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US Politics: One No Trump


Fragile Bird

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1 minute ago, Fez said:

You shouldn't say that.

 

 

 

 

We also don't know if it was sufficiently physically painful.

Literally my first thought when I saw he died today was, "I hope it was slow and painful."

Maybe that makes me a bad person.  Don't know.  Don't care.

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21 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

Bill Gates gets wealthy people to pledge their money to causes like eliminating polio, and reducing the transmission of malaria. He is working on hygiene and water issues( major cause of disease) He knows a lot about vaccines. You, go Bill. I also worked for his literacy program. Microsoft has moved on.

The Gates Foundation appears to have talked Oxford out of their plans to make their vaccine reserch open source and free. After taking meetings with the Gates Foundation, they reversed course and sold it exclusively to Astrazeneca.

https://khn.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine-oxford-makes-a-deal-with-drugmaker/

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A few weeks later, Oxford—urged on by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—reversed course. It signed an exclusive vaccine deal with AstraZeneca that gave the pharmaceutical giant sole rights and no guarantee of low prices—with the less-publicized potential for Oxford to eventually make millions from the deal and win plenty of prestige.

Fuck 'em.

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6 minutes ago, briantw said:

Literally my first thought when I saw he died today was, "I hope it was slow and painful."

Maybe that makes me a bad person.  Don't know.  Don't care.

Apparently he made an announcement about undergoing treatment for advanced lung cancer some time ago. So your wish might have been granted, at least with regards to the painful part.

But I am somewhat more onboard with the reapers output this year. Adelson, Limbaugh. He has had worse years.

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Gates has a pretty good argument for why open-licensing a vaccine in the midst of a pandemic creates regulatory nightmare and risks causing reluctance to vaccine acceptance. They convinced Oxford that partnering with AstraZeneca would mean a single development and regulatory approval pipeline, provide quality assurance that you wouldn't get if dozens of smaller pharmas tried to reproduce it and get all of theirs approved as well, and they could still see to it that its provided at what's basically cost. AstraZeneca has pledged to not turn a profit from the vaccine at least as long as the pandemic lasts.

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2 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

The Gates Foundation appears to have talked Oxford out of their plans to make their vaccine reserch open source and free. After taking meetings with the Gates Foundation, they reversed course and sold it exclusively to Astrazeneca.

https://khn.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine-oxford-makes-a-deal-with-drugmaker/

Fuck 'em.

Don't blame the Gates Foundation for Oxford going back on their promise.  Gates had zero ability to coerce Oxford to do anything.  From the article, all it looks like Gates said is that he thought they needed to partner with a pharma company to bring their vaccine to the market.  And that is 100% true.  Do you think Oxford is capable of manufacturing hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine is a manner that is FDA compliant?  Like all other universities, they don't have the capability to do that.  Gates didn't tell them anything they didn't already know.  So why talk with Gates?  Why not?  How often do people get a chance to talk with Gates?  Many people would jump at such a chance.

The reason Oxford backed out of the their pledge is because Oxford and the lead scientists at Oxford potentially stand to make millions from the company they formed to commercial their coronavirus vaccine and vaccine platform.  From your article:

Quote

Under its deal with AstraZeneca, Oxford will receive no royalties during the pandemic but could make millions after it ends through a web of patents including those held by Vaccitech, a for-profit spinoff. Vaccitech’s ownership includes a 50% stake held directly or indirectly by Oxford and 5.25% each owned by Hill and Jenner’s other top vaccine scientist, Sarah Gilbert, U.K. regulatory filings show.

This is 99.9% how things work between academia and industry when there is an opportunity to make money.  I don't begrudge Oxford or the lead scientist this opportunity.  Good for them.  They've developed a product that may save many, many lives, and maybe they can make some money out of it.  My only issue is that they made the promise to make their vaccine free and open source when they probably didn't really mean it.  There's no indication that they tried to find a partner willing to do it at cost for the good will, which would have been substantial, but failed to find a taker.

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3 hours ago, HoodedCrow said:

Bill Gates gets wealthy people to pledge their money to causes like eliminating polio, and reducing the transmission of malaria. He is working on hygiene and water issues( major cause of disease) He knows a lot about vaccines. You, go Bill. I also worked for his literacy program. Microsoft has moved on.

His support of education is really a push for charter schools and has hurt public schools in the U.S. Also, there's lots of evidence that those vaccinations and medical treatments actually hurt a lot of people, were forced on people--or just given to them without their consent. He's pro big pharma which is antithetical to his public showing of wanting to improve health around the world. On top of that, he's filthy rich and does very little to help end income inequality, suffering, and medical woes in the United States. Like I said earlier, he might have good intentions, but we have to trust his judgment because he has stolen a significant portion of wealth from American workers. When someone like Elizabeth Warren proposes a moderate tax on billionaires and his response is to act like that's going to hurt him, it becomes apparent this man isn't so good for us. 

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And here is Rick "Oops" Perry. https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/rick-perry-says-texans-would-rather-be-without-power-for-days-than-have-more-fed-oversight

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Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry says that Texans find massive power outages preferable to having more federal government interference in the state's energy grid.

 

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3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's an interesting debate who was actually worse for America.

Not really, it's easily Limbaugh.  Gingrich was only Speaker for 4 years, and he was pushed out after managing to lose seats in the 98 midterms - in large part by conservatives.  He had barely any influence for quite a while, plus his speakership is highlighted by his own failures overreaching on both the shutdowns and impeachment that led to electoral defeats. 

Gingrich had one, maybe two MVP seasons, but he also had a few real shitty seasons and retired early.  Compared to Limbaugh who had, like, 30 All-Pro seasons.

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7 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Humperdinck. Humperdinck, Humperdinck, Humperdinck. 

