All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[hyped78]

Because demographics are shifting and while Republicans have had the problem of being the less popular (by vote total, not land represented) Party they're now seeing a very real future where if they choose to continue to embrace a white/hetero/christian majority-rule standard they're going to be the permanent minority Party. Given that, there are a few choices:

1. Work on outreach to minority groups. Religion is a powerful drug, and if they'd get their head out of their a##es they'd find a lot of common ground on everything from abortion to suppression of LGBTQ+ rights among minorities (popular Democratic opinion aside, white people are not the only ones with regressive views on a variety of subjects).

2. Ignore historic norms and rule of law and grasp and cement power among your traditional power base. This seems to be the tactic they're employing currently. Whether they can succeed in the short or long term is to be determined, but it seems to be preferable to minority outreach.

3. (Perhaps a next step to #2, whether or not it's successful) Balkanization. Splitting off into 50 or fewer (or more?) mini-countries with regional interests and governments. Could be a result of violence, could be a result of popular mandate that we no longer have the stomach as a country to fight back against and so let them go.

If things turn around economically (and things are looking up generally) this is far less likely. But it's interesting/depressing to see that we're really just a few bad years from the whole thing falling apart.

Point #1 is interesting because Latinos are typically quite religious and they're also the fastest growing demographic in the US.

White people are becoming less religious, their birth rates have plummeted and in the not so distant future they will be less than 50% of total US population ("majority minority"), making the Latino vote even more important than what it already is today.

[kidfresh512]

The Medical Crisis that Finally Convinced Republicans in North Carolina to Expand Medicaid

HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — The early days of Courtney Smith’s pregnancy were dark.

She bled for six weeks, a common but frightening experience during the first trimester of pregnancy. Doctors in Louisiana, where Smith was living at the time, made matters worse by suggesting she might miscarry. After diagnosing her with hypertension, diabetes and depression, the doctors “threw pills at me,” Smith says. Medicaid paid for her care, but the care was poor: Her Prozac dose was too high, her blood pressure medication was too low, and they gave her medication to control her diabetes without giving her a way to monitor her blood sugar. Meanwhile, her boyfriend made it clear he wasn’t interested in being a father. By the time she was eight weeks pregnant, she was ready to drive into the bayou and end her life.

Her family urged Smith to come home to Hendersonville, N.C., where in January her older sister helped enroll her in that state’s Medicaid program. Because Smith’s pregnancy was high-risk and many providers don’t accept Medicaid, it took her two months to get a prenatal appointment. She was 19 weeks along when she finally got into the Mountain Area Health Education OB/GYN clinic in Asheville. This time, her experience with Medicaid was entirely different.

A family nurse practitioner corrected her medications, put her on insulin to control her diabetes, and connected her to a mental health counselor. Her bleeding had stopped and an ultrasound revealed she was due to deliver a healthy girl in August. “They have been wonderful to me,” Smith, 31, says of the staff at MAHEC. “I’m so glad I’m getting the prenatal care I need now.”

For years, GOP leaders in Raleigh had resisted all forms of Medicaid expansion in North Carolina. In 2019, this led to a budget standoff with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who refused to approve a budget that did not include the expansion. “Medicaid is an inefficient and ineffective government program that fails to improve health outcomes,” Republican Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger wrote in a letter that year.

Then came the American Rescue Plan, the Covid stimulus bill that Democrats pushed through Congress last year without any Republican support. The measure included incentives to expand Medicaid postpartum, which North Carolina Republicans embraced. Now the Republican-controlled legislature is doing something even more shocking: proposing to expand Medicaid for everyone in the state. The state House and Senate passed competing expansion bills in June, although the legislative session ended before they could agree on a version that would become law. Berger and other Senate Republicans are still evangelizing Medicaid’s benefits and pressuring their colleagues to get on board. “North Carolina’s really accidentally doing bipartisan health reform,” says Don Taylor, a professor of public policy at Duke University. “Exactly what the motivations are, it’s very hard to figure.”

This was an interesting article. On one hand it shows how futile GOP are in efforts not to expand Medicaid in the states they control. And he real effect it has on people's lives. And then shocker they get money from the American Rescue Plan that ALL GOP wouldn't support and they suddenly have funds to expand Medicaid. The futility of railing against better healthcare for these people in some cases in generational poverty as explained here when taxpayers still have to pay their costs when they show up in emergency rooms etc. Now these GOP members can claim they are doing something when the national party and their own state senators didn't support the Rescue Plan at all. And they regularly rail against and try to cut these social safety net programs every time they get control of congress.

[Gray Lensman]

It generally seems that people who disagree with voter ID laws don't want them in place under any circumstances.

Much of the opposition to Voter ID laws is what happens after ID becomes required.

Like shutting down the places to get that ID, but mostly affecting urban (mostly Democratic) voters.

Or adding a requirement for a specific street address on the ID for places that never used them, mostly affecting Native American (again, mostly Democratic) voters.

