Off Topic Politics Thread

It's why I don't bother mate

 

Trump Health Adviser Linked HIV/AIDS Research To Prostitution
During the Bush administration, Katy Talento claimed HIV/AIDS research money was going to support Russian prostitution.

President-elect Donald Trump’s new health policy adviser, Katy Talento, tried to kill funding for HIV/AIDS research by claiming the money was going to support Russian prostitution, and she has suggested women can avoid the Zika virus by having their husbands sleep on top of the covers at night.

Former Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who fought efforts by conservatives to eliminate AIDS research funding during the George W. Bush administration, told BuzzFeed News, “This appointment raises a lot of alarm bells.”

“This is a key position in the White House for health policy,” Waxman said, adding that he is concerned Talento may represent a new push against contraception and efforts to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.

“I hope this administration is not going to roll back the clock … on what we can do to prevent sexually transmitted diseases,” Waxman said.

The announcement was met with alarm from women’s health groups, who have taken issue with Talento’s belief that oral contraceptives can cause abortion, despite a clear consensus among researchers that they do not.

Talento’s recommendations for avoiding the Zika virus, blamed for severe birth defects in infants, have also raised eyebrows. In January she published a list of tips for avoiding the virus. While many of the recommendations are fairly standard — avoiding areas where mosquitos breed and using bug repellent, for instance — they also suggest that women “sleep with your husband, with you snug under the covers and him on top of the covers, offering himself as human sacrifice to the mosquitos, who will pick the easier target.”

There appears to be no basis for the notion that this would protect pregnant women. “I don’t know where she’s getting her data from,” said Dr. Nikos Vasilakis, a Zika expert at the University of Texas.

And given that the Zika virus can be transmitted through sex, it’s unclear how sacrificing the husband to biting mosquitos would protect women from contracting it.

But it is Talento’s historic hostility toward HIV/AIDS research funding that has caused broader concerns for scientists and is “raising fears that their research may be losing funding,” Waxman said.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/johnstanto...or-hivaids-r?utm_term=.sieNd9AX20#.tsW5a0EZWK

 

Who says they are going to be written into UK law? Most of our air quality and working place health legislation is to meet EU standards, who says we will imitate or even produce a watered-down equivalent, no-one knows and I am sure lobbyists will be involved. Of course we will not have the same rights and laws because often we have contravened EU law and been pulled up by the European court of Justice, which will no longer apply. This is a bit like the Snoopers Chart which is illegal but May no longer has to listen to any of us. And I of course will vote for whom I want but that does not skew my fears about the lax of environmental laws or work place requirements.

 

I didn't say it was clear, I said it was implied. If people had done a little research they could have seen for themselves what the potential consequences were. That's democracy though. Politicians and campaigners on all sides lie, manipulate statistics and stretch or twist the truth.

As for what Brexit means, I think the debate has mainly been hot air generated because May has created something of a vacuum by keeping quiet about her intentions. I'd say Theresa May knew what she was doing pretty much as soon as she took office though and I think the delay has been while she waited for some of the heat to go out of the situation and worked out how to present her government's approach. Why do I say this? Well, she only appointed 6 people to her cabinet on the day she became Prime Minister and one of those was Liam Fox, who was appointed to the newly-created post of Minister for International Trade. It was explained that his role was to secure new trade deals with countries outside the EU following our exit. You can't do your own trade deals if you're a member of the single market or the customs union - the only explanation for her creating this position is that she intended to leave the single market from the beginning.

 

You are only allowed to use the "imply" argument if you are on the other side talking about Buses, £350m and NHS. Doesn't work the other way round.

 

The sad thing is that you could have the best, most hardworking and socially conscious Mp ever as your elected representative, however when they go to Parliament, they just toe the party line.
Most enter politics now, not out of social responsibility but for personal gain. Anybody that wants to run the country is immediately the worst person who could possibly do the job because they have usually already risen to the top of a pyramid of bastards, and you don't do that by being nice or honest.
Party politics sucks because people end up having to effectively vote for a pre-established set of rules and goals that have nothing to do with what people NEED, and everything to do with the agenda of the party - which is about being in power, regardless of how they get it, and so we end up with rulers, not servants.
All major parties are the same so there will be no change until we get PR - which I can't see happening because it requires the establishment to change things to their detriment.
PR isn't perfect by any means, as it can lead to the old "a camel is a horse designed by a committee" scenario, however it more likely reflects a population's wishes and stands some chance of actually being truly democratic, or at least somewhere close.

