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U.S Politics; The Price of Steele


LongRider

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43 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Unless you were there, you cannot fathom what a gaping wound in the soul of the United States that the Vietnam war had become. I was born in 1956 in Canada and so I had a front row seat. Not only did the US lose its youth to the war as casualties but by some estimates 100,000 draft evaders also left and never went back with most coming up to Canada. 

The protests, the violence directed at those that dared to question the war, and that violence was supported by the government, really are not matched by anything today. I do think that many young people of that time were profoundly changed by that experience. 

I was born in '56 myself and have to agree.  All the boys I went through high school with faced the draft, something that later generations haven't.  When the Iraq war started many feared a draft would start as well, and fortunately, it didn't.  But other social upheavals happened in the '60's as well.

In 1960 the first birth control pill became available.  The pill was huge, HUGE and tremendous fights occurred concerning the pill and women being able to have sex without fear of pregnancy. In 1965 SCOTUS decided that married couples could legally use the pill and three years later IUD's were available.  Contraceptives are now thought of as health care, and mostly that fight has been won.  (mostly, but not completely)  The Vietnam War and fight for a woman to be able to use contraceptives are part of what was swirling around when I grew up.    

 

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14 minutes ago, unpaid comintern said:

this is pretty cool; maine to institute ranked choice voting in state primary

That is pretty cool!

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Besides choosing their party's nominee for governor, voters in June will also decide whether to use the ranked-choice voting for federal elections in November, Democratic Secretary of State Matt Dunlap said.

 

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1 hour ago, Nasty LongRider said:

I was born in '56 myself and have to agree.  All the boys I went through high school with faced the draft, something that later generations haven't.  When the Iraq war started many feared a draft would start as well, and fortunately, it didn't.  But other social upheavals happened in the '60's as well.

In 1960 the first birth control pill became available.  The pill was huge, HUGE and tremendous fights occurred concerning the pill and women being able to have sex without fear of pregnancy. In 1965 SCOTUS decided that married couples could legally use the pill and three years later IUD's were available.  Contraceptives are now thought of as health care, and mostly that fight has been won.  (mostly, but not completely)  The Vietnam War and fight for a woman to be able to use contraceptives are part of what was swirling around when I grew up.   

The only bad thing about this is that now sexual morality is seen as the prerogative of women, by default. It's up to women to ensure that couples remain faithful to each other and up to women to ensure that sex is safe. Condoms are extremely safe - as far as I know the safest contraception, especially for people with more than one partner.

There are legitimate points that they feel different, and so on, but I can't help but think that an orally administered pill for men to control fertility could be easily made, and that it would be safe and simple to use. And yet, it doesn't have widespread use because stopping pregnancy is a "woman's job" and not the role of both parties in a relationship. :( 

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18 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

This meeting took place after the election , but before the inauguration.  :mellow:

Yea, WaPost corrected to say 2017. That being said, so what? That's the 2nd time the Russians tried to open a back channel to Trump's team which seems awfully fucking weird when he becomes President in a few weeks and had no "previous contact with anyone from Russia". Oh and people lied about it to Congress.

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20 minutes ago, Yukle said:

There are legitimate points that they feel different, and so on, but I can't help but think that an orally administered pill for men to control fertility could be easily made, and that it would be safe and simple to use. And yet, it doesn't have widespread use because stopping pregnancy is a "woman's job" and not the role of both parties in a relationship. :( 

Right, it's far more important to fund and focus research on ensuring older men can still get erections.  Just googling "male birth control pill," apparently there's a gel that's entering it's testing phase, and there's this:

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a running joke in fertility circles is that we’ve been five years away from male contraception for the last 50 years. [...]

The bigger hurdle to the male pill, however, involves its side effects. Case in point: A groundbreaking study of hormonal birth-control medication ended early last year when 20 of the men involved stopped taking the drug due to “mood disorders” and other symptoms, such as acne. In truth, the hormonal side effects in men are much less than side effects were for women when the pill was introduced,” says Dr. Page. “It’s just that the bar for what people are willing to tolerate is a lot different. It’s really a matter of who’s going to benefit. Pregnancy, in theory, is still a life-threatening condition for a woman. Preventing a pregnancy is important to a man for a lot of reasons, but not for his personal health.”

