U.S. Politics: 22 Trillion Problems But An Unsecured Border Ain’t One

[DireWolfSpirit]

I feel compelled to direct attention to yet another disgraceful, bald faced lie by our lying pos President. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-abe-nobel-peace-prize_n_5c67b7a3e4b033a79942d86d

Not only is the President either lying about the Nobel nomination, or , unable to determine the difference between the leaders of S. Korea and Japan? The article points out that 2017 and 2018 Trump Nobel nominations were determined to be forgeries!!!! Where Nobel officials determined that the same individual "assumed the the identity" of a qualified nominator.

In other words this pos President is trying to steal a Nobel Prize just like he steals elections.

What an embarrassment this imposter to the Presidency is, and oh, by the way Donald, ya aint 6'3" either, your shorter than Obama who measured 6'-1 and a half inches and is clearly taller than your insecure ass in side by side photos eh.

[Kalbear]

The internet makes sex work safer:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/23/internet-making-sex-work-safer-report-finds

Backpage kept women off the street

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/The-Scanner-Sex-workers-returned-to-SF-streets-13304257.php

Sex workers are more vulnerable after backpage gone

https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/after-the-closure-of-backpage-increasingly-vulnerable-sex-workers-are-demanding-their-rights/amp#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From %1%24s

Craigslist reduced women homicides

https://www.econlib.org/archives/2018/01/craigslist_redu.html

 

There's another study that i can't find right now that indicated after the passing of that law crimes against sex workers went up. 

[DMC]

Gotta say in general, think I've done a pretty good job selling many regulars on this thread on Harris.  Usually volunteer by canvassing or phone banks or stuff.  Considering the reach of this thread, maybe I can be lazy this time?  No?  I shouldn't be a lazy piece of shit?  Bah.

[Kalbear]

I think Harris has as a rule done a pretty awesome job selling her own qualities. I wasnt all that jazzed about her to start, but I can say I'd be happy to vote for her in a primary, and she's my current personal favorite. (I dont know if she can win the primary, but I'd like her to)

That might change if Beto gets into it or Booker makes a better push. 

It's also nice to not support someone who has a B in their name. Bernie, Beto, Biden, Booker. I confess its hard for me to tell B people apart. 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

I wasnt all that jazzed about her to start, but I can say I'd be happy to vote for her in a primary, and she's my current personal favorite. (I dont know if she can win the primary, but I'd like her to)

I will gladly take this as progress.

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's also nice to not support someone who has a B in their name. Bernie, Beto, Biden, Booker. I confess its hard for me to tell B people apart. 

This is definitely going to be the on-running easy joke this cycle.  I'm already sick of it.  Another reason for HEY BIDEN DON'T RUN!

[karaddin]

32 minutes ago, DMC said:

I assume this is addressed at me (if it's not, sorry for the long reply).  I don't think it's fair to say my head was buried, it's just not something I've looked into much one way or another.

That's outrageous and infuriating.  But it's also anecdotal, and I don't see how this is any way correlated with the law Harris championed.

So what would you have female MCs do?  Because the bill Harris pushed was basically as good as it gets in the male dominated Congress.  I'm seriously asking.  Should she have fought for a better bill, even if it wasn't going to pass?  Is that better or worse?

I honestly don't know what this means or whom you're referring to.  Please explain.

1) A major hotel chain publishing that it's training it's staff in techniques that are clearly meant to identify sex workers and results in profiling all single women is not an anecdote. My example with the Uber sure, someone saying they were profiled in a hotel sure, but major company training practices are not.

2) They should not have passed the bill, they should not have been looking to pass any bill that will harm a large number of women and undermine the fabric of the internet. And yes, I argue that forcing companies to stop servicing customers globally to suit the law of one country is a major blow to what the internet was supposed to be. Bad action is worse than no action.

3) My point was a general one that people are trafficked into slavery in multiple industries and all of them are terrible, but the only one that gets any attention from the media or politicians is the sex industry. I'm out at the moment and can't dig up the statistics on my phone but I think in Australia the largest industry for forced labour was agriculture or construction or something like that - manual labour.

[Kalbear]

Also, anti sex trafficking law created more sex trafficking. 

https://www.dailydot.com/irl/increase-sex-trafficking-sesta-fosta/

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

I will gladly take this as progress.

This is definitely going to be the on-running easy joke this cycle.  I'm already sick of it.  Another reason for HEY BIDEN DON'T RUN!

Is Biden the old guy who did creepy things to young women, or is he the one who wrote about young women creepily?

