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Trump Is Pulling US Out of Paris Climate Deal: Sources (axios.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: President Trump has made his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the decision. Details on how the withdrawal will be executed are being worked out by a small team including EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. They're deciding on whether to initiate a full, formal withdrawal -- which could take 3 years -- or exit the underlying United Nations climate change treaty, which would be faster but more extreme. Pulling out of Paris is the biggest thing Trump could do to unravel Obama's climate legacy. It sends a combative signal to the rest of the world that America doesn't prioritize climate change and threatens to unravel the ambition of the entire deal. News agency Reuters has corroborated the report with its own source. Further reading on Politico (which has also corroborated the news) and BBC. Update: Trump Announces US Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord.
I always recommend pulling out of Paris.
Trump might get that trade war after all as Europe and other like-minded trading blocs impose import tariffs.
But wherever the Republicans go, Australia's Liberals follow so it's no comfort living here.
Because plutonium is safer than carbon?
For being a climate change denier, Trump interrupted her by saying WRONG. And he claimed his infamous tweet claiming climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese, was just a joke.
Once again, Trump took the independent voters in the middle for chumps.
Climate change politics are increasingly about wealth redistribution.
Truer words were never said, particularly by someone with so little grasp of the truth.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Now, finally and at last - we can begin to set our standards as high as Syria and Nicaragua!
I can't wait for the good 'ol USA to start living the good life like those guys. Makes you proud.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Have you seen some of the research on this? The long-term impacts may be catastrophic, and it's already fairly clear to anyone who cares to pay attention that climate change is already started! I find it really hard to believe anyone thought a treaty to cause climate change was a good idea in the first place.
Imagine all countries imposing pollution tariffs on everything made in the USA.
#DeleteFacebook
While the rest of the developed world and most of the developing world moves on, America will be willingly leaving itself in the dust. We are actively ceding our leadership in the world in many aspects. In a generation we will be playing second or third fiddle to the next super powers. China is high on the list as the next super power. They are where America was 60-70 years ago. Before we became complacent, greedy, unable to solve problems, partisan, and risk adverse to an absurd degree. It's not just about Climate Change. It's about global leadership.
Trump has really highlighted how much power/influence we choose to give to a single person. It amazes me that a president can unilaterally enter into or exit from agreements of this magnitude. If he has any positive legacy, I hope it's a legacy where we decided to further limit the power of the presidency.
If we were to write a book for children of good vs. evil, it would be hard to cast Trump as the "good guy". Even if he were cast as the "bad guy", he makes decisions that seem so clearly wrong that it would be rejected as too cliche.
Nuclear power is orders of magnitude safer than coal. 60 deaths per TWh for coal power worldwide avg, vs 0.04 deaths per TWh for nuclear, so a factor of 1500 better.
I'm sure the Chinese are thrilled to be leading the rest of the world as the US withdraws into isolation.
Under Obama, gas dropped to $2/gallon (thus kicking off another SUV cycle) and he sat on a pipeline that would have taken hundreds of thousands of oil cars off the rails (thus putting more biomes at risk).
So...what "Obama Climate Legacy" are we proud of again?
Most of the Paris accord was voluntary and the monetary reparations for damages related to climate change sought by the LDNs seem to not have been implemented so it leaves one puzzled why President Trump would even bother giving an answer on this and just toe the line. Anyway, I'll believe that the world cares about climate change when nations that have nuclear and space programs put catalytic convertors on their cars.
Slashdot is becoming more like reddit every day.
The left have been calling for his impeachment or assassination since before his inauguration. Their reasoning appears to be, "I don't agree with him so he should be impeached or assassinated". Modern leftists genuinely can't handle the fact that different people have different views, and when somebody voices an alternative view they fly into fits of rage and call for violence.
Few people still think he'll finish four years
Yes, few people in your echo chamber. If you dare to venture outside your safe space you'll find that other people think he's doing a great job.
Can we sue the President for gross negligence or something?
-SaNo
Crush the hippie, tree huggers like Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson! If there's one industry dragging the country down with their green crap, it's Big Oil.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
Just to show how serious this is, they should kick him/us out of the G7.
I believe the science behind AGW, but I do not think these global attempts to restrict carbon emissions are realistic.
With that said, giving up participation in these treaties is a poor choice. I don't mind the US giving up some of our leadership role in the world, but this was low-hanging fruit. It also had the secondary effect of lowering our dependence on foreign oil, which has broader strategic benefits.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
your ignorance is frightening
China has double the US Emissions - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
India's emissions are gaining.
The Paris deal lets countries set their own goals ('Nationally Determined Contributions') and isn't legally binding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So really the Paris Agreement is a plan made up by idealogues who want to 'save the planet'. Those ideologues want to set strict goals in the US (and the EU), affecting Western economies, while countries like India, China, and Russia set goals that do little to curb their emissions (and, of course, don't hurt their own economy)
In short, it's political theater that hurts the west.
I don't think it's fair to call Trump a liberal. Sure, he's not a conservative, and he's a big fan of Soviet-style planned economics, but that doesn't mean he's a liberal. Sometimes a drama queen is labeled simply because they're nuts. Are you sure that's not what's going on here?
If governments actually cared, they would invest in Solar panels for residents to get off the grid.
The utilities would complain about not making money on supplying electricity at night, request massive fee hikes to compensate, and render solar power more expensive to support an industry that doesn't want to change.
Pulling out of the climate agreement unfortunately makes me think of this cartoon: https://climatesanity.files.wo...
You live next to a coal plant for 20 years and I'll live next to a nuclear plant for 20 years.
We'll see who's in better shape at the end.
A president resigning or being impeached and removed from office would not be a constitutional crisis. A constitutional crisis would be when something happens that a solution isn't provided for.
They have Nuclear reactors that can be designed where it is impossible for them to meltdown.
Nuclear power is orders of magnitude safer than coal....
Tell me that during the next meltdown.
Similar to "traveling by aircraft is safer than traveling by car". Airplane crash immediately affects more people and is more newsworthy and thus gains the spotlight. Sure, coal and cars have been around much longer to cause more deaths, but they've also been around longer to generate more safe energy/miles so that should balance out.
Disclaimer: I don't recall my source when I read of the statistics several years ago, so if there's new data that disproves this, let me know!
In your echo chamber he is doing a great job, but when conservative sites start calling for people to pull out of the US, and the people who predicted his win also predict his impeachment you know you may be on the wrong side.
Polling disagrees with that position.
About 96% of voters said they would still vote for Trump, compared to 94% of Clinton voters.
Turning that around, about 50% more Clinton voters than Trump voters would vote for the other side now.
There's a *ton* of people cheering the president, it just doesn't get noted in the MSM. Look to places like Breitbart and Gab and Reddit threads for comments from people who are four-square behind his policies.
And let us not forget that Kucinich put forth 35 articles of impeachment for George Bush, including war crimes, including taking the country to war under false premises, but the then-leader of the Democratic party (senator Obama) chose not to prosecute because "it would divide the nation".
Yeah, "neither" would probably be ideal.
But as a fan of electricity and modern civilization, a few of them have to be in "someone's" backyard. May as well be nuclear.
Climate change politics are increasingly about wealth redistribution.
Truer words were never said, particularly by someone with so little grasp of the truth.
You think the OP is clueless? Then check out this article: $4 trillion carbon tax is needed
In the report, there is this gem:
The revenue can be used to foster growth in an equitable way, by returning the revenue as household rebates, supporting poorer sections of the population, managing transitional changes, investing in low-carbon infrastructure, and fostering technological change
The report doesn't mention how sucking four trillion dollars out of the economy actually impacts the climate in any way.
Looks like wealth redistribution to me.
I have lived next to a nuke plant for 30 years (indian point) and yeah. ill take this over coal any day
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Because Chernobyl or Fukushima Daiichi never happened, right? Marcoule in France, or the recent blast in Flamaville station?
And that's just a few of the accidents out of a long list of accidents on nuclear facilities, don't get me started on leaks incidents in waste storage facilities...
Because coal/oil/gas plants never explode and any associated spillage is fine right? How many millions of barrels of oil are dumped in the sea through carelessness or accident again? How much extra co2 is in the air trapping extra heat in the atmosphere? Nope, totally no polluting at all and let's all run away from big bad nuclear, ohhh its so scary I'll run and hide in my filth where it's safer.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
I'd just prefer to have neither one in my backyard...
Perfectly happy sucking up the power from either though, right?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
not being a part of a treaty is not "explicitly trying to destroy the planet" i mean ....do you hear yourself???
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Your fright is ignorance.
The economy is nothing but a gigantic mechanism of distributing wealth. How is changing the distribution "sucking" anything out? Whether it's fat pigs buying jewelry, military buying bombs, or poor people buying food, it's all supporting production and employing workers.
The question is; What are you going to do about it? Sitting online and complaining is going to do exactly squat.
The way I see it, there are two different groups in this nation. The first group sees that there is a major problem, although most don't realize the full extent of the problem. They want to see significant changes, but lack the tools to properly address the situation. Many members of this group lack the willingness to use the needed tools, even if they were provided. The second group has the needed tools and has demonstrated the willingness to use them. However, they don't think that there is a problem, or that change is needed right now.