Ted Cruz knows that story by heart. I bet he thinks he's a real Westley.

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

Gingrich had one, maybe two MVP seasons, but he also had a few real shitty seasons and retired early.  Compared to Limbaugh who had, like, 30 All-Pro seasons.

Funny and mostly accurate analogy. I just always point to Gingrich when someone asks if you had to pick one reason why it all got fucked up. Limbaugh had way more sustained success, but it's not like Gingrich didn't have longevity as well, and the latter I think played more of a roll in popularizing hating your political opposition from an institutional level.  

Gingrich is Shaq, Limbaugh is Duncan.

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4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I just always point to Gingrich when someone asks if you had to pick one reason why it all got fucked up.

This is only if you unwarrantedly give Gingrich way too much "credit" for trends that he was only a part of.  While he was indeed the figurehead and even standard-bearer of the conservative revolution, he relied on a lot of help - including, of course, Limbaugh in large part.  Moreover, while Sean Theriault labeled the group of GOP legislators that destroyed comity on the Hill and perpetuated such toxicity "the Gingrich Senators," it's again a misnomer to apply too much "credit" to Gingrich himself.  If we went back in time and killed baby Newt, all of that still would have happened almost certainly pretty much the same exact way.  (If anything a different Speaker/leader may not have made the tactical and strategic mistakes Newt did when taking on Clinton.)  Whereas Limbaugh's influence and revolutionizing of talk radio is much more (although, of course not solely either) attributable to Rush himself.

16 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Gingrich is Shaq, Limbaugh is Duncan.

This is just really bad form as a sports analogy.  Shaq was much "better" and had more longevity than Gingrich ever approached.  Gingrich is way more Wes Unseld than Shaq.

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53 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

My favorite comment on Limbaugh: for all that he hated the idea of unisex bathrooms, it's pretty funny that his grave is going to become one.

Hmm seriously though unisex bathrooms probably should be the norm quite frankly.

Theres no evidence backed argument other than the vague fear of men with penis having to be a danger to women.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/17/rick-perlstein-rush-limbaugh-death-legacy/

Rick Perlstein, the historian of the rise since Nixon of what we've got now as to rl's place in it.

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Greg Sargent: Where do you situate Rush Limbaugh in the history of the modern conservative movement?

Rick Perlstein: Enormously influential. Enormously efficacious. Beginning in 1989, I was listening to Limbaugh when he was just starting as a national figure. I watched his evolution.

What was evident to me right away was his ability to give people a sense that they were part of a community, part of a movement. In the case of politically alienated reactionary white males, they had an ally who would watch their back.

Sargent: Why was this very large white male reactionary audience out there looking for someone to speak to their anger?

Perlstein: It’s the basic story I tell in my books, starting with “Nixonland”: The rise of reactionary populism. People accustomed to being on top — culturally, socially, economically — were facing an onslaught of liberation movements that were all about giving other people a fair shot at the pie.

The brilliance of the Nixonian new right of the 1970s was that they were able to prospect for grievances on the ground that came out of reaction to the insurgent movements of the 1960s — civil rights, abortion, gay rights.

That was a very psychologically based politics, in which you find the things that make people most angry, and you lead with that. You are actively creating this idea that the people in power are forcing things on you that are taking away your prerogatives, that are weakening your family.

Limbaugh inherited that 1970s mentality on the right: There’s nothing he would say that was abstract or intellectual in any way. It was all extremely visceral: There was this transcendent evil behind the scenes that wanted to destroy you....

....Sargent: How responsible for the Trump presidency, the disasters that flowed from it, and the effort to violently overturn U.S. democracy is Rush Limbaugh?

Perlstein: Very responsible. Extremely responsible.

 

 

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35 minutes ago, DMC said:

This is only if you unwarrantedly give Gingrich way too much "credit" for trends that he was only a part of.  While he was indeed the figurehead and even standard-bearer of the conservative revolution, he relied on a lot of help - including, of course, Limbaugh in large part.  Moreover, while Sean Theriault labeled the group of GOP legislators that destroyed comity on the Hill and perpetuated such toxicity "the Gingrich Senators," it's again a misnomer to apply too much "credit" to Gingrich himself. 

Much like Shaq needed Kobe, Jackson, Fox etc. and of course the King of the dirty Mac himself, your namesake, Mr. Fisher.

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If we went back in time and killed baby Newt, all of that still would have happened almost certainly pretty much the same exact way.  (If anything a different Speaker/leader may not have made the tactical and strategic mistakes Newt did when taking on Clinton.)  Whereas Limbaugh's influence and revolutionizing of talk radio is much more (although, of course not solely either) attributable to Rush himself.

Jesus. We're killing babies now? :P

I honestly just have to disagree. Maybe another actor would have filled his void, but I think Newt is central to the decline of American politics in the mid-90's. So is Rush of course, but operating from the inside likely had a more direct impact overall. No one is debating who was more influential on a macro level though.

Quote

This is just really bad form as a sports analogy.  Shaq was much "better" and had more longevity than Gingrich ever approached.  Gingrich is way more Wes Unseld than Shaq.

This is as absurd as someone suggesting that Varys was Joffrey's secret mother. 

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27 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Hmm seriously though unisex bathrooms probably should be the norm quite frankly.

Theres no evidence backed argument other than the vague fear of men with penis having to be a danger to women.

I'm adamantly against this. I can speak from personal experience that if something happens to you once, you never feel safe again and I do not want to be trapped into a corner in a public restroom in an extremely vulnerable position with strange men around me. 1 in 6 women have experienced some form of attempted or completed sexual assault.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sexual-assault-statistics_n_58e24c14e4b0c777f788d24f

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence

 

 

 

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