[DMC]

23 minutes ago, karaddin said:

1) A major hotel chain publishing that it's training it's staff in techniques that are clearly meant to identify sex workers and results in profiling all single women is not an anecdote. My example with the Uber sure, someone saying they were profiled in a hotel sure, but major company training practices are not.

Agreed.  I was not aware of that.  Was I supposed to be?  Honestly, I'm sorry if you or someone else linked that to me and I missed it, it's totally possible.

23 minutes ago, karaddin said:

2) They should not have passed the bill, they should not have been looking to pass any bill that will harm a large number of women and undermine the fabric of the internet. And yes, I argue that forcing companies to stop servicing customers globally to suit the law of one country is a major blow to what the internet was supposed to be. Bad action is worse than no action.

Disagree here, at least on the first count.  I have yet to see any compelling arguments on how the law will actually harm anybody more than they already were subject to under previous laws.

23 minutes ago, karaddin said:

3) My point was a general one that people are trafficked into slavery in multiple industries and all of them are terrible, but the only one that gets any attention from the media or politicians is the sex industry. I'm out at the moment and can't dig up the statistics on my phone but I think in Australia the largest industry for forced labour was agriculture or construction or something like that - manual labour.

I think there's a significant distinction between forced sex workers and manual labor such as agricultural or construction laborers.  I've spent time with both of the latter examples, and I'm pretty sure it's not so fun for a straight male.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

Something I'm slightly surprised by is that at the moment, as best as I can tell, there isn't a Sanders follow-up candidate.  Someone that was ready to run with Bernie's platform more-or-less.  Even though a lot of folks have moved left here and there like endorsing Medicare for all it seems like most of the other candidates are still kinda acting like mainstream Dems and compared to Bernie's outsiderish role.  

His group seems to be very young--I mean, I think AOC is his follow-up, she just isn't old enough to run yet.

Sanders may do it this time, who knows. The Dem field is very big this time, but none of them are that impressive except Bernie and Warren. And they have an albatross or two.

[DMC]

27 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Is Biden the old guy who did creepy things to young women, or is he the one who wrote about young women creepily?

Or is he that old guy that was on CSPAN for 8 years behaving creepily around all women that were very substantially younger than him?  Or...

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Count me in on one that will have to do some more reading. The stuff about Gage and Baca and so forth bothers me.

Perhaps Harris's past as a prosecutor will help sway near mythical moderate republicans/centrists interested in law and order to vote for her?

[karaddin]

@DMC - this article

https://www.asianhospitality.com/marriott-trains-half-a-million-employees-on-preventing-human-trafficking/

was linked in the second tweet of the Twitter thread I posted. Your acceptance of it as a bad thing will of course be contingent on whether you think most sex work is trafficking or view single women in hotels being assessed as potential sex workers as being ok.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Your acceptance of it as a bad thing will of course be contingent on whether you think most sex work is trafficking or view single women in hotels being assessed as potential sex workers as being ok.

That's not fair at all.  My "acceptance" here pertains to Harris' role in anything that is any way related to what you're referring to.  And it's not.

Thanks for the link though.

[Varysblackfyre321]

15 hours ago, Bonnot OG said:

Yea, Gabbard is an Assadist, and she's also a huge fan of Modi, who is a hard right authoritarian. She's pure trash. She doesn't care about Syrian civilians, she loves dead muslims. 

Mostly true. She gets weepy at Christians being persecuted for their beliefs but doesn’t care about dead foreign Muslims in the Middle East(who make up the most victims of terrorism)  But she’s anti-interventionalist, so people like her.

15 hours ago, Bonnot OG said:

She's also homophobic & anti choice. Horrible person and horrible candidate.

To be fair, her voting record on LGBTQ issues is fine, she is homophobic in part, but she’d keep government out of it. and she is pro-life, but shes said wouldn’t have government be the one to intervene on the matter on whether or not a woman could have one.

15 hours ago, Bonnot OG said:

Oh, and anyone, let alone a politician, that cites that the syphilitic dick sore that is Jimmy Dore, who is so ignorant he had no clue what the hell the Kurds were doing in Syria or the autonomous region they set up in northern syria, all while trying to pass himself off as some expert and bringer of truth, and also praises that white supremacist Tucker Carlson, should be ignored.

 Fuck Dore. His praise for Carlson is disgusting. It totally misses the point on why Carlson has attacked capitalism. It has little to do with valid complaints against it but rests upon bigotry; Carlson dislikes a Capitalist system that allows social views that differ from his to be expressed and allows non-whites to “steal” the jobs of perfectly awesome white  men. 

