All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[numberthirty]

Man, Rudy was straight out of the lineup scene in The Usual Suspects.

[numberthirty]

Hillary is not a "capitalist." She thinks a capitalist is someone who has a lot of money. No. A capitalist is someone who uses money to make money. Hillary is someone who capitalists pay a lot of money to make speeches to them and to sit on their boards of directors because they want her to use her political influence on their behalf. In a just world, that activity would be called bribery.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...-me/ar-AAwEUbY

Every single time I think she can't come up with an even worse excuse, she comes through.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Man, Rudy was straight out of the lineup scene in The Usual Suspects.

With "friends" like Rudy, Trump damn sure doesn't need any more enemies as his dance card is already plenty full.

[Trey Strain]

No, this guy is not absolutely speechless. He never has been and never will be.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...ifz?li=BBnb7Kz

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Alabama State Senator Gerald Allen, who over the past two decades, who repeatedly made revolting anti-gay and anti-Islamic statements, as well as called for fanatical censorship laws to be put in place. As early as 2004, Allen was boasting about meeting President Bush (43) and calling for any book with “positive images of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle” to be banned, including the works of Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, and Alice Walker, claiming that their existence was an “attack on family values” that he compared to Al-Qaeda. When Allen could not get his book ban to pass, he predictably painted himself as a victim of religious persecution. Fast forward to 2011, and Allen was trying to pass Sharia Law bans in Alabama, but when asked what Sharia Law actually was. As a legislator, Gerald Allen has voted to nullify federal firearms laws, shut down all of Alabama’s abortion clinics via trap laws, sponsored fetal heartbeat bills, voted to drug test welfare recipients (always a failed conservative experiment), and voted to prevent the expansion of Medicaid in his home state. For whatever reason (HINT: he’s really racist) back over the summer of 2015 after the mass shooting at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina occurred, when Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley followed the lead of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and removed a Confederate flag from a monument that stood at the north side of Alabama’s own state capitol, Gerald Allen responded to sponsor SB 13, to make it HARDER to remove Confederate iconography from around the state. He then defended his legislation as you’d expect from a man who likes to portray himself the victim when confronted about being any kind of a bigot, saying, "There is a revisionist movement afoot to cover over many parts of American history. Our national and state history should be remembered as it happened. The politically-correct movement to strike whole periods of the past from our collective memory is divisive and unnecessary." Gerald Allen made it a point in 2017 to make sure the landmarks of the Confederacy would not be taken down, and to continue to honor a failed rebellion fought against the federal government over the desire to continue to own other human beings, sponsoring legislation to keep those monuments to it in place. Y’know, important issues that were in no way resolved really 150 years ago.

In fact, just prior to that bill passing around the end of May 2017, Allen commented on the bill, saying that he hoped it would end “the wave of political correctness” that he feels so victimized by.

Of late, with public opinion starting to turn in favor of gun control in the wake of several mass shootings including the one in Parkland, Florida, Gerald Allen has also been paying lip service to doing something about "mental health” to prevent gun violence.

This is probably a good time to remind everyone that Gerald Allen is up for re-election to the Alabama State Senate in 2018, and has both a primary challenger in Frank Chandler, as well as a Democratic challenger in the general election in the form of Rick Bernham, a local attorney. We know Alabama already rejected Roy Moore as a U.S. Senator a few months ago, but we can only hope they keep trending in the right direction by getting rid of a loon like Allen, to really get the ball rolling.

[Kevinroc]

Were you expecting something else?

It's what I've come to expect from "the party of life."

[RumpusMagoo]

Were you expecting something else?

I live in a country where access to quality healthcare is considered a "privilege", but owning a firearm is a god given "right". smh

[WestPhillyPunisher]

It's what I've come to expect from "the party of life."

Yeah, the party of white, rich, straight, gun loving, Christian life.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Actually, one of the things that was done was to include health care savings accounts to pair with thise high deductible plans. Unlike the standard flex accounts most people are familiar with, these can be rolled over from year to year and built up until you start to need it.

Thats basically what I have now. Super high deductible but I can put in untaxed work money in it. Then fronyear to year it rolls so I can stop contributing whenever I put in whatever the deductible is. Then it rolls. It’s still far more than what I would pay uninsured in a given year. Visions the only thing I’d need insurance for.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

It's subsidizing lawyers who file suits over car accidents.

This. That’s another bs system. 99% of it is lawyers posturing for settlements based off the archaic 1% and you are at fault rule.

[Dalak]

It's subsidizing lawyers who file suits over car accidents.

This. That’s another bs system. 99% of it is lawyers posturing for settlements based off the archaic 1% and you are at fault rule.

Gee, I guess my car insurance fixing my car after being hit-and-run is just a 1% outlier then. Sure there was a deductible, but I've also been saved many times by the road-and-tow service and the insurance is mainly there (I believe) for when YOU hit someone ELSE.

TBH complaining about insurance is a level of shortsightedness akin to complaining about anti-Climate Change efforts, just a much more personal one as you will get sick, injured, and in car accidents in your lifetime unlike the worst effects of climate change which shouldn't hit for another generation or more.

Oh and Trey? I've been enjoying the lack of rabid Anti-Clinton BS in this thread for a while, would you please not bring it back up? I would be very grateful.

