POLITICAL THREAD

[Old_Red]

You can also take a leap.

 

[Bill Cosby]

Really wish Trump would send a tweet this morning congratulating Booker on doing the right thing and not releasing any confidential documents.

Something along the lines of, "It's good to see Sparticus decided to respect the rules of the Senate. After threatening to release confidential documents, Sparticus decided to do the right thing and not release anything the Republicans didn't allow him to release."

 

[mustnotsleepnow]

Like Justine Damond? She wasn't even a criminal in the first place. Yet, you moonbats never want to discuss that particular case in police shooting threads.

Let's add that to the list of horrible judgement and murders cops have committed.

But why don't you like discussing the others?

 

[Mashburned]

FWIW I have a friend who is the admin of the Lewis Co Ky Friends of the NRA Facebook page . He received a message from FB yesterday that the page was being taken down because it " didnt meet community standards " His FNRA club has donated money to 4H programs , The Morehead St rifle team , JROTC at the High School , helped get grants for a shooting range in Lewis Co . This type of nonsense is why people are pissed at FB .

That’s pathetic.

Pretty clear where Facebook is, and is heading. Better delete your crap before they find a reason to fine/jail you for your thoughts.

 

[KingOfBBN]

Really wish Trump would send a tweet this morning congratulating Booker on doing the right thing and not releasing any confidential documents.

Something along the lines of, "It's good to see Sparticus decided to respect the rules of the Senate. After threatening to release confidential documents, Sparticus decided to do the right thing and not release anything the Republicans didn't allow him to release."

That would be funny but Booker is such a choad that he would love the attention. POTUS shouldn’t give it to him.

So many are desperate to be acknowledged by him. Even entertainers are desperate. Remember Eminem being upset that Trump ignored him?

 

[Kaizer Sosay]

 

[Pelosigalore]

FWIW I have a friend who is the admin of the Lewis Co Ky Friends of the NRA Facebook page . He received a message from FB yesterday that the page was being taken down because it " didnt meet community standards " His FNRA club has donated money to 4H programs , The Morehead St rifle team , JROTC at the High School , helped get grants for a shooting range in Lewis Co . This type of nonsense is why people are pissed at FB .

Change the name of the FB page to Guns are Evil or Friends of Illegal Mexican-Muslim Immigrants and all will be good.

 

[KingOfBBN]

So in two weeks, we have watched two shootings just vanish within 24 hours of the event because it wasn’t a white guy.

Jacksonville Madden event- Jewish
Cincinnati bank- Latino, maybe from Mexico, idk

Regardless, two events where media suddenly doesn’t give a crap.

Want to talk about privilege? Privilege is the media protecting a race while writing constant anti-white articles.

 

[vhcat70]

The whole process of selecting and confirming federal judges has become far too political. The Constitution created the judicial branch to be fair and nonpolitical, focused on justice rather than partisanship. Democrats and Republicans should approach the judicial confirmation process in the same way – working together to do what’s right for our country rather than what’s politically expedient."

Why this is so:

"It’s predictable now that every Supreme Court confirmation hearing will be a politicized circus. This is because Americans have accepted a bad new theory about how the three branches of government should work—and in particular about how the judiciary operates.

In the U.S. system, the legislative branch is supposed to be the center of politics. Why isn’t it? For the past century, more legislative authority has been delegated to the executive branch every year. Both parties do it. The legislature is weak, and most people here in Congress want their jobs more than they want to do legislative work. So they punt most of the work to the next branch. (note: This is why term limits are needed: No lifetime jobs to protect.)

The consequence of this transfer of power is that people yearn for a place where politics can actually be done. When we don’t do a lot of big political debating here in Congress, we transfer it to the Supreme Court. And that’s why the court is increasingly a substitute political battleground. We badly need to restore the proper duties and the balance of power to our constitutional system.

If there are lots of protests in front of the Supreme Court, that’s an indication that the republic isn’t healthy. People should be protesting in front of this body instead. The legislature is designed to be controversial, noisy, sometimes even rowdy—because making laws means we have to hash out matters about which we don’t all agree.

How did the legislature decide to give away its power? We’ve been doing it for a long time. Over the course of the past century, especially since the 1930s and ramping up since the 1960s, the legislative branch has kicked a lot of its responsibility to alphabet-soup bureaucracies. These are the places where most actual policy-making—in a way, lawmaking—happens now.

What we mostly do around this body is not pass laws but give permission to bureaucracy X, Y or Z to make lawlike regulations. We write giant pieces of legislation that people haven’t read, filled with terms that are undefined, and we say the secretary or administrator of such-and-such shall promulgate rules that do the rest of our jobs. That’s why there are so many fights about the executive branch and the judiciary—because Congress rarely finishes its work.

There are rational arguments one could make for this new system. Congress can’t manage all the nitty-gritty details of modern government, and this system tries to give power and control to experts in technical fields, about which most of us in Congress don’t know much of anything.

But the real reason this institution punts most of its power to executive-branch agencies is because it is a convenient way to avoid responsibility for controversial and unpopular decisions. If your biggest long-term priority is your own re-election, then giving away your power is a pretty good strategy.

