bmags Posted January 1, 2017 Share Posted January 1, 2017 Great year, 2016. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 1, 2017 Share Posted January 1, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted January 2, 2017 Share Posted January 2, 2017 http://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-pres...big-way-2016-12 Trump's presidency is going to hurt most Americans in a very bigly way... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 Totally living up to the stereotype I have of the entire Republican party as corrupt, the Republican Congress has decided there should not be any nonpartisan ethics office with any oversight of Congress, they should control all of it. As they returned to Washington following a holiday break, House Republicans voted in a closed-door meeting to place the Office of Congressional Ethics under the oversight of the House Ethics Committee, giving lawmakers greater control over an independent body charged with investigating their behavior. The measure was added to a broader rules package that is expected to pass when the House formally convenes on Tuesday. The ethics office was created in 2008 following several corruption scandals, but some lawmakers have charged in recent years that it has been too quick to investigate complaints lodged by outside partisan groups. .... House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who created the ethics office while House speaker following complaints that lawmakers were unable to effectively police themselves, said Republicans were eliminating the only independent body charged with monitoring their actions. "Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress," Pelosi said in a statement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 More evidence that Nixon deliberately sabotaged the 68 Paris peace talks to help his election. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/opini...m.facebook.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 (edited) It's telling not the even the real Republicans are bothering to "fight the good fight" to defend Trump...there have been a few, but the total of remaining defenders feels like 5 or less, for what has always been perceived as a slightly right/fiscal conservative and socially moderate board (especially the majority of mods, other than Balta and a couple others). Edited January 3, 2017 by caulfield12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quin Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 QUOTE (Tony @ Jan 2, 2017 -> 10:15 PM) Greg? Brett? ANYONE??? Something something Benghazi something something emails. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 Trump won't even use e-mails. He's going to use government (one shudders at the waste of resources there) couriers. Can't wait for some of those guys to be kidnapped by Russian agents when Trump falls out of favor with Putin (or vice versa). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmags Posted January 3, 2017 Author Share Posted January 3, 2017 Wow, didnt remember this. GOP did same thing in 05 after gaining unilateral control http://mobile.nytimes.com/2005/01/05/polit...=0&referer= Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 3, 2017 -> 10:09 AM) Wow, didnt remember this. GOP did same thing in 05 after gaining unilateral control http://mobile.nytimes.com/2005/01/05/polit...=0&referer= If Donald Trump's cabinet has taught us nothing, its that Republican voters do not care one iota about how much politicians loot the government as long as they aren't letting that money go to the blah people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brett05 Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 I'm confused....the committee that was supposed to be independent is corrupt so it is getting oversight. What specifically did I miss? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 Well, corrupt in the eyes of those who don't want to be scrutinized. In the end, it will only result in more media-driven investigations...which will then be ridiculed for being witch hunts aimed almost exclusively at poor Donald Trump and the GOP. Nobody can even agree that there is such an entity as a truly bipartisan committee anywhere in government these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrimsonWeltall Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 QUOTE (brett05 @ Jan 3, 2017 -> 04:39 PM) I'm confused....the committee that was supposed to be independent is corrupt so it is getting oversight. What specifically did I miss? How was it corrupt? It already had oversight. Now it has no power. The House can shut down its investigations and they're not allowed to release any info to the public. I'd say this is bad optics for Republicans but there's no such thing anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 Well, at least for now it seems like the backlash worked and that vote seems on the verge of being overturned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmags Posted January 3, 2017 Author Share Posted January 3, 2017 once again we see that calls to congressman matter a great deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyyle23 Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 3, 2017 -> 11:52 AM) once again we see that calls to congressman matter a great deal. I wish this sort of thing happened last month when the NC republicans cut off the incoming democrat governors nuts before he came into office. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmags Posted January 3, 2017 Author Share Posted January 3, 2017 QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 3, 2017 -> 11:56 AM) I wish this sort of thing happened last month when the NC republicans cut off the incoming democrat governors nuts before he came into office. Problem is few NC state congressman are in at-risk districts after their gerrymandering of 10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 Balta posted that report last month that technically NC no longer meets the standards of a full democracy. Would be really nice for some sort of equal protection ruling mandating nonpartisan districting. I think we're one of the handful of countries that allows politicians to draw their own districts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 3, 2017 -> 03:21 PM) Balta posted that report last month that technically NC no longer meets the standards of a full democracy. Would be really nice for some sort of equal protection ruling mandating nonpartisan districting. I think we're one of the handful of countries that allows politicians to draw their own districts. HA! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pettie4sox Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 3, 2017 -> 02:21 PM) Balta posted that report last month that technically NC no longer meets the standards of a full democracy. Would be really nice for some sort of equal protection ruling mandating nonpartisan districting. I think we're one of the handful of countries that allows politicians to draw their own districts. Why on earth would a politicians want to win fair and square when they can rig it before it starts? The people that keep voting these idiots in are to blame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chisoxfn Posted January 5, 2017 Share Posted January 5, 2017 QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 2, 2017 -> 08:40 PM) It's telling not the even the real Republicans are bothering to "fight the good fight" to defend Trump...there have been a few, but the total of remaining defenders feels like 5 or less, for what has always been perceived as a slightly right/fiscal conservative and socially moderate board (especially the majority of mods, other than Balta and a couple others). I'd argue the board is pretty liberal...do agree there are a handful of mods that fit the bill you are describing, myself included. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 5, 2017 Share Posted January 5, 2017 QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 3, 2017 -> 04:21 PM) Balta posted that report last month that technically NC no longer meets the standards of a full democracy. We're on to a different thread, but I felt it important to post this - someone at Slate took a more detailed look at how that professor's methods worked and at least to their pass it didn't seem to stand up to scrutiny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quin Posted January 5, 2017 Share Posted January 5, 2017 QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 5, 2017 -> 03:20 PM) I'd argue the board is pretty liberal...do agree there are a handful of mods that fit the bill you are describing, myself included. I think liberal posters post in here more, but the board leans conservative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 6, 2017 Share Posted January 6, 2017 Today Paul Ryan stated that along with ending the Affordable Care Act he plans to de-fund Planned Parenthood nationwide. There's interesting data on this because in 2011 the state of Texas did something very similar to what Paul Ryan wants to do, and at the time including on this board we heard that other organizations would just make up the difference. It might have been missed last fall but during the Presidential Campaign a study came out showing that literally at the exact same time as the Texas Republicans did this, the mortality rate for women during birth doubled in a 1 year period. The researchers found no similar change in any other state at that time, noted that the deaths were concentrated amongst minority groups, and although they hesitated to state that the clinic closures were the only cause they noted that they had no other examples of a similar spike in women's mortality during birth due to anything other than "war, natural disaster, or severe economic upheaval". This is only deaths during birth, not due to any other type of screening offered by those facilities that were shuttered. Based on the 400,000 live births in 2014 in this state, this is roughly 360 deaths of women during birth due to that spike in deaths. Texas's rate of deaths of women during birth is comparable to, and in 2012 worse than Mexico. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brett05 Posted January 6, 2017 Share Posted January 6, 2017 QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 5, 2017 -> 03:27 PM) I think liberal posters post in here more, but the board leans conservative. I must miss a lot of posts. It seems the board is 90+ liberal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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