The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-may-idUKKBN17K0UY?il=0
Topkek

I was hoping we could have had a little more time lamenting the implosion of other countries, instead of our own.

Ah well. Government in power uses political system to support itself during its time of strife, story in-development.

https://twitter.com/ThatTimWalker/status/854262139812446208

I think Erdogan inspired her

If either these SoBs meant what they say, and say what they meant, we wouldn't even HAVE a libertarian party. We'd just have the two we have now. Because they'd be doing what they ought to.

The fact we even have/need one, and that it's being elected on various levels, is evidence of how badly the people need to elect them in full support. They shouldn't even exist at the magnitude they do, if it wasn't critical.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...host-annual-white-house-easter-egg-roll-video

more Mélenchon love :
https://twitter.com/mrdannyglover/status/849311189331050497
https://twitter.com/MarkRuffalo/status/853649223321088001

Pretty funny how you didn't actually evaluate any of the premises in the argument presented . Because if you did maybe you'd have to re-evaluate how you view the world. It's much easier to smear, laugh, and move on after all.

1. facilitation of ISIS
2. the destruction of Libya as the cork in the wine bottle
3. the subsequent fall of Europe into political instability
4. and perhaps even civil war

Go on, have a crack. I provided you with falsifiable statements, should be relatively easy for you to falsify them if they are false. Did Obama do 1 & 2, and did 1 & 2 lead to 3 & 4?

In other news,

http://jepolitique.fr/elections/2-presidentielle-2017
WOW!

so clean and clear and informative!

That strategy of "throw out garbage claims and keep demanding somebody please disprove them" has won Donald Trump the election. Making crazy claims takes a minute of not really even thinking. Researching that they are fake takes so much longer.
It sure works, but I'll not jump on it.... oh well I have nothing else to do and I am not trying to win an election here.

1.) ISIS and all that terror is a result of wars in those regions that in many cases started decades ago, mostly because the UDSSR and/or the USA thought it was a great idea to wage wars in some place that they don't care about as much. The last significant mistake of the USA in this regard was the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars after 9/11. In those wars hundreds of thousands of people were murdered because the USA thought they had to take out their anger at somebody and maybe steal some oil in the process.

2.) I don't remember the details of what went on in Libya, but yeah that was a failure of whoever was involved in it. Was it solely caused by Obama? No, probably not.

3.) EU **** ups are the responsibility of the EU and its nations. Not Obamas. I also don't see any significant instability. The UKs decision to leave sucks, but especially for the UK.

4.) Seriously the EU **** ups are not THAT bad. You're making ridiculous assumptions at this point. I might as well demand from you to argue against my claim that Trump will bring about a civil war in the US.

Btw any news on that "Watergate, they spied on me" Trump was going on about? You seemed so sure something what come out of it.

Yeah the definition of what all these words mean. Socialism? Communism? Capitalism? Libertarian?

It probably is sufficient to say that going on about Venezuela and other dictatorships of the present or past is a straw men argument that tries to avoid the actual question of the pros and cons of a social democracy.

So stop referring to the UDSSR, China, Venezuela, or whatever other dictatorships are out there. We agree those are bad I think.

Social democracies don't hurt, but everybody dealing with the domestic policy of America right this very now, knows the current America is not responsible enough to handle a social democracy system. The government of today does literally nothing more efficient than anyone else can do them, local or private. They are like a slightly worse monopolized corporation, they get approval for something and they start spending 5 million dollars on toilet seats for the administration building to oversee it!

I'll accept a social democracy in America, either after budget and spending reform (among others), or after Germany is permitted to structure one for us. Sadly, Sanders had a lot to do to establish some policies and then make them work, but he could have done it with higher probability of success than anyone else, and it just didn't happen.

Would Hillary have made college free, subsidized low-income living, bolster employment into much-needed careers, or reduced frivolous enforcement by police? Seriously doubt it, and it DOES still matter because it was LITERALLY the two choices, I desperately grabbed at a third choice so if it was an option we would have gotten it (and would have gotten the budget and enforcement reform, to build successful social works on).

I've all but given up, on believing the government is acting in good faith for anyone, or that anyone is acting in good political faith for anyone else. Everyone has a "target" and it interferes with the quality of living they could offer their "supporters".

On top of that, 5 months in and the truth is starting to set: Nobody understands that America nominated 2 idiots and elected one, from very small group's influence installing the nominees f, coupled with "no other option" mentality. That, and everyone has money burning a hole in their pocket to spend on some frivolous project and put their cousin's friend in charge of.

daily show standing up for texans who've been fucked over and no longer have clean water :

Going to need some context on the video above. "The uploader has not made this video available in my country". The news is based on the country it's not available in, as novel as that is.