I don't know what's going to happen over the next year or so, but somehow I think we'll look back on this as "before everything went completely to hell."
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
Speaking of wealth redistribution : your cheque is in the mail.
By first pointing out the US never actually ratified the agreement so it was stupid of any country to think we were in it. Then he could explain how congress ratifies treaties and then say he'll sign it if it gets passed. (Which it probably won't since the pubs control congress but hey the dems can vote for it knowing full well they won't have to worry about the results if it were to pass. Why yes I am a huge cynic)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Nuclear plants are massively expensive and take many years to build; during that time lots of things can halt the effort. This makes it a significantly risky investment. This means it is difficult to secure the money to build them. There are theoretical smaller-scale solutions in development, but they are not ready for fielding (and some may turn out to be impractical). Wind & Solar are safe investments. They can be built quickly, and they come with no public pushback, and very little Not-In-My-Backyard effect. so that's what's being pursued for now. As those realms become more saturated, the push for nuclear can become stronger.
This is hardly a surprise. Everyone in the business sector was banking on this. Trump basically is doing anything pro-buisness and pro-Russia at the expense of literally everything/everyone else. Any claims he has that security is a primary concern of his is complete whitewash. Germany called him out on lack of environmental concerns and he basically Twittered "the Germans should mind their own business..or else". Thing of it is, it's EVERYBODY'S business. The German Chancellor has said EU has said they cannot rely on the USA to play a leadership role and the EU will have to step up. Trump is alienating all our allies, and getting cozy with historically hostile foreign powers. This should be concerning to all of us.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Everything you mention is driven by Anonymous Sources. Like ACs on Slashdot, you can't trust them, you don't know if they are real or not, and they are usually wrong.
The White House is leaking like a sieve, yet no evidence of any criminal activities or even generic "wrong doing" has emerged. I would think that if people wanted him out so desperately and they had the goods they would have provided the evidence by now.
Hell, they can't even articulate what crimes may have been committed. All they can do is throw out vague, over the top accusations.
Evidence...where is it?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
We are not calling for firing Pence. Just Trump.
Sure the liberal groups doesn't like Pence but his motivations are based on what he thinks is good for the country, and is able to understand the complexities in it. Trump is a 5 year old in a 70 year old body. Unable and unwilling to comprehend the complexities of the world and it is about himself.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Thankfully, that's not the major aspect of his climate-change legacy. His bigger legacy is likely going to be the increased grants and government loans for alternative energy endeavors. He's not the greatest president for environmental efforts (that would probably be Nixon so far), but given the powers granted to a president, Obama did OK.
The Bush's wars ran up a significant debt as well. Don't forget about that.
. . .and long, slow deaths via lung cancer and black lung are hard to see on the macro level. Not to mention deaths in traditional coal mines (as opposed to strip-mined coal, which is ugly, but at least can be remediated afterwards. . .
Pence is awful, for sure. Compared to Trump on women's issues he may be a wash, though; sure he wants to restrict a lot of things that the government shouldn't be involved in but he does at least respect his wife.
That said Pence may be a non-issue. Trump is an incredibly spiteful person and it would not be the least bit out of character for him to take Pence down with him. That would ordinarily leave Paul Ryan in charge, but if we look to what happened with Nixon we see that Ford was not Speaker of the House before becoming president; Ford was brought in as VP after Agnew resigned and then became POTUS when Nixon resigned. That allowed Ford to chose his own VP (who was also not Speaker of the House). We could certainly expect a similar series of power moves from the end of the Trump white house.
Notice that Trump has already brought in his own private lawyer to cover his ass as things continue to spiral down... Not white house counsel but someone just to look out for him and only him.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If anything, they INCREASE the amount of CO2 and water vapor (greenhouse gases) released by cars. This is considered an acceptable tradeoff in preference to unburned hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, which cause smog....
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
What troll gave you the off-topic mod? Actually I came by to see if anyone had asked explicitly if trying to destroy the planet should count as grounds for impeachment? I actually think it might fit under "high crimes or misdemeanors" of some sort, but the fabulous founders couldn't cover EVERY base.
I think the intent was for elections to handle the rest.
Better still, grind up the nuclear plant entirely, into aerosol-sized particles. Then measure the mass and total emitted energy of the results. Compare that to the operation of a coal plant for a year. Depending on the grade of coal, the coal plant releases at least an order of magnitude more radioisotopes by both mass and energy. Not just alphas and betas, but gammas. . .
Chernobyl and Fukushima were old reactor designs. Chernobyl lacked the protective housing US designs required and Fukushima didn't follow US generator policy changes that were made in the 1970s for that type of reactor that said they needed to be protected from flooding if in a flood plain. Because the power grid was down and they had flooded generators, they weren't able to shut down the power plant. That was a known design problem with this very old reactor.
Marcoule and Flamaville were accidents that happened at nuclear reactors but neither were nuclear accidents. One was a furnace used to melt metals that contained an extremely low amount of hazardous radiation that exploded and the other was a turbine explosion. Ever seen a wind or gas turbine explode? It isn't all that uncommon.
Waste for the most part is unnecessary. Most if not all Gen IV reactors can breed what we call waste into fuel and passive safety is a requirement. What remains after these new reactors burn the fuel and waste will have radiation levels lower than background radiation in about 200-300 years, not thousands. Just and FYI if you haven't kept up.
By supporting the coal industry instead of phasing out coal and reversing emission reduction legislation, it was already impossible for the USA to reach the goals of the Paris climate deal. Puling out just makes it official.
The ONLY 'Constitutional Crisis' has been over the travel restrictions. That is only a crisis because of activist judges. Judges who in even recent times would have been hound (rightly so) from the bench for even suggesting that the President's personal prejudices should have any bearing whatsoever on the plain meaning of the law.
Literally its the left and their sympathizers that are seeking to undermine the very concept of codified law simply because they disagree with the agenda. Once every law is flat and subject to the whim of the mob, there will be nothing and nobody left to protect any of the few freedoms us CITIZENS let alone anyone else still enjoy.
At not time in modern history has there been such a vicious effort to undermine and remove a lawfully elected sitting president. The people behind it are human garbage who hate America and hate real freedom, even if you don't like Trump and don't support his policy. The mob that is going along with it are useful idiots.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
The FBI is an executive agency. ALL OF THE FBIs authority flows entirely from the Constitutional powers granted to the president.
No the president is not above the law but it is in appropriate for any part of the executive branch to be doing anything other than supporting the president. If there is a problem Congress needs to investigate and deal with it.
Executive branch employees who cannot toe the line should fired, with cause.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
What's to tear up?
Obama had no authority to commit the US to anything. All he did by signing that was to indicate that HE would use his executive power to guide policies and regulations i support of the agreement. Once Obama Left, the agreement was dead. Trump can simply reverse the policies and procedures put into place and ignore the rest of the agreement.
Nothing in that "agreement" has the force of law. Only treaties that have been ratified by the Senate can have any legal effect.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
This is what I voted for, glad he's keeping his promises. Climate change politics are increasingly about wealth redistribution. If it was a real issue nuclear power would be the solution, but nobody seems interested in a solution.
I know you're modded down, but the most ridiculous aspect of this treaty is that countries like China & India, which are far worse polluters of the environment, don't have to do a thing about it until 2030. If anything, those countries should bear the initial brunt of cleaning up, and when the rest of the world is where we are, then talk about everybody - including the US - cleaning up!
Don't worry, Trump plans to outdo that too - his tax plan alone will add something like 5.5 trillion to the debt.
It comes to something when we'd rather have Mike Pence in charge, huh?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It is possible to have strong concerns about carbon markets while still supporting the Paris Agreement.
and the idiotic polarization of politics in the States basically causing it to drop out of leadership on the most important issue of our time. Sad!
So after conceding that neither a nuclear nor a coal plant is likely to far worsen your standard of living, you turn out to be a NIMBY guy after all. I'd happily live next to either - would simply like to live rent free there for the rest of my life. As long as I've good internet, I'm happy.
Yes because ensuring that the planet is habitable past our lifetime is pure insanity....
When you cant win, ad hominem.
A tax of about 40% or 50% on imports of US goods to other countries which are still in the Paris agreement, reflecting the apparent IQ difference of the countries' leadership, as evidenced by this dumbass decision.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The really unfortunate thing is that even if he was out tomorrow, the damage has already been done. The next in line is an asshat too. Chances are the EPA won't be restored to even what it was before he took over, let alone given the additional powers it needs.
I can't see any good way the US can get through the next four years, it's going to be bad no matter what happens.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Trump doesn't breath the air of the unwashed masses when he has cans of Perri-Air to breath from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiabeNR_q0U
10-15 years to build a nuclear plant. Costs more than solar and soon more than wind. It is heavily subsidized by tax money so it's not even competitive without free money.
Next Gen future BS that is always 5 years away is risky if new and likely expensive and didn't I mention that it's 5 years away? We've heard about better kinds for decades and still the older designs continue and nobody is making these magical new reactors.
