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

[CaptainEurope]

I'll add m voice to the chorus of, "This isn't that big of an achievement" Sure, I think Biden is headand shoulders above Trump but this statistic isn't terribly indicitive of that as it likely would have been the same for anyone who happened to beat Trump.

And I agree, to those cheering this, you can't have it both ways. You can't put down Trump for his claims about the price of gas and defend Biden from the gas prices as it being outside his influence in one breath and then cheer Biden for this with your next breath.

Biden and the Democrats literally passed huge bills to create jobs.

Jobs are created.

"This has nothing to do with Biden".

WTF?

[Tendrin]

This may the best distillation of GOP politics I've seen in a while.

https://twitter.com/_EthanGrey/statu...24500970459138

Here is the Republican message on everything of importance:
1. They can tell people what to do.
2. You cannot tell them what to do.

This often gets mistaken for hypocrisy, there’s an additional layer of complexity to this (later in the thread), but this is the basic formula.

You've watched the Republican Party champion the idea of "freedom" while you have also watched the same party openly assault various freedoms, like the freedom to vote, freedom to choose, freedom to marry who you want and so on.
If this has been a source of confusion, then your assessments of what Republicans mean by “freedom” were likely too generous. Here’s what they mean:

1. The freedom to tell people what to do.
2. Freedom from being told what to do.

When Republicans talk about valuing “freedom”, they’re speaking of it in the sense that only people like them should ultimately possess it.

So with this in mind, let’s examine some of our political issues with an emphasis on who is telling who what to do. And hopefully there will be no ambiguity about what the Republican Party message is ever again.

Let’s start with the COVID-19 pandemic. We were told by experts in infectious diseases that to control the spread of the pandemic, we had to socially distance, mask, and get vaccinated. So, in a general sense, we were being told what to do. Guess who had a big problem with that.

All Republicans saw were certain people trying to tell them what to do, which was enough of a reason to make it their chief priority to insist that they will not be told what to do. Even though what they were told to do could save lives, including their own.

[thwhtGuardian]

Biden and the Democrats literally passed huge bills to create jobs.

Jobs are created.

"This has nothing to do with Biden".

WTF?

How much is coming from new jobs and how much is just people returning to work?

[CSTowle]

Biden has created more jobs than the last 3 Republican presidents COMBINED.

What you call normal was just not as impressive as Biden's record.

Again:
The covid relief bill and the infrastructure bill did not fall from the heavens.

Biden and the Democrats literally passed huge bills to create jobs.

Jobs are created.

"This has nothing to do with Biden".

WTF?

It has been explained again and again by multiple posters. You seem to believe that if Biden hadn't been elected, and Trump or Bernie or another centrist like Biden had been elected, that we'd be at pandemic level shutdowns and joblessness.

Others (myself included) disagree. We believe that businesses wanted to ramp back up as soon as it was economically feasible (once the vaccine was available, which it wasn't during Trump's term) and did so. That it was inevitable. The numbers would be very similar if it had been Trump/Warren/Bernie/Clinton/etc.

The percentage might go up (or down) a couple of points depending on who was in the Oval Office, but it would be a marginal difference at best. Trying to label this as the "Biden recovery" makes about as much sense as calling this "Biden's inflation" or "Biden's gas prices".

Pretending like the economic reality of businesses being allowed to reopen and needing to get back to the baseline that existed before the pandemic was "Biden creating millions of jobs" rather than millions of jobs that were temporarily on hiatus being refilled to get back to something like normal is deeply dishonest.

While I'm open to criticizing my Party when I feel they deserve it (and feel that reflexive defensiveness/cheerleading does more harm than good, both for creating blindspots and also giving some a reputation for dishonesty) I am still "Team Blue". I'd like to have good news. And we can point to things we have done and the history of Democratic Administrations since Clinton that have been good at shepherding the economy. But when you're dishonest or (vastly) exaggerate what they've done or are doing it undermines those gains.

But again, if there's something you think is unique to Biden's policies that was the key factor in us getting back to normal, that no other President was likely to do, I'm open to hearing about it. But I honestly don't think Trump would have kept us in a shutdown or hampered business ramping back up. If anything he might have had a better short-term bump (likely at the cost of more lives, and long-term damage).

MTG who has jumped on the anti-"groomer" bandwagon ( despite palling around with Matt Gaetz) has hired Milo Yiannopoulos to be her intern. Milo got famous after getting kicked off Twitter for harassing Lesslie Jones and hating on feminists, was disavowed by the GoP after tape of him defending adults having sex with underage people.

https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/sta...93397991370754

He angers people on the left, and sadly that trumps just about anything. Having moral integrity, or knowledge of relevant topics, or any convictions at all is a distant second to saying things that make them feel good and that make the "libs cry".

