All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Trump team demands Mueller return thousands of emails — but promises to ‘vet’ them and give them back

Ah, yeah right as if that's gonna happen. And even if it did, the cat is already out of the bag and there is no way Trump is going to put that kitty back in his sack.

There really , REALLY must be something in those e-mails at this stage. Its like they are literally waiving a red flag.

[Tami]

WATCH: CNN host left speechless as ex-Fox News analyst breaks her confidentiality agreement and exposes Rupert Murdoch

“Fox News ruined people’s lives,” an impassioned Holder explained. “He [Murdoch] ruined my life. I don’t have a job in TV anymore because the place that he has secured down like Fort Knox allowed abusive predators to work. That is not nonsense, this is people’s lives. He said it wasn’t just Roger Ailes. Well, we don’t need to name names, we know it wasn’t just Roger. He said ‘nothing more since then’ — that’s a lie. We also know that Bill O’Reilly paid $30 million plus to somebody and, of course, they rehired him after that.”

“He says there are cases that amounted to flirting,” she continued. “Let me be clear. I had a man pull out his penis in his office and shove my head on it. That was not flirting. — that was criminal. That was not sexual harassment. I’m not the only case, there are women who can’t speak out.”

“Either Mr. Murdoch is a liar or he’s delusional and old and needs to get out,” she stated. “If you’re an investor, you need to decide, do you want your money with a man who has continued to lie to you for the past 20 years, your money, hundreds of millions of dollars of your money has gone to women over and over and over again. and we’ve been told that we have to shut up.”

[Tami]

Jones, just no.

Don't make me regret your victory, man. You should know better. This is an issue that needs to be addressed, now more than ever. Especially after you won against an opponent whom you ridiculed for similar crimes.

There is something to be said for due process. I want Trump out as much as or more so than just about anyone, but there could be blowback if he is forced out the wrong way.

[JCAll]

Sen. John McCain will not be in Washington to vote on the GOP's tax bill due to medical concerns.

They are one vote backing out away from botching this. That also assumes that Sen. Thad Cochran is healthy enough to vote.

That must be why they were so keen to get Corker to flip.

[aja_christopher]

I was an amateur writing a general overview in one post on a message board. That doesn't give much space to consider larger nuances, or analysis. Even in that context, I acknowledged that fracking has problems.

If you have any useful links I'd appreciate seeing it.

An issue with clean energy solutions is that the technology hasn't quite gotten to the point where it's a suitable replacement for current alternatives in order to maintain our current way of life. Tax credits aren't going to solve that.

Neither is cutting funding for those tax credits and slashing funding for the EPA while attempting to diminish and discredit proven scientific data about global warming, as the current Republican Administration does.

There's really no point in continuing to debate things like this with you -- you conveniently overlook that the Republican party repeatedly lies about things like deficit spending, continuously infringes on the rights of those "minority" citizens who don't make up it's "base", has no problem denying a sitting President his rightful Supreme Court pick, and is currently trying to discredit the lawful investigation into Trump's potentially treasonous ties to Russia by attacking Mueller and the FBI directly.

They are not at all the party of integrity that you seem to want to make them out to be -- whether fiscal, moral, or otherwise -- especially in comparison to the Democratic party, and I say that as someone who at one time had considered voting Republican prior to the the last Republican administration in office.

At the end of the day, Trump himself is the best "argument" I can make against the Republican party outside of G.W. Bush, Rumsfield and Cheney -- there's no point in even bothering to go there with you, as the political records in question speak for themselves.

That said, while your conservative "ideals" might be respectable on paper, the reality is a completely different animal.

[numberthirty]

Question, doesnt black wonen vote almost always democrat, and if they leave the dems where will they go? Republican? I dont think so

One guy's take...

Having an alternative(or not) won't change that you have come to the conclusion that your concerns are not at the forefront of where a political parties' concerns are.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Jones, just no.

Don't make me regret your victory, man. You should know better. This is an issue that needs to be addressed, now more than ever. Especially after you won against an opponent whom you ridiculed for similar crimes.

Wow! Just....wow! Words fail me.

[Mister Mets]

Try this:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/mem...enate/ideology
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/mem...house/ideology

Those are a good start, although a bit incomplete.

An analysis of legislative records isn't going to provide much information about executives, white house officials and other major political players.

The legislative record is largely limited to what's allowed to make it to a vote, which tends to weed out the most extreme stuff. Measuring ideology by how often individuals vote with their party can also be imperfect, since the person with a hundred percent might just be a partisan loyal to the establishment. A vote is seen as equally liberal/ conservative regardless of the stated reasons, so you could have a Republican who voted against Health Care reform because it didn't go far enough lumped in with Democrats who voted against it because they think changes would be harmful (to be fair, there is an argument for this given results.)

There will also be some political figures who aren't going to perfectly compare to others on a left/ right spectrum. For example, Rand Paul will be more uncompromising on some fiscal/ regulatory issues than most Republicans, but he might also side with Democrats on certain topics.