The incompetence of managing nuclear is a real issue and the damage done is measured in centuries. They dilute and make it more difficult to measure than it already is. Coal also helps to make all this difficult to discover and when it is they do FUD against it.
The economy is nothing but a gigantic mechanism of distributing wealth. How is changing the distribution "sucking" anything out? Whether it's fat pigs buying jewelry, military buying bombs, or poor people buying food, it's all supporting production and employing workers.
Economies generally work by the exchange of goods and services for money.
So, in each of your examples you are describing a functioning economy.
An economic leakage occurs when money that could be used to purchase good and services is instead send elsewhere. The result of the leakage reduces the money supply, which reduces the ability to purchase goods and services.
This proposed tax (like all other taxes) is an economic leakage. Money is being taken out of the normal economic system. Now governments may use this money to buy goods and services, or they may choose to distribute it in some other way. But it remains an economic distortion. Taxation != buying bombs, jewelry or food.
You going and earning a dollar actually means that you had something of value the other party wanted to exchange money for. It's a win-win scenario. Taxation, on the other hand, is the government coming and taking money from you, and you not getting anything in return. Likewise, the government giving you a dollar represents an economic transaction that couldn't happen elsewhere as the government had to appropriate the money from somewhere else.
Don't fall for the fallacy that governments print money. They don't. Governments issue and guarantee currency that has an agreed exchange value. The amount of currency in circulation (generally) represents the economic value of the economy. That's why governments issuing more currency inevitably leads to inflation, as there are more units of exchange (let's call them dollars) that represent the value of the economy, so the buying power of that unit of exchange falls.
So: this proposed tax extracts money from the economy and reduces economic activity because there less to spend. Assuming that the money is 100% redistributed to people, they can do less with the money because economic activity has fallen. Nothing good comes out of this.
The big problem about supplying electricity is the payback schedules for construction usually are of the order of 25-30 years. Anything that changes your assumptions can kill your ROI. Slowing down construction of other sources and lengthening out changes via litigation actually makes sense from that point of view. And infrastructure maintenance being payed for via KWH as an easy abstraction instead but does not cover costs if things like solar are used individually. Changing this to a connection cost would cause costs to vary wildly as well.
That said, maintenance is very seldom actually done, and renewables change the demand on the infrastructure drastically, and improving that is very costly.
Tonights forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning
What ever else you want to say about the Paris Agreement, it's temperature goals are laughable. Look at NOAA's temperature trends since 1880. Temperatures have increased by 1.0 C since 1880, already. The Paris agreement suggests setting goals to keep temperatures below 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. From the climate modelling the IPCC has collected, even a complete and absolute global ban on all CO2 emissions tomorrow would NOT reach the 1.5C goal. The existing emissions already out there will ride us over 1.5C before 2100.
Because Chernobyl or Fukushima Daiichi never happened, right? Marcoule in France, or the recent blast in Flamaville station?
And that's just a few of the accidents out of a long list of accidents on nuclear facilities, don't get me started on leaks incidents in waste storage facilities...
Of course they did. That's why the number is 0.04 instead of zero. That number also includes deaths due to mining uranium by the way.
Well he fired the guy investigating him...that's usually a bad sign, but most damningly he pulled out of the Paris climate deal to help some corporations profit at the expense of destroying the world
Because plutonium is safer than carbon?
If Trump wanted to replace coal with nuclear, he could've stuck with the agreement. The nuclear industry was massively in favor of it.
Obstruction of justice is a crime that has been committed.
Trump publically admitted to that one when he said he fired Comey over the russian investigation. Regardless of if there was any collusion or not Trump knew his administration was under investigation by Comey and fired him. That is obstruction of justice. He even double down on it when he revealed to the russians that he had made his life easier by firing Comey to end the investigation.
Trump has also definitely violated the Emoluments clause and could be impeached for that.
I don't know if his campaign colluded with Russia during the election and that is still being investigated.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
No the president is not above the law but it is inappropriate for any part of the executive branch to be doing anything other than supporting the president. ... Executive branch employees who cannot toe the line should fired, with cause.
The first part of your statement "no president is above the law" is in contradiction with the second, "the executive branch should only help the President".
For example, using your logic, things would have gone much better for Nixon if the FBI and executive branch employees had simply helped the CRP break into the DNC office at the Watergate complex.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
This proposed tax (like all other taxes) is an economic leakage.
Only if the government takes it tax revenue and buries it in the ground. In real governments, tax revenues are rapidly returned to the economy through the purchase of goods and services, such as roads and park cleaning.
In the case of carbon tax revenues, one can imagine spending them on housing subsidies for people who live in factory/plant exhaust plumes, essentially causing the polluter to compensate the people being most directly affected. Or to subsidize particular kinds of medical care. Even the costs of administering such a program turn out to be jobs and salaries.
Who the fuck modded this up.
Comey wasn't investigating him. That's like saying the President of GM is building cars.
Career investigators were investigating and continue to do so.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Wrong.
Comey wasn't investigating him. That's like saying the President of GM is building cars.
Career investigators were investigating and continue to do so.
The Emoluments clause stuff is just plain stupid.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Fuck'n A
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Yes, like when the POTUS wins the election because of influence from a foreign nation.
But despite all that Saudi money, Hillary lost?
Or when the POTUS profits financially from money spent by foreign nations in his properties.
How do you profit on something you've donated entirely to the US Treasury?
Or when the POTUS fires the FBI chief who was tasked with investigating what he did that is widely believed to be in violation of the constitution.
FBI Director serves at the pleasure of the president, so I don't see how that's a constitutional crisis...
Or when the POTUS gives away secret information to a foreign power.
The president can declassify whatever information he wants. Telling a foreign nation we'd like better relations with "hey, terrorists are trying to blow up your passenger aircraft with laptop bombs" seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Also, remember Russia warned us about the Tsarnaev brothers before the Boston bombing...if only Obama had listened. Still, seems nice to return the favor and keep those lines of communication open, doesn't it?
Those are all constitutional crises, and given his track record we'll see another one by the end of next week at the very latest.
These are only constitutional crises in your mind, driven by delusion and (heavily, heavily) motivated reasoning. Trump will not be impeached as he's committed no high crime or misdemeanors, and will not resign, and you will continue your descent into madness.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Two concepts: externalized costs, and liquidity of assets. If your assets are sufficiently liquid, you can externalize your costs and then move your assets out of the way of the consequences. This represents a wealth distribution to people who not only avoid paying for the things they use (e.g. using the atmosphere as a dump), but can actually move their investments into things people have to buy because of pollution. In other words, if you're one of the billionaire investors bankrolling the climate denialist PR campaign, you're going to make money coming and going.
The other people who go along with it are just suckers. I've had some of them tell me scientists are getting rich off some kind of climate conspiracy.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yes, you voted for King Canute to hold back the tides. Congratulations, you're just so darned brilliant.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You are so virtuous, and the way you dole out curses is just awesome.
And guess what, we're all going to die. 'Science' hasn't fixed that yet and probably never will.
Well he said he fired him because of the Russia thing. Sort of like saying the President of volkswagon is responsible for the emission scandal.
The president doing the things you mention is not a constitutional crises because there is a constitutional remedy: impeachment and removal from office. A constitutional crises would be if the president and all successors listed in the Presidential Succession Act were to die simultaneously.
The ONLY 'Constitutional Crisis' has been over the travel restrictions. That is only a crisis because of activist judges. Judges who in even recent times would have been hound (rightly so) from the bench for even suggesting that the President's personal prejudices should have any bearing whatsoever on the plain meaning of the law.
You misspelled "executive order". Executive orders are not laws, and they (quite rightly) get a very different level of scrutiny from the courts. Because they're the dictates of a single individual, that individual's motivations in issuing them definitely are relevant to questions of their constitutionality. There are countless examples of this in the judicial record, especially with respect to orders issued by law enforcement officials and state governors. The intent of the order has a great deal of bearing on its constitutionality.
This principle hasn't (AFAIK) been applied to presidential executive orders until now, but that's only because past presidents (with the possible exception of Andrew Jackson) haven't been batshit crazy. Note that I'm not saying executive orders haven't been struck down, several have, just that the analysis of intent hasn't been explicitly considered. SCOTUS came close by lightly analyzing intent when they struck down Obama's recess appointments, and it can be argued that intent was a factor in their decision (though I don't think it was really necessary to consider intent in that case; it was a pretty clear subversion of the constitutional process).
BTW, before you go calling me a "liberal", I should point out that I voted for the Republican candidate for president in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012. In 2016 I voted for a conservative independent in order to avoid voting for Trump.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You really expect to impeach a president in his first 130 days? Took Nixon like 2-3 years. Even with the massive cloud hanging over Trump, making an airtight case takes time. What a ridiculous assertion that he committed no crime simply because they're making sure they have a case good enough to bring against him.
