The General US Politics Thread

Arkansas is #5 Most Socialist! the #2 Dumbest! #2 Least Drunk State! #2 Poorest State!

Well, thank god for Mississippi...

EDIT: Damn you page topper...

edited 26th Aug '14 2:13:02 PM by Gabrael

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

That's basically the exact reason a lot of rural right-wingers are often unable to conceptualize urban poverty. There's been such a tremendous disparity in cost of living that a lot of places really are only just now starting to feel the same problems that urban poor have felt for decades. A little before I left college I was making $14/hr as an intern, and that would very nearly have been a comfortable wage in the town where I was living.

Now I'm making almost twice that, and in Portland it's pretty close to even. If I moved to our California office dead in the middle of Silicon Valley, I'd be broke within the year unless I got a hell of a raise to go with it.

edited 26th Aug '14 3:04:38 PM by Pykrete

ExxonMobil Corp. has agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle federal claims arising from a 2012 crude oil pipeline spill in Louisiana.

President Barack Obama sought to make amends with veterans on Tuesday, announcing steps to expand their access to mental health care and an initiative with financial firms to lower home loan costs for military families.

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016

$1.4 million? That's a gross insult.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

They're missing a couple zeroes there

Oh really when?

We need to stop negotiating with these companies to pay lesser settlements and start sticking them with the bill for fixing whatever mess they make, plus punitive damages.

Anything less than full reparation is a subsidy.

The Socalist States thing may be bull, as it's based purely on spending and not on actual Socalism.

To quote "In order to measure the degree to which different states reflect socialist principles, we determined state expenditures and state GDP as the best indicators because socialist states tax and spend a higher percentage of their GDP."

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Attorney: New Audio reveals pause in gunfire when Micheal Brown was shot.

This could possibly mean that the police officer who fired on him could have known that he was defenseless before firing anyway.

You're a couple pages late and I already dropped that into the Law Enforcement Thread.

Still, that pause is really bad news.

Oh really when?

How long is the pause? Because I remember someone (I think Gab) once saying that when police are shooting instinct takes over and they will keep firing until they run out of bullets but think they only fired a couple of times. I think it was said that it once happened that cop reloaded and kept firing but was acting on pure instinct and honestly believed he'd only fired a few shots.

edited 26th Aug '14 5:49:54 PM by SilasW

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

It was a cluster of six shots and then four after the pause, that rules out the reloading considering most cops will be packing a Glock of some kind which holds 15+ in a magazine.

Oh really when?

Yeah that's something funky then.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

He would know exactly how many shots he took. You're trained to count. Now even if adrenaline kicked in, there was no reason why he would need to reload. There wasn't any return fire.

And even if he was unloading and reloading, that is too damn long of a pause. I can hand a complete novice a Glock and I bet they can drop mag and reload faster than that. And this guy is trained to do it as fast as possible.

Glocks are like tinkertoys. The pieces fit very intuitively and basic.

I don't know about Ferguson but some jurisdictions don't allow the 15 mags. They allow 10 to carry with 13 as spare as an average rule. It depends. So I don't know. Some jurisdictions allow 15 but only with certain levels of seniority or proficiency exams.

The premise is if you can't drop your target in 10-13 hits then you need more training, not more ammo. That's just the ideal though.

edited 26th Aug '14 6:35:57 PM by Gabrael

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

It could also mean that he opened fire for legitimate reasons, paused to gauge the effects his shots had, and then resumed fire when Brown continued to act aggressively.

I'm not saying that either is more likely, I'm just saying that it doesn't necessarily suggest wrongdoing on the officer's part.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

And brown continued to act aggressively after getting shot six times? Unless the cop was not in ideal firing position when he started or something, six times is enough to put the target down.

"Wilson fired six shots" does not equate to "Brown was shot six times". Indeed, the fact that there were apparently ten shots fired and the autopsies have confirmed that Brown was shot six times means that four of the ten shots presumably missed. Given that four of the six shots that hit Brown hit him in the arm, which is not going to disable someone instantly, the conclusion that Wilson shot six times (hitting Brown in the arm four times and missing twice), then fired four more times (missing twice and hitting Brown twice in the head, killing him) seems at least as reasonable as "Wilson disabled Brown with his first six shots and then fired four more times for some reason".

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Is that legal? I mean, not like anyone at the top cares about finance reform, but I was under the impression that paying for a criminal lawyer doesn't count as a part of his reelection strategy. Pardon me if I have trouble believing that Arkansas and Mississippi are among the most socialist states. Their metric is a little too simplistic.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

Perry isn't even up for re-election.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Don't expect Darren Wilson or the City of Ferguson to get in trouble for Brown's murder, if Brown wasn't attacking, the Supreme Court has basically made it very hard to charge cops who use excessive force.

Goddamn is that article clickbait. All of the examples they list are either reasonable ("if police officers are justified in firing at a suspect in order to end a severe threat to public safety, the officers need not stop shooting until the threat has ended"), unrelated to the Brown case (examples of misconduct by government prosecutors), or somewhat dubious but not an obvious get out of jail free card (a government officer can be held liable only if "every reasonable official" would have known that his conduct was unlawful).

This case is going to trial. The political repercussions of it not going to trial are so enormous at this point that I can't imagine that it won't. If it's determined that the shooting wasn't legitimate self defense, then it's negligent manslaughter at the very least. If Wilson is found guilty, he's going to jail — police officer or no. It might be difficult to convict him, given the lack of hard evidence to arise so far, but that has nothing to do with him being a cop and everything to do with "innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt".

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

There are also the civil options. Even if criminal courts don't get involved, the family can sue for wrongful death.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

The number of homeless veterans really is actually falling and it does appear to be due to government policies, mostly in the form of direct housing vouchers.

Dreamers have destroyed the Republican Immigration strategy by publically asking the Republicans why they want them deported, and forcing Republicans who try to moderate to answer in front of their voters, highlighting them as even bigger jerks.

Every year for the last six years in a row, the Congressional Budget Office has reduced its estimate for how much the federal government will need to spend on Medicare in coming years. The latest reduction came in a report from the budget office on Wednesday morning.

Wyoming is likely planning to sign up for Medicaid, because Wyoming hospitals say they're losing more than $200 million a year in uncompensated care for people without insurance.

Paul Ryan now seems very ashamed of loving Atlas Shrugged. However he does cite Wealth and Poverty, a " weird, rambly, mostly unoriginal recitation of free-market homilies whose influence largely derives from the fact that it came out just as Ronald Reagan swept to power and was thus seen as an intellectual manifesto for the new Republican Party" and The Way the World Works, which has a "novel argument that the entire history of the world can be explained by changes of tax rates. The fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of the Nazis ".

Hooray for Republicans being wrong!

Oh really when?

Many are disillusioned in the Florida Governor race. If they vote, it'll be with their noses plugged.

A federal court ruled today that SWAT teams cannot claim immunity against lawsuits alleging unjustifiable use of force.

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016