What's the bad science? Are you talking about someone misidentifying arrowheads?

We're all liberals here (wink, wink) but this sir is a bridge too far

You're right, but I'm pretty sure when markksman said "policy" he meant outcomes of a specific policy. I suppose prior to Trump such a distinction was not as necessary, because in general, the outcomes people campaigned on were supposed results of policies they were proposing.

Trump took the approach of just promising outcomes without any discernable policy attached. That approach is not exactly novel in and of itself, but Trump took it to a ridiculous extreme.

FWIW I voted for Bernie in the primaries and I agree that the seemingly risk-averse play of the HRC campaign was a holistic mistake, first and foremost because the Democrats spent too little time telling the electorate affirmative, positive reasons to vote for Clinton and too much time focused on the personal failings of Trump.

Lessons have been learned, Bernie had a great template, we should embrace it, both in championing those themes and stop trying to cultivate revulsion of Trump. I think we've maxed out what gains can be had there, he's deeply unpopular, now is time to tell people why Democrats will do practical, meaningful good things for people. This is the PERFECT time and place for that, at the exact moment when the GOP and Trump turn the screws on everyone.

Meanwhile in the useless putin/russia intractacluster ...


https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/st...93157055107072

I still can't get my head around the view that Dems should focus far less on the Russia issue. Obv there are lots of aspects to this, but I'd hope that conclusive proof that Trump and part of his team blatantly lied for months would be worth something. More than any policy arguments anyway.

Of course he's been lying constantly for years, but this could potentially be something he couldn't brush off.

If there's no truth to then Russia story, then Trump should be eager to get it all out in the open and prove everybody wrong. He's been anything but eager.

I don't know if you said it before or it's just obvious, but I figured you voted for Bernie.

I was just making the not totally serious and cynical point that the Democrats tried this approach and it didn't win over Democrats. Really though I think a lot of Bernie-like candidates could do well in 2018 and possibly even win the presidential nom in 2020.

I think zikzak is right and I've made the point before. Russia is about hoping to get rid of Trump early, not about trying to win in 2020.

I hope it works, but:

1. if it works, the GOP is still in total control and most of the GOP will be able to quickly distance themselves from the whole thing
2. If it doesn't work, it's a time sink -- a lost opportunity of time/money/effort from everyone on the left that pays journalists and writes Explainers and uses twitter and has a cable news show and uses their money to put people into office and then subsequently uses those government positions to communicate with voters -- all of that time/energy/money is supposed to be used to build ideological cases for outcomes we want.

The only outcome that gets you anything is the one where Trump is removed from office. The reward is President Pence/Ryan.

If the left pours tons of time and money into obstructing the AHCA and spending a lot of time, attention and money pointing out its flaws, demonstrating why it's slavish to the health care industry and works primarily to ease the tax burden of the wealthy, and that our alternatives provide better care for more people, you win two ways:

1. damage Trump AND the GOP
2. sell yourself

The Russia story only does #1, and really doesn't even hit the GOP that hard.

Benign? The economics of keystone depend on oil price staying fairly high, and burns more oil in the tar sands than it sends through the pipe. It's basically a wasteful mega project that will tear up thousands of miles of the environment and likely face mounting margin pressure from renewables (which are coming). Pretty much like every project putin&co/rosneft/gazprom has ever put together.

Not to mention that in most cases pipelines will require the long-term approval of fracking to continue to operate. If you think states will continue to approve it in the future, I have some land in Oklahoma to sell you.

This. Also, if the Russia stuff gets far enough, it will accomplish both goals. If Trump gets impeached, it will massively hurt R's in 2018 and 2020 elections.

This is largely correct for overall long term goals. But it does not seem correct for the short term.

Are you saying that if D's spend any amount of time on Russia and don't do things your way, that they're wrong? That even if Trump gets impeached by 2018, it was a waste of time and attention? I don't think so, but that seems to be what you're implying.

Do you think that if Trump gets impeached, it doesn't even hit the GOP that hard?

Tactically that may all be right, I don't know.

Just as far as Pence v Trump goes, Pence is probably worse on most policies and I wouldn't want Trump impeached just to leave us with Pence if it weren't for the authoritarianism, cult of personality, open xenophobia, uncertainty about the use of nuclear weapons, worst case scenario Trumpenings.

I'm warming up to pence#46*, as that might mean the GOP political capital would be pretty low after impeachment.

I have to wonder if there would be any significant cost for lessening focus on the putin/russia issue, like if the Dems just lay down on and let it go away without resolution and the right claiming absolution.

I don't have time to provide references but pipelines are the safest and most environmentally friendly way to transport oil and gas. They are the best of the all the bad options. None are perfect but pipelines are the most benign.

There is also not a shred of evidence that stopping pipelines stops oil and gas production. It is simply transported by worse more expensive options like rail and truck.

There is one reason and one reason only that pipelines have been the target the last 10 years. Regulations in Canada and the US provide standing for third parties to intervene when a project crosses, state, provincial or federal borders. This allows the Green NGO's into the game. That's it. All other rationalizations are after-the-fact.

As for arrowheads, there is also a lot of bad faith on the part of first nations where they sometime identify "traditional sites" within pipeline ROWs for political purposes even after professional archaeologists have cleared them. The next time you read that a pipeline is crosses "burial grounds" please know this is nearly always a total lie. No jurisdiction would ever allow it.



I have no idea that this means?

This is just not true. Period. I run an environmental firm which works on the these exact projects. Modern oil sands development is done through SAGD and TAGD, not mines. These are leases no different than any oil and gas development.

Not to mention all the environmental work that is conducted by companies like mine before, during and after construction of any oil and gas project. This includes multiple wildlife surveys, wetlands, watercourses, water quality, air, soils, archaeology, paleontology, ongoing monitoring and reclamation and remediation.

This is true and a very good thing. We are doing more and more work for wind and solar but right now they cant compete with oil and gas and wont be able to for some time.

This makes no sense. Pipelines have literally nothing to do with fracking. Some of the product in them was collected through fracking but by no means all.

Please name one that has been successfully stopped by the Green lobby? Of course they will continue to be approved. They are required for the oil and gas production which is the backbone of the modern economy, at least for right now.

Impeachment doesn't happen unless there's honest to god hard proof of him doing something criminal, and I think that's a bit of a stretch at this point. Putting a lot of eggs in that basket and hoping for a moonshot is both bad strategy and a badly mixed metaphor.

This thread moves fast, so not sure if this interesting NPR piece on Mercer and his family has been posted.

These guys are way scarier than the corrupt, pro-Russian, money grabbers (as at least what they are doing makes sense).

Inside The Wealthy Family That Has Been Funding Steve Bannon's Plan For Years

Grunching a bit. Getting a strong troll vibe from this guy.

For example right now the big Dem issue is Schiff and his Russia investigation and they are inexplicably letting the narrative on the AHCA be how GOP defectors to the RIGHT of the bill are standing in the way of it passing.

NO!

You are who is stopping the bad bill, which Trump wants! Say that, and only that.

Arrrgh so much this. The gop wants your granny to die so that they can give rich people more money. Say nothing else, just that over and over in a progressively louder voice.

I'm sure Russia is srs bzns but people don't care. I basically don't care and I'm smack in the middle of the people most likely to care. I care that the gop is trying to murder people for money and so would all my friends who don't give 2 ****s about Russia.

lol GOP

so much this. This is such amazing incompetence that I cant help but start entertaining the 4D chess bull****.

But nope, I think they really are just this bad at their job.

https://twitter.com/BenDAvanzo/statu...82659446214657