[Teng Ai Hui]

Regarding the future lawsuits in response to 45's declaration of national emergency, I don't understand why the opposition seems to be conceding that since the word emergency is not defined in the National Emergency Act, 45 gets to declare anything he wants to be an emergency.  The word emergency surely has been defined somewhere in federal laws, regulations, or case law (in something connected to FEMA most likely).  Judges can use that definition, wherever and whatever it may be, as persuasive evidence.

[Varysblackfyre321]

7 hours ago, karaddin said:

2) They should not have passed the bill, they should not have been looking to pass any bill that will harm a large number of women and undermine the fabric of the internet. And yes, I argue that forcing companies to stop servicing customers globally to suit the law of one country is a major blow to what the internet was supposed to be. Bad action is worse than no action.

3) My point was a general one that people are trafficked into slavery in multiple industries and all of them are terrible, but the only one that gets any attention from the media or politicians is the sex industry. I'm out at the moment and can't dig up the statistics on my phone but I think in Australia the largest industry for forced labour was agriculture or construction or something like that - manual labour.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. The bill did nothing but hurt sex-workers who weren’t abused and  those who actually are. You bring up an interesting point on how this sort of trafficking does often get far more attention those other forms human trafficking. I think it must be recognized decreasing sex-trafficking isn’t the forefront of the minds of many(not all-I’ve seen too many feminists come out in support such measures to think otherwise) who push such measures. Decreasing the level of prostitution is. They don’t care if a lot of sex-workers point out they need these sites to warn other escorts  and learn of potential threats.  They don’t care about instances of such Jane doe from Atlanta knew not to see dangerous brute and thief looking to meet by reading a review of him on an escort site that was written by an escort in New York. They don’t care if it’ll push women into the bad streets of their cities and towns- because that’s literally the only place they could go-where they’ll be hounded by police and suspect for being assaulted. They don’t care if such measures increase the financial instability of the people-the very reason many got into in the first place. These women are just whores to them. Prostitution is bad. It needs to be stopped.  Everything else is a topping for them they could do with or without.  

[Varysblackfyre321]

9 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I also like the idea that Harris will have a hard time but Clinton, who was far worse, obliterated her opponents with minority voters. 

AA voters do care about the record, but they also care about promises kept, electability and community relationships. The idea Harris can't get there is just bullshit concern trolling. 

How is Clinton far worse to people of color than Harris is like to be in your mind? 

[Varysblackfyre321]

13 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

Here's a good article on the issue of Bernie supporting racism (it's not true, if anything you could argue he has a blindspot and thinks that by solving issues of class, this too will fix issues of race--a very traditional Marxist take. I think this is one of the most legitimate criticisms of Marxism). 

As for supporting bad people, yeah, I don't like it either. But we could go through other candidates (like Hillary and how she shielded a man in her campaign from sexual misconduct allegations) and show these issues are true everywhere. For Bernie, he did some moral gymnastics to explain why this was an okay thing to do (you need democrats in office to protect abortion rights), but I am dissatisfied with this reasoning too. I'm sure Mello's constituents, I think his support for regulating abortion rights has more to do with his electability in that area, but nonetheless, he does not support women's rights.

I think that if you run someone is who pure in their political philosophy like AOC, she wouldn't win in Omaha. She wouldn't win in a lot of places, but she'd stick to her guns. When you get to the presidential level, these people begin making concessions against their values. What will come out about Warren (who is my choice)? Her Republican roots are already being dug up, and I'm sure she'll have connections to things I find abhorrent. I don't know what to do about this though.

But, I will say, the argument that Bernie supports racism in some way doesn't resonate with me. To him, the working class is the working class--he isn't arguing for the traditionally white working class. Bernie was the only candidate I've ever heard speak out about police brutality and come firmly down on the issue that modern police are really a problem.

It is interesting that Sanders is so associated with whiteness. The article I linked talks about that, but it's an image he will nonetheless carry and be unable to shake. I think he'd be great for the country, but I do not know if he'd win. I think moderate Dems are still angry with him for so many various reasons, that they would vote third party if he got the nomination. 

Kamala Harris is someone you can demonstrate as hurting people of color. This prosecutorial past of hers really worries me, but I think the partnership between prosecutors and the police is a particularly important (and scary) issue that needs dealt with. I may never vote for a former prosecutor (unless it was a prosecutor vs. Trump). 

I don't see how democrats reconcile these issues. I've been a member of the party since 2005, and I'm now viewed as a Bernie Bro outsider who is hijacking the party. These in-fights will continue to fester at the worst possible time.

