StrangeSox

Trump National Security Team Blindsided by NATO Speech They thought the president would commit to the principle of collective defense. They were wrong. Trump unilaterally decided to strip the article 5 guarantee from the NATO speech

PBS/Nova had a solid episode explaining the details and timeline of the Flint water crisis

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 4, 2017 -> 08:33 PM) There should be concern if not fear. I get mocked on here for saying ISIS wants to behead us in real life situations. Sit at a restaurant and they come out with machetes hacking people to death. Sick bastards. We need to fight these assholes. Find out where they are and drop BOMBS on them. Lotsa bombs. I'm more likely to die on my way to work tomorrow in a car accident. I'm not going to live my life in fear, which is exactly what terrorists want.

London, ‘reeling’? The city that weathered Nazi bombs pushes back against fear.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jun 4, 2017 -> 01:08 PM) At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is "no reason to be alarmed! Not sure what context you are looking for. He was asked about Londoners who were afraid to go out, and he said police presence would be amped up for a few days and there was no reason to be alarmed. Funny how the muslim mayor refused to mention the motivations of the attackers at all. They only screamed the usual before knifing people, so we may never know. But all of this petty sniping aside, what are they going to do about it now? Will this turn out to be a case where they knew of the attacker beforehand and yet did nothing? Was he known or unknown to security services? I figure at least a week until we get something as the story will change every day for a while. Trying to keep the public calm and not giving the terrorists a platform seems like a better route than s***ting in an ally's government official in a dumb and belligerent manner before heading off to the golf course for the 23rd time.

Trump deliberately taking the mayor of London's comments out of context to insult him is just so pathetic and petty.

what exactly makes him an expert?

The rest of the world has already told Trump to f*** off and said they're not renegotiating. Abandoning a global agreement that almost every country in the world signed on to while not offering any actual criticisms of the agreement and having your entire administration shot through with climate denialist isn't taking leadership.

Mueller investigation expanding to include manafort, possibly sessions. https://apnews.com/749ff6ea249942d28070c80a...s-Manafort-case

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 2, 2017 -> 07:38 PM) You were the one complaining about Hillary. All I am saying is your party, even though you try to say it's not, is all about internet rumor as fact, yet not once have I read a post from you denouncing them for it. It is very telling you are more concerned with what Hillary Clinton, citizen, has to say, and getting her facts wrong, than all the bulls*** coming out of the WH. Seth Rich!!

Republicans have no idea how to govern.

China is still considered a developing country, and their Gini index is fairly close to the US'em. Their per capita GDP doesn't meet developed country definitions. The idea behind giving developing countries assistance is that the developed countries have already gotten to reap the benefits of building their economies in cheap, dirty energy and that it's in everyone's best interest to help these developing countries to modernize and expand with cleaner technologies. Pence: Yeah it sure is a mystery why "the left" cares about a serious problem that is already having global impacts that will only get worse. And it's not so much "the left" as it is "the entire rest of the world," unless that was a tacit admission from pence that the GOP is a radical party that's to the right of literally every other country on the planet.

Fact checks on Trump's statement http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/ar...t-withdrawing-/

One if Trump's first moves was to try to undue the sanctions on Russia secretly. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administra...&soc_trk=tw And they gave back two facilities that were shuttered by Obama over the interference in exchange for absolutely nothing.

Whole lotta dunks and threes in an exciting first quarter

Shack, I was talking to some pg&e folks today who were saying that California is "over generating" largely on solar and wind and as a result there aren't a lot of calls for power from fossil plants, even natural gas. That seem accurate from your end?

Sort of? There is going to be an international fund for developing countries that the US government would pay into but which was also largely funded by private entities. The bigger part of it is the individual countries' commitments to reducing their climate emissions.

https://t.co/XtuoGTAZaf

Rand Paul was on TV ahead of the announcement questioning whether it's getting hotter or colder. This is the level of stupid that's running the federal government right now.

I think we're also going to see the US facing quasi sanctions from the global community over actions like this. Nothing officially called that, but watch out for less favorable trade deals or even fewer deals at all. We're giving up American leadership globally and running away from a growing tech field others are going all in on in order to pander to 50k coal jobs and boost oil company revenues The damage to the rest of our economy due to lost opportunities (not to even get into the damage from agw itself) will far out weigh whatever the costs are.

Why just last week I was beheaded by ISIS twice!

QUOTE (bmags @ Jun 1, 2017 -> 03:50 PM) It's so typical that those who strive for strength strive for appearance of strength in ways that undermine them. He thinks this makes us look strong by telling the countries no. It undercuts democratic leadership globally, and destroys short term relationship building. Except with those that flatter him. Absolutely this. He's destroyed US credibility across much of the world with the exception of a handful of dictators. You can argue whether or not Obama's methods and means we're the most effective way to exert US influence, but this path is pretty clearly not a good one.

White House has given 16 senior staffers ethics waivers. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/31/us/po...t.co/uqau6lBBiv

That's just the first general summary I googled up. Tort reform has been discussed for years, and the trials in Texas and other states did not show much of a reduction in overall costs or premiums, 1-2% for some plans but no effect for others. These are just some of the top google results, but I used to follow this more frequently. http://www.nber.org/aginghealth/2009no3/w15371.html http://www.statesman.com/news/local/new-st...WdJtVa35WvZCCL/ It's possible that tort reform could help on the margins, but the idea that it's the primary or even a main driver of increasing health care costs just doesn't seem to hold to to the data.