In other words, men are pussies.

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5 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

What a comprehensively ignorant statement. Think of how many things are made with Aluminum and Steel, dude. There's a reason we import at a deficit. It's because we use those materials at a prodigious rate. EVERYTHING WILL RISE in price. Cars, buildings, ships, tanks, guns, bullets, cars again, cans, sheet metal, computer parts

etc...

 

Yeah, the bolded part is likely true, but my post wasn't addressing that point.  The comments that I was responding to asserted that the price of beer was going way up, and that the increased cost of aluminum was the cause.  That's not true when the price per can is going up a couple cents per can.  You call that a massive increase in the price of beer?  I call that a massive exaggeration.

If the post said that the price of many things could increase by a small amount due to a trickle down effect from the increased price of aluminum, then I'd agree, but that's not what was said.

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

The deposit charged for the cans could likely go up too (if one's city / state charges deposit fees -- do all states do that?).  It's supposed to be cents per can and bottle here, but a lot of places like the Korean grocery-delis charge a lot more, though it's because they are pretending its a deposit -- they are just gouging.  That's on top of the price and the state's taxes, etc. 

New York State's Returnable Container Act requires every deposit initiator to collect a $.05 deposit on beverage containers containing less than one gallon of carbonated soft drinks, beer, malt beverages, wine coolers or water, sold in New York.

Which is why I still am shocked at the price of alcohol in other parts of the country -- generally.  It's so much less expensive than here, because its taxed so much less than here. New Orleans is infamous for how cheap booze is, even relatively in the nice bars and the restaurants (not talking the French Quarter here!).  I have no idea though what the general prices are in San Francisco, etc.  I've only had drinks in pricey restaurants and bars so drinks were pricey too -- and generally somebody else was picking up the tab.

 

We have a similar deposit fee in California.  I don't think it's actually tied to the cost of the can though. The price of aluminum, steel, and other metals fluctuates like any other commodity, and the deposit fee doesn't change in response.  I think it's mainly there as an incentive to promote recycling. 

4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Well, it's a good thing for consumers that aluminium is only used for the production of beer cans and nothing else.

It's a good thing that my post never makes that claim.

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23 hours ago, Shryke said:

The support though is generally for the same reason Trump is doing this whole thing: blah blah blah loss of manly american steel jobs pander pander I don't understand how trade actually works

I might be willing to buy into this interpretation of events, if it were not for the fact that the left has a bit of contentious relationship with free trade and globalization, long before Trump ever ran for president or long before anyone got one inkling of a clue that he might run. 
And it seems to me that these issues have divided the left for quite awhile before Trump ever announced his candidacy. And it probably has often been a bit confusing for many on the left as many of us have an intentional orientation while at the same time being a bit concerned about what these issues might to do working people.
So no, I don’t think it’s just simply a matter of Sanders or Brown just pandering to a bunch of knuckle dragging troglodytes with a toxic masculinity problem, as there has been a history there of some on the left being a skeptical of free trade and globalization, long before Trump. While there likely is some truth that part of the problem is that some are knuckle dragging troglodytes that refuse to do less “manly” jobs, that seems to me about as much of an oversimplification as Kevin Williamson, writing the National Review, awhile back, that these problems would largely go away, if those troglodytes would just burn their goddamned Bruce Springsteen albums and rented a U-Haul truck and just moved.
One reason that former steel workers and such might not transition to less “manly” jobs is that they may not exist. Certainly it’s not hard to imagine that the decline of a major industry in a region would depress local aggregate demand destroying other jobs the process. That people are reluctant to move in such a situation could a variety reasonable explanations, say for instance people being reluctant to leave their social support networks to move to a new region where their future may be uncertain.
Certainly globalization done badly can have disastrous effects, just like in the Great Depression when the international monetary system went haywire, resulting in many nations turning to autarky or the structural flaws in the Euro having a similar effect. And when globalization does go badly it creates space for right wing populist clowns like Trump or Marine Le Pen to sale snake oil.
Personally, I’d like to see globalization to succeed. But it may not succeed if all the left can come up with is that it failed because there were too many knuckle dragging troglodytes or lack of Uhaul truck rentals. There are a lot of issues for the left to think about, ranging to from displaced workers, to international monetary cooperation, and international tax cooperation. And certainly the left needs to come up with answer so that the process of globalization is seen as legitimate in the eyes of most people and that people are not being screwed because of it.
In my view the left, and not just the US left, has to think very carefully on these issues so people like Sanders or Brown don’t end up supporting tariffs because they feel like there is no other option or creating space for frauds like Trump to sell snake oil.