Listen I get you personally don’t buy his reasoning. But I feel you’re still being far more more lenient to him than he deserves. If a Democratic mayoral candidate was against the concept of a minimum wage but was left-wing in most other aspects would Sanders support them? I don’t think so. I think he would very much oppose the mayoral candidate being endorsed by a democratic politician even if it meant a temporary gain in power by the party In fact I see him and a lot of his die hard supporters fully willing to(brave yourself) compromise when the stuff that they have give to give could not typically affect working-class white men in a direct way. Abortion rights, LGBTQ protections, voting rights for minorities, these are things they’re willing to let go. Now, what’s really infuriating from some of his supporters that do this-they still say they’re the “true” progressives. They’ll support Gabbard who needlessly flirts with  fascists, advocates giviing  non-Muslim refugees precedent, and pro-life, and trounce out as a true beacon of liberalism, but yeah they’re still the “pure” ones. To be clear I do believe Sanders to be the person the Dems could nominate. I did so in when he was running in 2015, I believe it now with current contenders looking as they are now. But the man isn’t the utter paragon and perfect candidate that a lot of his supporters hold him up as such. I was actually really irritated when certain alt-media outlets I tended visit refused to run a negative story about Bernie that would be pursuant to his electibility. For example, a video of him saying Castro was well like by his people. I have little doubt Sanders would have easily lost Florida. Acknowledging his personal flaws are important. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

6 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Listen I get you personally don’t buy his reasoning. But I feel you’re still being far more more lenient to him than he deserves. If a Democratic mayoral candidate was against the concept of a minimum wage but was left-wing in most other aspects would Sanders support them? I don’t think so. I think he would very much oppose the mayoral candidate being endorsed by a democratic politician even if it meant a temporary gain in power by the party In fact I see him and a lot of his die hard supporters fully willing to(brave yourself) compromise when the stuff that they have give to give could not typically affect working-class white men in a direct way. Abortion rights, LGBTQ protections, voting rights for minorities, these are things they’re willing to let go. Now, what’s really infuriating from some of his supporters that do this-they still say they’re the “true” progressives. They’ll support Gabbard who needlessly flirts with  fascists, advocates giviing  non-Muslim refugees precedent, and pro-life, and trounce out as a true beacon of liberalism, but yeah they’re still the “pure” ones. To be clear I do believe Sanders to be the person the Dems could nominate. I did so in when he was running in 2015, I believe it now with current contenders looking as they are now. But the man isn’t the utter paragon and perfect candidate that a lot of his supporters hold him up as such. I was actually really irritated when certain alt-media outlets I tended visit refused to run a negative story about Bernie that would be pursuant to his electibility. For example, a video of him saying Castro was well like by his people. I have little doubt Sanders would have easily lost Florida. Acknowledging his personal flaws are important. 

I see what you're saying, and I think this is a very legitimate criticism of a classical Marxist. "If we fix working relations, everything else will get fixed." I disagree for the exact reasons you state here--and you really did a great job of narrowing the big issue--that more often than not, the policies accepted support [white male] workers while the policies compromised always come at the expend of POC and women. You cannot consider class alone. And I don't mean to say he is a paragon--except to his own worldview. I think he believes "class fixes all" and he sticks to that. He has plenty of issues, and he is not a pure candidate. 

I look at AOC and she does such a better job at keeping issues of race and gender in line with issues of class. She's younger too. Hell, when the neo-Marxists were getting the Frankfurt School going in New York in 1935, what was Bernie? Like 40 years old? 

I think it's interesting that Bernie (likely) has a fanbase in the alt-right. This is deeply troubling for me. I don't know how true it is that his diehard supporters are now alt-right, but if it is true, that's a real problem. The flip side of this, people like me get lumped into that group. It's the media's inability to deal outside of binary extremes. 

I'll be interested to see how things shake out. I like Warren the best right now (I've always liked her the best, I think). If she isn't viable, and Harris is, then fine. I would even come around on Harris if she talked honestly and openly about her prosecutorial past. I saw Bill Maher angrily say she shouldn't do this to our candidates. "I hate Harris because she prosecuted people, when she used to be a prosecutor." I disagree with him. I think the issues about prosecution, people of color, the police, and incarceration are real problems that destroy entire groups of people's lives. This isn't about purity, this is about being accountable and progressive (in the true sense of the word). Gabbard is no progressive. She is borderline a Republican. Bernie needs to honestly assess himself and address the problems with people he supported. 

Who knows though? Maybe one of these more unknown ones will take the party by storm!