 

I absolutely agree with all your comments on the political career seekers. Yesterday really annoyed me because of the manner of the broadcast. There was no need and it was an opportunity for Labour to tell us what they can do for us, not twist a story (I'll say that rather than lie to us) and take us for fools, just to slag off an opponent. I long for the day when any party tells how good they will be, rather than how bad the opponent is. This is aimed at all parties. They are all as bad as each other.

If I had a strong independent candidate locally, I would vote for them on a purely selfish local interest basis.

 

As would I Fats, as would most of us, given the chance.
Trump could be doing us all a favour with his Mexican wall, because I reckon it'll be just long enough, come the glorious day...

 

Hopefully he will test its effectiveness by either jumping off from the top or by bashing his head against it.

 

WASHINGTON — When President-elect Donald J. Trump offered Rick Perry the job of energy secretary five weeks ago, Mr. Perry gladly accepted, believing he was taking on a role as a global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry that he had long championed in his home state.

In the days after, Mr. Perry, the former Texas governor, discovered that he would be no such thing — that in fact, if confirmed by the Senate, he would become the steward of a vast national security complex he knew almost nothing about, caring for the most fearsome weapons on the planet, the United States’ nuclear arsenal.

Two-thirds of the agency’s annual $30 billion budget is devoted to maintaining, refurbishing and keeping safe the nation’s nuclear stockpile; thwarting nuclear proliferation; cleaning up and rebuilding an aging constellation of nuclear production facilities; and overseeing national laboratories that are considered the crown jewels of government science.

“If you asked him on that first day he said yes, he would have said, ‘I want to be an advocate for energy,’” said Michael McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist who advised Mr. Perry’s 2016 presidential campaign and worked on the Trump transition’s Energy Department team in its early days. “If you asked him now, he’d say, ‘I’m serious about the challenges facing the nuclear complex.’ It’s been a learning curve.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/u...=tw-share&_r=0

Horrible things are going to happen in the next four years because there's no one but incompetent people running the government now.

 

http://news.sky.com/story/surrey-to...council-tax-rise-to-fund-social-care-10734359

Difficult one this. A referendum on a 15% council tax rise to fund social care. Having recently witnessed the problem first hand with a relative who got stuck in hospital with totally inadequate care because of delays to transfer him to a care home, I have to say I would vote in favour. I am obviously thinking emotionally. Would I have voted differently if I hadn't had this experience?

 

Saw that earlier myself. I'll get a vote in this. Really not sure which way I'll go.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38650596

Modelled on the Drudge Report, the American aggregator site that generates huge traffic, Westmonster will be powered by the social media reach of Leave.EU, the campaign to which Mr Banks gave close to £7m - the largest donation in British political history.

Leave.EU has nearly 800,000 followers on Facebook and Mr Heaver believes he can use that base to generate substantial traffic from day one.

The site will launch with an article from Nigel Farage, and Mr Heaver is open about wanting to ape the opinionated, anti-establishment, highly provocative tone of Breitbart.

This launch is significant for several reasons. It shows that the anti-establishment media which helped to power the campaign of Donald Trump is coming to Britain.

It's no coincidence that Westmonster is launching the day before Mr Trump's inauguration - an event that will be attended, almost alone among Brits, by Nigel Farage, Arron Banks, and Mr Banks's business associate Andy Wigmore, who are together hosting a celebratory party on Saturday night in a hotel across the road from the White House.

 

So basically the government stripped local authorities and public services of cash due to austerity measures, reduced taxation on higher bands and now local authorities are having to try and fund the deficit by holding referendums as to whether to raise taxes. Sounds like regressive taxing that will tax the middle class more so than the rich.

 

Talking of "fake news":

SNP MP’s fake news

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/snp-mps-fake-news/

 

We're going to miss that kind of natural graciousness, I suspect.

Vin

 

Where is everyone...?

 

He's looking very orange.

It seems when it comes to presidents, orange is the new black.

 

At a Klan meeting.

Vin