It's almost as if actual election security has nothing to do with the intent of these laws, but how his it affects the opposition.

[worstblogever]

I imagine since Mets tells us the GOP is following the Americans' lead on voting, they will fully endorse and push to expand mail in voting in all States they control..

I mean if they don't want to look like the anti-democratic fascists they are.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/11/polit...and/index.html

And of course they will make sure every registered voter is provided with ID.

Well, when you look at it with actual facts based in reality again, sure, maybe your point is valid.

But what if we choose to not acknowledge them, like say, a political party that considers them anathema?

YOU HAVE TO CONSIDER THE OTHER SIDE THAT MAKES THEIR OWN REALITY UP TO THEIR WHIMS.

[JB]

Its dangerous. Imagine Russia, North Korea and China start working together?

Russia and China are tightly linked and they seem to be bringing Saudi Arabia into their fold (there's talk SA may join the BRICS). I wouldn't be surprised if Russia and China are already working with North Korea.

[Vakanai]

Russia and China are tightly linked and they seem to be bringing Saudi Arabia into their fold (there's talk SA may join the BRICS). I wouldn't be surprised if Russia and China are already working with North Korea.

I'm worried we might be seeing the rise of the Axis equivalent here should there ever be a WWIII. Which will probably either be the last war for humanity, or the last war that's not fought with literal sticks and stones for a few millennia.

[JB]

I'm worried we might be seeing the rise of the Axis equivalent here should there ever be a WWIII. Which will probably either be the last war for humanity, or the last war that's not fought with literal sticks and stones for a few millennia.

I was having this exact conversation this morning with a friend in the locker room. He was noting China's aggression against Taiwan and he believes they'll move to take it in the near future to control the island's massive semiconductor industry. I don't necessarily agree with him on the timetable but anything is possible these days.

He's calling them the "new Warsaw Pact."

[hyped78]

Some new polls and mixed news:

(Rasmussen) Biden's job approval improved to 44%. Great improvement for Biden, he's now -10%, whereas in the previous Rasmussen poll he was at -18%

(Rasmussen) Generic Congressional vote - GOP 46%, Democrats 43%. Stable vs. the previous Rasmussen poll but they began field work before the FBI raid, so some participants replied before that went down

(Dallas Morning News) Texas Governor - Abbott 51%, O'Rourke 41%, the difference was widened vs. the previous Dallas Morning News poll in May, which had Abbott at +7%.

[JCAll]

Russia and China are tightly linked and they seem to be bringing Saudi Arabia into their fold (there's talk SA may join the BRICS). I wouldn't be surprised if Russia and China are already working with North Korea.

I kind of assumed that China basically already pulled the strings in North Korea anyway.

[Malvolio]

Much of the opposition to Voter ID laws is what happens after ID becomes required.

Like shutting down the places to get that ID, but mostly affecting urban (mostly Democratic) voters.

Or adding a requirement for a specific street address on the ID for places that never used them, mostly affecting Native American (again, mostly Democratic) voters.

It's almost as if actual election security has nothing to do with the intent of these laws, but how his it affects the opposition.

This, exactly. Voter ID sounds like it makes sense, until you read about all of the bullshit that Republicans attach to it. They'll say that they need to cut the budget for centers for getting photo ID, but somehow, the offices they close or cut the hours always seem to be in areas with majority Black populations. Funny how it works that way.

[CaptainEurope]

Yeah, in civil cases, there can be a negative inference from someone taking the fifth.

Calling Lindsey Graham here seems more like grandstanding.

It doesn't seem typical for Senators to go to grand juries called by a DA. You wouldn't want to create a precedent in which Republican prosecutors can return the favor by calling in Democratic officeholders to score points.

The law disagrees with you, Mister Mets.

Federal judge rules that Graham must testify in Georgia 2020 investigation

[CaptainEurope]

Trump is going too far for a few of his faithful, it seems:

This morning Fox's Steve Doocy repeatedly criticized the right's "harmful rhetoric" against the FBI (rhetoric that's been frequent on Fox). He seemed to be speaking to Trump here: "It would be great if he called for an end to the violent rhetoric against federal law enforcement."

[kidfresh512]

Trump is going too far for a few of his faithful, it seems:

We hear this all the time. They never learn. They go apeshit along with him until someone gets hurt or attacked. Then they circle back and try to downplay. Then they are right back in line.

He doesn't change, and they repeat this same cycle over and over.

[useridgoeshere]

We hear this all the time. They never learn. They go apeshit along with him until someone gets hurt or attacked. Then they circle back and try to downplay. Then they are right back in line.

He doesn't change, and they repeat this same cycle over and over.

That's because it's all performative. They just fake it to claim to be reasonable so they can go crazier next time.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

It's an old article but....

Warrant in fatal encounter between Breonna Taylor and police was linked to gentrification plan, family's lawyers claim

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/us/br...ion/index.html