But when Congress gives power to an unaccountable fourth branch of government, the people are cut out of the process. Nobody in Nebraska, Minnesota or Delaware elected the deputy assistant administrator of plant quarantine at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If that person does something that makes Nebraskans’ lives difficult, where do they go to protest? How do they navigate the complexity of this town to do executive-agency lobbying? They can’t.

They don’t have any ability to speak out or to fire people through an election. When the administrative state grows—when there is this fourth branch of government—it becomes harder for the concerns of citizens to be represented and articulated by officials who answer to the people. The Supreme Court becomes a substitute political battleground. It’s only nine people. (Note: This is why the SC ought to be bigger than just 9.)

You can know them; you can demonize them; you can try to make them messiahs. Because people can’t navigate their way through the bureaucracy, they turn to the Supreme Court looking for politics. They look to nine justices to be superlegislators, to right the wrongs from other places in the process.

When people talk about wanting “empathy” from the justices, that’s what they’re talking about—trying to make the justices do something Congress refuses to do as it constantly abdicates its responsibility. The hyperventilating that we see in this process shows us a system that is wildly out of whack.

The solution is not to try to find judges who will be policy makers or to turn the Supreme Court into an election battle. The solution is to restore a proper constitutional order with the balance of powers. We need a Congress that writes laws, then stands before the people and faces the consequences. (Again, why need term-limits) We need an executive branch that has a humble view of its job as enforcing the law, not trying to write laws in Congress’s absence.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/blame-congress-for-politicizing-the-court-1536189015

 

[vhcat70]

First, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Merrick Garland should have been confirmed to the Supreme Court when he was nominated by President Obama. Republicans waited an outrageous nine months, which was wrong, and only served to manipulate the judicial confirmation process for political purposes.

Tell Joe Biden that. Tell those that borked Bork.

 

[AustinTXCat]

US created 201,000 jobs in Aug, vs 191,000 jobs expected.

#MAGA.

 

[AustinTXCat]

Evil Republican Legislative Update.

Retirement, 529 accounts would be expanded under new GOP tax plan

• While lawmakers are still working on exactly what would go into the legislation, proposals include eliminating the age cap for IRA contributions and expanding what 529 funds can be used for.
• Republican leaders are indicating they want to vote on so-called Tax Reform 2.0 this month.

#MAGA.

 

[JStaff2187]

So in two weeks, we have watched two shootings just vanish within 24 hours of the event because it wasn’t a white guy.

Jacksonville Madden event- Jewish
Cincinnati bank- Latino, maybe from Mexico, idk

Regardless, two events where media suddenly doesn’t give a crap.

Want to talk about privilege? Privilege is the media protecting a race while writing constant anti-white articles.

Heard the story on the radio on the way to work. “The suspect” was used to describe the shooter.

“Okay. So they’re not white.” Was my first thought. Pathetic what the media has become.

 

[the nail at the foul line]

View embedded media

What's the problem? It is everybody's money.

 

[Kaizer Sosay]

Why this is so:

"It’s predictable now that every Supreme Court confirmation hearing will be a politicized circus. This is because Americans have accepted a bad new theory about how the three branches of government should work—and in particular about how the judiciary operates.

In the U.S. system, the legislative branch is supposed to be the center of politics. Why isn’t it? For the past century, more legislative authority has been delegated to the executive branch every year. Both parties do it. The legislature is weak, and most people here in Congress want their jobs more than they want to do legislative work. So they punt most of the work to the next branch. (note: This is why term limits are needed: No lifetime jobs to protect.)

The consequence of this transfer of power is that people yearn for a place where politics can actually be done. When we don’t do a lot of big political debating here in Congress, we transfer it to the Supreme Court. And that’s why the court is increasingly a substitute political battleground. We badly need to restore the proper duties and the balance of power to our constitutional system.

If there are lots of protests in front of the Supreme Court, that’s an indication that the republic isn’t healthy. People should be protesting in front of this body instead. The legislature is designed to be controversial, noisy, sometimes even rowdy—because making laws means we have to hash out matters about which we don’t all agree.

How did the legislature decide to give away its power? We’ve been doing it for a long time. Over the course of the past century, especially since the 1930s and ramping up since the 1960s, the legislative branch has kicked a lot of its responsibility to alphabet-soup bureaucracies. These are the places where most actual policy-making—in a way, lawmaking—happens now.

What we mostly do around this body is not pass laws but give permission to bureaucracy X, Y or Z to make lawlike regulations. We write giant pieces of legislation that people haven’t read, filled with terms that are undefined, and we say the secretary or administrator of such-and-such shall promulgate rules that do the rest of our jobs. That’s why there are so many fights about the executive branch and the judiciary—because Congress rarely finishes its work.

There are rational arguments one could make for this new system. Congress can’t manage all the nitty-gritty details of modern government, and this system tries to give power and control to experts in technical fields, about which most of us in Congress don’t know much of anything.

But the real reason this institution punts most of its power to executive-branch agencies is because it is a convenient way to avoid responsibility for controversial and unpopular decisions. If your biggest long-term priority is your own re-election, then giving away your power is a pretty good strategy.

