The New American Politics thread

[DownInFlames]

Hillary has been called robotic, but she's way more human than Trump. They way she embraced Bill, and interacts with people on the stage, you can tell she cares about people. She has flaws, but she's not doing this purely for ego.

I think she'll be a fine President.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by ggg

no child left behind has created a fantastic data set to study educational progress and what works and what doesn't. He tried to fix immigration but was blocked. His opposition to funding stem cell research from aborted fetuses led to research on how to create non embryonic stem cells from other sources which was successful. His initial response to 9/11 was good. He fixed the mess of the emergency response system post katrina.

He's certainly not as bad as he is made out to be.

. I assume this was all intended as sarcasm.

[GGG]

A pretty well run convention. A clear plan for each day. Unified the party, attacked trump, identified the importance of the election even if you don't like Hillary, reached out to idependants and never trumps, outline a clear policy vision and made Hillary appear human.

It will be interesting to see likability numbers for Hillary on the rolling average this week.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

Pretty hard to find positives in anything else he did, when you consider those 2 things.

I can think of a few things off the top of my head.

- He made a huge push in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa. It's actually a really big deal and saved tons of lives. And still saves lives today. It's something he gets very little credit for outside of Africa, but in that part of the world he's actually super popular from what I've understood.

- He seemed to be able to handle Putin better than Obama (although the difference might be all Putin, but it's hard to know that)

- "No Child Left Behind", while a very mixed bag, had a lot of good in it too and did achieve measurable improvements in test scores. Especially for minorities.

[Biff]

I think the Democrats have taken the initiative after the conventions. I think Trump and the republicans are going to be in damage-control mode and forced to pivot around a broad set of exposure points. The DNC was a masterful take-down of the Trump hype machine. There's still a contest, but I think the Democrats have moved the narrative to substance and readiness and the Republicans are going to be working very hard to pull it back into the realm of hyperbole and bluster.

[monkeyman]

Originally Posted by GGG

No child left behind has created a fantastic data set to study educational progress and what works and what doesn't. He tried to fix immigration but was blocked. His opposition to funding stem cell research from aborted fetuses led to research on how to create non embryonic stem cells from other sources which was successful. His initial response to 9/11 was good. He fixed the mess of the emergency response system post Katrina.

He's certainly not as bad as he is made out to be.

you mean the mess left by the Undersecretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response who was appointed by Bush in 2003?

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Biff

I think the Democrats have taken the initiative after the conventions. I think Trump and the republicans are going to be in damage-control mode and forced to pivot around a broad set of exposure points. The DNC was a masterful take-down of the Trump hype machine. There's still a contest, but I think the Democrats have moved the narrative to substance and readiness and the Republicans are going to be working very hard to pull it back into the realm of hyperbole and bluster.

I'm not sure on the "masterful" part, but it was pretty good and did seem to get the Clinton campaign more on track than it has been so far. They seem to finally have found ways to sell Clintons strong points properly.

The DNC got an advantage from being able to comment the RNC directly and used it well.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Itse

I can think of a few things off the top of my head.

- He made a huge push in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa. It's actually a really big deal and saved tons of lives. And still saves lives today. It's something he gets very little credit for outside of Africa, but in that part of the world he's actually super popular from what I've understood.

That was post president work, right?

- He seemed to be able to handle Putin better than Obama (although the difference might be all Putin, but it's hard to know that)

I don't have an opinion on that one way or the other.

"No Child Left Behind", while a very mixed bag, had a lot of good in it too and did achieve measurable improvements in test scores. Especially for minorities.

That's a tough one for me. One of the fundamental things it led to was giving money to schools that were scoring well and taking away money from schools that were suffering, so that is backwards on its own. It also led to a lot of "teaching to the test" which has pretty much ruined the whole education process in public schools, especially the lower middle class/high performing low income schools.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

That was post president work, right?

No, clearly presidential work. At least two separate programs, one that started in 2004 and other that started in 2008. Of course the results didn't really come until after he left the White House, but he deserves full credit as the president who got those done.

