensitive subjects like pesticides and genetically modified food, its research is generally less politically charged than that conducted by other agencies, especially those focused on understanding climate change, such as the Environmental Protection Agency.

But under the Obama administration, the Agriculture Department funneled research money into finding ways of cutting down the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from cows.

The nomination of former Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia as agriculture secretary puts the fate of that and other department research touching on climate change into question. Like President Trump himself, Perdue has in the past bucked the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are warming due to human activity.

“It’s become a running joke among the public,” Perdue wrote in the National Review in 2014, “and liberals have lost all credibility when it comes to climate science because their arguments have become so ridiculous and so obviously disconnected from reality.”

Other agencies are under lockdown as well since Trump moved into the White House.

Employees at the National Park Service were told to stop tweeting from official park accounts. The Trump administration has also imposed a freeze on grants and contracts from the EPA, the Huffington Post and ProPublica reported on Monday. The EPA, too, is no longer issuing press releases or posting on social media, according to the reports.

 

[maqroll]

Repression in full effect. 

[ml1dch]

3 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

That's a decision meant to be made by their voters, not by the DNC.

The choice to vote for him or not is a decision for their voters. And plenty did.

But at an administrative level, it's hardly a massive scandal that career Democrats prefer another career Democrat rather than a bloke who has spent an entire career deliberately not wanting to be part of their organisation until it looked like it might benefit him.

[LondonLax]

Well as president you've got to control the narrative don't you. You wouldn't want pesky scientists presenting 'alternative facts'.

Edited January 24, 2017 by LondonLax

[Davkaus]

5 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

The choice to vote for him or not is a decision for their voters. And plenty did.

But at an administrative level, it's hardly a massive scandal that career Democrats prefer another career Democrat rather than a bloke who has spent an entire career deliberately not wanting to be part of their organisation until it looked like it might benefit him.

They can personally prefer whoever they like. Using their position and influence to 'choose' a candidate actually is a scandal, that's why the chairwoman was forced to resign. It completely undermines any faith in the DNC when they don't even abide by their own rules.