But when Congress gives power to an unaccountable fourth branch of government, the people are cut out of the process. Nobody in Nebraska, Minnesota or Delaware elected the deputy assistant administrator of plant quarantine at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If that person does something that makes Nebraskans’ lives difficult, where do they go to protest? How do they navigate the complexity of this town to do executive-agency lobbying? They can’t.

They don’t have any ability to speak out or to fire people through an election. When the administrative state grows—when there is this fourth branch of government—it becomes harder for the concerns of citizens to be represented and articulated by officials who answer to the people. The Supreme Court becomes a substitute political battleground. It’s only nine people. (Note: This is why the SC ought to be bigger than just 9.)

You can know them; you can demonize them; you can try to make them messiahs. Because people can’t navigate their way through the bureaucracy, they turn to the Supreme Court looking for politics. They look to nine justices to be superlegislators, to right the wrongs from other places in the process.

When people talk about wanting “empathy” from the justices, that’s what they’re talking about—trying to make the justices do something Congress refuses to do as it constantly abdicates its responsibility. The hyperventilating that we see in this process shows us a system that is wildly out of whack.

The solution is not to try to find judges who will be policy makers or to turn the Supreme Court into an election battle. The solution is to restore a proper constitutional order with the balance of powers. We need a Congress that writes laws, then stands before the people and faces the consequences. (Again, why need term-limits) We need an executive branch that has a humble view of its job as enforcing the law, not trying to write laws in Congress’s absence.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/blame-congress-for-politicizing-the-court-1536189015

I hereby award this post and the contents therewithin one hundred trillion "likes".

 

[KingOfBBN]

Tell Joe Biden that. Tell those that borked Bork.

When the left have turned the position into activism yeah, it’s important to protect this country by getting people who actually respect the Constitution.

And a lame duck president who was out in less than a year absolutely should not have that option to put a SCOTUS Justice. I wouldn’t make that argument if it was 2012 and a sitting president could be re-elected. But when you KNOW someone is on their way out, no way should they get that say.

That would be like Gillispie knowing he was being fired at UK and then getting to make tons of big decisions for the future of UK.

 

[Mashburned]

Why this is so:

"It’s predictable now that every Supreme Court confirmation hearing will be a politicized circus. This is because Americans have accepted a bad new theory about how the three branches of government should work—and in particular about how the judiciary operates.

In the U.S. system, the legislative branch is supposed to be the center of politics. Why isn’t it? For the past century, more legislative authority has been delegated to the executive branch every year. Both parties do it. The legislature is weak, and most people here in Congress want their jobs more than they want to do legislative work. So they punt most of the work to the next branch. (note: This is why term limits are needed: No lifetime jobs to protect.)

The consequence of this transfer of power is that people yearn for a place where politics can actually be done. When we don’t do a lot of big political debating here in Congress, we transfer it to the Supreme Court. And that’s why the court is increasingly a substitute political battleground. We badly need to restore the proper duties and the balance of power to our constitutional system.

If there are lots of protests in front of the Supreme Court, that’s an indication that the republic isn’t healthy. People should be protesting in front of this body instead. The legislature is designed to be controversial, noisy, sometimes even rowdy—because making laws means we have to hash out matters about which we don’t all agree.

How did the legislature decide to give away its power? We’ve been doing it for a long time. Over the course of the past century, especially since the 1930s and ramping up since the 1960s, the legislative branch has kicked a lot of its responsibility to alphabet-soup bureaucracies. These are the places where most actual policy-making—in a way, lawmaking—happens now.

What we mostly do around this body is not pass laws but give permission to bureaucracy X, Y or Z to make lawlike regulations. We write giant pieces of legislation that people haven’t read, filled with terms that are undefined, and we say the secretary or administrator of such-and-such shall promulgate rules that do the rest of our jobs. That’s why there are so many fights about the executive branch and the judiciary—because Congress rarely finishes its work.

There are rational arguments one could make for this new system. Congress can’t manage all the nitty-gritty details of modern government, and this system tries to give power and control to experts in technical fields, about which most of us in Congress don’t know much of anything.

But the real reason this institution punts most of its power to executive-branch agencies is because it is a convenient way to avoid responsibility for controversial and unpopular decisions. If your biggest long-term priority is your own re-election, then giving away your power is a pretty good strategy.

But when Congress gives power to an unaccountable fourth branch of government, the people are cut out of the process. Nobody in Nebraska, Minnesota or Delaware elected the deputy assistant administrator of plant quarantine at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If that person does something that makes Nebraskans’ lives difficult, where do they go to protest? How do they navigate the complexity of this town to do executive-agency lobbying? They can’t.

They don’t have any ability to speak out or to fire people through an election. When the administrative state grows—when there is this fourth branch of government—it becomes harder for the concerns of citizens to be represented and articulated by officials who answer to the people. The Supreme Court becomes a substitute political battleground. It’s only nine people. (Note: This is why the SC ought to be bigger than just 9.)

You can know them; you can demonize them; you can try to make them messiahs. Because people can’t navigate their way through the bureaucracy, they turn to the Supreme Court looking for politics. They look to nine justices to be superlegislators, to right the wrongs from other places in the process.

