***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[tekthemaestro]

Famb I feel you completely

This is the ultimate insult.

I get that people are happy about being able to smoke freely, ok.

But so many don't stop and think about how many lives have been destroyed over silly non violent drug charges.

I always tell my friends, if you advocating about getting legal weed, also advocate for all the people that are locked up for minor weed charges to be released and the records wiped clean. But that argument involves an ugly racial component, so many would rather sick their heads in the sand about it.

you nailed it. the amount of people they would have to release... lol. but... whats right is right. You've got people serving time, eating up tax dollars, ruining their lives over a drug that you have now deemed legal. Having them serve jail time today, over laws that no longer exist today, isn't right. Now im not talking about people bringing in shipments or caught selling. If you're selling weed, you're a drug dealer. But people arrested and jailed for smoking or possession? nah that aint right anymore. and ive never touched weed in my life, but injustice is injustice.

 
Didn't Oregon (and other states that legalized it) expunge weed arrests from peoples records, throw out all pending marijuana cases, and release people in jail for weed related offenses?  I am pretty sure they did the first two things, but cant remember if they released people in jail or not.

did they? if they did, good on them. the rest of the states need to follow suit. it only makes sense.

 

[Belgium]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...tism-vaccine-panel-could-help-spread-disease/

 A White House panel that questions vaccine safety and attacks immunization standards set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control—a possibility raised last week in meetings with incoming president Donald Trump—could actually lead to increased disease outbreaks. Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who suggests inoculations are linked to autism, met last week with Trump to discuss a panel to examine what Kennedy called “vaccine safety and scientific integrity.” Although the autism–vaccine claim has been studied and debunked, the president-elect has also suggested a connection. His team later hedged about the panel, saying that nothing had been decided. (Kennedy’s office declined an interview request.) Nevertheless, public health experts and autism advocates are deeply worried that an effort with presidential backing could undermine public confidence in vaccines and trigger epidemics of all-but-eradicated diseases.

“We have dozens of studies examining autism and vaccines, and they don’t show a link,” says Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, a nonprofit that supports autism research. The original 1998 Lancet article purporting to tie vaccines to autism was found to be based on fraudulent data and retracted; its lead author, Andrew Wakefield, has been barred from practicing medicine in the U.K. “My fear is that people will think that we have not done these studies. That fear alone could lead people to withhold vaccines from their children,” Singer says.

A presidential panel could amplify fears. Such bodies are often appointed not only to develop policies or investigate problems but to mold public opinion, says Jordan Tama, an assistant professor with American University’s School of International Service, who has studied the history of presidential panels. They typically hold public hearings and issue official findings that command respect and get media attention. But this one’s different. “I can’t think of a past example of a president creating a commission on an issue where the agenda seemed to be so far out of the mainstream,” Tama says.

A vaccine–autism panel could put the authority of the White House behind false assertions, Tama adds. And there is evidence such an effort would find a receptive, already growing audience in some communities. A 2011 study by CDC scientists showed that whereas the overwhelming majority of parents reported vaccinating their children, 30 percent worried that such inoculations might cause learning disabilities including autism. Surveys of pediatricians, analyzed in Pediatrics, found the proportion of doctors reporting that parents had refused vaccines for their children increased from 74.5 percent in 2006 to 87 percent in 2013.

The refusals have health consequences. In 2014–15 a measles outbreakbegan at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., spread to other towns and cities, and 125 people fell ill. A later epidemiological study estimated the vaccination rate in communities where the disease spread was no higher than 86 percent and might be as low as 50 percent. Epidemiologists say it takes a much higher rate—96 to 99 percent—to provide the “herd immunity” that effectively inhibits outbreaks. Orange County, where Disneyland is located, has a number of communities with low vaccination rates; in California measles vaccination rates have been falling for more than a decade. “We are seeing upticks in small clusters of childhood illnesses,” says the lead author of the Disneyland study, Maimuna Majumder, an epidemiologist and doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Recent outbreaks of mumps, for example, have sickened more than 4,000 people, more than half of those in Arkansas. “This is preventable, and it’s thousands and thousands of people,” Majumder says. “And it’s because there’s a shift in the way people are treating vaccines.”