[Tami]

This may the best distillation of GOP politics I've seen in a while.

https://twitter.com/_EthanGrey/statu...24500970459138

I read the whole thing, and it was worth it.

[Tendrin]

I read the whole thing, and it was worth it.

A money quote even people here need to remember:

This is because the press has chosen to accommodate the Republican Party in a very specific way:

1. It normalizes the Republican agenda.
2. It normalizes framing the responsibility for stopping that agenda as ultimately being on Democrats.

Think about it: white supremacy is not allowed to be viewed as a “messaging problem.” Even when it’s a threat to democracy. Because if it’s a “messaging problem”, to Republicans, that sounds you're telling them that's a problem they have to solve.

[Totoro Man]

Just look at the graph. Anyone saying this is just "getting back to normal after the pandemic" (which is also a joke because the Pandemic is not over and some of the highest infection and death rates happened in Biden's first year) is in deep denial.

I did look at the graph you posted.

the graph doesn't, for example, explain if the new jobs that were generated were permanent, yearly part-time, full-time seasonal, etc.

doesn't it seem a bit strange that the graph makes Biden look like he's done for America than all of the other presidents that have preceded him in the last 40 years?

notice how the graph doesn't bother to mention how many years each president was in office? the graph implies that Biden has done more for America in less than two years than Clinton and Obama did in 16 years!

let's do a little math based on the graph. suppose Bill Clinton generated an average of 221,000 jobs per month during every month of his 8 years as president. that's 221,000 x 96. that would suggest that Clinton helped generate 21,216,000 jobs. that surpasses Biden's accomplishments by far... and that's just using the numbers available in the graph itself.

using a similar method, we could extrapolate that Obama helped create 11,520,000 jobs during his 8 years as president (based on the graph).

this graph is a classic example of "card stacking" propaganda.

I would suggest that the deeper denial is taking the graph at face value and not asking questions.

[Jack Dracula]

It has been explained again and again by multiple posters. You seem to believe that if Biden hadn't been elected, and Trump or Bernie or another centrist like Biden had been elected, that we'd be at pandemic level shutdowns and joblessness.

Others (myself included) disagree. We believe that businesses wanted to ramp back up as soon as it was economically feasible (once the vaccine was available, which it wasn't during Trump's term) and did so. That it was inevitable. The numbers would be very similar if it had been Trump/Warren/Bernie/Clinton/etc.

The percentage might go up (or down) a couple of points depending on who was in the Oval Office, but it would be a marginal difference at best. Trying to label this as the "Biden recovery" makes about as much sense as calling this "Biden's inflation" or "Biden's gas prices".

Pretending like the economic reality of businesses being allowed to reopen and needing to get back to the baseline that existed before the pandemic was "Biden creating millions of jobs" rather than millions of jobs that were temporarily on hiatus being refilled to get back to something like normal is deeply dishonest.

While I'm open to criticizing my Party when I feel they deserve it (and feel that reflexive defensiveness/cheerleading does more harm than good, both for creating blindspots and also giving some a reputation for dishonesty) I am still "Team Blue". I'd like to have good news. And we can point to things we have done and the history of Democratic Administrations since Clinton that have been good at shepherding the economy. But when you're dishonest or (vastly) exaggerate what they've done or are doing it undermines those gains.

But again, if there's something you think is unique to Biden's policies that was the key factor in us getting back to normal, that no other President was likely to do, I'm open to hearing about it. But I honestly don't think Trump would have kept us in a shutdown or hampered business ramping back up. If anything he might have had a better short-term bump (likely at the cost of more lives, and long-term damage).

There's an inherent problem in these arguments.
There is no honest way for anyone on either side to prove or disprove the economy would've bounced back to the same or better degree under the leadership of any candidate other than Biden. All comments concerning this are opinion and speculation.
The facts are that Biden's administration has been enacting it's economic and vaccination policies and the economy so far seems to be returning to pre-pandemic levels. Had they done nothing this almost certainly wouldn't be the case, so any progress made can be attributed to Biden's policies.

[thwhtGuardian]

There's an inherent problem in these arguments.
There is no honest way for anyone on either side to prove or disprove the economy would've bounced back to the same or better degree under the leadership of any candidate other than Biden. All comments concerning this are opinion and speculation.
The facts are that Biden's administration has been enacting it's economic and vaccination policies and the economy so far seems to be returning to pre-pandemic levels. Had they done nothing this almost certainly wouldn't be the case, so any progress made can be attributed to Biden's policies.