This discussion reminds me of Robert Reich's attempt to split the parties.

http://robertreich.org/post/166784538395

He thinks it comes down to Establishment Republicans, Anti-establishment Republicans, Social Conservative Republicans, Establishment Democrats, Anti-Establishment Democrats and Trump. In that case, the divide isn't completely over voting records.

[Gray Lensman]

Trump team demands Mueller return thousands of emails — but promises to ‘vet’ them and give them back

Ah, yeah right as if that's gonna happen. And even if it did, the cat is already out of the bag and there is no way Trump is going to put that kitty back in his sack.

They are emails - send them back after they get copied.

[numberthirty]

Jones, just no.

Don't make me regret your victory, man. You should know better. This is an issue that needs to be addressed, now more than ever. Especially after you won against an opponent whom you ridiculed for similar crimes.

Wow! Just....wow! Words fail me.

Why?

It's not like they elected some "Seriously Hard Left" Democrat.

[4saken1]

In California, do the new jungle primaries mean the presidential election is the only one where party registration matters?

Pretty much! Other than that, they are all Open Primaries. In Presidential Elections, it's pretty much what the individual Parties decide for that cycle.

Tax breaks and rebates have some issues of their own. It can subvert the free market if the government is basically paying for something deemed useful, which keeps costs quite high. The utility is also a bit limited since a significant portion of the population doesn't pay enough in taxes to get major breaks.

The rebates that were offered in California several years ago were actually instrumental in me getting solar panels on my house and refurbishing some rental properties as well. If consumers can get things like this done at a drastically reduced rate, it will encourage more of them to do so. I get what you are saying about things like this keeping costs high, though. There should be wording in laws that keep vendors from fleecing the system.

I get that Democrats prefer a focus on renewable energy, but it undercuts the message on climate change if they're not willing to compromise, so that a radical reimagining of society is more important than the guarantees of avoiding an existential threat.

With welfare programs, you'd have to weight the benefits and the costs. Laws and programs can have unintended consequences, and I wouldn't suggest that a Christian whose religion motivates their political views support a program that helps some people if the net results are harmful. The objection also isn't limited to abuse. A woman who opts not to marry the father of her children because it would mess with her benefits isn't abusing the system; she's responding to messed up incentives.

A point on the greens is that they might have better results operating within the Democratic party.

I agree with all that for the most part. We just have different emphasis on the usefulness and harm that social programs do. When I see Social Security, I tend to look at how things were before it was enacted. Despite it's flaws, I don't revel in going back to a time where elderly people who didn't invest in their retirements were forced to live on the streets. Every law that has ever been passed has bonuses and drawbacks. IMO, it's about making sure the latter are dwarfed by the former.

WRT welfare, it just seems that the Republican Party focuses heavily on those few who are taking advantage of the system and don't really take into account the majority of those who are actually trying and/or unable to work that are hurt by measures to eliminate these programs.

[Gray Lensman]

WRT welfare, it just seems that the Republican Party focuses heavily on those few who are taking advantage of the system and don't really take into account the majority of those who are actually trying and/or unable to work that are hurt by measures to eliminate these programs.

I came out of one of those Republican areas and I think everyone knew someone who was shamelessly milking the system. The question is how to get the people who really don't deserve it off of the system without either throwing the baby out with the bathwater or costing more than anything saved by fighting the fraud. I think it was Michigan which spent about 10x finding drug users on the system than they saved by not paying them. Waaaaasteful.

[numberthirty]

I came out of one of those Republican areas and I think everyone knew someone who was shamelessly milking the system. The question is how to get the people who really don't deserve it off of the system without either throwing the baby out with the bathwater or costing more than anything saved by fighting the fraud. I think it was Michigan which spent about 10x finding drug users on the system than they saved by not paying them. Waaaaasteful.

Along that line...

A while back, it seems like we went over that reimbursing Florida welfare recipients who passed the drug tests that the state intended to save money on by booting folks using drugs off of the program wound up costing the state a bunch of money.

While I'm all for oversight, you also need to be able to accept when the cost of oversight will likely be greater than what you might save by way of the oversight.

[Gray Lensman]

Along that line...

A while back, it seems like we went over that reimbursing Florida welfare recipients who passed the drug tests that the state intended to save money on by booting folks using drugs off of the program wound up costing the state a bunch of money.

While I'm all for oversight, you also need to be able to accept when the cost of oversight will likely be greater than what you might save by way of the oversight.

A little more is worth it when you consider it restores some faith in the system - but when you start hitting multiples something is wrong.

[Dalak]

I came out of one of those Republican areas and I think everyone knew someone who was shamelessly milking the system. The question is how to get the people who really don't deserve it off of the system without either throwing the baby out with the bathwater or costing more than anything saved by fighting the fraud. I think it was Michigan which spent about 10x finding drug users on the system than they saved by not paying them. Waaaaasteful.

They found no one, so it was all waste:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...esting-program
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/new...ning/94826672/

Please post a link if I'm wrong and new data has been found, or if any testing like this found any real number of people.