Make the US Politics Thread Great Again

What else do you expect from a State that doesn’t vote for Trump?

Yes I was going to say the same thing, I’m surprised that california wasn’t issued with an ultimatum from trump - vote for me and republicans or you don’t see any funds.

Someone I know has just lost their house. They built their own home (he was a builder in a past life) and lost 30 years of memories, research (he is now a researcher), their vehicles and pretty much everything. They were away when the fres started and were unable to get back and get anything. Their daughter was able to get in and get a few things but not much.

Sorry to hear :frowning: I flew back this morning and the plume of smoke was visible an hour out of San Francisco over the Pacific.

It’s Autumn going into Winter over there isn’t it? Would love to know how long the Californian/West Coast bushfire season lasts, it seems to be significantly longer than what I used to remember.

‘Do you know how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly?’ – doctors to NRA

Physician slams organization after it criticized those who want to reduce gun deaths by tweeting ‘stay in your lane’

“‘Stay in your lane’, NRA tells doctors who want to reduce gun deaths,” it read. And though she has a personal policy to never tweet when angry, she couldn’t stop herself.

“Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly?” she quickly typed. “This isn’t just my lane. It’s my ■■■■■■■ highway.”

“I was just so incensed,” Melinek said later. “I was so angry, thus the foul language. Here I was, going into work for a case that involved a gunshot wound. I had another one earlier this week. And I was just so incensed that anyone would put down doctors who try every single day to try and save people’s lives.”

She pushed send on the tweet without a second thought, and headed into the morgue. By the time she emerged, four hours later, her tweet had been retweeted more than 15,000 times and liked more than 47,000 times.

Melinek’s tweet may seem like a fairly uncontroversial viewpoint in a country plagued by mass shootings, but her anger touched upon decades of conflict between the medical and scientific community, who have called the rise in gun violence a public health crisis, and the powerful gun rights lobby.

In the 1990s, the National Rifle Association (NRA) lobbied to block the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from conducting research on gun violence. Recent efforts to repeal this provision has led to a clarification passing in March that the CDC can now conduct such research, but is prohibited from using government funds to promote gun control.

“We aren’t against the second amendment,” Melinek said. “What we are against is not researching, not putting effort into researching, and not putting the funding into researching what can be used to prevent gun violence and death, whether it’s trigger locks, security, training or the idea of requiring insurance and having people have insurance in case their gun is used to kill someone else. We need to have the research and we need to have the data to back it up, and right now that’s not happening.”

Melinek’s tweet quickly received widespread support from other doctors and forensic pathologists – “This is our interstate,” wrote Dr Darin Wolfe, an Indiana-based pathologist – as well as its share of criticism.

“I’m pretty sure this is exactly what the NRA was talking about,” wrote one Twitter user. “Emotion is not an intelligent or recommended way to drive debate. Sound logic is the only way to go. Your tweet is stewing with emotion. This is why you can’t be allowed to drive policy debates.”

“You are absolutely right,” Melinek responded. “Evidence and research is needed before we make policy decisions. We should be funding research into what can prevent gun violence. Oh, wait a minute. NRA was against that too.”

Melinek said she conducts, on average, one autopsy a week involving a gunshot wound victim. Every single medical conference she’s attended in the past 10 years has had some presentation or discussion about responding to multiple fatality incident involving gun violence, she said.

“We need to do something, and telling doctors to say in their own lane is not the way to do it,” she said. “We’re the ones who have to deal with the consequences. We’re the ones who have to testify in court about the wounds. We’re the ones who have to talk to the family members. It breaks my heart, and it’s just another day in America.”

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Yay for this person in particular.

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You would think his rusted on, nationalist, hawkish base would find this stuff inexcusably pathetic. How do they excuse it?

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There was an article in Scientific American of 30July 2018 ( sourced from climate wire) suggesting that the fire season was year round.
Also , there was a report that 7 of the most destructive fires in California have occurred since October 2017.

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From what I know of the California fire risk, it’s year round, largely due to drought, low humidity and strong wind. You can have a high fire risk with 20 degree temp, 5% relative humidity and strong winds. If there’s no moisture in the vegetation, it’ll burn even on a cool day.

A hot, humid day doesn’t result in big fires. It’s when things get dry that everything gets scary.

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I’m glad the Dem’s won control of the House back but unfortunately they have one of the more out of touch, uninspiring, past it, establishment Speakers for the next two years in Nancy Pelosi. If they want to gain control of the White House in 2020, they really need some fresh blood who will be able to integrate some of the more progressive members of the Democratic umbrella.

Did anyone listen to her speech upon winning the House? No vision, nothing just vacuous platitudes.

Here’s a great, light hearted video taking down her mumbo jumbo

From what youve been posting, im honestly surprised you feel that way.

The California Professional Firefighters Association not holding back:

Also, the Federal Govt (the one the President is in charge of) owns 60% of the California forests. The State Govt only owns 3%.

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It’s no secret that I dislike the current Democratic party, I think they have lost their way badly and have gone so far to the right that they are basically Republican lite.

They have a big chance to push for some really progressive policy which can form the basis of a 2020 WH campaign however with Pelosi as House leader I’m not holding my breath.

Preferential voting and a centralised population means we won’t get there.

In the US you only really need to get 20-25% of the whole population behind you to achieve power. Here you need minimum 45, ideally 55, so sticking to the fringes won’t get you anywhere.

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Pelosi hasn’t done much as speaker except for helping pass Dodd-Frank act, Recovery Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Act, and the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal…

Yeah it’s gonna be hard for the Democratic party to rid themselves of the NAFTA stench from the Clinton years whilst Clinton surrogates are leading the party. The neoliberal wing of the Dems, which is well and truly in power, is awful from an electoral politics point of view and from a strategic one.

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The biggest geo political risk to the States is Mexico becoming a failed state. Its not terrorism or middle east but rather the country they share the border with.

At times over the past 30 years it’s been shaky, especially when drug cartels have had more power in regions than the government.

NAFTA through trade has instead brought substantial economic development to Mexico and reduced the risk of a failed state dramatically over the past few decades.

Trump and others sound bites about trade deals with Mexico is completely wrong irrespective of how it plays to the public. They may have lost some jobs to Mexico but that was the entire point of the deal.

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Trump railing about NaFTa, whether it be justified or not, is what really won him the election. Especially when combined with a Dem presidential candidate who was in the Whitehouse at the time. Then add to that the feckless election strategy employed by the same candidate in which she paid no attention the the region which was hardest hit by the deal, the region which was always going to decide the outcome of the election.

Also if the cartels are the biggest threat to Mexico and therefore the US maybe the Dems should do something about ending the drug war which they have contributed to. But there is only one wing in the Dem party that actively wants to end it and it isn’t the Clinton wing.

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Agree that it was a big reason he won.

It just frustrates me that the current view of “globalisation” is that it has failed. It’s just totally wrong it has done exactly what it intended to do, develop poorer countries, give profits to corporations(lower labour costs), reduce unionised workforces, make the world safer. People will have differing views on whether they were good goals, especially the corporate profits and unions. But on its strategic outcomes it has delivered in exactly what was intended.

The big problem was it was always going to target disproportionately low skilled blue collar manufacturing communities. This was known at the time and governments have had 40 years to ensure programs were in place to counteract the extremities of change. Of course they didn’t and the midwest backlash in 2016 was real. But the solution isn’t to retreat from free trade but rather liberal policies to help people effected.

Totally agree on the drugs comment.

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