The General US Politics Thread

And even a lot of distributors are just small time users hooked on the stuff who need to sell to fund their own (pyramid-scheme esque in a way). Victims rather than perpetrators.

It's the traffickers you have to look at.

Adjust the amounts for it to count as "dealer" then. Aim for a certain level in the pyramid.

Even if there were flaw in a change like that It'd still be an improvement.

edited 31st Aug '14 11:25:20 AM by joesolo

Rep. Peter King Wishes Obama Would Lead Like UK’s David Cameron.

edited 31st Aug '14 3:12:15 PM by deviantbraeburn

I forget, is Cameron good or bad? I feel like bad.

From the article:

Odd from a former(?) supporter of the IRA. David Cameron — a liberal Conservative like Obama — is not doing too well at the moment, facing turmoil from within his party, especially over Europe, as well as facing the Referendum in Scotland. And Cameron isn't attacking in Iraq, because it would be impossible to get public opinion on side.

edited 31st Aug '14 3:30:26 PM by Greenmantle

It seems that if you are a member of the US Congress then you don't go to Guantanamo when you support terrorists.

But you see, the IRA are not evil bad terrorists. They are freedom fighters, once beguiled by the communist enemy but ultimately people.

(Also, lots of Irish-American supporters spending money?)

edited 31st Aug '14 5:01:57 PM by 3of4

Yes. Andrew O'Hehir in Salon has a rather good piece on it: How did my fellow Irish-Americans get so disgusting?

edited 31st Aug '14 5:06:20 PM by Achaemenid

"Adjust the amounts for it to count as "dealer" then. Aim for a certain level in the pyramid."

The big drugs right now are fairly simple to manufacture. Meth can be made by any dipshit who doesn't mind their house smelling like cat piss and pot is fairly resilient. So if there's no one who'll shank you for selling some meth and you want to smoke up, why not make a batch or two? The meth game is something I won't touch with a ten foot pole but I still keep in contact with some pot dealers and they're mostly high school drop outs making money on the side and financing their habit.

So in the US where the government is trying to squash dealers you get a lot of people who only made maybe three or four grand worth of material, half of which they'd probably use, going in for several years. You could scale up the ratios needed but the problem is that a lot of the game is small timers doing small stuff.

edited 31st Aug '14 6:48:35 PM by thatguythere47

Honestly the whole thing's a cluster fuck. As it stand we really need to try and do something to improve the situation. Better doesn't have to be perfect, and realistically, won't be.

Yeah, I'm not disagreeing just trying to give some perspective. I really don't know that there is a solution. There are a few things that appear to be universal in this world and people getting hella high is one. Prohibition doesn't seem to work to any real degree but the opium dens of days past wasn't exactly ideal.

Rick Perry has deleted an "unauthorized" twitter post which depicts Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg's head superimposed over the Most Interesting Man in the World from the Dos Equis ad.

Pentagon: Iraq Operations Costing U.S. More Than $7.5 Million A Day.

Newly declassified documents from 1950 show that the United States reportedly feared the possibility of a Soviet invasion of Alaska so much that it trained locals to become spies if Russia succeeded.

The fee for individuals to renounce U.S. citizenship is jumping to $2,350 as of September 12—more than five times the current charge of $450.

I'm surprised it costs money to renounce citizenship at all.

Someone obviously need to point out to Peter King that while Cameron is a Conservative he's not insane, that and that fact he bought about gay marriage.

I'm quite sure he'd be shocked to find out that David Cameron is a liberal^note  In both senses of the word Conservative.

edited 1st Sep '14 10:56:34 AM by Greenmantle

Talk about the cult of centrism in the United Kingdom. You've got the hard 3rd-way new Labour and David Cameron.

At least you could tell Obama and Romney apart...

Quite. All three parties are in the centre^note  and more often agree with each other — at least in principle — on issues than disagree. Not to add that all three party leaders share similar backgrounds. And interestingly, the most transatlantic party is Labour , hence it was easy for UKIP to make an impact — they offer something different.

edited 1st Sep '14 10:59:15 AM by Greenmantle

New laws that come into effect today here in Texas.

All three parties are in the centrenote , hence it was easy for UKIP to make an impact — they offer something different.

I suppose the same effect happened with the SNP?

I'm sure some of the Scottish tropers will know better than me, but I think so.

America’s coal heartland is in economic freefall — but only the most desperate are fleeing: The coal based Central Appalachians are being forced to confront a future without coal, and it's not looking good, as the workers are basically not moving despite better chances elsewhere in the region, often because the land is cheap and their families have lived on the land for generations. Most of the article goes into an anecdote about one such family.

The Feast of the Wingnuts: How Supply Side Economics gave birth to the modern cult running the Republican Party.

Why conservatives are upset about the new AP American History test, and a fear of America being internationalized.

And a rebuttal on the above.

edited 2nd Sep '14 2:56:02 AM by PotatoesRock

Well let's be honest here, American history probably should concentrate on America.

Cantor gets a job at the investment bank Moelis & Co. as a vice chairman and board member.

The Citizens United ruling has resulted in a seeming connection for Republicans being more likely to bevoted in, but this might be a case of confusing correlation with causation, as remember, we've just gone through a major vote-in reaction to Obama being elected.

Most of the article is bloviating about how leftist the people behind it are. The scant examples offered are criticized because they don't portray the US as a model of Pure Pureness. One is criticized because it mentions that Columbus didn't really "discover" America because there were already people here and that his discovery led to exploitation of the natives. The other example given is criticized because it's about plantations and slavery. A negative example is mentioned in that apparently they ignore how wonderful the Puritans were.

edited 2nd Sep '14 6:26:42 AM by tricksterson