Fine, hate on Trump all you want, but you're marginalizing the mentally ill with your political rhetoric.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
And because these http://www.mining-technology.c... never happened, which is just IN ADDITION to the tons of deaths caused by coal burning pollution, black lung, etc
He stated publically that he fired Comey to end the russia investigation. He specifically fired him with INTENT to disrupt/end the investigation. He then expressed relief at having disrupted the investigation.
There is also nothing stupid about the emoluments clause. It is intended to make sure that the president can not be paid off by foreign powers. Do you think it is a little strange that Saudi Arabia was not included in the countries in the travel ban? The country where we actually have had a number of terrorists come from? Actually quite a number of countries where left off the travel ban list and even a judge noted that the countries left out all have trump properties in them. We don't know for sure if that was part of the reason for leaving them out but that is also why that clause exists. Right now Trump and his family are personally and directly benefiting financially from the office of the president with respect to foreign powers.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
Some of the worst arguments I see on here are that China causes more carbon emissions. Sure imagine you're stranded on a boat with 10 other people and wearing a red shirt while everyone has a blue shirt. You're eating 5 times the amount of rations but arguing that you shouldn't cut back because "blue" is already eating more. This is why emissions per capita matters. Carbon emissions are directly related to food production and general economic wealth of a nation. As a resident of a well off nation, it stands to hurt us the least to cut back a little. The only way China can cut back is to effectively downgrade their economics so badly that it will probably start killing people.
So yeah, wealth redistribution it is, but folks forget that we're already doing that. There are far far more poorer folks out there worldwide and when nature inevitably bites back due to climate change it will hit the poor much harder but we share the same planet. Expect more environmental refugees and don't be surprised if folks start fighting more. After all if you're staving to death because you don't have water or food or a way of living, blowing up your neighbour who seems to have everything, deserved or not seems like a good option.
It's why we should pro-actively try to fix this even if it seems hopeless, letting it go to the latter doesn't sound like fun at all.
BS: Pence is a lying sack of shit. He'd sell the country to the Christian dolts who think that museum in Kentucky is a science museum. And his beliefs about what the government should do is not very different from what el Presidentie Tweetie has allowed. I say allowed because he doesn't have the wit to construct any policies of his own.
Psst...guess who made up the list of countries for the Travel ban?
Ya...Obama... So was S.A. paying off Obama?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
So...is the FBI still investigating him, or not?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
They can't even articulate a crime they suspect him of.
Can you? Cite the federal code.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
" that we already know of and are documented."
But that you evidently can't innumerate here.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You had me until "more safe energy/miles".
The longer we burn coal, it gets worse, not better.
If you meant by balancing out that it explains more deaths, refer to my previous statement.
Sorry, AC, we can't trust you, you are probably not even real, and you are wrong.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I'm willing to accept the off-topic mod. In the strictest sense of what is topical for this thread, my post could be considered outside those bounds.
If you want to look at abuse of moderation privileges though, I can guarantee you that someone will hit it with the "overrated" mod, which is taken by those who are given moderator points to mean "I disagree". Whatever. They can moderate my posts till their blue in the face and they won't move my karma.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The report doesn't mention how sucking four trillion dollars (as a tax on fossil fuel use) out of the economy actually impacts the climate in any way.
Let me read between the lines for you, using this neat trick some of us have called inference.
Taxing fossil fuel use increases price and reduces demand for fossil fuel. Because people still require the services (transport, heating, powering industry etc) that fossil fuel currently is employed for, demand is increased for alternative GHG-emissions-free means of performing those services in the economy. So the economy is on a path to de-carbonization: de-coupling of GHG emissions from the functioning of the economy. This allows CO2 and methane levels in the atmosphere to stabilize and be gradually reduced. This stabilization and reduction, through physics involving the absorption spectra of various atmospheric molecules times the concentration of these molecules at different heights in the atmosphere with atmospheric temperature gradient factors thrown in, causes the net heat energy gain of the planet to slow, preventing or delaying global warming of the atmosphere and oceans, and preventing extreme changes in clmate.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The FBI is an executive agency. ALL OF THE FBIs authority flows entirely from the Constitutional powers granted to the president.
No the president is not above the law but it is in appropriate for any part of the executive branch to be doing anything other than supporting the president. If there is a problem Congress needs to investigate and deal with it.
Executive branch employees who cannot toe the line should fired, with cause.
You do know this all hit the supreme court under nixon and they ruled that it is illegal for the president to fire someone investigating him right?
I have lived next to a nuke plant for 30 years (indian point) and yeah. ill take this over coal any day
Yeah, but what does your *other* head think? :D
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
They are, despite Trump's efforts
I keep seeing people say that but all the evidence I can find does not really support that statement.
http://www.politifact.com/wisc...
From what I can find the statement is only partially true. The Obama administration put in more restrictions on travel from those countries and didn't allow the visa waiver program to apply to those countries but did not actually try to ban them. It also looks like the list changed over time based on recommendations from the intelligence agencies.
You also ignored the emoluments issue entirely. It is like you latched on to one small thing you could attack while ignoring the overall issue. That is nitpicking and not useful.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
[...] yet no evidence of any criminal activities or even generic "wrong doing" has emerged. [...] they would have provided the evidence by now. [...] Evidence...where is it?
Trump himself provided the evidence. He affirmed he fired Comey so the "russier" investigation would end quickly. That's obstruction of justice.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
I would think that if people wanted him out so desperately and they had the goods they would have provided the evidence by now.
To a republican senate who won't even commit to pretending to investigate him?
Hell, they can't even articulate what crimes may have been committed. All they can do is throw out vague, over the top accusations.
Awful hard to do when no one with any power will actually investigate him.
And when has that stopped a congressional investigation before? We spent seven million dollars investigating whether Hillary Clinton personally led a band of islamic terrorists to murder soldiers and government employees and that was well worth it, she'll spend her prison time she earned from that thinking about what she's done. And of course all those climate change scientists, without congress we'd never have punished them for using a hockey stick to heat up the earth. And obviously, Congress very effectively ended the criminal organization that was ACORN many times, which as you know committed the double sin of trying to get poor people houses and also something clearly involving legalizing child prostitution.
But for every slam dunk case congress successfully prosecutes like that, there are silly nonsense things like investigating the financial crisis.
For those with republican brains, the above things were sarcasm. None of those things I mentioned as good congressional investigations were based on anything. Republicans endlessly pursue investigations based on absolutely nothing while ignoring serious crimes. "You can't even say what crimes Trump should be investigated on" is a massive double standard, and this should be obvious to anyone capable of voluntarily chewing. If voters held Trump to the same standard as we allow liberals to be held to, he would be in Guantanamo bay by now.
Do I think the Republican held House is going to start impeachment proceedings? In a word: no.
The first chance at impeachment proceedings is after the 2018 elections, and only if they are a massive landslide. IIRC the Democrats need a 10 point spread nationally to get a simple majority in the House, and a simple majority won't get much done.
I read the internet for the articles.
No obstruction then.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The emoluments issue is stupid. The most you can gin up is that somehow foreign leaders will feel obligated to stay at his hotels.
And you apparently can't Google for shit.
"The seven Muslim-majority countries targeted in President Trump's executive order on immigration were initially identified as "countries of concern" under the Obama administration."
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
So, all leftists screaming bloody murder about Trump are faking it? I am fascinated by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Chernobyl wasn't really even an "accident". They did a late-night safety test without telling the engineers to arrange the fuel in the correct way for said test. Another station went offline, and the plant was told to postpone the test. When it finally resumed, the original day-time team had long went home; the over-night team wasn't trained properly and the delay had allowed dangerous gas buildup to occur. The whole incident was more a series of incompetence, improper training, and piss-poor communication. An accident is "an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause." What happened there was not without cause, and was no chance happening. The whole test should have been aborted until it was back on the original, daytime schedule with the proper crew in attendance.
We have several reactor designs that are quite safe. The pebble bed is one of the Gen IV you mentioned. The LFTR is another very safe reactor, unfortunately the current development won't have a commercial reactor until at least 2032.
Seriously, the paris deal is worse than the kyoto deal. the fact that China CONTINUES TO GROW THEIR EMISSIONS, says that it is wrong.
Instead, we should require 3rd world nations like CHina which emit far more than they admit AND emit more than what even the west can drop, is a joke.
Hopefully, instead, the GOP will push for a tax on ALL CONSUMED GOODS/Services based on what state/nations the worst CO2 comes from.
All that needs to happen is that we need OCO3 to have precise measurements between states/nations, along with normalizing based on emissions / $ GDP.
With this, America raises the tax on the emissions/$GDP. This will force all nations to drop their emission over time, or lose their export market. In addition, it will benefit those nations that have low emission / $ GDP.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
your ignorance is frightening
And yours is now irrelevant.
I have a hunch given the sample size, the accounting changes dramatically every Fukushima, or Chernobyl. I'm certain it could be made safer given that most reactors out there are some permutation on 50 year old and very risky BWRs. However, it's an increasingly mute point given cost of nuclear power is rather high up on the list relative to other sources such as coal, solar, wind, and natural gas.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
We've had designs for colonies on the Moon and Mars for decades. How's that working out? There's better technology available certainly, however, what we actually have are 50 year old BWRs and little motivation to throw down the billions of dollars on one of the most expensive forms of power available.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
As far as I can tell, the order to increase scrutiny on people traveling from specific countries is not in and of itself unconstitutional. The contents of the order have been found to be in violation, but that isn't the same thing.
