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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
If something, Trump was the blessing and dooming if the GOP: in part because they got him into power but also because he take Away the thin Valied of politeness at másk their racism, they cant hide they become the deplorable party right now
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"@Rationalinsanity: Oddly enough, that right wasn't secured to protect agnostics or atheists - it was affirmed to protect the rights of fundamentalist Protestants (who don't take oaths for theological reasons).
As for the reason the Republicans objected...well, duh. They objected because America's a Christian nation. What else would it be?
If the GOP still exists in a decade or two, I'll bet they will do everything they can to sweep this disaster of an administration under the rug. They'll be all like "Trump who? Never heard of the guy. I don't know what you're talking about." That's more or less what they did to the Dubya administration.
Disgusted, but not surprisedFrom a couple of pages ago regarding Reagan:
Y'all do know that Reagan's administration specifically told the CDC to do nothing back in the day when AIDS was mainly infecting the LGBTQ population in the US, right?
Then I shifted at the direction of the higher levels of CDC to make a plan of prevention. I think we called it Operation AIDS Control, and that plan was terribly expensive — it was $30 [million], $40 million per year at the federal level and more at local levels, state and local. We would launch programs for testing and counseling and education for HIV/AIDS. That program was outlined in several pages by me, and several pages [of the] document went to the director of CDC. ... It went to Washington, and the word that we got back from Washington, as best as I can recall, was something like, "No, we're not going to fund it, and we want you to look pretty and do as little as you can."
Now, that was about as contrary to the philosophy of CDC, and in my 10 years with CDC was abhorrent. At that point I asked to be sent out to the field, actually to California, where some authorities wanted to do something, but it was clear that the federal government was not going to be behind the state and local authorities to do that, and that set an incredible precedent. One, it set a precedent for other conservative, high-level governors and the like to say: "Well, the highest levels of the White House don't necessarily think we should put money into HIV/AIDS; then why should we? And it's also embarrassing to talk about sex and needle exchange and needles and school education about abstinence and sex and choices, etc., and I don't like that anyway. And since Ronald Reagan didn't like it, then I'm not going to do anything either."
Using never-before-heard audio tapes from three separate press conferences, in 1982, 1983, and 1984, When AIDS Was Funny illustrates how the reporter Lester Kinsolving, a conservative (and not at all gay-friendly) fixture in the White House press corps, was consistently scoffed at when he posed urgent questions about the AIDS epidemic. With snickering, homophobic jokes and a disturbing air of uninterest, Speakes dismisses Kinsolving’s concerns about the escalating problem. “Lester was known as somewhat of a kook and a crank (many people still feel the same way),” says Calonico. “But, at the time, he was just a journalist asking questions only to be mocked by both the White House and his peers.”
(Go ahead to around 35 seconds in for the start of the fun)
Crimes against humanity is not a stretch at all, and arguably falls short. He really did have every intention of sitting back and letting the disease kill "the right people". Between that and Reagan's love of phrases like "Strapping young buck buying steaks with food stamps", and "welfare queens driving Cadillacs", Reagan ranks pretty highly with the most contemptible scum to ever hold the office.
Although, if everyone really wants to unearth dark, shameful secrets of the past here in the US, I'd recommend taking a look at the 70 years or so that Eugenics and forced sterilization of entire families were perfectly legal and practiced. It's chilling
stuff
.
A state law from 1909 authorized the surgery for people judged to have "mental disease, which may have been inherited." That law remained on the books until 1979.
University of Michigan professor Alexandra Minna Stern has been working to identify people who were forcibly sterilized under California's program. NPR's Ailsa Chang spoke with Stern, who said this idea of eugenics was intended to "eradicate certain genes from the population."
The professor describes the program as a historic injustice and called for the state of California to compensate surviving victims of sterilization of relatives of those who are now deceased.
I've written a book on the history of eugenics in California. But at that point, I still knew very little about the sterilizations themselves; who was sterilized, where did all of the sterilizations take place, how is the policy enacted?
So I did a bit of sleuthing and went to the actual departments themselves — the department of mental health in this case, in Sacramento — and was fortunate that someone there directed me to some file cabinets that contained microfilm reels with materials that had been microfilmed over the course of the '60s and '70s.
And lo and behold, there they were! I was able to begin using them as historical documents and that's how the project started.
On whether she found any patterns among the 20,000 names she discovered
Our team (and I should say this is the effort of a research team that includes epidemiologists, historians, digital humanists), we have a found a variety of patterns and we keep discovering more.
For example, we have determined that patients with Spanish surnames were much more likely to be sterilized than other patients, demonstrating that there was a racial bias in the sterilization program. We were also able to show the kinds of diagnoses that were given to patients, how that affected times of sterilization. We're able to look at age of sterilization and also patterns related to gender.
...
Well, we found that people were sterilized at very young ages, that really often the focus was on minors, people as young as 7. The average age of sterilization was the low 20s, so many of these people were 15, 16, 17 and 18. We also found that, as I mentioned before, that the Spanish surname individuals were more likely to be sterilized at younger ages, indicating that there was interest on behalf of the state at targeting them at lower reproductive ages. In terms of gender, that pattern that I just mentioned, pertains to women as well.
One of the interesting things that we discovered is that initially, more men were sterilized. It started off as sterilization in general and across the country and in California, focused more on men in the teens and 20s and into the 30s. But by the 1930s, that pattern started to change. So by the '40s and '50s, more women were being sterilized.
On what kinds of "mental diseases" were focused on
It's very important to take that terminology with many historic grains of salt. If we go back in time and look at what the terms meant, it often meant people who were not conforming to societal norms, people who were poor, people who lacked education, perhaps didn't speak sufficient English to make it through school, and so on.
