USA Politics: Tea Party vs. the Establishment and other issues

[TrackerNeil]

a border patrol agent answering questions on Reddit

Boy, is my face red!

[MerenthaClone]

a border patrol agent answering questions on Reddit

As we all know, cops are also legal experts.

[DanteGabriel]

a border patrol agent answering questions on Reddit

Can you just give us a handy key as to which government employees are Incompetent Jackbooted Thugs (like BLM) and which ones are Honorable Trustworthy Sources (border agent who criticizes Obama)?

[Fez]

I see. So the Tea Party supports ending various tax exemptions for things that benefit the middle and upper classes, like the mortgage interest tax deduction, and the employer health insurance deduction, eh? After all, no bailouts for homeowners and office workers, right?

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.

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I didn't think so.

Well, stupidly they do seem to be fouling up extensions of various business-related tax breaks. Although how much of that is actually the Tea Party vs. reflexive GOP opposition to anything Democrats want, is hard to say.

[awesome possum]

Jesus wept, North Carolina, please stop trying to answer the question of how far into the pockets of Big Energy can one state get?

North Carolina lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it a felony to disclose the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process, also known as fracking.

The Energy Modernization Act would make unauthorized disclosure of fracking trade secrets, including chemicals used, a Class I felony, punishable by a few months in prison, EnergyWire reported. Suspects could also face civil penalties.

Seeing how much of North Carolina is being flushed down the toilet hurts me, personally, as the OBX has been one of my favorite vacation spots since I was a teenager. Needless to say, the state has lost my tourist dollars.

[Shryke]

Jesus wept, North Carolina, please stop trying to answer the question of how far into the pockets of Big Energy can one state get?

Seeing how much of North Carolina is being flushed down the toilet hurts me, personally, as the OBX has been one of my favorite vacation spots since I was a teenager. Needless to say, the state has lost my tourist dollars.

North Carolina is, let's remember, the state that Art Pope literally bought.

Like, not even exaggerating, he owns the state government in every way that matters.

Go go 2010 midterm!!!

[1918me]

Jesus wept, North Carolina, please stop trying to answer the question of how far into the pockets of Big Energy can one state get?

Seeing how much of North Carolina is being flushed down the toilet hurts me, personally, as the OBX has been one of my favorite vacation spots since I was a teenager. Needless to say, the state has lost my tourist dollars.

My God...I've never been to NC, and I kind of feel like I wouldn't want to anymore. The worst part is that things like this being considered should come as a shock, but we're already past that point, it seems.

[Fez]

North Carolina is, let's remember, the state that Art Pope literally bought.

Like, not even exaggerating, he owns the state government in every way that matters.

Go go 2010 midterm!!!

2010 was a bad year for North Carolina Democrats, same as everywhere. But it was 2012 that sealed the deal. That was when Republicans took the Governor's Mansion, before then at least some of the crazy could be stopped.

[Suttree]

The truly scary thing is you know there are a ton of people that will be totally sold by this:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/gun-rights-letter-signed-by-rand-paul-takes-obama-insanely-o

Some context from another article:

Earlier today, Buzzfeed's Andrew Kaczynski posted an item about a mailer from the National Association for Gun Rights that contained a fundraising letter from Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.). The letter primarily concerned itself with Senator Dianne Feinstein's efforts to pass a ban on assault weapons, but the envelope itself included a curiosity -- a quote from President Barack Obama that read like so: "In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds [to ban guns]." This quote was displayed so as to not be missed. Go and take a look.

The oddly placed bracketed phrase at the end was a bit of a tip-off, and as is his wont, Kaczynski caught the scent and tracked down the original quote. Turns out the part about "to ban guns" was wildly off the mark. In the original statement, part of a speech Obama gave just days after the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the president actually said he would "use whatever power this office holds" to "engage my fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this." Which makes sense, because every president knows that the "power" the "office holds" doesn't actually include unilateral gun-banning magicks. (After all, if that were the case, why would Dianne Feinstein have to trouble herself with trying to pass a law?)

Obama's coming for your guns!

[ThinkerX]

North Carolina lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it a felony to disclose the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process, also known as fracking.

The Energy Modernization Act would make unauthorized disclosure of fracking trade secrets, including chemicals used, a Class I felony, punishable by a few months in prison, EnergyWire reported. Suspects could also face civil penalties.

I suppose Alaska is at least comparable. Parnell was an oil industry lobbyist before becoming Lt Governor under Palin, and now that he is Governor, he still acts like an oil industry lobbyist. He recently tried to 'streamline' whole categories of regulations. What it came down to was that many intensive projects could pass with authorization from just ONE official - usually an industry friendly position, with no outside commentary at all. That attracted a lot of flack even from conservatives.

