The General US Politics Thread

I think the environmentalists's issues is that they want to build these things close to valuable water sources, and didn't want to take the time to maybe map out a route that didn't put the pipes right next to aquifers. And then there's all the shady shit such as bulldozing trees on private property that hadn't been sold to them for this pipeline. That happened here in Texas.

So yeah, people not losing their homes to this kind of bullshit and shady use of things like imminent domain? For something that wouldn't benefit the country in the long run to begin with? Yeah... gonna call it a victory anyway. The people who are for Keystone are pulling all sorts of shady shit and I'm not inclined to go "hey we should just let them build the thing anyway."

Sometimes I feel like I'm having schizophrenic conversations here. I already said that the eminent domain issue is a legitimate reason to oppose the pipeline, but that argument does nothing to support the environmental one; it's purely a matter of law. It's also an issue that is almost entirely silent in the current media debate over Keystone XL, partly because it isn't "sexy" and partly because it supports neither side's position. Neither establishment Democrats nor establishment Republicans want eminent domain curtailed, and "free market" Repubs don't want to set a precedent of business being unable to seize private land willy-nilly.

Further, I challenge you to build a pipeline from Canada to Texas that doesn't cross a major water source. And we already have a ton of the damn things anyway. The State Department report did evaluate some alternative route choices but from what I saw none of them offer any notable advantages. If you want to lay 2,000 miles of pipe, there are going to be some aquifers in the way.

You could transport the oil on trains or trucks, and have those spills contaminate water supplies. Tankers can also be used. Those have an even higher spill risk.

edited 24th Feb '15 10:01:37 PM by Fighteer

Technically, if oil's being spilled into soil or waterways, then it's not contributing to greenhouse gases, either.

Actually, it can. Suffocated plants and microbial degradation are things.

Considering the number of oil spills that have been on the news lately, saying we have ton of the damn things gives me absolutely no faith in any new ones being built. And the reasons that the pipeline is being touted as a good thing are, for the most part, lies. Quite frankly, if we can't be assed to maintain upkeep in the pipes we have already I see absolutely no fucking reason to be building anymore, particularly one that's simply ferrying oil from Canada down to Texas, and that no one has plants to sell either in the US or Canada. There's no advantage to letting this thing be built. What pipelines we do have need to either be maintained properly so this sort of bullshit doesn't happen, or we need to start looking more heavily into other options to lessen our dependence on oil. Preferably both but these days the congress can't seem to get more than one thing at a time done.

You've got a whole "why the fuck should we bother" tone to your argument which isn't constructive to the issue. You can argue that the rest of us are being emotional, but it kind of sounds like you're just telling us to not care. And challenging me to draw up plans for a pipeline I don't think should be built in the first place is just asinine. The point is that the Keystone supporters tried to force Obama into an early vote on the issue instead of doing their due diligence. They've been working in bad faith from the start.

edited 25th Feb '15 12:29:40 AM by AceofSpades

*Applause *

found something interesting. Mainly the PDF from the international energy agency. Page 135 has some stats on oil spills in recent years. For reference, train spills are listed in barrels released. Pipelines? Thousands of barrels. That alone speaks volumes.

Nice pun, but you can't look at it in terms of individual incidents. The relevant measure is total volume of spills per volume-distance transported, and road/rail/sea is way worse than pipeline in this regard, plus being worse for the environment in terms of carbon emissions.

Yes, obviously the "ideal" scenario is not to have the oil dug up and transported at all, but attacking the pipeline will not accomplish that.

You folks are acting as if I'm suddenly not on your side, when I absolutely am. It's just that I want the actions taken to be effective at their goal, not wasting political capital on symbolic issues that won't make any kind of difference.

edited 25th Feb '15 4:59:54 AM by Fighteer

Here's a question, though: are many smaller spills actually worse for the environment than fewer larger spills, even if the former releases more oil in aggregate? We've seen that the largest spills can devastate entire environments — when oil covers everything for miles, the local wildlife simply cannot avoid it, so runs into problems. When the spill is relatively small scale, it's easier to clean up and easier for the environment to recover afterwards.

Or at least, so I would think.

Maybe. I'd be interested in seeing some analysis of that question. The State Department report has a frequency distribution of small, medium, and large spills among various transport methods, and acknowledges the serious impact of large ones, but it's using net annual volume as the key statistic in comparing spill risk. I'd have to read it in greater detail.

edited 25th Feb '15 6:40:05 AM by Fighteer

Article about how Evangelicals affect the Republican party excessively

We've known this, of course, but it's been looked into in more detail.

If you subtract the Evangelicals, however, you get nearly even splits on issues like gay marriage and abortion.

What's more, the survey only asked people who explicitly identified as Republican, rather than those who "lean Republican" or "mostly vote Republican", thus indicating that even among committed Republicans, removing Evangelicals and focusing on everyone else indicates a split on these issues. This could mean that Republican leaners are even more liberal/moderate than the Republican voters as a whole.

Really sucks that the noisy people dominate the party. It seems as if many of its voters have quite different views.

I think we've covered that topic fairly extensively in the thread: it's not that there are not reasonable Republicans, but that their voices have been effectively shouted out of existence at the national and many local levels.

According to that article, white evangelicals still make up 36% of self-identified Republicans. That's a minority, but by no means a small one.

Republican held West Virginian government is trying to pass a law making enforcing Obamacare in the state a crime (a felony for Federal employees and a misdemeanor for State employees)

The President is pushing the Labor Department to have retirement and investment advisors legally required to put their clients' best interests first (i.e. tell them to save more and use a non-costly low-fee mutual fund). However, if they do this, it pretty much would put the industry out of business. But the industry is notorious for lying to clients to be able to turn any form of meaningful profit.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will be facing Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia in an April 7th runoff election.

edited 25th Feb '15 11:16:47 AM by PotatoesRock

They can't just do that can they?

They're working under "Nullification" logic: Anything we don't like can't be enforced.

Despite "Nullification" only existing in textbooks as an example of things states can't do and the Federal government can and does put a stop to...usually.

If anything, all they're doing is clogging up the appeals court system as judges have to waste their time striking down this nonsense. Also, what does "enforce Obamacare" even mean? Is there any provision in the law for "Federal officials" to go into states and do anything?

If marshals are running around forcing people to sign up for health insurance at gunpoint, the right has yet to find any cases of it to make into a big public scandal.

edited 25th Feb '15 11:36:17 AM by Fighteer

This isn't the first time a state's tried to pass that sort of a law, I think. And it's basically a nonsense law, particularly as Obamacare is already in place and any attempts to try and remove it will, increasingly over time, meet with resistance from voters. Nullification hasn't ever effectively worked in practice, I think.

Not when they declare it Nullification. A number of states have legalized marijuana despite federal laws against it. It's a matter of what the federal government chooses to enforce.

While the courts can strike down laws that conflict with Federal law, I don't think they can compel laws to be passed that comply with Federal law. They can't force the states to make a Federal crime a state crime, in other words.

In such cases, any prosecution of said crime must be done by Federal law enforcement.

edited 25th Feb '15 1:21:37 PM by Fighteer

How much on the ground enforcement does the ACA need compared to drug laws though? Especially as the fines are presumably done via federal taxes.

They can always arrest IRS auditors.

I'm pretty sure arresting federal agents would end badly for them. More federal agents would be sent in, the ones with tanks if need be.

edited 25th Feb '15 3:05:25 PM by Silasw

Minnesota proves that taxing rich, raising minimum wage is better for the economy. Any bets on how long before Wisconsin follows suit?