When people talk about wanting “empathy” from the justices, that’s what they’re talking about—trying to make the justices do something Congress refuses to do as it constantly abdicates its responsibility. The hyperventilating that we see in this process shows us a system that is wildly out of whack.

The solution is not to try to find judges who will be policy makers or to turn the Supreme Court into an election battle. The solution is to restore a proper constitutional order with the balance of powers. We need a Congress that writes laws, then stands before the people and faces the consequences. (Again, why need term-limits) We need an executive branch that has a humble view of its job as enforcing the law, not trying to write laws in Congress’s absence.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/blame-congress-for-politicizing-the-court-1536189015

I caught this live, and thought it was amazing...Senator Ben Basse from Nebraska explains why politicians and our government suck ass, dont' do their jobs, etc etc...

 

[Bluewest]

View embedded media

I legit thought that pic was tom cruise in top gun.

Pretty sure that was Janet Reno when he was 15.

 

[mustnotsleepnow]

LMAO....call me when LSU, Michigan, UK, Duke, UNC, etc decided to drop Nike.

 

[AustinTXCat]

i guess to save face Booker is now releasing more emails that weren't cleared for release.

 

[TheGrafSpot]

@Bill Derington

They closed replies on the other post, so I moved my response to here.

• The economy gained a net 11.6 million jobs. The unemployment rate dropped to below the historical norm.
• Average weekly earnings for all workers were up 4.0 percent after inflation. The gain was 3.7 percent for just production and non-supervisory employees.
• After-tax corporate profits also set records, as did stock prices. The S&P 500 index rose 166 percent.
• The number of people lacking health insurance dropped by 15 million. Premiums rose, but more slowly than before.
• Home prices rose 20 percent. But the home ownership rate hit the lowest point in half a century.
• Illegal immigration declined: The Border Patrol caught 35 percent fewer people trying to get into the U.S. from Mexico.
• Wind and solar power increased 369 percent. Coal production declined 38 percent. Carbon emissions from burning fossil fuel dropped 11 percent.
• Production of handguns rose 192 percent, to a record level.
• The murder rate dropped to the lowest on record in 2014, then rose and finished at about the same rate as when Obama took office.

Now we have a reasonably complete statistical picture of the Obama years, which began in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and ended with the highest level of household income ever recorded.

These facts often turn out to be at odds with the impressions created by candidates who, for example, claimed wages and incomes were stagnant when in fact they were rising.

Trump inherited low unemployment numbers from Obama. Since 2011, the unemployment rate has steadily declined from a high of 9.6 percent following the Great Recession. It was 4.8 percent in January, when Trump took the oath of office, and it was 4.1 percent in the December employment report.

Trump's economic track record in his first year in office looks similar to Obama's final years in office when you look at the key metrics of jobs, growth and wages. The economy added 2.1 million jobs in 2017, a bit slower than the 2.2 million in 2016 and 2.5 million in 2015. (Given how low unemployment is, economists say any number over 2 million is very healthy at this stage of the recovery).

When it comes to growth, the economy expanded at 2.3 percent last year. That is on par with 1.5 percent growth in 2016, 2.9 percent in 2015 and 2.6 percent in 2014. The stock market, another metric Trump likes to point to, has also been rising steadily since 2009.

Over Obama’s eight years in office, the economy added a net total of more than 11.6 million jobs — a gain in total nonfarm employment of 8.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Trump has repeatedly boasted that the “unemployment rate is at a 17-year low,” citing the standard (U-3) unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which hovers around 4.4 percent in 2017. His new-found excitement for the BLS numbers represents a considerable flip-flop for Trump, who claimed the unemployment rate was “nonsense” prior to his inauguration.

In fact, Trump has called the unemployment figure “fake” as many as 19 times before he embraced the numbers as president. Claiming “the unemployment figure, as you know, is totally fiction,” during a rally in Des Moines.

Let’s also look at another measure of unemployment: The U-6 unemployment rate, which covers people who have given up looking for a job because of poor economic conditions or people who are employed part-time because they can’t find work in their desired field. Some economists argue the official unemployment rate, which measures people who are actively looking for work, is too narrow. The U-6 figure, in contrast, covers a broader swath of workers.

And once again, since 2011, the U-6 rate has steadily declined.

Another indicator of economic health is the employment to population ratio for people in their prime working years. This ratio measures the number of people employed as a share of the population. By narrowing in on people ages 25 to 54 we avoid counting older people who have retired or young people who aren’t working because they are still in school.

In 2017, the employment to population ratio reached 78.5 percent. It’s been on an upward trend since 2011.


Just one month into taking office, Trump bragged about the stock market. During a news conference on Feb. 2, he claimed, “the stock market has hit record numbers.” As pointed out before, this talking point is a flip-flop for Trump, who dismissed stock-market performance under Obama as a “big, fat bubble” ready to pop. (The U.S. stock market had been rising steadily since March 2009, shortly after Obama took office.)

Trump routinely cites numbers from the Dow Jones industrial average, a collection of 30 U.S. “blue-chip” companies. Much of the recent rise in the Dow can be attributed to a single company: Boeing. Over the course of the year, Boeing’s stock is up 82 percent.

