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

[Panfoot]

I think the unfortunate answer has to be that it drive engagement. The News covers it, the Base eats it up, it brings people out to vote, and raises the profile of the politicians that engage in it. Whatever wins elections, no matter who it hurts, it's easy to succeed if you're willing to be the biggest bastard to do it.

Or maybe it's just a case of bigots seeing what they can get away with. It does feel like that sometimes.

I'd say a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B, it's an easy political win with their bigoted base(and really it's not like the Democrats in power are gonna do anything about it anytime soon), but they also just hate everyone that doesn't fit into their own narrow worldview.

[DanMad1977]

As soon as I read this, immediately thought good idea…I’ll get some FFP3 masks.

I don't want to wear out the discussion of mask or no mask, but I say and believe that wearing a Mask protects others AND yourself. If you wear at least a ffp2 mask you are very safe, despite the person in front of you not wearing one and having covid. The argument of a mask just protecting others and not yourself is just wrong.

And ffp3 are the shits. That one protects you the most.

[Catlady in training]

I think the unfortunate answer has to be that it drive engagement. The News covers it, the Base eats it up, it brings people out to vote, and raises the profile of the politicians that engage in it. Whatever wins elections, no matter who it hurts, it's easy to succeed if you're willing to be the biggest bastard to do it.

Or maybe it's just a case of bigots seeing what they can get away with. It does feel like that sometimes.

Plus, it drives people's attention away from other issues. Caring about everything is exhausting, so many end up concentrating on what they see as the biggest threat.

[CaptainEurope]

So, Kevin McCarthy is on tape discussing using the 25 amendment to get rid of Trump or asking him to resign voluntarily because he blamed him for the attacks on the Capitol.

Rick Scott is planning the mother of all tax increases on Americans who are not mega rich.

Stanning Putin for all those times is not just making Tucker Carlson look bad, but many GOP politicians, as well.

Clarence and Ginni Thomas, where do I even begin.

The Governors and GOP State legislators in several states are banning books and harming trans kids.

Several GOP child sex abuse scandals.

Yet it still seems likely that Democrats might lose the House and Senate. Herschel Walker, a man who once "admitted" to having a severe mental illness that gives him 12 separate personalities to explain why he kept putting a gun to his wife's head, is leading Reverend Warnock in Georgia, who has been a great Senator.

Somebody explain the American voter to me?

[Kirby101]

Many are idiots. The choose to not think. They vote on things that don't matter and against things that will help them.

[thwhtGuardian]

So, Kevin McCarthy is on tape discussing using the 25 amendment to get rid of Trump or asking him to resign voluntarily because he blamed him for the attacks on the Capitol.

Rick Scott is planning the mother of all tax increases on Americans who are not mega rich.

Stanning Putin for all those times is not just making Tucker Carlson look bad, but many GOP politicians, as well.

Clarence and Ginni Thomas, where do I even begin.

The Governors and GOP State legislators in several states are banning books and harming trans kids.

Several GOP child sex abuse scandals.

Yet it still seems likely that Democrats might lose the House and Senate. Herschel Walker, a man who once "admitted" to having a severe mental illness that gives him 12 separate personalities to explain why he kept putting a gun to his wife's head, is leading Reverend Warnock in Georgia, who has been a great Senator.

Somebody explain the American voter to me?

Once you leave New England they become cowardly and superstitious lot.

[Mister Mets]

When you go to a concert, sporting event, or restaurant, and you don't feel safe because other people aren't wearing masks, you can leave. But if the airplane is already in the air when you realize how many people are choosing not to wear masks, you have nowhere to go. You're trapped. That was the real reason for the mandate.

The main reasons for mandates were that you had people in an enclosed space traveling from different locations to different locations, potentially contributing to the spread of Covid.

At this point, everyone who wants the vaccine can get it, so their odds of serious complications from Covid are reduced as well as their odds of transmitting it.

There is also the question of how effective mask mandates are, especially with Covid variants that are less severe but more transmissible. Passengers aren't wearing masks during dinner or when drinking coffee. The mask effectiveness is reduced after a few hours. And the regulations on masks allow for masks that aren't very effective, at which point it's more about psychological comfort.

I do hope that if somebody developed symptoms after a flight on one of the planes where they complied with the judges decision IN FLIGHT will sue the pants of the airline and whoever made the decision on board. Medical cause, psychological distress, possible cost of lifelong disability from long covid.

This seems quite unlikely.

The passenger would have to demonstrate that they consistently took proper precautions (always wore effective masks) and that the people around them did the same until the announcement.

So why I am really quite unhappy about this new trend of journalists sitting on information about the insurrection until they can publish a book, I'm wondering if the revelations (and existence of tapes) that McCarthy lied when he said he never pressured Trump to resign or directly blamed him for the attacks on the Capitol will have any effect on the elections. Is it too late for a faithful Trump follower to primary Kevin?