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12 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

So no, I don’t think it’s just simply a matter of Sanders or Brown just pandering to a bunch of knuckle dragging troglodytes with a toxic masculinity problem, as there has bee an history there of some on the left being a skeptical of free trade globalization, long before Trump.

Yeah the Seattle WTO protests was almost twenty years ago.  The mainstream left's response to intraparty anti-globalists seems to start and end by popularizing the aforementioned term "fair trade."  I don't really know what that means, just as I don't know what the left's substantive response to the harms of globalization should be, nor if the forces of globalization can really be stopped even if we tried.

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in other 'porno & politics' news, dem 'weed-candidate' for il's 5th district has the distinction of being the first candidate to have their ads yanked (sorry) from pornhub amidst allegations of abuse and domestic violence

https://gizmodo.com/pornhub-pulls-pro-weed-candidates-ads-following-allegat-1823596307

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20 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Sounds like Cohen set up an arbitration meeting she wasn't aware of in NV then 'won' 'cause she wasn't there.

I'm just watching the re-run of Anderson Cooper's show, and they talked about some arbitration hearing without explaining much about it, but it was apparently in California. They had a California lawyer on who just laughed at what Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, because the matters weren't in the scope of what an arbitrator could decide. But Sanders was raving on about the president winning an arbitration case and the matter was ended.

Then they interviewed Stormy's lawyer, and he said the President had 30 days to respond to their filing and they were waiting for the response.

Someone said the documents used by Cohn looked like they had been used before, they looked like a cut and paste job, and they wondered if there were more women who had been paid hush money. The California lawyer said he was very familiar with the documents, they were regularly used in Hollywood and he had seen them many times.

eta: I see a NYT story that last week Trump secretly applied for a restraining order to stop Stormy from talking.

Since the WH says if’s all lies and fake news, why would he need a restraining order, eh?

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2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

eta: I see a NYT story that last week Trump secretly applied for a restraining order to stop Stormy from talking.

Since the WH says if’s all lies and fake news, why would he need a restraining order, eh?

Interestingly, the restraining order shouldn't have been granted, according to a legal advisor I saw on TV (which means it must be true). But the argument was pretty compelling: the restraining order was filed by Trump's lawyer - not in Trump's name, but his own. Since he's not a relevant party to the content under the gag order, it shouldn't have been accepted. Trump can use his lawyers to act on his behalf, as any US citizen is perfectly entitled to, but here his lawyer is acting on his own behalf, and there is no valid reason for him to have done so.

Similarly, the idea that the NDA has been breached now that Trump's cronies have confirmed the $130K payment is likely true. This is apparently  further backed up by the new gag order, which wouldn't be needed if the old NDA was still in effect. Essentially, Trump's lawyers are as stupid as he is since they conceded the NDA's ongoing hold is now void.

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If he puts even more pressure on those career officials whose first commitments are to the Constitution rather than to the president, and fills top vacancies with his own loyalists, he may well succeed in doing to the FBI and the Department of Justice what he has already done to the congressional committees that were supposed to investigate his campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. That would not only mean that his own crimes could no longer be fully investigated—but also raise the possibility of a politically motivated prosecution of his main adversary in 2020.

