The General US Politics Thread

The reason why there were multiple shots is because that's how cops are taught.

You don't shoot to maim. You don't shoot to intimidate. You shoot to kill. Period.

We were taught to shoot in three burst clusters so for only five shots to be fired, that's actually pretty good and well within what they were probably trained to do.

Now if he emptied his mag in him? (Considering he probably has a 10-12 round capacity) that's excessive. But otherwise, the shot count was within reason.

Fair enough, and similar to what I was thinking anyway.

As for the faith healing, the following is a quote from Rep. Christy Perry from Idaho. ([[america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/2/22/idahos-faith-healing-debate-pits-child-welfare-against-parental-rights.html Link from the bottom of the last page]])

Faith healers, she said, are not uncaring parents. They simply trust God above doctors and have faith that God will do what’s right. “They are comforted by the fact that they know their child is in heaven,” Perry said. “If I want to let my child be with God, why is that wrong?” Furthermore, she said, she’s unsure of the motives of those who want to see faith-healing protections removed. “Is it really because these children are dying more so than other children? Or is this really about an attack on a religion you don’t agree with?”

Edit: Removed the "Western State folks are independent" portion because it really had no bearing on the case, in my opinion.

edited 2nd Mar '15 2:24:41 PM by ironballs16

I trust God to give me doctors who know what they are doing. I really see no reason why lawmakers would go out of their way to not protect children.

A cynical response would be that children can't vote and ensuring that their crazy parents vote for you is more important than child safety.

A less cynical, but still unnerving answer, is that they honestly believe it themselves.

Slightly less cynical is that they fear they'll be primaried by someone who does believe it otherwise.

I am so tempted to take a Jonathan Swift idea seriously (in this case, having all children raised by childcare professionals instead of parents).

GOP running around like chickens with their heads cut off to save Obamacare in case the Supreme Court guts it.

I have no sympathy for the GOP. They've been launching fake attacks at Obamacare to drum up votes from their base, and now they're having their Springtime for Hitler moment. Still, sorry for everyone who gets sacked by the subsidies getting crushed.

The thing about faith healing is that it reminds me of the parable about the guy who keeps insisting that "God will provide" amid a disaster, as people come by to rescue him. He dies, goes to Heaven, and asks God what happened; God replied, "I sent you all those people!"

I have full confidence the court will rule in favor of the government in King case. The only travesty here is that the case survived this far to begin with.

I don't. I want to think "surely they wouldn't be that foolish" but then I remember Hobby Lobby. ^note Scalia's response: We are that foolish. And don't call me Shirley.

Hobby Lobby was a peripheral case. Egregious, yes, but ultimately not of great impact. King v Burwell would have massive complications for the U.S. and would put negative attention on the court for a long time, and i think it's clear Roberts doesn't want that.

Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) announced her retirement on Monday, setting off a scramble among Democrats to succeed her in the Senate.

Warren Buffet likes Hillary Clinton, but thinks Elizabeth Warren "would do better if she was less angry and demonized less.”

A spokeswoman for likely GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush has confirmed that Bush will not sign Grover Norquist‘s pledge to not raise taxes — known simply as the “anti-tax pledge.”

Bush and Cheney barred as "terrorists" from visiting Venezuela. I rather doubt they had any reason to visit in the first place.

Utah looking at removing statute of limitations for certain classes of civil cases. Link is to an editorial not in favor.

California Supreme Court has called statewide blanket bans on where sex offenders can live unconstitutional.

Completely separate, today (or yesterday if it's Tuesday for y'all now) was Texas Independence Day.

edited 2nd Mar '15 8:29:39 PM by tclittle

@ Braeburn: Fighteer's going to lose his shit if he sees that you spelled "secede" wrong.

(And yes. My use of the word "secede" is part of the joke.)

edited 2nd Mar '15 9:15:40 PM by Aprilla

Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.

Whelp.

(Balloon Juice) CPAC in Transition: A collection of articles on just how weird and off-the-rails CPAC is becoming.

edited 3rd Mar '15 3:56:35 AM by PotatoesRock

Emailgate?

I have the feeling this will be linked to Benghazi soon.

Has World War II been linked to Benghazi?

To me this seems similar to the various disclosures Jeb has made recently, which is why Clinton's camp came forward with it more or less voluntarily. Get out ahead of anything embarrassing and then the narrative is a non-issue.

She had to of known this was going to come up. Why is she so dense / stupid with realizing this is how you get hanged in the court of public opinion.

The "New Democrat Coalition" (a caucus of moderate Democrats in the House) is absolutely paranoid the Warren wing will get the party screwed over with 2016, and is planning on revealing an economic policy platform to drown her out for 2016.

Oh, gods, like we needed our "establishment" wing — you idiots are half of the reason we are locked into this perpetual state of political gridlock, and you managed to sabotage quite a few of Obama's legislative programs when he actually had control of Congress. Fuck all y'all.

Also, maybe I'm biased, but I'm not getting why this is such a huge deal: did Clinton commit an actual crime by using personal email? Anyway, fessing up to it seems to be an attempt at preemptive damage control in the hopes that it'll be forgotten about by 2016.

edited 3rd Mar '15 9:01:04 AM by Fighteer

As opposed to Bush leaking social security numbers all over the internet? No.

Clinton used a personal email in a high security job 'gasp'

Bush doxxed his consituents 'faceplam'

Which is the bigger crime? You decide!

So as far as I can tell from the article, Clinton was violating the law, but the agency responsible for enforcing those regulations doesn't actually have any enforcing abilities.

Cute. Seems like this was rampant within the State Department, given the difficulty of tracking down emails related to Benghazi in general.

edited 3rd Mar '15 9:14:47 AM by Fighteer

The article also says that this is hardly the first time the State Department has ignored the requirement, and that, like I copied in my last post, it often requires some arm twisting in the form of legal action or media embarrassment to get them to comply.