1. #33271
    Invincible Jersey Ninja Tami's Avatar
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    Missouri Is the Next Front in the COVID Culture War

    This is the fiefdom of Eric Schmitt, the Missouri attorney general and Republican U.S. Senate candidate. Schmitt has routinely snagged national headlines throughout the pandemic for his habit of suing people, most recently over masks. He is certainly not the only or best-known state official with bigger political ambitions battling public-health mandates in the name of personal freedom. Florida has Ron DeSantis, Texas has Greg Abbott—both governors wielding executive orders and fueling presidential speculation. Missouri does not have such a governor. Instead it has Schmitt, an ambitious attorney general wielding lawsuits.
    He started by suing the People’s Republic of China for unleashing the pandemic through “an appalling campaign of deceit, concealment, misfeasance, and inaction.” Then it was a Missouri business that he accused of wildly overcharging for masks. Lately, Schmitt has turned his powers of litigation against attempted COVID-19 mitigation that he deems unnecessary and harmful. His latest salvo, filed in late August, is a lawsuit targeting mask mandates in Missouri public-school districts; this month he promised still more lawsuits over the Biden administration’s new vaccine mandates.
    Meanwhile, within the very office that generates these lawsuits, young staffers politely don masks to step into public areas where signs have proliferated to warn Schmitt people that they’re entering court territory. Here, a bitter statewide fight over masks plays out as a passive-aggressive workplace drama. Here, too, the contradictions offer a fitting backdrop for Schmitt’s evolution from a personable, aisle-crossing state legislator who once voted for a vaccine mandate to a firebrand partisan primary candidate who now says that public-health mandates show only that “the Left is obsessed with power & control.”
    Schmitt has placed himself at the center of the COVID wars in a state where vaccinations fall stubbornly below the national average and where, earlier in the summer, the Delta variant ignited its first major outbreak in the United States. In Missouri as elsewhere, the mask-mandate fight is overshadowing the promotion of vaccines—which, as Schmitt himself has noted in lawsuits, remain the best way to combat the pandemic. He rarely advertises this. And although some of his Republican primary rivals encourage vaccination while emphasizing personal choice, Schmitt has appeared hostile even to admitting being vaccinated himself. (He is.) His story, along with the ways in which his ambition has drawn him into partisan combat in a public-health culture war, is a vivid demonstration of how national politics has poisoned local debates, pitting people against one another instead of against COVID-19, even as state and local governments remain the front line of pandemic response.
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  2. #33272
    Invincible Jersey Ninja Tami's Avatar
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    Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place. It Got Angrier Instead.

    Internal memos show how a big 2018 change rewarded outrage and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg resisted proposed fixes
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  3. #33273
    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by numberthirty View Post
    For all of the good that it will do "Regular Jane/Joe..." marginalized folks...

    You are both kinda right at the same time here.
    I think it was an okay move that served her constituency and ideology well. It's not a huge deal and it's not going to move the needle on its own. Will it help the MET? Sure. Will it help that designer? Absolutely.

    Improving one life at a time is still good politics, ultimately.

  4. #33274
    Astonishing Member JackDaw's Avatar
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    I have to admit to speed reading parts of the (electronic) Daily Telegraph most days…got a very cheap deal…and like the sports and puzzle pages.

    Some of the political commentary is bizarre. Quite a few of their writers are worried about the Boris Johnson Conservative government being too left wing, for example!

    There’s a few worrisome things about it…for example, it’s corrupt, lazy and inefficient. But I had to scratch my head to think of anything “left wing” it’s ever done.

    Then the answer struck me…it routinely spends vast amounts of money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Then raises taxes to pay for it all.

    This…to the Daily Telegrap is “left wing”. No it’s just inefficient government…done just as often by right wing governments as left leaning ones.

  5. #33275
    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    To a lot of (badly educated) people, leftism is when the government does stuff.

  6. #33276
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    Pa. Republicans vote to subpoena voter records and personal information in 2020 election probe

    Pennsylvania Republicans voted Wednesday to subpoena Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration for detailed records of every registered voter in the state, including personal information like the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.

