Trump's Supreme Court nominee

[MrFanti]

Here's some more about your 'darling' EPA...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhen.../#26f7081321ad

I can understand why a Libertarian would criticize Federal agencies, but in one particuar case, the Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA) it begs the questio: Can commercial enterprises be relied upon to protect the enviroment without the imposition of Federal law? To which the answer is: No.

Moreover, the EPA has one of the most successful records in US government in achieving its aims. The standard complaint is that the 'reams of regulations' that companies must adhere to in order to operate weakens their performance and profit margins, when this is usually not the case. They just don't like regulations.

For example, when oil was disovered in Alaska the companies decided to build an 800km pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez, but spent four years in litigation as the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society used the new EPA to force the companies to provide environmental stipulations in this most pristine and beautiful part of the USA. Imagine, five years without making any money! And yet, when the oil was discovered it was worth less than $2 a barrel, by 1979 it was over $10 and by the 1980s one of the firms on the North Slope was making $600 million a month net profit.

Fast forward to 2018 and not only are environmental scientists being dismissed from the EPA, as many of the regulations passed during the Obama era as can be are being repealed simply because they were passed when Obama was President. The astonishing fact is that for the first time in over 40 years commercial firms are being allowed to pollute the environment, because they have no interest in being responsible citizens, but is that not part of the 'cult of the individual' that you would support in a Libertarian America?

So I would ask you to think again about this Ageny of the Federal governent. You can read about its accomplishments in these two links:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...irst-40-years/

https://www.ehso.com/ehshome/epa-accomplishments.htm

[filghy2]

Here's some more about your 'darling' EPA...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhen.../#26f7081321ad

If I spent time on it I'm sure I could show that this is also dubious, but what would be the point when you will just ignore it?

Even if some of it was correct, why does it follow that the solution is to abolish the EPA rather than reform it? Defence is notorious for waste and inefficiency - does this mean the military should be abolished as well?

You seem to be unaware that environmental pollution is clearly recognised as an area of market failure that justifies government intervention, even by most conservative economists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics The basic problem with libertarianism is that it completely ignores these and other market failures.

[Stavros]

Here's some more about your 'darling' EPA...

Oh dear, Mr Fanti, Mark Hendrickson is notorious, and has been part of the politicization of science since the EPA was founded which makes claims such as climate change is a hoax, refers to the campaign to reduce carbon emissions as a 'carbon jihad', and basically ridicules all science that does not fit his model of 'capitalist morality' in which markets know best and anyone who interferes with markets is basically a lunatic or a communist or some other pathetic epithet. He claims asbestos is not that dangerous in defiance of science (a neighbour of mine died from a asbestos-related cancer some years ago).

He quotes the science that he thinks supports his argument, and dismisses all the science that does not. To cap it all, he is incapable of offering an informed opinion on the science of climate change because like so many 'deniers' he doesn't know what the science is, as you can see in this link

-https://www.catholic.org/news/green/story.php?id=50502

The fanatics who want to shut down the EPA also want to shut down the Department of Education, because they hate taxes that much, because they are convinced in spite of the evidence against them, that commercial firms can be trusted. Whatever the bureaucratic issues there have been in the management of the EPA, the core issue is simple: do you want to protect your environment or just watch is deteriorate in front of your eyes because Conservatives literally don't care about it?

[MrFanti]

Oh dear, Mr Fanti, Mark Hendrickson is notorious, and has been part of the politicization of science since the EPA was founded which makes claims such as climate change is a hoax, refers to the campaign to reduce carbon emissions as a 'carbon jihad', and basically ridicules all science that does not fit his model of 'capitalist morality' in which markets know best and anyone who interferes with markets is basically a lunatic or a communist or some other pathetic epithet. He claims asbestos is not that dangerous in defiance of science (a neighbour of mine died from a asbestos-related cancer some years ago).