The significance of this work is really pretty huge. The 2008 program saved more than a million lives just in it's first year.

That's a tough one for me. One of the fundamental things it led to was giving money to schools that were scoring well and taking away money from schools that were suffering, so that is backwards on its own. It also led to a lot of "teaching to the test" which has pretty much ruined the whole education process in public schools, especially the lower middle class/high performing low income schools.

As I said, that program was a mixed bag. Some do credit him for getting more attention to developing the US school in general.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Drak

That was last week.

I was referring to the camera shots of the crowd at the end of the speech where they had entire sections of people with those white sign boards over their faces. At first I thought it was cloaked people which seemed really odd.

[driveway]

If the goal of NCLB had been to generate data it would have been an excellent piece of successful legislation.

There is nothing else in it that's beneficial to anyone other than Pearson publishers.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by GGG

No child left behind has created a fantastic data set to study educational progress and what works and what doesn't.

And a lot of what doesn't work is the basis of NCLB. There was potential for this program to work, but it was under-funded and did not address the outcomes of testing. It was great that we got standardized testing and testing data, but if there was nothing in the system that took that data and turned it into meaningful improvements in the system, then that is a flawed design and flawed system. Things haven't improved and have actually gone in the wrong direction because NCLB did not address the outcomes discovered in testing.

He tried to fix immigration but was blocked.

You would think he could have rammed that through considering he had the support of congress on almost everything he asked for. What happened?

His opposition to funding stem cell research from aborted fetuses led to research on how to create non embryonic stem cells from other sources which was successful.

Successful is obviously in the eye of the beholder. The scientific community differs in opinion.

A slew of negative ramifications followed for ES cell researchers. Now facing restrictions on the type of research conducted using federal funds, some scientists were forced to create a dichotomous research environment based on federal vs. private funding of staff, equipment, and lab space [3]. Collaboration and the sharing of knowledge between scientists also was hindered [4,5], and American researchers who previously spearheaded ES cell initiatives were no longer able to offer much of a contribution, stifling relationships with their international counterparts [6].

Further aggravating the situation was the fact that the 21 existing lines were not genetically or ethnically diverse, meaning specific disease processes (such as Parkinson’s) could no longer be studied in ES cells. Similarly, any information gleaned from the existing lines was limited to certain ethnicities, leaving uncertainty with regard to cellular processes in minority groups. In terms of therapeutic application, all 21 lines were of decidedly poor utility as they were cultured under inferior conditions by today’s standards [7].

This is balanced off with this.

During this time, however, there were several advances in the realm of stem cell research. The discovery of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, whereby adult somatic cells are induced to display properties consistent with ES cells, were first generated in mice by researchers in Japan [8]. Following the discovery, the White House noted that by “supporting alternative approaches, President Bush is encouraging scientific advancement within ethical boundaries” [9]. Subsequent U.S. progress in iPS cell research may have well enjoyed unique encouragement under Bush’s policies.

His initial response to 9/11 was good.

Which one? The one where he sat in a classroom full of kids, ####ting his pants, or the one where he hugged some firefighters before attacking the wrong country? If you know anything about the response to 9/11 you'll know that the Bush Administration took immediate steps to link the 9/11 attacks to Iraq. Richard Clark wrote about it extensively in his book about the events post 9/11 and terrorism in general. The response was weak and misguided. They should have focused on Afghanistan and tracked down Bin Laden there. They didn't commit and that led to the failure in Iraq and an on-going failure in Afghanistan. I fail to see anything good out of that.

He fixed the mess of the emergency response system post Katrina.

Actually, he didn't. What Bush did was create Homeland Security after 9/11, which made FEMA slow and unresponsive, with a greater focus on terror response than the more common natural disaters that FEMA was designed to handle. The Stafford Act of 1988 is still the basis for much of the FEMA response system. The Post-Katrina Act of 2006 made very minor changes to how FEMA worked, but changed the reporting structure of FEMA under DHS to make it more nimble and reactive. Real change to FEMA came in the shape of the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013. This changed the way Emergency Management worked from the ground on up, making it easier to get access to funds and resources during natural disasters. There are still improvements to be made, but FEMA is now designed to listen to those who work incidents and find weaknesses in the systems.