But when looking at a broader index, Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, it’s clear U.S. stocks haven’t rallied as robustly as their foreign equivalents. Trump’s been touting the stock market growth since February, but in November the S&P still lagged behind Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. By December, the United States was performing better than the U.K. and had edged by Germany, but Japan’s index, the Nikkei 225, still claimed the top spot. In any case, the U.S. stock performance mirrors a global rise in stocks, suggesting it is not unique.

Another one of Trump’s frequent economic boasts is about Gross Domestic Product growth. GDP is the broadest measure of an economy. With each quarterly estimate Trump brags the GDP has grown at never before seen rates.

“We were at 3.2 last quarter, but we were at 3. And to be at 3 with a 1 point, that would have meant we would have hit 4 or thereabouts. And those are numbers that have not been seen for many years,” he said after the release of second quarter numbers.

Never mind that most economists think 4 percent growth is unlikely in a developed economy — or that quarterly GDP growth has often topped 3 percent during Obama’s presidency.

Trump hasn’t made much of a fuss about poverty during the first year of his presidency, but the poverty rate is the lowest it has been in nearly 10 years. For three consecutive years, 2010–2012, the poverty rate held stable at 11.8 percent. But in 2013 the rate began to decline, ending at 9.8 percent in 2016.

The inflation-adjusted incomes of American households reached the highest level ever recorded under Obama. The Census Bureau’s measure of median household income reached $59,039 in 2016. That was $2,963 more in “real” (inflation-adjusted) dollars than in 2008, for an overall gain of 5.3 percent. The median figure represents the midpoint — half of all households earned more, half less. And while real median income hit a record level in Obama’s final year, it was a long, rough road to the top.

The trend to higher incomes also shows up in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly report on average weekly earnings for all workers, adjusted for inflation. That figure, which includes salaried managers and supervisors, was 4.0 percent higher in the month Obama left office than it was in the month he first entered the White House. It was 3.7 percent higher for just production and nonsupervisory employees.

As incomes rose, the rate of poverty declined. The percentage of Americans living with income below the official poverty line went down to 12.7 percent of the population in 2016, a half-point drop compared with 2008.

Home values rebounded under Obama, reaching a new high in his final year.

Sales figures from the National Association of Realtors show the national median price of an existing, single-family home was $235,500 in 2016. That was $38,900 higher than in 2008, an increase of 19.8 percent under Obama.

The 2016 figure was a record, but only in raw dollars, without accounting for inflation. Prices reached their pre-recession high in 2006. In the decade between then and Obama’s final year, home prices rose 6.1 percent, while the Consumer Price Index rose 19 percent.

 

[TheGrafSpot]

@Bill Derington

Corporations did much better than workers during Obama’s time. Their profits hit several new yearly highs during his tenure. Profits had surged under George W. Bush as well, but when Obama took office they had plunged from their previous peak in 2006, due to the financial crisis and ensuing economic downturn. Then they recovered quickly under Obama — far more quickly than jobs or personal incomes — and reached a new record in 2010, his second year in office. From there they climbed even higher, setting newer annual records in 2012, 2013 and 2014, when they reached $1.74 trillion.

Profits slipped a bit in 2015, but in Obama’s final year profits were still $1.69 trillion — not far below the 2014 record and 57.3 percent higher than in 2008, the year before he took office. That gain was higher than during all but three other post-war administrations.

Owners of corporate stocks also did quite well under Obama. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock average more than doubled — rising by 166 percent during his eight years in office. Among post-war administrations, that’s second only to the 209 percent rise in the S&P index during Clinton’s two terms, and it handily outpaced the 114 percent gain under Reagan.

To some extent, the gain under Obama represents a rebound from an unusually depressed level. The financial crisis of 2007-2009 caused stock prices to plunge. By George W. Bush’s last day in office, the S&P 500 stood 37 percent below where it had been on the last trading day before he first took office in 2001.

Other stock market indexes tell similar stories. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 138 percent under Obama after falling 22 percent under his predecessor, for example.

Some of the gain took place in the weeks just after Trump was elected, a “Trump Rally” that many attributed at least partly to investor optimism that the president-elect would, once in office, cut taxes and regulation as promised. But the S&P rise between Election Day and Obama’s last day in office was just under 6 percent — a small fraction of the entire gain during Obama’s tenure. Stock prices already had set record after record before Trump’s election.

U.S. crude oil production, mainly due to advances in drilling technology, surged under Obama, helping to drive down fuel prices. In 2016, the U.S. produced 77 percent more crude oil than it did in 2008.

As a result, U.S. reliance on imported oil dropped by more than half. In 2016, the U.S. imported only 24.8 percent of the petroleum and refined products that it consumed, down from 57 percent in 2008. In 2015, it imported 24.1 percent, which was the lowest annual level of dependency on imports since 1970.


Wind and solar power has more than quadrupled under Obama. Electricity generated by large-scale wind and solar power facilities increased by 369 percent during the Obama years. The increase in solar power in particular has been spectacular. The U.S. generated nearly 43 times more electricity from solar power in 2016 than in 2008. Wind and solar accounted for 6.5 percent of total large-scale generation in 2016, up from a mere 1.4 percent in 2008. Wind and solar now account for as large a share as hydroelectric power, also at 8.5 percent of the total.