As the investigation by Robert Mueller starts to inch ever closer to Trump’s family and friends, his incentive to fire the special counsel, and provoke a massive constitutional crisis, will only keep on rising. The threat he poses to the separation of powers remains all too real, then. But because these measures are so clearly bound up with Trump’s immediate self-interest, they have also provoked much more fervent pushback than they would have done under different circumstances. As in so many other areas, Trump’s attack on the core institutions of the American republic is being constrained as much by his own incompetence as it is by the Constitution or the political opposition.

 

Why Isn’t Trump President for Life Yet?
He is following the same playbook as other authoritarian populists around the world. He’s just bad at it—so far.
By YASCHA MOUNK

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/trump-is-following-the-same-playbook-as-other-authoritarian-populists-hes-just-much-worse-at-it.html

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9 minutes ago, BloodRider said:

GenXers too.  Boomers shit the bed and blame everyone else.

I have not clicked through any of the links on the generational issues above, but one thing that Millennials have going for them is sheer numbers.

Being a Gen X'er born at the nadir of birth numbers in the early 70's, I get a sense of why Gen X has had less of a lasting effect on voting patterns in general.  We just don't have the numbers.  Granted, this was great when it came to school class sizes when i was growing up. We rarely had over 20 kids in a class.  Millennials would probably have loved that kind of ratio. 

But Millennials have a chance to overwhelm any overarching Boomer political trends with their numbers.   Gerrymandering notwithstanding.

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15 minutes ago, The Wedge said:

Being a Gen X'er born at the nadir of birth numbers in the early 70's, I get a sense of why Gen X has had less of a lasting effect on voting patterns in general.  We just don't have the numbers. 

It’s my opinion that we should blame this generation for everything wrong. What a bunch of clowns (which um er well includes me too).

What kind of buffoons think they actually look good in parachute pants?

Not any serious or rational person.
 

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4 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

It’s my opinion that we should blame this generation for everything wrong. What a bunch of clowns (which um er well includes me too).

What kind of buffoons think they actually look good in parachute pants?

Not any serious or rational person.
 

Which leads back to one of the forum’s greatest debates: Were the 80’s great, terrible, laughable, or all of the above?

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This Politico story about the PA special election warms my heart.  It might just be telling me what I want to hear, but if so it's working.

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Tuesday’s special election, which is being held in a district President Donald Trump won by 20 percentage points, has emerged as the latest testing ground of whether Republicans are headed for a midterm bloodbath. A loss would be wholly embarrassing, many Republicans privately acknowledge, given that it would take place in a state that Trump made a cornerstone of his 2016 victory...But as election day grows closer, the national GOP is increasingly pinning the blame on Saccone.

GOP groups had filled the advertising gap between the two candidates by spending nearly $7.5 million on TV ads, according to media buying figures. Because outside groups pay a higher rate to air commercials than candidates do, the party has been forced to dig deep into its coffers and expend resources that could otherwise be used to help endangered incumbents this fall.

Some Republicans say it’s unfair to pin the blame solely on Saccone. They argue that his struggles reflect the broader challenges the party is facing as the midterms approach.  Particularly concerning, they say, is the fact that the millions of dollars Republicans have spent — much of it highlighting the GOP tax cuts and attempting to tie Lamb to Pelosi — has failed to move the needle.

 

So basically Republicans are turning on Saccone because he is struggling so much to catch on in a conservative District.  Saccone is a poor fundraiser, but otherwise seems like a pretty normal GOP candidate - he's no Roy Moore.  But due to his cash problems and Lamb's momentum, the GOP has had to pour a ton of money into advertising for Saccone.  And that investment isn't really paying off, as Saccone continues to run neck and neck with Lamb.  In addition, there's this gem:

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After Labor Day, [NRCC veteran added] there would likely be dozens of seats in play. And the national party, he said, would be “unlikely to prop up weak candidates by doling out millions in political welfare like they did in this race.”

 

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