Then there was use of local water resources. First, Alaska has a *lot* of fresh water - lots of lakes, rivers, streams, marshes, all that. Second, there are a quite a few remote settlements and enterprises off the road grid. Up until about the time Palin took over (with Parnell at Lt Governor), these settlements and other groups could go through a relatively simple permitting process for making use of the local streams - things like miniature hydro electric projects, water treatment, small scale diversion. Then the bureaucracy - with Parnell's passive agreement started getting obnoxious - they began flat out refusing to process permits for ANY of this while loudly insisting ALL such permits had to pass through their hands. Parnell's proposed 'fix' involved restoring the process...for corporate type entities only, deliberately ruling out the previous community type projects.

Still better than Palin, though. She is the one who basically flat out gave a very large chunk of cash to a Canadian Oil company for nothing at all other than a vague promise to think about building a natural gas pipeline. Talking 9 digits here. No promise to commit, no studies, just here you go, pretty much.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Go go 2010 midterm!!!

Every Democratic voter who decided not to vote in 2010 because Obama wasn't doing enough of what they wanted deserves to be shot. Such is the gerrymandering of these state legislatures, the only hope is to grab as many Governorships as they can until the next lot of redistricting after 2020.

[Ramsay Gimp]

The truly scary thing is you know there are a ton of people that will be totally sold by this:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/gun-rights-letter-signed-by-rand-paul-takes-obama-insanely-o

Some context from another article:

Obama's coming for your guns!

Looks to me like Paul's letter simply cut out the euphemisms and used plain language, it didn't change the meaning. Obama's promise to do "everything I can with lawmakers, etc. to prevent another tragedy" was politician-speak for "gun control." Are you really gonna deny that? Obama did push a gun-control agenda after Newton; just because the agenda failed doesn't change the intent

[Ramsay Gimp]

Every Democratic voter who decided not to vote in 2010 because Obama wasn't doing enough of what they wanted deserves to be shot. Such is the gerrymandering of these state legislatures, the only hope is to grab as many Governorships as they can until the next lot of redistricting after 2020.

Off-topic, but I'm curious why you changed your username

[Inigima]

Off-topic, but I'm curious why you changed your username

Lots of us are changing names, avs, titles for World Cup based on randomly assigned countries.

[Suttree]

Looks to me like Paul's letter simply cut out the euphemisms and used plain language, it didn't change the meaning. Obama's promise to do "everything I can with lawmakers, etc. to prevent another tragedy" was politician-speak for "gun control." Are you really gonna deny that? Obama did push a gun-control agenda after Newton; just because the agenda failed doesn't change the intent

Stop. Just stop. I see your arguments day in and day out and most of the time you're better than this Ramsay,

[The Marquis de Leech]

Off-topic, but I'm curious why you changed your username

It's a board tradition. When the World Cup rolls around, you sign up to the relevant thread in the Entertainment forum, and get allocated a team to support. You then change your username, etc until the tournament is over. In my case I got Spain, so I pretend to be a Spaniard, complete with siestas, bull-fighting, and complaining about Gibraltar.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

Stop. Just stop. I see your arguments day in and day out and most of the time you're better than this Ramsay,

I get that the argument's on the histrionic side, but there's a large grain of truth to it. Most liberals, including most likely Obama, would prefer much stronger gun control than what can feasibly be implemented.

[Mad Monkey]

Stop. Just stop. I see your arguments day in and day out and most of the time you're better than this Ramsay,

I think it would take a lot of strenuous effort to translate Obama's rather generic platitude into "I'm going to try to ban guns".

That's not to say that there weren't politicians out there trying to ban guns, but come on. Paraphrasing is fine, but if you change the plain meaning of the text into something different then you should just make it a declarative statement rather than pretend it's a specific quote.

It would be like taking a quote from a conservative politician talking about stronger measures to combat terrorism and crime and "paraphrasing" it to claim that they admitted to wanting to set up a fascist police state. It might not be unethical, but it is kind of cheesy and if I caught someone out doing that I wouldn't really trust them with quotes ever again.

[Ramsay Gimp]

I agree that Paul (or his staff or whoever) shouldn't have put words in Obama's mouth. But hyperbole is par for the course with fundraising letters, and after Newton Obama/some Democratic leaders were very much "coming for (at least some of) your guns".

Progressives often use that phrase mockingly, but then they advocate doing exactly that. To say that Obama supports gun control is not paranoid

[Ramsay Gimp]

It would be like taking a quote from a conservative politician talking about stronger measures to combat terrorism and crime and "paraphrasing" it to claim that they admitted to wanting to set up a fascist police state. It might not be unethical, but it is kind of cheesy and if I caught someone out doing that I wouldn't really trust them with quotes ever again.

It didn't go that far though

I think it would be more akin to saying "Obama/the NSA want to spy on you" in response to a measure protecting/empowering the NSA. Or "Republicans want to starve the poor" in response to proposing modest cuts in entitlements.