These figures are for “utility scale” electricity generation. In 2014, EIA also began tracking small-scale (under 1 megawatt) “distributed” solar voltaic generation, such as the power produced by rooftop systems installed by homeowners. In 2016, wind and solar accounted for 6.9 percent of the combined total of utility-scale power and “distributed” solar power.

As wind and solar rose, coal declined. Obama put forth new restrictions that his administration called a “Clean Power Plan,” and his critics dubbed a “war on coal.” In 2016, U.S. coal production was 728 million metric tons, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s a decline of 38 percent since 2008.

During the Obama years, electric utilities shifted away from burning coal, which accounted for 48 percent of their power generation in 2008, but only 30 percent in 2016. The share supplied by burning natural gas went up from 9%, and the share supplied by nuclear plants remained steady at just under 20 percent.

Meanwhile, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere from U.S. energy-related sources has declined during Obama’s time.

Between 2008 and 2016, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels went down 11 percent, according to estimates from the EIA. Emissions have been falling even as the economy has been growing, in part because utilities — driven by lower natural gas prices and government regulations — have been burning more natural gas and less coal. Emissions from electric power plants in 2016 were the lowest since 1988, according to EIA figures.

Size of the plant was brought up to further iterate that it would not be easily concealed, unnoticed or unreported. If plants were being built as Trump said, we would know. He also wouldn't say 6, then 7, then 8.

You can't accurately calculate for a war you have no proper time frame or scale of. It was never intended to last a decade and reach the levels it did. It was referred to as endless for a reason. If you know shit about economics, particularity taxes, budgeting and so forth, you would know it's never exact, but much more accurate than calculating cost of a war. Again, they may be off a few million or even a billion or 2, but how does that compare to 1.5 trillion?

Or you don't know what you're talking about. Care to provide some evidence of this assertion that I have to make more per check? I would love to get my thousands.

You have provided no factual support, you simply listed numbers, which going by how you have hard time grasping onto details of what I have and haven’t written leave me skeptical.

 

[TheGrafSpot]

@Bill Derington
Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National); Total Nonfarm Employment, Seasonally Adjusted.” Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey; Unemployment Rate, Seasonally Adjusted.” Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey: Job Openings, Seasonally Adjusted.” Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey; Labor Force Participation Rate.” Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


U.S. Census Bureau. “Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2016.” 12 Sep 2017.


Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National); Average Weekly Earnings of All Employees, 1982-1984 Dollars.” Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


National Association of Realtors. “Sales Price of Existing Single-Family Homes.” 20 Sep 2017.


U.S. Census Bureau. “Time Series: Not Seasonally Adjusted Home Ownership Rate.” Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service. “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Data as of Sept. 8 2017).” Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) data, fiscal years 1968-2017.


U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. “Table 6.19D. Corporate Profits After Tax by Industry.” 3 Aug 2017. Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Consumer Price Index – All Urban Consumers.” Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


S&P Dow Jones Indices, “500 and DJI Daily Historical,” proprietary data furnished upon request and used with permission under academic license. 29 Aug 2017.


U.S. Treasury. “The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It.” Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


Office of Management and Budget. “Table 7.1—Federal Debt at the End of Year: 1940–2022.” May 2017.


Congressional Budget Office. “An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2017 to 2027″ Table 1. 29 Jun 2017.


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; National Health Interview Survey. “Early Release of Selected Estimates Based on Data From the 2016 National Health Interview Survey.” May 2017.


Kaiser Family Foundation. “Premiums and Worker Contributions Among Workers Covered by Employer-Sponsored Coverage, 1999-2017.” 19 Sep 2017.


U.S. Border Patrol. “Total Illegal Alien Apprehensions By Month” Fiscal Years 2000-2016. Undated. Accessed 25 Sep 2017.


U.S. Border Patrol. “U.S. Border Patrol Apprehensions FY2017 YTD(October 1 – August 31).” Undated. Accessed 25 Sep 2017.


U.S. Border Patrol. “Border Patrol Agent Staffing by Fiscal Year.” 1 Oct 2016.


Passel, Jeffrey et al. “Table A1: Unauthorized Immigrant Population.” Pew Research Center. 3 Sep 2014.


Passel, Jeffrey et al. “As Mexican share declined, U.S. unauthorized immigrant population fell in 2015 below recession level.” Pew Research Center. 25 April 2017.


Warren, Robert. “Zero Undocumented Population Growth Is Here to Stay and Immigration Reform Would Preserve and Extend These Gains.” Center for Migration Studies. Jun 2017.


U.S. Energy Information Administration. “U.S. Crude Oil Production.” Short Term Energy Outlook. 12 Sep 2017. Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


U.S. Energy Information Administration. “Table 3.3a Petroleum Trade: Overview.” Monthly Energy Review. 28 Aug 2017.


U.S. Energy Information Administration. Electric Power Monthly, “Table 1.1.A. Net Generation from Renewable Sources: Total (All Sectors), 2007-July 2017.” 26 Sep 2017.


U.S. Energy Information Administration. “Coal Production; Total U.S.” Short Term Energy Outlook. 12 Sep 2017. Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


U.S. Energy Information Administration. “Table 12.1 Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Energy Consumption by Source,” Monthly Energy Review. 28 Aug 2017.