He's certainly not as bad as he is made out to be.

Yes, he's as bad as he's made out to be. He left the country in the worse shape it has been in since the great depression. Our foreign policy was a disaster, the economy was garbage, and everything was trending in the wrong direction. But beyond that, he did a bang up job!

[Mr.Coffee]

Out of morbid perverse curiosity I went on Twitter and clicked on a Donald Trump tweet to see the comments. He was talking about something or other, I don't remember really and it wasn't important.

I was surprised. Holy #### was I surprised. I read about 20-30 comments and virtually ALL of them were just roasting him! Small penis references, hair references, "you just got destroyed by Hillary", "what is your plan you useless piece of...".

It was... both sad yet inspiring both at the same time. Wonder if he reads those... Looked like he would have to sift awhile to find some support to retweet.

[calgarybornnraised]

I don't know how anyone who watched Trump vs.Clinton especially as a Canadian would vote for Trump. She was calm ,calculated ,and sincere. Trump was a raging ######.

[Bunk]

I think she'll get a significant bump outbid this convention.

The contrast between the two conventions could not have been more stark either in execution and message.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Bunk

I think she'll get a significant bump outbid this convention.

The contrast between the two conventions could not have been more stark either in execution and message.

If it doesn't, can we deport the uneducated white people? Maybe we can give them a test to see if they really care about the well being of the country?

[puffnstuff]

When do candidates usually release their tax return info? Think Trump releases his?

My guess he doesnt. Says something like 'trust me my returns are huge, beautiful returns, terrific returns, theres nothing behind that curtain, Dorothy'

[Stay Golden]

One convention was on point from start to finish and had the inclusion of several ethnic speakers, several women, several women, several military representatives from soldiers to families. Such as Muslim American war hero Khir Khan and even including generals. Representative of social issues, representation of church and state. Victims of terrorism, victims of police violence from both sides. Former Republicans and taking on Trump with shot after shot. Financial multi Billionaire guru Independent Michael Bloomberg.
Representatives from all levels of Government.
When it finally became Hilary Clinton it was an entire check list after check list of the what, how and why on every single platform.
I couldn't but feel I was watching what I hope will be a shining piece of American history.
The other convention was self absorbed, hollow, with no explanations just slogans. No Republicans past alumni of any major impact even showed up.
Almost every speech was dark and brooding. Honestly downright scary in the worst of ways.
It left me feeling this is a madman on full display for anyone with a sense of what's really decent to see his pure hatred.
I pray Clinton crushes her vile opposition at the polls.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Stay Golden

One convention was on point from start to finish and had the inclusion of several ethnic speakers, several women, several women, several military representatives from soldiers to families. Such as Muslim American war hero Khir Khan and even including generals. Representative of social issues, representation of church and state. Victims of terrorism, victims of police violence from both sides. Former Republicans and taking on Trump with shot after shot. Financial multi Billionaire guru Independent Michael Bloomberg.
Representatives from all levels of Government.
When it finally became Hilary Clinton it was an entire check list after check list of the what, how and why on every single platform.
I couldn't but feel I was watching what I hope will be a shining piece of American history.
The other convention was self absorbed, hollow, with no explanations just slogans. No Republicans past alumni of any major impact even showed up.
Almost every speech was dark and brooding. Honestly downright scary in the worst of ways.
It left me feeling this is a madman on full display for anyone with a sense of what's really decent to see his pure hatred.
I pray Clinton crushes her vile opposition at the polls.

At least he had a very compelling and articulate rebuttal:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/28/politi...nse/index.html

[Red Ice Player]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

At least he had a very compelling and articulate rebuttal:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/28/politi...nse/index.html

Wow. Such a presidential demeanor. Such maturity. Do they really want this guy's freakishly small hands on the trigger of the world's deadliest nuclear arsenal?