Where the president may actually be running afoul of the constitution is in regards to his business holdings. Because of the non-standard method that Trump used to divest himself from his assets, profits from his business ventures may still be considered to be received by Trump. This hasn't been tested in court yet. If the court rules on this and finds that Trump is in fact receiving, even indirectly, payments from foreign governments using his businesses services, that could become grounds for impeachment due to constitutional violations.
The other word that keeps getting thrown around is treason. It looks like Trump may have overshared classified information with Russian officials, and many people are upset over this. The problem is it can't be treason. It might be good old fashioned espionage, but that isn't an impeachable crime. It can't be treason because an act of treason requires an enemy of the state, of which we don't have currently. We haven't been at war in over 50 years (military actions do not create state enemies).
Probably something about sex.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
As a GOP guy, I'm glad to hear this kind of thinking (like the kind that said Trump had 100% chance of losing).
Surely the democrats should run Hillary again since she got most of the vote. Voters are not concerned about corruption problems in the DNC. Also there is widespread belief Trump (despite being rich in his own right and opposing him all over the Middle East) is somehow in the pocket of Putin.
Democrats like Dianne Feinstein are just dragging their feet when they say these allegations against Trump have no basis in evidence. The electorate rarely gives a second term to anybody anyway.
So pretty much the democrats should do exactly what they did last time or reach even further and nominate Jeremiah Wright, Martha Coakley, Elizabeth Warren, or Alvin Green. I am counting on you, DR, to contribute more posts exactly like this.
Besides, the extra fingers growing out of my kneecaps come in handy some days...
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Pretty sure "liberal" in the US means the same thing as "conservative," specifically it translates to "anybody I disagree with."
One thing I was surprised to see in the comments section on a very balanced local paper (which in my part of the world means fairly right of center, but not run by conspiracy theorists), somebody said he agreed with somebody else, not because she had a good point, but because "nobody can question your conservative credentials." I guess the poster in question was known to the other person to be a "conservative," so that was all the validation he needed of her post. What she said made good sense, and was quite beneficial to the conversation. Why somebody would think it needed vouching based on being by a "conservative" is beyond me.
I'm pretty left of center socially and fiscally, but if somebody I disagree with has a good point, I say that it's a good point. I might even change my mind. Hell, just look at my post history here. What I find with my right-wing whackadoodle buddies (of which I have many), the better the evidence against their position, the more they dig in their heels.
If a myopic perspective is taken sure. However, a carbon tax is capturing the more complete cost of such pollution. Fossil fuels and their cousins throw the full cost far enough into the future that people don't have to pay attention to it. My children shouldn't be stuck with paying for what my parents used. Carbon tax brings it back to the generation responsible for it. That's not leakage, that's time-shifting. Then since it's more expensive to do the detrimental thing, the beneficial thing is economically incentivized and the detrimental thing is done less. That's value. It's not money being sent on a one-way into the sun.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Bah, it removed my /joking tag.. I didn't think it'd parse!
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Have you averaged that out over 100,000 years?
Didn't think so. The waste will be around that long. How many deaths do you think will occur during that time from contaminated ground, air and water?
Offloading the waste onto future generations only makes it cleaner in the present without considering the hundreds of future generations it will affect. All the carbon that coal burning produces will be gone in 10,000 years. Nuclear waste will be around a lot longer than that.
The problem with nuclear power advocates is the problem with most people. They can't picture even 100 years into the future, let alone 10,000 or 100,000 years. Peoples minds are just not designed to think that far ahead. This is the most important thing that nuclear advocates always miss. And they explain it away like "oh well we will figure out what to do with the waste eventually!".
Its the same kind of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.
Step one is conservation of energy (using less), step two is truly renewable energy development. These are the only ways forward.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
Wages were paid, but nothing of economic value was created in the exchange.
Surely it is far better to mandate that polluter to reduce their pollution levels? Like what the CARB did to cars years ago to clean up LA?
We, the citizens, are effectively saying to polluters: clean up or get out. The Invisible Hand will guide the economy to a better place.
Sounds more like we're saying: Pollute all you want because pollution isn't real.
At no time in modern history has a gameshow host with no political experience been appointed to the highest office in the United States.
never drink kool-aid from a big vat
You could also describe a tax as a fix for an externality. There are costs associated with dumping a bunch of CO2 that aren't reflected in the cost of the goods and services being produced. The tax can help add those costs back in.
on a per capita basis they're already ahead of us on carbon emissions. Go talk to the OPEC countries instead.
Only attempted obstruction
> Actually, tax money gets spent and goes back into the economy
> to pay somebody else's salary, who then spends money. -- quite
> the opposite of sucking money out of the economy.
It would get put into either the pockets of bigwigs at outfits like Solyndra http://fortune.com/2015/08/27/... or into the pockets of rich people who can afford to buy an $85,000 Tesla https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/su...
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Right, the people opposing a travel ban hate freedom because nothing exemplifies freedom like preventing people from traveling.
When you buy a good that incurs pollution, you pass on the cost of that pollution to everyone else. If I choose to buy nuclear power and you choose coal power, I get the CO2 pollution regardless of my choice.
This is called an externality and classically "economists often urge governments to adopt policies that 'internalize' an externality, so that costs and benefits will affect mainly parties who choose to incur them. For example, manufacturing activities that cause air pollution impose health and clean-up costs on the whole society".
The whole point of the tax is to make it more expensive to buy something that costs society money. Is it somehow unjust to have a cigarette tax that pays for lung cancer treatments in public hospitals?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Anti war? He is looking to increase the defense by billions of dollars, putting more boots on the grround in the middle east and is threatening to attack NK...He also bows down to the religious right, he didnt destroy them.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Yea, you're right. I should have put quotes around "safe"...I was trying to offset naysayers who would scream "Of course there's more deaths in coal, it's just been around longer!". "Clean" coal is just burning more coal to deal with the burned coal, with a necessary net increase in pollutants output, or catching the soot, which then gets buried/whatever, but while the filter's filling up, efficiency goes down because flow is blocked...treating emissions should begin with the fuel and at the beginning of the process, not at the end.
You can ensure that you are not the ones making it uninhabitable... In addition ecosystems will not be altered but wiped out. You seem to be under the impression that we cannot be the source of our own doom, but we can.
I do love the false dilemma you present though of "REAL science" as though only the science you believe is real. That my friend is not science.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
They have Nuclear reactors that can be designed where it is impossible for them to meltdown.
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."
https://www.brainyquote.com/qu...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
So you don't believe that freedom and the rule of law can be undermined as much by the far right as from the left? Believe me it will and is happening.
Freedom means so many different things to different people. Just because someone thinks differently than you do and is extremely concerned about what's going on in the white house does not mean they hate freedom and hate America. The opposite in fact. Who are you to define what love of country means to your fellow countrymen?
There are lots of kinds of freedom that mean a great deal to many people. To be free from racism and prejudice is top on the list for some. Others sincerely desire to have the freedom to receive basic medical care without having to go without food. Are these freedoms any less valid than your freedom to do whatever it is you want to do? Freedoms do clash and conflict. When they do, whose freedoms are more important, yours or theirs?
Hopefully I'm wrong, but you seem to imply that defending freedoms means the freedoms to think like you do, act like you do, and to be free from association with people who think differently than you do. Unless you folks in the US can overcome this partisan division by accepting and reconciling the vastly different points of view and even culture in America, the country will break apart and fall, just like so many other countries have and are failing now. The failures came not from some people people simply being wrong, or from "mob rule," but from division. And as long as you are pointing a finger at another American and claiming they hate America, you are as much a part of the problem as they are.
You're absolutely right, all we'll have to contend with is massive displacement across the world, global famine, and the plethora of wars that will come from scarcity of living space and resources. It's fine, really. No biggie.
2004
Jesus man why? Did you actually agree with the Iraq war? If so, I hope you don't still.
Have you averaged that out over 100,000 years?
Why should we when technology exists to make the waste vastly safer, smaller in volume, and extract power from it all at the same time?
How many deaths do you think will occur during that time from contaminated ground, air and water?
Suspiciously few given that said waste can be made far less dangerous than it currently is all while generating power and a profit. The hurdle is emotional, not technical or economical.
The problem with nuclear power advocates is the problem with most people. They can't picture even 100 years into the future, let alone 10,000 or 100,000 years. Peoples minds are just not designed to think that far ahead. This is the most important thing that nuclear advocates always miss. And they explain it away like "oh well we will figure out what to do with the waste eventually!".
Its the same kind of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.