We don't know who leaked the McCarthy tapes. One suspect is Liz Cheney, although she denies it.

https://www.newsweek.com/liz-cheney-...-trump-1700044

This is something that's meant to be part of a larger investigation, so it shouldn't be leaked.

I actually now upgraded to FFP3 masks, which are quite expensive but they actually offer the best protection to the wearer. The FFP2 masks just did not fit tightly enough to my face.

Not everybody can afford to upgrade to highly effective masks. Doing away with mask mandates is also a form of social Dawinism.

I wonder how different it is in the US.

It seems that the FFP2 is roughly equivalent to what are known as the N95/ KN95 masks.

I get the concern that effective masks are more expensive, but cheap masks would be more for show than for keeping others safe.

A good thing about the effective masks is that they can do a decent job keeping you safe even if others don't care.

[JB]

I do hope that if somebody developed symptoms after a flight on one of the planes where they complied with the judges decision IN FLIGHT will sue the pants of the airline and whoever made the decision on board. Medical cause, psychological distress, possible cost of lifelong disability from long covid.

Yeah, ultimately it's up to the airlines now as the ruling doesn't bar them from keeping their own mandates. But when the CEO of Delta and others sent a letter to the White House asking for the mandate to be removed just last month, I don't see them instituting their own at this point.

Delta asks Biden administration to end COVID-era travel restrictions
https://news.delta.com/delta-asks-bi...l-restrictions

The CDC did ask the DOJ to appeal the ruling so we'll see what happens.

I'm glad I don't have to fly for work or to visit family. I much prefer the open road anyway.

[Mister Mets]

If I was Disney I wouldn't sue, atleast not right away, let the citizens of Florida see what the stupidity of their elected officials looks like because the financial hardship this will incur will be insane.

Presumably, you want Disney to do something rather than just acquiescing.

If im Disney's CEO I issue a statement...that once this is signed , you will BEG US to take back that area. Reap what you sow Florida Republicans.

This seems unwise as a response to a regulatory change.

If Disney benefits when tax liabilities are paid by Florida, it makes sense to keep quiet about that.

But any big moves that Disney would make would be expensive and take a lot of time. It would be quite hard for Disney to move from Florida. The environmental impact investigations alone for any new location will take years.

https://www.ucf.edu/online/hospitali...orida-tourism/



Despite this that would still be too much to dump on people on fixed incomes.

And you still have to account in what lost revenue those anti bills will have.

Along with what harm can those bills do to your colleges and sport teams.

What does Florida colleges do if top recruits don't bother with them because of those bills? Or top players?

All the sudden you don't get the Super Bowl or All Star games or NCAA tournament games.

Yeah Disney is the first one to say something but they won't be the last to fight back.

I don't know how much other organizations want to get involved in this.

Republicans watch college football.

I bet the background to how Disney got agreement to operate in a very large tract of land free from a wide range of local regulations is interesting.

Patently the reasons DeSantis is doing this stink (as well as the way he’s doing it), but the whole arrangement does look deeply suspect.

And yes, pretty sure a whole series of corporations that project a “soft cuddly” image operate in a substantially different way.

I’ve said very often that I’d like to see all big corporations have to publish a sex, gender, race profile for their boards, and other employees, level by level.

We’d soon see then how enlightened the likes of Apple, Disney, big banks really are in their employment practices.

Diversity quotas of boards is a different question.

An uncomfortable defense would be that because of sexism and racism in culture and elsewhere in the profession, it's to be expected that the pipeline for boards largely consists of white men.

I find it very hard to stay civil while they are literally killing the children.

I'm sure there's someone who thinks it's hard to stay civil when they're doing bad things to children.

If someone isn't civil, they're going to be less persuasive than otherwise.

[Mister Mets]

Yeah, ultimately it's up to the airlines now as the ruling doesn't bar them from keeping their own mandates. But when the CEO of Delta and others sent a letter to the White House asking for the mandate to be removed just last month, I don't see them instituting their own at this point.

Delta asks Biden administration to end COVID-era travel restrictions
https://news.delta.com/delta-asks-bi...l-restrictions

The CDC did ask the DOJ to appeal the ruling so we'll see what happens.

I'm glad I don't have to fly for work or to visit family. I much prefer the open road anyway.

The odds of death and injury are much greater when driving.

So, Kevin McCarthy is on tape discussing using the 25 amendment to get rid of Trump or asking him to resign voluntarily because he blamed him for the attacks on the Capitol.

Rick Scott is planning the mother of all tax increases on Americans who are not mega rich.

Stanning Putin for all those times is not just making Tucker Carlson look bad, but many GOP politicians, as well.