Parents who vaccinate their children but worry about safety “could be a tipping point,” says Jason Schwartz, an assistant professor of public health policy at Yale University who specializes in vaccines and vaccine programs. “If even a subset of that group of parents who are somewhat on the fence start doubting, that would very quickly lead to a crisis.” Viruses only need to find a few pockets of unprotected children to begin spreading widely and wildly through a bigger population.

 

[gordyloc]

delete

 

[aepps20]

First time posting in this thread. I was just offered Kawhi for Wall. No brainier right?

[emoji]128514[/emoji][emoji]128514[/emoji][emoji]128514[/emoji][emoji]128514[/emoji]

 

[MVP]

First time posting in this thread. I was just offered Kawhi for Wall. No brainier right?

You lost playa

 

[krispacinla]

Decades? Doubtful. Less than 8 years since Bush. America was in utter destruction during those 8 years from over 5k dead US soldiers, 4k dead civilians on 9/11, 2 wars paid by taxpayers causing countless dead humans in the middle east, Katrina disaster, financial crisis, home foreclosures, high unemployment, and stock market crash.

You would think Americans have learned but instead they want to give it a go with this orange cheeto idiot

The idiot is your president, buddy. You better respect him...

 

[RustyShackleford]

Decades? Doubtful. Less than 8 years since Bush. America was in utter destruction during those 8 years from over 5k dead US soldiers, 4k dead civilians on 9/11, 2 wars paid by taxpayers causing countless dead humans in the middle east, Katrina disaster, financial crisis, home foreclosures, high unemployment, and stock market crash.

You would think Americans have learned but instead they want to give it a go with this orange cheeto idiot

The idiot is your president, buddy. You better respect him...

**** Trump

That bigoted, racist, piece of ****

 

[tekthemaestro]

America the beautiful is now trending cuz apparently trump found Sam from sam & dave (soul men) to sing it. My immediate thoughts with all these "omg so much soul! im crying from that rendition!" is that, the only time most of these people care about anything have to do with black culture is when a black person is tap dancing for them. let sam say "black lives matter" after the rendition. all that fake admiration and love would disappear in a second.

it really gets me mad man. saw a tweet blowing up from a chick saying "so glad we finally have our country back! overwhelmed with joy!" like... what type of veiled racism. got your country back? was there some sort of military coup or hostile takeover? exactly when was your country taken away from you?

I HATE HATE HATE how trump and his platform have given bigots and racists soooooo much comfort and courage. they feel SO comfortable right now. I really HATE it.

 

[rexanglorum]

I will say this about Trump, starting with his VP selection and through his cabinet selections, he is taking care of every conservative constituency.

He starts with Pence and he takes care of crazy religious faction. He gets Perry and Pruit and locks down the oil, climate denier faction. Betsy DeVos will help to implement school vouchers, an issue which Donald Trump did not even talk about during his campaign. With Jeff Sessions, you cater to the hardcore racists. With Mnuchin, you take care of the major plutocrats.

While things would have been way better if Clinton had won, does anyone believe that Clinton would have made appointments with a left wing intensity equivalent to Trump right wing intensity?

Would Sec of Ed be an education professor who wants us to emulate Finland's system? No, we'd get Michelle Rhea. Would Clinton appoint someone from the ACLU to head up the Dept. of Justice? Hell no, we'd get a career Federal prosecutor. Would we get Elizabeth Warren at Treasury? Hell no, we'd get someone from Goldman Sachs.

It is disheartening to know that we had to fight for Clinton so we could get, in many cases, less bad versions of the people whom Trump is appointing.

 

[aepps20]

Hopefully Benjamin doesn't ruin his brand too much to stop him from running in 2020.