    It’s the most concrete step the GOP-led legislature has taken to investigate the 2020 election since the top Senate Republican committed last month to undertaking a review that former President Donald Trump has long demanded as part of his campaign to discredit the results.

    Democrats said they will challenge the subpoena in court, blasting the inquiry as a “fishing expedition” and raising concerns about sharing millions of voters’ personal information with an outside vendor that hasn’t yet been selected.

    Republicans on the state Senate panel that wrote the subpoena said the documents they’re requesting would help show whether any fraud was committed in Pennsylvania, a state President Joe Biden won by more than 80,000 votes.
    This is clearly an attempt to repeat the audit circus the GQP orchestrated in Arizona, all for the sake of perpetuating Trump's "Big Lie" about the election. The idea of my personal information in the hands of those assholes is abominable on steroids and should NOT be allowed to happen, PERIOD! By the by, for Qpublicans who scream bloody murder all the time about keeping big government out of the lives of the people, for them to pull a rank stunt like this is first class, Grade-A hypocrisy.
    Last edited by WestPhillyPunisher; 09-16-2021 at 04:23 AM.
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  7. #33277
    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    Cawthorn going armed to school board meetings, now.

    orth Carolina Representative Madison Cawthorn has been accused of carrying a knife into a school board meeting. State law forbids the carrying of weapons on "educational property."

    Democrat Jay Carey, a political candidate running for Cawthorn's congressional seat, accused Cawthorn of bringing the knife to a Monday meeting of the Henderson County Board of Education. Cawthorn attended the meeting to speak against the board continuing its district-wide mask mandate. The board voted 6-to-1 to continue the mandate.
    Aaaand...


    Cawthorn has long opposed mask mandates. In late July, he established an online bail fund for Republicans who get arrested for not wearing a mask inside the Capitol. The fund directed donations to his own personal campaign rather than a separate account.
    It's ALWAYS a grift.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...?ocid=msedgntp

  8. #33278
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tendrin View Post
    Cawthorn going armed to school board meetings, now.



    Aaaand...



    It's ALWAYS a grift.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...?ocid=msedgntp
    Oh, but of course. Qpublicans learned their lessons well from The Former Guy.
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  9. #33279
    Invincible Jersey Ninja Tami's Avatar
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    Japan's defense minister draws red line in island dispute with China

    okyo (CNN)Japan is drawing a red line around an island chain also claimed by China, pushing back at Beijing's increasingly aggressive military posturing, and setting the stage for a potential showdown between the region's two biggest powers.

    In an exclusive interview with CNN, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi said the Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyu Islands in China, are unquestionably Japanese territory and would be defended as such, with Tokyo matching any Chinese threat to the islands ship for ship, and beyond if necessary.

    Japan has been expanding its Self-Defense Forces, adding state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets and converting warships to aircraft carriers for them. It is also building new destroyers, submarines and missiles, all the while noting its military expenditure still pales in comparison with China's increased military spending.
    China, over the last few years, has become more Colonizing. It's been trying to expand it's reach, and influence. Trump and his people didn't care, but now that Biden is in office, other countries are starting to push back.
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  10. #33280
    BANNED Xheight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tendrin View Post
    To a lot of (badly educated) people, leftism is when the government does stuff.
    I agree, Leftism is about critical perspective in service to the people with with out power. Solving problems requires knowing what is causing the problems which in our bloated technocratic society is an alienated government.

  11. #33281
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tami View Post
    Japan's defense minister draws red line in island dispute with China



    China, over the last few years, has become more Colonizing. It's been trying to expand it's reach, and influence. Trump and his people didn't care, but now that Biden is in office, other countries are starting to push back.
    Revisionism. In Trump's drawback the point was and was communicated to leaders especially in Asia that they would have to stand up their own resistance to China if the US was to help them do it.

    Mark Leonard, the British commentator, another visitor to Beijing in mid-2018, wrote in The Financial Times around this time that the Chinese described Trump as a "master tactician, focusing on one issue at a time, and extracting as many concessions as he can.

    "But they also see him as a strategist, willing to declare a truce in each area when there are no more concessions to be had, and then start again with a new front."