You seem to be one of the less-informed types of opposition so allow me to again state we have the means to use that waste to generate power over and over again until the amount of waste is vastly smaller and much less radioactive. Think for a moment about radioactivity. Why is the waste dangerous? Because it's radioactive, right? But radioactivity is, in essence, energy. Harness that energy and you both reduce the total radioactivity of the waste -- conservation of energy basics -- and convert that radioactivity into useful power. When you've extracted all the power (aka "radioactivity") from the waste you can feasibly extract, you're left with a much smaller volume of waste which also happens to be much less dangerous to dispose of.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Taxation, on the other hand, is the government coming and taking money from you, and you not getting anything in return.
Sure, if the money just stopped in the government's hands, but what about this trillion dollar deficit government leads you to believe they won't spend it? And what you get back is roads, schools, a military, all the things that make commerce efficient and safe! I can't tell if this is supposed to be an argument towards anarchy or total ignorance of the fact that the american government is a GIANT part of the economy. About the only thing they could do to "take the money out of the economy" would be to pay off our debt. But unless you are suggesting that we should never do that, I don't see an eventual way around that one.
Assuming that the money is 100% redistributed to people, they can do less with the money because economic activity has fallen. Nothing good comes out of this.
What? Are you experiencing some kind of fever dream where you type? Assuming that 4 trillion dollars were handed out to to populace at large, there would be the same effect as we see from income tax rebate time. Want to know how much that stimulates the economy, stop by a gamestop and ask any manager what kind of massive sales increase they see. Now multiply that by 10,000. Short term, if such a reckless plan were enacted, you would see massive inflation, but only due to supply, and that is precisely why the government would likely find a more responsible way of using the money. Like our crumbling roads that business drive their goods on, or huge investment in good paying green energy which will require massive hiring.
Honestly, you talk like nobody in the world even remotely asked anyone who knows anything about economics before proposing a carbon tax. We have these nifty guys called economists, and they have these fancy things called PHDs. In fact, other countries have them too! I am sure at least a few were consulted and didn't come up with the "this does nothing" claim that you seem to have arrived at.
But hey, Trump University might teach a different take on it.
You realize that Bill Clinton fired FBI director Sessions a month after an investigation was opened on him.
You're leaving out some very important context, and you got the time frame wrong. Sessions was accused of improprieties by the first Bush administration, just prior to Clinton's inauguration. The Justice Department was investigating travel and expense abuses. He was fired that July based on recommendations from the Office of Professional Responsibility and the AG's office. It seems almost quaint now, that something as meager as inappropriate travel expenses by the FBI director could trigger investigations and firing.
The only reason for the impeachment talk is that he violated the apparent law against being president while Republican.
Neither president Johnson nor former president Clinton were Republican. They were the only two presidents to have been impeached.
CO2 is deadly. Just try breading it for a while. But the problem with CO2 can be divided into 2 problems. CO2 will go into the sea and lower its PH abd thus killing the fish. This and lack of rain will make billions lof people run out of food .
You left out 'feeding' that take in CO2 emit Oxygen, but sustaining nearly all life on earth isn't nearly as important as being on the right side of 'concensus science'...
Ken
Taxation, on the other hand, is the government coming and taking money from you, and you not getting anything in return.
I largely agree with you (say, 80%). But considering that the government does provide some services (i.e. roads, sewage, water, etc.) wouldn't it be more precise to say:
Taxation, on the other hand, is the government coming and taking money from you, and you getting some things you want but mostly things you don't want in return.
Or give advantages to those properties through various methods like tax breaks and free permits. There is all kinds of creative ways to give someone a gift and owning commercial properties in their area of control makes it that much easier. There is also of course the opposite possibility where it opens you up to having that property leveraged against you, threats to seize property and such.
Apparently you're either an ignoramus or a liar. Scientists aren't saying it's going to kill us... well, it's probably going to kill a lot of people, but not likely many in the West. But it is going to make our lives a lot more difficult and a lot more expensive, and actually, if you pay any attention to insurance actuaries, it already is.
But I get it, you're a baby, a little infantile child who hasn't the maturity or the wits to assess a situation based on what's actually happening, preferring the nice cooing sounds of a profoundly stupid and disturbed man. You are truly among the most contemptible people of our age, and I hope you suffer for it.
Your flamebait aside, this is the one rational statement of the problem.
Allow be to present the rational opposition position: we need to quantify:
a) The cost of not forcing change here (Solar and fusion will obviously dominate if we look far enough ahead, but this is about facing us off fossil fuels before it happens naturally).
b) The reduction in cost by forcing a certain amount of change.
c) The harm directly caused by forcing that change. Higher energy prices directly couple to lower standard of living.
It should be obvious to anyone considering the question rationally that we need to compare b and c. To act out of panic "we must do something; this is something, so lets do it" is a common source of real harm. To act out of a clear cost-benefit analysis is good policy.
But no one seems interested in that part of the debate. All I ever see is "virtue signalling" by both sides. (Much like the immigration debate, where no one ever is willing to state a quantity of immigration that is ideal, but each side talks endlessly about how the other side's vague hand-waving is evil and wrong.)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You conveniently neglected, like every other citizen who has been brainwashed by the liberal-infiltrated MSM, that established federal law (specifically Title 8, Chapter 12, US Code 1182(f)) grants the authority to the POTUS to suspend the entry of aliens deemed detrimental to the interests of the US.
The specific law reads:
The activist judges completely ignored this law - which was also quoted in the EO - to justify their flawed judgment. When judges or executives or representatives ignore codified law spelled out in front of them simply because it conflicts with their personal agenda, a constitutional crisis exists.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
You going and earning a dollar actually means that you had something of value the other party wanted to exchange money for. It's a win-win scenario. Taxation, on the other hand, is the government coming and taking money from you, and you not getting anything in return.
Taxes are spent on many different things. They are used for public spending, which means spending on public property - on institutions and services that are not privately owned.
So the taxes you pay are used to pay for:
transport
education
health
law and order
housing
culture, media and sport
trade and industry
environment, food and rural affairs
overseas development and defense.
The "taxes don't do anything for me" argument reminds me of the Monthy Python
Yes, I was aware of that clause of the law. It's not clear to me, and wasn't clear to the judges, that it enables the president to find that a given class is detrimental merely because he doesn't like their religion.
We'll see what SCOTUS says, unless the administration drops the issue.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"Taxation, on the other hand, is the government coming and taking money from you, and you not getting anything in return."
Your entire post seems to revolve around this single statement that the governed people don't get anything in return. That seems like quite a stretch. Taxation of the governed provides for a huge amount of benefits that can't be provided for by the markets. Things like transportation infrastructure, an educated and healthy populous, and security services, just to name a few.
Your post lacks details.
Economies create and distribute wealth based on supply and demand. Governments can issue currency and REdistribute existing wealth according to ideology, which may not conform to actual supply and demand or even to reality. Some of this is inevitable and desirable. However, when they are allowed to grab control of markets for long periods, they kill competition and innovation as they become the big bullies on the block, with all the legal, social, and most of the economic cards in their hands.
Trust busting every now and then is a good thing. However, we shouldn't exempt government from this 'marketplace cleansing.'
It also does not work if you give up regulating it--- in fact it trends into disaster as human history shows over and over - EVERY time far more than attempts to regulate it.
There are plenty of examples for both extremes.
C'mon, be charitable and give the left their Benghazi. It's the least we can do.
Besides, it's great fun watching all these "highly educated intellectual elites" spiral into paranoid delusion and conspiracy theory.
I guess all those expensive degrees weren't much inoculation against paranoia and magical thinking after all, eh?
This proposed tax (like all other taxes) is an economic leakage. Money is being taken out of the normal economic system. Now governments may use this money to buy goods and services, or they may choose to distribute it in some other way. But it remains an economic distortion. Taxation != buying bombs, jewelry or food.
On the other hand, it's a tax that I can quite easily reduce, through my own actions, legally, thus reducing my tax burden. I can choose to live close to my job and walk to work (reducing the taxes that would be on the fuel my car uses), I can choose to better insulate my living accomodations, thus spurring additional economic activity, and reducing my tax burden. I can choose to turn my thermostat down a couple of degrees and reduce my tax burden.
Done properly, if anything, a carbon tax adds money to an economy. The way that you achieve this is that as you add the carbon tax, you reduce your income tax by a corresponding amount, starting with the lowest tax bracket. One of the realities of our economic system is that the people at the bottom spend proportionately the most, and they're the ones that keep the economy moving by pumping money around. They're not hoarding it in banks, or in luxury vehicles, or million dollar homes. They're spending every dollar they get to live their life. If you cut their income taxes by the same amount that you add a carbon tax, initially they're no better or worse off than they were before. As they are able to build in additional efficiencies into their lives, this gives them more money that will be spent, and directly contributes to the economy, which helps everyone.
For the truly impoverished, who don't earn enough to pay any taxes, then yes, done blindly, a carbon tax hurts them the most. The only real solution here is to have some form of compensation to make up the difference. That said, it's not outrageously hard to calculate, and it's really an edge case.
The same thing goes for corporations. You're a general contractor who needs to get from point A to Point B, with your tools and supplies. It might be pretty nice to drive around in that big Ford F-250 crew-cab, but the reality is you could probably achieve the same thing in a much smaller pickup truck, saving money and reducing the tax burden.