I did a google search for water incidents this past week. I am aware that El Paso never has water safe enough to drink, like ever. It's likely not the only place in the country, based on the reasons why the water isn't drinkable. It's not exactly a "Flint, MI" incident.

Matter of fact, some rich small town, Kingwood, outside of Houston, used the hype from Flint to claim their darkish-tinted water was harmful, when they just wanted a better pull of resources to upgrade more frequently (their water was literally not dark, they have ******* fountains everywhere, you can see the damned water).

So am I missing something? Our state isn't some environmental waste zone, just because it's republican, it's usually pretty sensible about that even if it's not what republicans are portrayed as. It's also not anti-gay, despite same assumptions otherwise.

http://www.hillcountryalliance.org/three-bills-aim-to-ensure-clean-water-recharges-the-edwards-aquifer/

[Insert claim of obvious observation that Tatsu "counts posts on pages" and then plugs a video into the "post creating a new page"]
Seriously, he's done this like 6 times now.

I hadn't even noticed. that's how far fetched that is and how does that even matter. first world problems galore here.

Why do things have to be as bad as Flint in order to qualify for attention?

Well, you have it bad on a scale of 1/10.

Well, Flint was an 8, definitely health risk for consumption, may not actually kill you, but may possibly.

El Paso I believe is a 7, but it's "understood", as the public works weren't ever "established" in the first place. It has something to do with water in the desert, forgot exactly what, again, not even sure what the video is about, so all I can do is argue ambiguously. Either way, city tells you, running water is fine for bathing and laundry and toilet, not for drinking unless you get a full-home filter or sink-filter or boil it or something.

For it to be a 9 or a 10, it has to hospitalize or kill you, on scene, in 1 drink.

Well, Kingwood was a 1, if DejaBlue was a 0. It really wasn't bad, but you could make **** up about it, and that pretty much sums up "Kingwood's Water Crisis". Would have no merit, if not riding on the hype of Flint.

I think the junk over here is a 4. I don't think there are any health side effects of this water, it just is white-cloudy, full of calcium deposit, tastes like ****, and if you have an RV water heater, it'll cake your heating coil and burn it out. I'm a heavy water drinker, 2 years, no health problems.

Just saying, I'm thinking Daily Show might be a fake news source or something, because I'm not sure how valid Texas Water Crisis claims are...

...and it's not just about Republican Civil Works vs Democrat Civil Works. Flint, Mi had democrats in charge at a city level, they drank the funds away like any typical government agency in charge of a city's water maintenance fund. "If it doesn't look broken, spend that sh*t on a yacht instead, b*tches love yachts."

Given the timelines involved in rectifying these kinds of situations (given how long Flint has been a situation for), don't you think we need to prioritise them better? Even a lower-priority problem is still a problem.

I mean, this kind of situation is completely alien to me. We don't have anything like it in the UK, and while I appreciate the logistics are completely different given the scale of (and variant climates within) the US, we have remote, barely-settled regions that we can still pull water through to.

No. You don't. We get water to San Antonio, and that's the FURTHEST the UK has to pull water. We have regions of desert climate predating human habitation, which span the size of the UK. Just, no.

Do they need prioritization? It's a greater necessity, than a yacht for a politician. Flint shouldn't have happened. It should have been fixed for sure. El Paso, should probably get help with resources, if it's even possible. I mean, they can't just reroute water from Canada like California does. How about you give California some grief for their water management?

My first thought on El Paso, is couldn't a pipeline be built? It gets done for gas and oil, and it might "employ US Steel".

So yeah it isn't easy to do. Nobody claims it is easy to do. But the USA is supposed to be a pretty powerful and rich nation.
So why do your politicians don't seem to even try to tackle the challenge?

From the video it apparently is a question of a less than 20 million $ to fix the water supply in that place. Maybe instead of wasting a few billion $ on a pointless border wall, they should rather fix their water supplies? Maybe instead of wasting 50+ million $ on a few pointless Tomahawks they should fix the water supply of a town or two?
So many things the US spends so much money on and yet the most basic things that the population need: Water & Food, Housing, Education, Medical Services, ... all seem to be at the bottom of the list of priorities.
Which seems so absurd, as those are the things that would really improve quality of life for so many Americans and actually make America a great nation "again". For actually taking care of its citizens.

You seem to have taken my post as way more of an aggressive challenge than I ever intended.