    Trump's ability to frame issues to his --- and America's -- advantage in foreign policy has won begrudging praise from one of Hillary Clinton's and now Joe Biden's senior foreign policy advisers, Jake Sullivan.

    "I do think that Trump shaking things up to a certain extent in terms of [how] he described and framed certain issues relating to American foreign policy created more space for a serious reckoning that was long overdue," Sullivan said in a recent Lowy Institute podcast. Trump was particularly skillful in connecting the economic suffering of the American middle class with global trade and the rise of China.

    Trump's confrontational tactics were quietly welcomed in Japan, too, although more so on national security issues than trade. Among Trump's fans were then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's foreign policy advisers, who had often despaired about former U.S. President Barack Obama's more collegial approach. Obama, for example, reined in the Department of Defense when some of his top military advisers wanted to push back more strongly against Beijing's island-building in the South China Sea.
    https://www.lowyinstitute.org/public...atter-who-wins

  12. #33282
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tami View Post
    Japan's defense minister draws red line in island dispute with China



    China, over the last few years, has become more Colonizing. It's been trying to expand it's reach, and influence. Trump and his people didn't care, but now that Biden is in office, other countries are starting to push back.
    Pray tell, what exactly has China "colonized"? Even the map in the article you linked clearly shows that the islands in question are much closer to China than to Japan, and that the primary function of Japan's claim has nothing to do with territorial integrity or protecting the nonexistent residents, but rather to maintain control over an island chain that will block Chinese ships from sailing out into the Pacific. As to why China might be keen on sailing warships into that area, you can look up what Nobuo Kishi's grandfather was getting up to in Manchuria in the 1930s.

  13. #33283
    Invincible Member Kirby101's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Xheight View Post
    Revisionism. In Trump's drawback the point was and was communicated to leaders especially in Asia that they would have to stand up their own resistance to China if the US was to help them do it.

    https://www.lowyinstitute.org/public...atter-who-wins

    Talk about putting lipstick on a pig!
    There came a time when the Old Gods died! The Brave died with the Cunning! The Noble perished locked in battle with unleashed Evil! It was the last day for them! An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!

  14. #33284
    BANNED Xheight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BeastieRunner View Post
    You also had the Chinese coming to the US and American's taking a sizable chunk of the gold rush profit before and after they processed, essentially making them slaves. Then you had the foreign miner tax ... GDP was stifled.

    Each gold rush in the US increased inflation since our money was backed by precious minerals. With that in mind, the net result is a loss in GDP growth. The max being that 1.8% for that 10 year period. Other than a few lucky SOBs that found a vein first, it really only made the rich, more rich.

    As for slavery, 80% of the nation’s gross national product was tied to slavery in the 1860s, which was slavery's peak. That 5-50% is a bunch of revisionist garbage.

    The pre-Civil War South, produced well over half of all US export earnings with slave-grown cotton. Nothing else. By the 1840s ... the South grew 60% of the world's cotton while 70% was consumed by the British textile industry. The North developed a variety of businesses that provided services for the South (textile factories, meat processing, insurance companies, shippers, cotton brokers, equipment manufacturing for tools, etc.). Mix that all together and you will see it damn well near 80% on the conservative side of things.

    ... Is that really one of the arguments going on here???

    I thought the current talking point for returning to bygone eras was the 1950s post-WWII America?

    Which is whole other nebulous can of worms ...
    GDP is the wrong measure for international trade balances (like cotton purchased) which relates to the "greatness" debate not the internal infrastructure.

  15. #33285
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kirby101 View Post
    Talk about putting lipstick on a pig!
    So why have our Asian allies been in a panic since the Afghan departure...anything to do with leaving friends hanging out with the wash?

    Recent Politico reporting
    likewise soured U.S.-China joint efforts to address climate change. U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry returned home empty-handed from meetings in China earlier this month after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made clear that climate cooperation “cannot be divorced from the overall situation of China-U.S. relations.” Mutual distrust has also hobbled military-to-military contacts, with the first Pentagon and China’s People’s Liberation Army direct contact since Biden took office occurring only last month.
    Last edited by Xheight; 09-16-2021 at 08:53 AM.

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