Clarence and Ginni Thomas, where do I even begin.

The Governors and GOP State legislators in several states are banning books and harming trans kids.

Several GOP child sex abuse scandals.

Yet it still seems likely that Democrats might lose the House and Senate. Herschel Walker, a man who once "admitted" to having a severe mental illness that gives him 12 separate personalities to explain why he kept putting a gun to his wife's head, is leading Reverend Warnock in Georgia, who has been a great Senator.

Somebody explain the American voter to me?

Democrats are failing to take advantage of a golden opportunity.

At the same time, we do have major inflation likely exacerbated by overspending, as well as occasional unpopular policies.

Ezra Klein had a recent discussion on his Podcast with progressive strategists, and I liked one way of summarizing the way left-wing activists can be off-message: You can't tell the choir what to sing.

Of course, every aspect of the way we lead our lives is political to some degree.

But how do issues like this become party political??

Transparently this is an issue where you’d think the whole emphasis would be about helping people who feel they may want to transition, then helping them if they decide it’s the right thing to do.

It’s just common sense then to have that led by medical and other social care professionals. It really baffles me why anyone would want to take a different approach.

Am I missing something obvious? Or it just that “common sense is very uncommon”. (As one of my old bosses put it.)

It's a good question about how this became political.

I'm going to try to answer this accurately and dispassionately.

There are some sudden recent changes. One major statistic is that in surveys by the American College Health Association, the number of students brought up as girls identifying as transgender soared from 1 in 2,000 in 2008 to 1 in 20. You're going to have different responses to those changes depending on your earlier understanding on politics and culture.

The left has the view that affirmation is essential. This has implications when a medical identification increases one hundred fold. Their general view of education is that schools should take care of the whole child.

The right is more likely to believe that we should encourage traditional structures (nuclear families, civic organizations, church.) Their general view of education is that schools should teach reading, writing and arithmetic (and the numbers suggest they're not doing that very well) and leave the other stuff to families.

You've got pushback from this on the left with the correct observation that all society is interested in how children are raised. But this does allow for the response that the society will have its say in all of these decisions.

Transparency is valuable, but difficult in sensitive cases involving minors. And there is a lot we don't know.

[Tendrin]

Oh god, here we go again.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

So, Kevin McCarthy is on tape discussing using the 25 amendment to get rid of Trump or asking him to resign voluntarily because he blamed him for the attacks on the Capitol.

Rick Scott is planning the mother of all tax increases on Americans who are not mega rich.

Stanning Putin for all those times is not just making Tucker Carlson look bad, but many GOP politicians, as well.

Clarence and Ginni Thomas, where do I even begin.

The Governors and GOP State legislators in several states are banning books and harming trans kids.

Several GOP child sex abuse scandals.

Yet it still seems likely that Democrats might lose the House and Senate. Herschel Walker, a man who once "admitted" to having a severe mental illness that gives him 12 separate personalities to explain why he kept putting a gun to his wife's head, is leading Reverend Warnock in Georgia, who has been a great Senator.

Somebody explain the American voter to me?

Republican voters are brainless morons, conditioned by fear and hate to vote against their best interests and that of the country. All these idiots comprehend is that Democrats are evil, they’re in bed with BLM, Antifa and Planned Parenthood while rubber stamping Disney’s plot to groom innocent (white) kids into becoming gay, and only Republicans can save the country from moral destruction, yadda yadda yadda.

[4saken1]

There is also the legal fees Florida will have to endure. Disney loves going to court when their brand is threatened. So im sure they already have the law suit for this waiting to drop. I can see them dragging this on in court for a long time.

My girlfriend and I were brainstorming ways that Disney could fight back against DeSantis, even if just symbolically. Obviously they would never shut down Disneyland or move it elsewhere because it makes too much money, but I wonder about moving some of their other operations out of state, like the Corporate Recruiting Office. I suggested switching the names of Disneyland and Disney World because 'world' is more inclusive than 'land', and Florida isn't very inclusive. My girlfriend came up with changing the slogan of Disney World from "The Most Magical Place On Earth" to "The Gayest Place On Earth".

[CaptainEurope]

We don't know who leaked the McCarthy tapes. One suspect is Liz Cheney, although she denies it.


This is something that's meant to be part of a larger investigation, so it shouldn't be leaked.

Ah yes. The old "the real criminal here is the whistleblower" strategy.

[CaptainEurope]

This seems quite unlikely.

The passenger would have to demonstrate that they consistently took proper precautions (always wore effective masks) and that the people around them did the same until the announcement.





.

I think you are confusing a civil lawsuit with a criminal trial. There is no " beyond a reasonable doubt" threshold in a civil suit. There is tons of video of flight attendants collecting the masks. There are witnesses. This would be a very winnable case, especially if the judge lost somebody to covid.