[Tami]

Gee, I guess my car insurance fixing my car after being hit-and-run is just a 1% outlier then. Sure there was a deductible, but I've also been saved many times by the road-and-tow service and the insurance is mainly there (I believe) for when YOU hit someone ELSE.

TBH complaining about insurance is a level of shortsightedness akin to complaining about anti-Climate Change efforts, just a much more personal one as you will get sick, injured, and in car accidents in your lifetime unlike the worst effects of climate change which shouldn't hit for another generation or more.

Oh and Trey? I've been enjoying the lack of rabid Anti-Clinton BS in this thread for a while, would you please not bring it back up? I would be very grateful.

Funny thing is, while people like Trey keep harping on the Clintons, there are more immanent 'threats' to their 'beloved' Conservative Politicians and Trump. These threats aren't even in the news yet, but come November and straight through to 2020, they will be sneaking up on them.

They are so 'great' with distractions that they are distracting themselves.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Gee, I guess my car insurance fixing my car after being hit-and-run is just a 1% outlier then. Sure there was a deductible, but I've also been saved many times by the road-and-tow service and the insurance is mainly there (I believe) for when YOU hit someone ELSE.

TBH complaining about insurance is a level of shortsightedness akin to complaining about anti-Climate Change efforts, just a much more personal one as you will get sick, injured, and in car accidents in your lifetime unlike the worst effects of climate change which shouldn't hit for another generation or more.

Oh and Trey? I've been enjoying the lack of rabid Anti-Clinton BS in this thread for a while, would you please not bring it back up? I would be very grateful.

That’s not what I meant by 1% rule

[Mister Mets]

How would you feel if people didn't want to pay taxes to finance the military? If your argument is that it's wrong for the young and healthy to subsidize the old and sick, where do you draw that line?



This is such a skewed way of viewing this subject.

To answer the first question, in any discussion about government, we have to determine how to best allocate finite resources. The military is generally seen as rather important, and something that everyone benefits from equally. A pacifist and a hawk may have different views on military action, but both would be hurt by an invasion (an invasion is unlikely, but a major part of the reason for that is our military resources.) A distinction between your hypothetical and mine is that no one here has expressed or hinted at a position against medical care for the elderly, the question is about who should pay for it.

As for whether it's a skewed way of viewing this subject, I responded to someone else's metaphor. A further point is that catastrophic health plans are quite controversial. These would be insurance options that only cover significant expenses.

I do think my initial point was sound in that a particular criticism against people who don't but insurance is invalid. It isn't honest to blame them for failing to cover themselves, since that's often not the point. You could believe that subsidizing the sick and the elderly is essential and good, but the argument for that should be framed in that way rather than about how someone who doesn't have the option for a plan that would cover their costs in either an emergency, or in the event they develop a chronic health condition is in the wrong for failing to cover themselves from those possibilities.

It's what I've come to expect from "the party of life."

This isn't about Democrats VS Republicans to be honest. Few Republicans want to make this argument, because the party is so dependent on older voters, and therefore don't want to touch any benefits sent their way.

A phrase I've heard for these fiscal priorities is gray VS brown. Should we spend finite resources on older people who are more likely to be white (end of life care, senior centers, culutral institutions preferred by the upper class, etc.) or on younger people who are more ethnically and racially diverse (schools, job training, day care, etc.)

https://www.yahoo.com/news/gray-brow...150041350.html

[ZombieHavoc]

I read an article in Esquire, a mainstream publication that generally leans left. I provided quotations from the article, as well as a link.

I think I do plenty of homework. In this case I provided everyone else the information that I used to reach my conclusion, so that there are similar sources of information.

You seem to have a strong opinion on this. What articles did you read to determine that he is a piece of ****?

I listened to the dude once on Joe Rogan's podcast. Rogan loves him and has had him on several times, I think.

In my opinion, he's definitely not the worst of the currently notorious right wing guys or whatever. But he really, really got on my nerves. His whole thing on that episode seemed to be like. "I've said some things that I know might bait people into confrontation, but for some reason unbeknownst to me all these neo-Marxists are out to get me." The dude seemed really hung up on the idea that neo-Marxists were on the rampage trying to take over ****.

And he just had a similar air to him that bugged me about Shapiro, where he complains and complains about people playing this or that minority card and he hates identity politics and how every group thinks they're marginalized--then proceeds to complain about how white people are marginalized and victimized.

I just get the sense from him that he's trying to say that no marginalized minority ever deserves to make white people or men aware that they were ever marginalized at the expense of white people or men. And then, he's of course an intelligent person and he compels people to subscribe to his ideology as well. And like, Rogan definitely has people on he disagrees with all the time, and he will speak up if he disagrees with something...but I've heard Rogan on subsequent episodes bring up this apparent neo-Marxist threat with others...ha.

Edit: I guess I should add that I have in the past been pleasantly surprised by some right wing or conservative or whatever guys on podcasts. Tucker Carlson, for one, on Intercepted, and then Crowder on Rogan's--I know Crowder is kinda different, but I didn't know much about him outside of some annoying headlines from his Louder with Crowder page I've seen before, but he came across as okay on that show.