U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Affairs. “Table 1. U.S. International Transactions: Exports, Imports and Balances.” 6 Sep 2017.


U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Report,” Year 2016 Interim.” 27 Jun 2017.


U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Report,” Year 2008.” 8 Mar 2011.


National Shooting Sports Foundation. “NSSF-Adjusted NICS – Historical Monthly Chart” Proprietary data supplied on request. 25 Sep 2017.


Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Crime in the United States 2016.” Table 1. 25 Sep 2017.


Sivak, Michael and Brandon Schoettle. “Average sales-weighted fuel-economy rating (window sticker) of purchased new vehicles for October 2007 through August 2017.” University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. 5 Sep 2017, Accessed 25 Sep 2017.


New York Times. The Guantanamo Docket. “Timeline: A chronology of detainees’ arrivals, transfers and deaths.” 27 Sep 2017.


iCasualties.org. “Operation Enduring Freedom; Afghanistan Coalition Military Fatalities .” Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.


iCasualties.org. “Operation Iraqi Freedom; Iraq Coalition Military Fatalities.” Data extracted 27 Sep 2017.

 

[KingOfBBN]

Anyone chastising the “birther conspiracy” while going on about Russia is an idiot who lacks self awareness.

And there certainly wasn’t unchecked investigations from a corrupt investigator when it came to where Obama was from.

 

[TheGrafSpot.]

So by your opinion if I donate money and time that makes it ok to call all cops pigs by wearing socks depicting cops as pigs to work? Nothing disrespectful there right. How about showing support for a murderous and brutal dictator who killed 1000’s of innocent women and children? That is your hero right.

Support a murdering dictator but against police brutality - in false cases like Trayvon and Michael Brown where criminals played stupid games and won stupid prizes. Nobody is for police brutality, but when the AA community wants to call police arresting AA’s police brutality because they want to continue selling drugs and killing young AA teens is stupid.

Where are all of these NFL players and Kap helping out Chicago where dozens of black men are killed each week? How about Philly, Detroit, Memphis, Baltimore... notice a trend.

When did CK call all Police pigs? Or was that just your interpretation? Please provide factual evidence.

What did Trayvon do again? And how was that police brutality? George Zimmerman wasn't a cop. He was a wannabe cop, who was a self appointed neighborhood watch. He shot and killed an unarmed teen for walking in his neighborhood with a hoodie on. He was also was told by law enforcement to no follow or approach him. This is the same George Zimmerman who has since served time for assault, battery and brandishing a firearm in other cases.

Notice a tend with larger cities promote higher crime? That's been known for decades. Why are you failing to mention all the money and time these athletes donate to those communities. After all, most of them come from those same communities. They understand far better than you or I.

 

[Los Gatos]

 

[TheGrafSpot.]

Wrong. People don’t need to sacrifice their love for the flag and the national anthem to maintain anything. They can do both. Remember your own words- you can fight both police abuse and black on black violence- you don’t have to choose one, you can do both.

Sure they do if they feel that is neccessary. CK isn't doing anythig to disrespect a flag or song? How has he done so? Genuflection or genuflexion is the act of bending at least one knee to the ground. From early times, it has been a gesture of deep respect for a superior. Today, the gesture is common in the Christian religious practices. Kneeling as actually the usmost sign of respect. We kneel to pray, to respect royalty, to propose, to show support for a fallen soldier or athlete just to name a few things. People wanting to make it into a sign of disrespect obviosuly are not aware of the history of the act. It has been used far more time as an act f respect that disrespect, has it not? Why would Nate Boyer, a soldier after all, recommend it?

Who said they couldn't do both, 1 or the other, or neither? hat's their choice and freedom, which is what we agree was fought for. No a piece of cloth or song.

 

[TheGrafSpot.]

@Old_Red Lol, I thought you might like that.

 

[mustnotsleepnow]

Seriously though...what are you Trumpers going to wear?

Not Nike since they have the nerve to sponsor someone taking a stand against police brutality. You can't wear Converse since they're owned by NIke. You can't wear Adidas or Puma because they wanted to sign Kaepernick as well.

New Balance? Under Armour? LA Gear?

 

[P19978]

View embedded media

Never underestimate the stupidity of the left.

 

[TheGrafSpot.]

Seriously though...what are you Trumpers going to wear?

Not Nike since they have the nerve to sponsor someone taking a stand against police brutality. You can't wear Converse since they're owned by NIke. You can't wear Adidas or Puma because they wanted to sign Kaepernick as well.

New Balance? Under Armour? LA Gear?

Under Armour's biggest endorsment athlete is with Steph Curry. He shunned a whitehouse invite, routinely speaks out against Trump and in favor of CK protest. Not to mention I think some NBA players did similar things, plus UA sponors pride and equality. The snowflakes definitely can't handle that.

 

[KendallCat]

When did CK call all Police pigs? Or was that just your interpretation? Please provide factual evidence.

What did Trayvon do again? And how was that police brutality? George Zimmerman wasn't a cop. He was a wannabe cop, who was a self appointed neighborhood watch. He shot and killed an unarmed teen for walking in his neighborhood with a hoodie on. He was also was told by law enforcement to no follow or approach him. This is the same George Zimmerman who has since served time for assault, battery and brandishing a firearm in other cases.