Anyhow, the long and short of it is that done correctly, the only people that suffer long term are those who are in the fossil fuel industry. For everyone else, it incentivizes increased efficiency, and generates a whole new whack of business to help improve that efficiency.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
I tried breading my CO2 and I just got sourdough.. Tasty, but it didn't kill me.
lack of rain
What lack of rain? The hotter the planet is, the more water will evaporate making more clouds which in turn means more rain. Though it will get a bit more acidic for the same reason as the oceans. In fact this is the biggest lead-up to the "runaway" version of the greenhouse effect. Water vapor is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, and as temperatures continue to rise, at some point we'll cross a threshold where enough water is evaporating that it generates a positive feedback loop and global warming becomes essentially unstoppable. Warming -> more evaporation -> more warming -> even more evaporation -> etc.
There will eventually be a new (much higher) equilibrium point of course where the air is so saturated with moisture that rainfall matches evaporation and the cycle will plateau, but by the time the world hits that point, life will basically be reset to plants and insects and maybe a few lucky animals, similar to the Great Dying.
Pence but his motivations are based on what he thinks is good for the country, and is able to understand the complexities in it.
He seems like a decent guy, and a skilled politician. But you have to question his intelligence and judgement.
And I believe that, Mr. Speaker. I believe that God created the known universe, the earth, and everything in it including man, and I also believe that some day, scientists will come to see that only the theory of intelligent design provides an even remotely rational explanation for the known universe.”
- Pence2002
Which is not an acceptable use of the overrated mod. Moderation is not intended to be a way for you to squelch the voices of people who say things you disagree with. You really should read the moderator guidelines before you go around dishing our your new favorite kind of justice.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Climate change politics are increasingly about wealth redistribution.
Truer words were never said, particularly by someone with so little grasp of the truth.
You think the OP is clueless? Then check out this article: $4 trillion carbon tax is needed
In the report, there is this gem:
The revenue can be used to foster growth in an equitable way, by returning the revenue as household rebates, supporting poorer sections of the population, managing transitional changes, investing in low-carbon infrastructure, and fostering technological change
The report doesn't mention how sucking four trillion dollars out of the economy actually impacts the climate in any way.
Looks like wealth redistribution to me.
The first line of the news article:
A global carbon tax that would raise trillions of dollars if applied across the world should be introduced if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change
further in the article, quoting from the report.
“The revenue can be used to foster growth in an equitable way, by returning the revenue as household rebates, supporting poorer sections of the population, managing transitional changes, investing in low-carbon infrastructure, and fostering technological change,” they said.
From the preamble of the executive summary in the report, just to emphasize the absurdity of you citing a report that explicitly says it ignores climate impacts!!
This report does not focus on the estimation and evaluation of the climate change impacts that would be avoided by reducing carbon emissions.
And the second point of the executive summary where the report still talks briefly about the impacts you claim it didn't:
Carbon prices are intended to incentivize the changes needed in investment, production, and consumption patterns, and to induce the kind of technological progress that can bring down future abatement costs.
They sure don't make denialists like they used to, you can't even cherry pick evidence right!!
I stole this Sig
The moderation system is HOPELESSLY broken until they add the ALWAYS-on-topic all-powerful "covfefe" mod!
Defend that, you Trumpists and associated sock puppets. (And they will, too.)
Actually, I think the saddest part is the lack of any positive movement. No chance of improvement, and perhaps even worse, no anticipation that the situation can get any better on Slashdot. Ever. If the trolls were capable of overcoming their own loser-ness, they would apparently "win" by fault and default.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
We had two pebble bed reactor here in Germany. Both didn't work - the pebbles cracked and broke - and one of them is now the most contaminated site in Germany. The operator failed to clean up and now the government has to do that. The second one was probably the most expensive German reactor ever built and it operated only for four years with the best availability of 40% - a total failure. The reactor wasn't closed by the government, it was closed by the operator because operating cost was so high that it almost killed the operator. The original manufacturer of the reactor was more intelligent and left the project even before the reactor was completely built.
Basically there are either old and unsafe designs that can be operated at high, but bearable cost, newer and not that much better designs that are prohibitively expensive to manufacture and operate and new awesome reactors that only exist on paper, without knowing that the design would actually work in real life, or, at best, they are research reactors that probably won't scale and would have to be operated by actual scientists to be safe.
Might just as well wait for fusion.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
GW? I suppose breathing a catalytic converter could give you lung cancer but orange air is probably the culprit.
Those like you and the pop media with their own agenda should realize that even if Trump nukes the Paris accord that it does not make a difference.
The agreement has no teeth, it was all voluntary.
The puzzling thing is why Trump even bothers to create drama like this except maybe to slip his big tow up the ass of the Democrats.
One of the very do nothing things beside replicating Medicare, the very do nothing Obama achieved was siging this meaningless accord.
So there you go.
About the best thing you could say about it was that it got leaders talking but that's all they did.
You have never read the bible. You are a meme.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
But no one seems interested in that part of the debate.
You can't have a rational debate about the relative cost of action and inaction when half the audience is loudly claiming that action is entirely useless because the problem doesn't exist and any evidence that it does is part of a conspiracy to raise taxes.
On the other hand, there has been plenty of analysis on the estimated cost of action and inaction, and in general inaction has always been found to be a much more expensive course than action*, which shouldn't be particularly surprising. After all, there are many reasons the aphorism "A ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" exists...
* The only analysis where adaptation is less expensive than prevention, is the the analysis that assumes no climate change will actually happen, which to the best of our knowledge, has approximately a 0% chance of actually occurring.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I'm not a big fan of nuclear or coal, but I'm always amused by a story I heard from an acquaintance who worked at an English nuclear plant:
Fanatically anti-fanatical
What I've heard is night time cooling will be reduced by 0.06K, pushing the average up 0.03K i. e. no measurable difference. Those estimates are per the climate models which have yet to demonstrate predictive ability.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
It would get put into either the pockets of bigwigs at outfits like Solyndra http://fortune.com/2015/08/27/... [fortune.com]
Interestingly enough, while Solyndra did fail, the government department that made the loan to Solyndra is actually expected to generate about $5 billion in revenue (even when including the costs of Solyndra and their other failed loans). As I understand it, the entire program has not only encouraged the develop of new high technology companies, they directly earned a profit while doing so (which is doubly good for Americans, because the government also collects taxes from the companies they sponsored and the people who work for those companies, but that isn't counted as revenue for this department).
Don't be fooled by the gibbering monkeys, Solyndra represents part of a lower than expected failure rate by a very successful policy initiative.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Wind is getting a lot of push-back in Ontario, some large scale farms have been canceled. Michigan had an amendment to it's constitution requiring the mandatory 10% renewable energy be increased to 25% fail.
The electric companies love wind power because their profits are regulated to 10%, which means the more money they spend, the more money they make! People are waking up to the fact that it's a boondoggle at their expense.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
... not the greatest president for environmental efforts (that would probably be Nixon so far), ...
Never thought I'd live to see a comment like that on /.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Why that long? Seriously radioactive isotopes have half-lives considerably shorter than 100K years, meaning they'll be mostly gone before then. Isotopes with half-lives long enough to be mostly there after 100K years aren't that dangerous.
The big radioactive dangers after Fukushima were an isotope of iodine with a half-life less than nine days, and a cesium isotope with about a forty-year half-life. That iodine is, to an extremely high confidence level, completely gone by now. The cesium will go through 2500 half-lives in 100K years, which means it will be completely gone also. Radium is quite dangerous with a half-life of over 1600 years, and that's about 60 half-lives to get to 100K years. The only reason we have radium around in nature is that it's a decay product of long-lived uranium isotopes.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
He's not going to be impeached and convicted. Most Republicans (over 80%) still support him. The Democrats could well win the House in 2018, but they can't do better than pick up a few Senate seats, because there aren't that many Republican ones up for grabs. They could get a majority in the Senate, but not any sort of supermajority. The House can impeach, but the Senate then needs a two-thirds vote to convict, and having a large number of Republican senators voting to convict would splinter and possibly destroy the Republican Party. Not going to happen.
He's not going to be Amendment 25ed out of office, since that would require a majority vote of the Cabinet, and many of them wouldn't have their jobs under a saner President.
He was in reasonably good health when inaugurated, but he's seventy, and has unhealthy habits, so he could die or be incapacitated pretty much at any time.
He could resign. He seems to have thought being President would be fun, and is finding that it really, really isn't. He'd need some face-saving excuse to resign, but if he can get one he might well resign and claim victory.
I don't think him leaving office by Thanksgiving is likely to happen.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
False. A constitutional crisis is when a president says, "We are only going to enforce the parts of the law our party likes and refuse to enforce existing federal immigration laws". Using the IRS to silence opponents and the NSA to spy on political opponents and unmask them is merely an impeachable offense, but not a constitutional crisis per se.