He quotes the science that he thinks supports his argument, and dismisses all the science that does not. To cap it all, he is incapable of offering an informed opinion on the science of climate change because like so many 'deniers' he doesn't know what the science is, as you can see in this link

-https://www.catholic.org/news/green/story.php?id=50502

The fanatics who want to shut down the EPA also want to shut down the Department of Education, because they hate taxes that much, because they are convinced in spite of the evidence against them, that commercial firms can be trusted. Whatever the bureaucratic issues there have been in the management of the EPA, the core issue is simple: do you want to protect your environment or just watch is deteriorate in front of your eyes because Conservatives literally don't care about it?

Bottom line is that I've provided you with 2 different sources reporting about the corruption in the EPA. If you can't see it, then argue with the sources, not me....
I'm just the messenger.

But....Now I'm convinced that after providing you with sources about EPA corruption, you can't see the swamp.

Have a good weekend!

[buttslinger]

Bringing things back to Trump's Supreme Court pick, Trump picked the most partisan choice he could get away with, and crippled the FBI's investigation that would have shown he was a liar.
If I lie to you once, and you believe it, shame on me.
If I lie to you twice and you believe it, shame on you.
Anyone who believes Trump's 5 thousand lies has serious Daddy issues.

[Stavros]

Bottom line is that I've provided you with 2 different sources reporting about the corruption in the EPA. If you can't see it, then argue with the sources, not me....
I'm just the messenger.
But....Now I'm convinced that after providing you with sources about EPA corruption, you can't see the swamp.
Have a good weekend!

The problem is that you define the Federal Agency as a 'swamp' when it is really just a large bureaucracy that generates issues of management competence, disagreements on policy and need not be held up as an example of what is wrong with the US when the same problems exist in, for example, the Department of Defence and the multiple problems that exist when you have cash flow in the Billions, Senators and Congressional Representatives fighting to get contracts in their locality, let alone the conflicts over jobs and strategy that take place in the upper reaces of the armed forces.

Of course there were disagreements with the use of DDT, which these days is rarely used because alternative chemicals have been developed. But the disagreement and its impact on policy was not part of a corrupt system of decision making but reflected a growing anxiety throughout the 1960s -Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) being a seminal publication (and also a controversial one)- about the impact that modern industry was having on the environment. Indeed, in the same way that Conservatives felt in the 1960s that they had lost the battle against civil rights, they re-grouped in the 1970s to mobilize opinion against the science that underpinned a lot of the environmental movement's major causes. It means that Myron Ebell can not only dismiss the role of human agency in climate change but characterise the whole of the debate as a 'left-wing' attempt to centralize policy making in the Federal government with an array of carbon taxes and other regimes all of which are 'bad for business', an argument that has been made time and again and has proven to be wrong. Again, in the 1960s when the movement wanted lead removed from petrol/gasoline, the car firms objected, said it was unncecessary, would ruin the industry -it never happened, and the removal of lead from fuel has been a health advance welcomed by all. I could go on but I think you see the difference in our arguments.

You had no response to the links which laid out the achievements of the EPA, you have said nothing about the links you provided to an anti-science crank called Mark Hutchinson, but rather than rely on other people, you yourself have not made a case for a Libertarian alternative to 'the swamp'. I would rather hear your own version of the politics you want to see, rather than listen to some half-baked objectons selective in nature and wholly unconvincing so far.

[filghy2]

Did you actually read that article? It's about corrupt behaviour by Scott Pruitt, not the agency.

Bottom line is that I've provided you with 2 different sources reporting about the corruption in the EPA. If you can't see it, then argue with the sources, not me....
I'm just the messenger.

But....Now I'm convinced that after providing you with sources about EPA corruption, you can't see the swamp.

Have a good weekend!

You are a really this stupid?

[peejaye]

Hey Fanti

Step back & leave them to it

[MrFanti]

Hey Fanti

Step back & leave them to it

Agreed 100%
If they don't want to accept the official IRS apologies to conservative groups for targeting them and if they don't want to accept two different sources of EPA corruption, then anything else to explain 'the swamp' from me would be a waste of my time...

[buttslinger]

1) You guys have explained yourselves perfectly, and
2) Yes, it was a complete waste of time.