 

[gry60]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...tism-vaccine-panel-could-help-spread-disease/

 A White House panel that questions vaccine safety and attacks immunization standards set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control—a possibility raised last week in meetings with incoming president Donald Trump—could actually lead to increased disease outbreaks. Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who suggests inoculations are linked to autism, met last week with Trump to discuss a panel to examine what Kennedy called “vaccine safety and scientific integrity.” Although the autism–vaccine claim has been studied and debunked, the president-elect has also suggested a connection. His team later hedged about the panel, saying that nothing had been decided. (Kennedy’s office declined an interview request.) Nevertheless, public health experts and autism advocates are deeply worried that an effort with presidential backing could undermine public confidence in vaccines and trigger epidemics of all-but-eradicated diseases.


“We have dozens of studies examining autism and vaccines, and they don’t show a link,” says Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, a nonprofit that supports autism research. The original 1998 Lancet article purporting to tie vaccines to autism was found to be based on fraudulent data and retracted; its lead author, Andrew Wakefield, has been barred from practicing medicine in the U.K. “My fear is that people will think that we have not done these studies. That fear alone could lead people to withhold vaccines from their children,” Singer says.


A presidential panel could amplify fears. Such bodies are often appointed not only to develop policies or investigate problems but to mold public opinion, says Jordan Tama, an assistant professor with American University’s School of International Service, who has studied the history of presidential panels. They typically hold public hearings and issue official findings that command respect and get media attention. But this one’s different. “I can’t think of a past example of a president creating a commission on an issue where the agenda seemed to be so far out of the mainstream,” Tama says.


A vaccine–autism panel could put the authority of the White House behind false assertions, Tama adds. And there is evidence such an effort would find a receptive, already growing audience in some communities. A 2011 study by CDC scientists showed that whereas the overwhelming majority of parents reported vaccinating their children, 30 percent worried that such inoculations might cause learning disabilities including autism. Surveys of pediatricians, analyzed in Pediatrics, found the proportion of doctors reporting that parents had refused vaccines for their children increased from 74.5 percent in 2006 to 87 percent in 2013.


The refusals have health consequences. In 2014–15 a measles outbreakbegan at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., spread to other towns and cities, and 125 people fell ill. A later epidemiological study estimated the vaccination rate in communities where the disease spread was no higher than 86 percent and might be as low as 50 percent. Epidemiologists say it takes a much higher rate—96 to 99 percent—to provide the “herd immunity” that effectively inhibits outbreaks. Orange County, where Disneyland is located, has a number of communities with low vaccination rates; in California measles vaccination rates have been falling for more than a decade. “We are seeing upticks in small clusters of childhood illnesses,” says the lead author of the Disneyland study, Maimuna Majumder, an epidemiologist and doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Recent outbreaks of mumps, for example, have sickened more than 4,000 people, more than half of those in Arkansas. “This is preventable, and it’s thousands and thousands of people,” Majumder says. “And it’s because there’s a shift in the way people are treating vaccines.”


Parents who vaccinate their children but worry about safety “could be a tipping point,” says Jason Schwartz, an assistant professor of public health policy at Yale University who specializes in vaccines and vaccine programs. “If even a subset of that group of parents who are somewhat on the fence start doubting, that would very quickly lead to a crisis.” Viruses only need to find a few pockets of unprotected children to begin spreading widely and wildly through a bigger population.

This is the kind of things that devalue a nation.

There is a reason why American BS/grad degrees were valued around the world; there is a reason why American passports are among those that allow you to travel many places without having to applu for a visa: respect of standards. Without them, trade, international cooperation (especially regarding scientific research), and tourism will take a hit. Tourism is especially significant as many large cities in the midwest have turned to it to generate revenue as manufacturing disappeared. Let the first epidemic touch down and watch that foreign money vanish.