The cause of a president winning an election is a parlor game and has no place in what the Constitution says to do. It doesn't matter if a hurricane caused it (cf. Mitt Romney's defeat) or if the Russians influenced it (currently there is more evidence the FEC hacked into voting terminals than Russia, per that raging Republican Dianne Feinstein's comments). I'm interested in knowing more about why Putin put Trump in power when Trump has consistently gone on the offense against Russia in all things Syria and ISIS.
If Trump really did something impeachable elected people should impeach him or voters should remove him. This whole thing about how the rules say a guy should send his own department to investigate himself is lawyer puffery. Obama certainly didn't send the FBI after the IRS tea party silencing or the NSA spying on and unmasking political opponents.
So you think the Constitution is stupid? Trump is barred from receiving emoluments from foreign and domestic governments, and the reasons behind those bans are a lot sounder than the reasons for the Electoral College.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
For starters, I suspect him of accepting money unconstitutionally. I don't have hard evidence, but I'd say it's well worth investigating.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The definition of impeachable offense is "High Crimes and Misdemeanors", which is quite vague, and could easily be read as "felonies and misdemeanors". The actual definition of "impeachable offense" is pretty much "whatever the House says it is". Espionage certainly qualifies as an impeachable offense.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Liberals are not typically fans of Soviet-style planned economics. I don't know anybody who is.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
not being a part of a treaty is not "explicitly trying to destroy the planet" i mean ....do you hear yourself???
Treaty, what treaty, there never was any treaty; a proposed treaty have to be ratified by the Senate. The best you can say about the Paris Accord is it was an agreement with the then POTUS, who is no longer the POTUS.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Trump has also definitely violated the Emoluments clause and could be impeached for that.
If owning stock in a company, that receives revenue from a foreign entity is a violation of the Emoluments clause, we will never ever have a President that isn't under the cloud of impeachment!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
You are mad if you think that won't be the case as it was before us and will be after us. The sheer stupidity of your statement is unfathomable in its displaced lunacy in breadth and scope. The idea that this planet will be rendered uninhabitable past our lifetimes is such sheer hyperbole and fear mongering on a scale that leaves me to think that you really never have given this premise much thought and are simply peddling the gobbly-gook of what you've heard somewhere and nodded in acquiescence in the affirmative. Tell me, are you willing to spend untold trillions of dollars to lower the global mean surface temperature of the earth by less than a half of a degree centigrade, while the immediate issues that can be worked on go unfunded and ignored? How much value are you willing to drain from the world economy, if not the US economy to see your goal of sustained habitability past your lifetime are you willing to sacrifice on the alter of AGW/Climate Change? Until you can tell me what you want the mean global surface temperature of the earth to be, then everything you are gnashing your teeth on is meaningless garbage. There are so many more things we can tackle with that kind of money, but no, you want to ausage your hand-wringing scaredy cat feebleness to ensuring the planet will be habitable past your lifetime. If I ever heard someone say that to my face i'd laugh right back in theirs for the utter humorous stupidity that they presented.
A constitutional crisis is when a president says, "We are only going to enforce the parts of the law our party likes and refuse to enforce existing federal immigration laws".
You need to look up what is actually described in the constitution and how the actions of POTUS 44 and 45 relate to the laws that are actually in the books.
Obama certainly didn't send the FBI after the IRS tea party silencing or the NSA spying on and unmasking political opponents.
Those would have been terrible things if they had actually happened . Those who do not exist in the conspiracy bubbles that perpetuate those myths though know how much bullshit in involved in that statement.
For one, the IRS was doing its job when it investigated the applications for tax exempt status that were filed by groups that were openly advocating for people to avoid paying taxes. If there had been other political groups asking for the same exemption while promoting anti-tax agendas of dubious legality they would have looked into them as well.
As for the NSA, there is not the slightest shred of evidence of what you allege having happened. Just because someone claimed on twitter that it happened does not mean that it did.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The whole point of the tax is to make it more expensive to buy something that costs society money. Is it somehow unjust to have a cigarette tax that pays for lung cancer treatments in public hospitals?
This is LITERALLY hilarious. There is a minimum of $4 of tax for each pack of cigarettes sold. There are millions of packs of cigarettes sold each day. How much of that money was used to pay for someone's medical bills due to complications from smoking?
If you answered $0, then you are correct.
But keep on believing that those taxes are covering externalities. Have a nice life. :)
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
China is trying them too, perhaps their pebbles will be more resistant to those issues. Maybe we will need to use some type of chemical vapor deposition diamond coatings on them to keep them from cracking if their triple Pyrocarbon coating doesn't cut it.
If we actually would pour some real money into fusion, it might actually happen some time. It's always "10 years away", and we have yet to be able to keep the reaction going for more than a few seconds. China claims 102 seconds, but this isn't verified. ITER has been "officially" worked on since 2006 and isn't slated to even start up until at least 2021. Personally I think some smaller company like General Fusion or Tri Alpha Energy will make a breakthrough long before ITER even really gets seriously running.
Do you also need a citation that the earth is round? Here are a few of the environmentalist billionaire buddies that corrupted the federal government during the Obama administration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And here is a list of "environmental organizations".
It's all about money and endorsements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Bravely leading from behind like all leaders should! :)
>> You need to look up what is actually described in the constitution
What makes it a constitutional crisis is the Constitution does NOT say anything about it (in this case the consequences of the president not enforcing the law), but it involves or or more branches of the government completely overriding another branch -potentially in all circumstances. That is exactly what selective enforcement is. It basically prevents the government from doing what it is supposed to be doing.
Why didn't the IRS grant tax exempt status to the Sierra Club and all the pro-government expansion groups no questions asked? This was all over all forms of media and yet you claim I'm in a conspiracy theory somewhere? The NSA was totally spying on people wrongly. You think Eric Snowden is on an extended vacation in Russia or what exactly? And why do you think Susan Rice has changed her answers so much about whether she authorized the unmasking of Hillary's political opponents?
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just aren't following any of this.
Tell me that during the next hydroelectric dam failure.
Why didn't the IRS grant tax exempt status to the Sierra Club and all the pro-government expansion groups no questions asked
They didn't? I'm not the IRS, but I can tell you that the Sierra Club has never advocated for cheating on taxes. The Tea Party regularly encourages people to find every way they can - legal or not - to reduce their taxes. If a group comes to them with that philosophy asking for tax exempt status then due diligence would include examining their records. If they don't want to share that information then they should not have asked for tax exempt status.
This was all over all forms of media and yet you claim I'm in a conspiracy theory somewhere?
You are in a conspiracy theory. The IRS was doing their job in scrutinizing the tax exempt application. Did someone force them to apply for it? They could have gone without and then they would not have had the IRS looking into their records.
The NSA was totally spying on people wrongly. You think Eric Snowden is on an extended vacation in Russia or what exactly?
I'm not defending the NSA. I'm merely pointing out that your conspiracy of them being a tool of one party to go after the other is utterly without merit.
And why do you think Susan Rice has changed her answers so much about whether she authorized the unmasking of Hillary's political opponents?
I'd love to see a source for that claim.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just aren't following any of this.
I won't let you bring me down to your level. I don't know what you look at that you see as being supporting of your conspiracies, and I don't expect you to share them with me. I do actually read the news; based on what you have written that is more than you can say for yourself.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I very much appreciate your ability to acknowledge a small misstep an just go on.
Very refreshing. I wish more people would understand that instead of entrenching themselves.
>> I'd love to see a source for that claim.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/...
>> "The Tea Party regularly encourages people to find every way they can - legal or not - to reduce their taxes."
Where has anyone even made the claim the tea party is encouraging illegal tax cheating?
In any case the IRS requested information about what the tea party orgs were mailing, claiming, and even their prayer information. No such information was requested for MediaMatters, DailyKos, MoveOn, etc.
>> I'd love to see a source for that claim.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/...
I'm sorry but that degree of spin is utterly nauseating. You linked to a blog page (from the conservative blogosphere) that took a 2 second sound bite from an interview and then linked to another conservative commentary. You could have just as well linked to Mallard Fillmore at that point. Your link does not support your claim of the Obama white house doing political unmasking, rather it shows that conservative commentators love to propagate the conspiracy that they did.
>> "The Tea Party regularly encourages people to find every way they can - legal or not - to reduce their taxes."
Where has anyone even made the claim the tea party is encouraging illegal tax cheating?
People who call themselves parts of the Tea Party frequently boast about cheating the tax system. Politicians allied with the Tea Party are the ones most often caught "forgetting" to declare income sources that affect their taxes. It goes on from there but you don't seem worried about that.
In any case the IRS requested information about what the tea party orgs were mailing, claiming, and even their prayer information.
The first two are standard for any group who wants to file for tax exempt status. It's merely due process to ensure that the group who is asking for this special status is really involved in activities that do not exclude them from that status. The third part there is absolutely no support for. Just because some angry Tea Partier claimed it happened - and then of course conveniently misplaced all the documentation supporting their claim that it happened - does not mean it did.
No such information was requested for MediaMatters, DailyKos, MoveOn, etc.
DailyKos does not have the status that the Tea Party filed for. None of the three you list have ever advocated for people to cheat the tax system, either.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.