I'm all for saying that the vaccination policies have helped us get back to normal, and I think its safe to say Trump's wouldn't have been the same...but that these policies have lead to the best growth ever? That seems like a vast over statement.

[Zauriel]

Everything bad that was supposed to happen if Donnie Trump got re-elected is happening under Joe Biden (but worse) because this is how the duopoly works. The people and planet always lose and Big Business and the ruling class always win because they own both parties.

[Totoro Man]

Clinton and Obama were both perfectly good presidents. the graph implies that Biden is vastly superior to them... and I find that to be dishonest and wildly misleading.

don't forget that unemployment rates had already dropped from 14% to 6% in the last year of Trump's presidency. that demonstrated a general trend in employment that can't simply be ignored. I would suggest that this had far more to do with state governors, city mayors, and local business and community leaders striving to return to pre-pandemic operational levels.

insisting that that "the facts are" is attributing causality where there may be nothing more than correlation.

to take a very specific example: which do you think had a bigger impact on the food service industry slowly bouncing back from pre-pandemic levels in Washington state?
1. Governor Jay Inslee allowing restaurants to open up again with some restrictions in June of 2021... or
2. the Biden administration taking action AFTER he become president?

https://seattle.eater.com/2021/5/13/...urant-capacity

[shooshoomanjoe]

Everything bad that was supposed to happen if Donnie Trump got re-elected is happening under Joe Biden (but worse) because this is how the duopoly works. The people and planet always lose and Big Business and the ruling class always win because they own both parties.

Given how trump handled Hurricane Maria and the pandemic, I'd rather have the current problems been handled by the Biden admin than trump's admin.

[Totoro Man]

Also aside from the article that Tami posted which was very informative there is also adoption and foster parents. So couples adopt, or gay couples adopt. They have no choice but to use Formula.

so, then the general argument is that NOBODY should breast-feed under any circumstances? every response to my suggestion has been negative.

and in the case of adoption and foster parents this would certainly be true... which is why I advocated that breast feeding should be more common and formula left for people who need it most.

the World Health Organization has advocated for more breast feeding and for longer periods. but apparently we're just supposed to ignore that as unrealistic
the American Academy of Pediatrics has also made a similar suggestion... but, likewise, we should ignore that.

babies live longer because of formula... as if there weren't a host of other cultural and economic factors coming into the equation as well.

I'm more puzzled by the general antipathy to the very idea of breast-feeding on this thread. the implication seems to be that the very act of breast-feeding is bad, dangerous, and should be discouraged... in spite of the recommendations of the WHO and AAP and many doctors around the world.

[thwhtGuardian]

so, then the general argument is that NOBODY should breast-feed under any circumstances? every response to my suggestion has been negative.

and in the case of adoption and foster parents this would certainly be true... which is why I advocated that breast feeding should be more common and formula left for people who need it most.

the World Health Organization has advocated for more breast feeding and for longer periods. but apparently we're just supposed to ignore that as unrealistic
the American Academy of Pediatrics has also made a similar suggestion... but, likewise, we should ignore that.

babies live longer because of formula... as if there weren't a host of other cultural and economic factors coming into the equation as well.

I'm more puzzled by the general antipathy to the very idea of breast-feeding on this thread. the implication seems to be that the very act of breast-feeding is bad, dangerous, and should be discouraged... in spite of the recommendations of the WHO and AAP and many doctors around the world.

...No, the arguments being made are that breastfeeding isn't a simple solution to the formula shortage as not everyone can breastfeed for various reasons.

I honestly can't understand how someone could read those responses any other way.

[babyblob]

so, then the general argument is that NOBODY should breast-feed under any circumstances? every response to my suggestion has been negative.

and in the case of adoption and foster parents this would certainly be true... which is why I advocated that breast feeding should be more common and formula left for people who need it most.

the World Health Organization has advocated for more breast feeding and for longer periods. but apparently we're just supposed to ignore that as unrealistic
the American Academy of Pediatrics has also made a similar suggestion... but, likewise, we should ignore that.

babies live longer because of formula... as if there weren't a host of other cultural and economic factors coming into the equation as well.

I'm more puzzled by the general antipathy to the very idea of breast-feeding on this thread. the implication seems to be that the very act of breast-feeding is bad, dangerous, and should be discouraged... in spite of the recommendations of the WHO and AAP and many doctors around the world.

I was not being negitve at all. I support breast feeding. I was pointing out that the group I posted are a group that does not have that option. So formula is a must. I dont understand how you feel that pointing out gay parents who adopt or foster parents is a slam on breast feeding because they cant do it.