 

[green rhino123]

America was in utter destruction during those 8 years from over 5k dead US soldiers, 4k dead civilians on 9/11, 2 wars paid by taxpayers causing countless dead humans in the middle east, Katrina disaster, financial crisis, home foreclosures, high unemployment, and stock market crash.

take those two out but then add in racial crisis and you have 'bama

 

[green rhino123]

am not confidant at all over what starts tomorrow (trump presidency) :\

good luck to all of us

 

[gil23]

this fool just came on tv and I switched the channel ..i cant watch this clown

 

[Master Zik]

Are any of Donald's appointees qualified?

"We're gonna get the best people."

 

[swendro]

Not that I can see.

 

[Master Zik]

Say one thing about President Bush, they people around him were terrible, but most of the at least had an understand of work stuff worked.

Their ideology was just out of wack.

Trump straight up hired dudes that are straight up incompetent.

makes me think this was all his plan?

Isnt this draining the swamp?

That's not draining That's an implosion

 

[RustyShackleford]

I will say this about Trump, starting with his VP selection and through his cabinet selections, he is taking care of every conservative constituency.

He starts with Pence and he takes care of crazy religious faction. He gets Perry and Pruit and locks down the oil, climate denier faction. Betsy DeVos will help to implement school vouchers, an issue which Donald Trump did not even talk about during his campaign. With Jeff Sessions, you cater to the hardcore racists. With Mnuchin, you take care of the major plutocrats.

While things would have been way better if Clinton had won, does anyone believe that Clinton would have made appointments with a left wing intensity equivalent to Trump right wing intensity?

Would Sec of Ed be an education professor who wants us to emulate Finland's system? No, we'd get Michelle Rhea. Would Clinton appoint someone from the ACLU to head up the Dept. of Justice? Hell no, we'd get a career Federal prosecutor. Would we get Elizabeth Warren at Treasury? Hell no, we'd get someone from Goldman Sachs.

It is disheartening to know that we had to fight for Clinton so we could get, in many cases, less bad versions of the people whom Trump is appointing.

No, of course not. I had made piece with the mixed bag of people she would have brought to Washington from the jump.

For example: Especially at the beginning Obama had an coalition of moderate **** boys filling his head with garage. Even now I look back and shake my head at the clowns that surrounded him.

But to me, I always keep in mind the most important appointment the 45th President was going to make, with was the 9th Supreme Court Justice.

And in that area, Hillary's pick for that position would have been far and ahead better for the country than the ideological right winger Trump is gonna unleash on America.

 

[trueprada]

Soon as I get to LGA see this
Can't make this up

 

[seandon23]

No, of course not. I made piece with the mixed bag of people she would have brought to Washington.

Especially at the beginning Obama had an coalition of moderate **** boys filling his head with garage. Even now I look back and shake my head at the clowns that surrounded him.

But to me, I always keep in mind the most important appointment the 45th President was going to make, with was the 9th Supreme Court Justice.

And in that area, Hillary's pick for that position would have been far and ahead better for the country than the ideological right winger Trump is gonna unleash on America.

dont even remind me about the supreme court justice nonsense. im still mad that Obama couldnt get to appoint his own pick for Supreme Justice

 

[RustyShackleford]

Democrats need to fight that like crazy.

The GOP is already on record saying them would have blocked Hillary pick for her entire term.

**** being the bigger person in this instance, play by their rules.

 

[Belgium]

And Turtle McConnell, without a hint of shame, criticized Chuck Schumer for saying he would obstruct Trump's supreme court pick.

 

[seandon23]

And Turtle McConnell, without a hint of shame, criticized Chuck Schumer for saying he would obstruct Trump's supreme court pick.

I was just about to post that lol. People are such hypocrites man I swear

 

[AEA18]

And Turtle McConnell, without a hint of shame, criticized Chuck Schumer for saying he would obstruct Trump's supreme court pick.

Ol' Dana Carvey "turtle turtle" looking clown

Can't stand him

 

[Belgium]

Ol' Dana Carvey "turtle turtle" looking clown

Can't stand him

The guy's face reminds me so much of my pet turtle