Notice a tend with larger cities promote higher crime? That's been known for decades. Why are you failing to mention all the money and time these athletes donate to those communities. After all, most of them come from those same communities. They understand far better than you or I.

You cannot be this obtuse or maybe just plain ignorant or blind devotion to Kap. He wore socks on the practice field showing cartoon pigs as cops. Please don’t post if you are going to be ignorant or a very bad troll.

 

[Ron Mehico]

This is why people who don’t know what they’re talking about shouldn’t vote, with respect

I’m only responding to posts that quoted me as I have no idea what this thread has turned into so sorry if you guys are discussing abortion or guns or what have you now, but did want to address this point with my humble OPINION. Me simply asking a guy that is VERY atheist how he reconciles voting for a party that is very pro religion (the Vice President views himself a Christian first) was a question I was asking simply out of curiosity, I would HOPE that doesn’t make me unqualified to vote, just by being a curious person.

I tried to get into politics a year ago because everyone told me how UNBELIEVABLY important it is and just got extremely irritated and tired of it, and I found it to be actually not that important.To me what is really awful is the 2 party system, where you are stuck choosing a “team”. To your point I actually think the really hardcore conservatives/Democrats should be the ones that shouldn’t be the ones voting because they are horrifically biased. It would be if fans could vote for which teams get in the NCAA tournament. All of us here would think we should be the ones deciding because we’re so “informed” and casual fans shouldn’t even be allowed because they’re “clueless” but in reality we would be awful at it because we’re so biased for Kentucky, we would do all we can to twist logic and numbers to make UK look good and conversely twist all numbers to make Duke, UNC, and Louisville look bad. Our bias would be so strong it wouldn’t really be a neutral vote but extremely biased and unfair, that what people like you and fuzz and whoever else are.

I think three things would make politics much better in this country:

Campaign finance reform

Limited term limits so peoples sole purpose in life isn’t to get re-elected

Not putting R or D besides a candidates name in the voting booth but just having a brief summary of their stance on the important topics

None of this will happen though, and politics will continue to be a shitfest. Anyway sorry for long post, this is my longest post I’ve ever made and you’re probably better off not even reading it as it’s jyst rambling, but just wanted to respond to your post about me not being allowed to vote because I was curious on a guys stance.

 

[wildcatsboston1984]

lol College of the Ozarks accounts for like 0.00000001% of Nike's income if even that much.

 

[mdlUK.1]

 

[wildcatsboston1984]

Before you straight up make up shit, know the facts. Check out Jack Johnson who trump pardoned..the current President has pardoned less than ten peoplease while Obama pardoned 2 terrorist nations for their behavior. Also pardoned 213 criminals, educatell yourself before you just make stuff up, just shows your intelligence, lack of that is. Half of those that Obama pardoned also had aliases, enough said. How many of Trump's none. Funny huh.
CK is only capitalizing on this, don't think he cares at all. If he were to donate his money, he can do much more for his cause. Police brutality exists, until we as a nation can come up with better law enforcement that is completely objective, unfeeling we have what we have. All I know is if in my job I see the worse society has to offer day in and day out. I'd be out of sorts as well. The only solution is better mental health for our police force and mandatory mental checks but they are unionized and well...

Trump also pardoned criminals, because you know there isn't a need to pardon someone who isn't a criminal.

 

[CrittendenWildcat]

I don't hear anyone on either side talking about nationalizing facebook. If you want something to go to sh!t, that would be a sure-fire way to do it, putting it in the hands of the government.

Regulating facebook and other social media outlets? That would certainly be a better approach than nationalizing it. But I still don't see that as a good option.

The best option IMO is to let the free market do its job. People affected will realize that private entities like facebook and twitter are playing favorites and putting their thumb on the scale of ideological debate, and therefore leave the current popular social medial outlets to move to another platform (maybe existing now, maybe to come) that does allow free expression and differences of opinion while figuring out how to keep bots and trolls in check.

If I were more entrepreneurial, I would be looking hard at the opportunity to create that platform now.

 

[wildcatsboston1984]

lol "Patriotic Education and Fitness" is a required class there. Sounds like a good ole brainwashing propaganda school.

 

[wildcatsboston1984]

Seriously though...what are you Trumpers going to wear?

Not Nike since they have the nerve to sponsor someone taking a stand against police brutality. You can't wear Converse since they're owned by NIke. You can't wear Adidas or Puma because they wanted to sign Kaepernick as well.

New Balance? Under Armour? LA Gear?

New Balance is the official* shoe of white people https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...shoes-of-white-people/?utm_term=.53d9e3dfca03

 

[Brandon Stroud]

I still can't believe Barr hasn't run an ad of McGrath saying she wouldn't be against a woman aborting her baby on the way to the hospital to deliver it. And saying she thinks all fetuses are human beings, but that aborting them is totally not worth legislating against.

I mean, even most people who are "pro-choice" would draw the line at stabbing the skull of a full-term baby as it is in the birth canal, but not Amy. But she's a Catholic (who never, to my knowledge, attends Mass in Georgetown or Lexington).