But what it meant for those who were enacting the law were people who were determined to have poor I Qs, people with certain psychiatric disorders. But generally, often the way it was used was much more as a catch-all category — so people who just didn't fit, kind of like the misfits of society, so to speak. That's the way they looked at them.
edited 17th Feb '17 9:43:34 PM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |Trump Administration puts a hold on San Francisco's rail electrification process.
Possibly derailing it for God knows how long and making it more expensive if it ever does get back on the road. So much for fixing our infastructure.
Looks like his war on California has begun.
You guys are gonna love this...
From the desk of Wasatch County, Utah's GOP Vice-Chair:
If businesses are forced to pay women the same as male earnings, that means they will have to reduce the pay for the men they employ... simple economics. If that happens, then men will have an even more difficult time earning enough to support their families, which will mean more Mothers will be forced to leave the home (where they may prefer to be) to join the workforce to make up the difference.
And as even more women thus enter the workforce that creates more competition for jobs (even men's jobs) and puts further downward pressure on the pay for all jobs... meaning more and more Mothers will be forced into the workforce. And that is bad for families and thus for all of society.
It's a vicious cycle that only gets worse the more equality of pay is forced upon us. It's a situation of well-meaning intentions, but negative unintended consequences.
We should encourage our Legislators to drop the whole notion. Let the marketplace determine what free-market forces should prevail. It is not the role of government to dictate to businesses what they should pay anyway... either as a Minimum Wage or Equal Pay for men and women.
James C. Green
Wasatch Co. GOP Vice-Chair
He's since had to apologize...
...and resign as Vice-Chair.
I know those are Fox links, but I wanted to use the local/primary source.
I submitted a letter last week which some found offensive. First of all, I want to clarify those were purely my opinions and do not reflect those of the Wasatch County Republican Party or the Republican Party in general.
Secondly, I want to clarify the main focus of my letter was to express that I don’t feel the government should be dictating to private establishments what they must do in regard to employment, hiring, or wages.
There was no offense intended toward Women, whatsoever. And yet some took it that way. To those who were offended, I profusely apologize. I sincerely did not mean to do that.
Of course, Women’s contributions in the workplace are just as valuable as any one else’s. I was merely pointing out the historical reasons for pay disparity and the challenges of overcoming that.
While I worked my fingers to the bone (with numerous extra side jobs) so my Wife could stay in the home and raise our two Sons, who are now both Physician/Surgeons (plus one also has a Law Degree), I realize not everyone is so fortunate.
Please accept my apology for any misunderstanding.
Kind regards,
Jim Green
edited 17th Feb '17 11:26:40 PM by sgamer82
Not to me he doesn't. He has always looked like an insecure, petty little man who uses boasting, bluster, bravado, and bombast to cover up his weaknesses. I still can't believe that anybody was stupid enough to buy all his bullshit.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.That's because they live effectively in a different country: culturally, economically, socially, politically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, possibly physically, hell maybe even temporally.
The Guardian has been following a county in Pennsylvania that voted for Obama twice, then flipped.
It takes a look at the mentalities that most of us are familiar with by now.
These people see Trump as the medicine that America needs, no matter how awful it seems. Of course, the concern I'm sure most of us have is what exactly these kinds of supporters consider "medicine:" That America needs to accept prejudice. No Muslims, no problem! Why not ban them? What's the worse that could happen, to you?
And about his appeal, in an exchange in the comment section, the author adds:
Quoting Lee: “When I met him, I told him what I did. ‘Hey, I’m a trade contractor, I do framing.’ And I told him who I worked for. Now this is how real he is. He said, ‘How do they pay, 30 days? What’s the retainer?’ Now what other guy running for president is interested in that? ‘I said 30 days, no retainer.’ He goes, ‘They’re a great company, keep working for ’em.’ So that was how real he was. Mitt Romney would’ve been a complete, ‘nice to meet you, glad you came today. I’m so happy to have your support’ That wasn’t Donald Trump. And that was the magic of him."
edited 18th Feb '17 12:21:30 AM by Eschaton
Never mind of course that Trump has a history of screwing over contractors...
He's a typical Con Man: he'll promise you the moon only to leave you with nothing.
edited 18th Feb '17 12:24:48 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised"Strong" is one of those terms with many and no meanings, like "freedom."
Trump insulting reporters (and disabled persons and women and blacks and a list would fill this page...) on live tv—"saying it like it is is"—and getting away with it, makes him "strong."
As does hanging up on the Australian PM, dismissing the competent remainders in his administration who don't get with the program, being brave enough to stand up to those evul libruls ruining the country, and cracking down on those immigrants threatening the purity of the volk.
Tis why making him look weak is a challenge. Just think of normal alt-right insults. To make him look "weak," he'd effectively have to be outed as a secret liberal or even just be caught behaving with common decency.
As you may know, the Trump administration recently sent out a fairly horrifying poll on "media accountability"
. It bombed because people decidedly not of the target audience spammed it, messing up the answers.
So they're doing it again. I take no responsibility if us here contribute to this one getting messed up as well.
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiotSurvey is here
. Wow, these yes/no questions are so hilariously one-sided.
edited 18th Feb '17 3:24:41 AM by Medinoc
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Ultimately, the GOP as it stands is doomed as all conservative factions are when they refuse to change with the times. Their demographics are unsustainable, their actual policies are divisive, and their leaders are unpopular or are complacent. The only questions are when? and how much more of them can we take?
edited 17th Feb '17 6:48:02 PM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."