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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#271326: Feb 14th 2019 at 6:19:21 AM

[up]She uses the staplers to shoot the staples at her employees, and when the ammo runs out she throws the staplers as well.

But seriously, has any of that been confirmed, or is it just rumors at this point?

Edit: My page toppers are always so enlightning!

Edited by HailMuffins on Feb 14th 2019 at 11:20:20 AM

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#271327: Feb 14th 2019 at 6:23:54 AM

Me, I am wondering if the allegation made here that this scandal is mostly rooted in sexist double standards about how employers are "supposed" to behave has any legs. Especially since from what I've seen so far it sounds just like dickery and not actual abuse or mistreatment.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#271328: Feb 14th 2019 at 6:25:40 AM

Pod Save America talked about how Congressional staffers, including the hosts, frequently move from one boss to boss and everyone quickly learns which politicians to avoid for being hard to work under. Klobuchar was high on that list and it was confirmed a while ago that she has a really high turnover rate. Multiple former staffers have said she can throw things or write very nitpicky emails blaming them for something or another.

Edited by Parable on Feb 14th 2019 at 6:26:31 AM

golgothasArisen Since: Jan, 2015
#271329: Feb 14th 2019 at 6:30:37 AM

Yeah, and meanwhile Booker is directly in the pocket of Wall Street and most definitely wouldn't be strong against climate change.

In other news, there's a group of people legitimately coming out against Omar for going after Abrams, saying it's because he's Jewish. And just fuck off with that talk. Everyone calling Omar an anti-Semite for not being pro-Israel is seriously just moving the conversation from actual Islamophobia and anti-Semitism on the right to party infighting.

"If you spend all your heart / On something that has died / You are not alive and that can't be a life"
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#271330: Feb 14th 2019 at 6:32:43 AM

[up]x5 Actually it's staplers. Not just staples. My bad.

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#271331: Feb 14th 2019 at 6:37:07 AM

I really want to know when the definition of Anti-Semitism went from "being an asshole bigot against Jews" to "criticizing Israel in any way, shape or form".

golgothasArisen Since: Jan, 2015
#271332: Feb 14th 2019 at 6:38:57 AM

It's especially ironic seeing as some Jewish people on Twitter (such as podcaster Adam Friedland) are being called anti-Semitic for defending Omar and/or being anti-Zionism.

"If you spend all your heart / On something that has died / You are not alive and that can't be a life"
HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#271333: Feb 14th 2019 at 6:50:38 AM

I've read an article on that once, where the author pointed out that the American-Jewish community has, thanks to its overzealous efforts to shut down any criticism of Israel, helped put an actual anti-Semite on the White House.

After all, the political ideology of those who wholeheartedly support Israel (the right, particularly the Bible Belt IIRC) are also the ones more likely to be preudiced themselves, or so it argued.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#271334: Feb 14th 2019 at 6:53:39 AM

I do wonder how much political support for Israel among the U.S. right wing is based less on liking Jews and more on hating Muslims.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 14th 2019 at 9:53:52 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
golgothasArisen Since: Jan, 2015
#271335: Feb 14th 2019 at 6:57:30 AM

I saw a great comment on the Chapo sub about how support for Israel is based in imperialism, Islamophobia, and Evangelicals thinking the Rapture will happen if Palestine is kept out of Jerusalem.

"If you spend all your heart / On something that has died / You are not alive and that can't be a life"
HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#271336: Feb 14th 2019 at 6:58:52 AM

Well, in this Vox article, the data shows that Usonians always supported Israel over Palestine, but the number of people neutral over the issue dropped rather sharply post-9/11, while those in favor of Israel have risen once again.

Support over Palestine seems much the same as it has ever been.

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#271337: Feb 14th 2019 at 7:06:29 AM

[up] That Israel is the only functional (somewhat) democracy in its region probably contributes to that. That’s the main talking point you’ll hear when it comes to supporting it.

They should have sent a poet.
smokeycut Since: Mar, 2013
#271338: Feb 14th 2019 at 7:17:50 AM

I think it’s important to remember that zionism isn’t inherently bad. Yeah, Israel has shitty leaders, so do a lot of countries. They should be held accountable for the bad things they do. But all zionism means is that you believe in the idea of a Jewish homeland, and want one to exist.

Plus, there’s a hell of a gap between “this country is doing bad shit” and “we need to get rid of this country and cause an exodus of the people living there.”

But that always gets ignored in conversations about Israel.

EDIT: In regards to the primaries, I’ve got my eye on Harris, Gillibrand, and Warren. Booker is too pro wallstreet for my tastes.

Edited by smokeycut on Feb 14th 2019 at 10:18:56 AM

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#271339: Feb 14th 2019 at 7:18:02 AM

My comment:

The resolution addresses this specifically. Basically, the view is that social and economic injustice is not an unrelated problem that exists independently with climate change, but rather climate change makes the problems of social and economic injustice worse because the people most affected (and harmed) by climate change are already those on the losing side of the system.

Kamiccolo's response:

It's the opposite. The reason CO 2 emissions are rising so rapidly is that a lot of poor people are winning; mainly those in China and India.
This is a non sequitur. I wasn't talking about the cause of climate change, I was talking about the effects. Climate change will hurt poor people worse than rich people. Therefore the Green New Deal, which is concerned with mitigating the effects of climate change, focuses on helping people out of poverty in general, as this will also help them avoid the worst effects of climate change.

My comment:

The point of fighting climate change is not for its own sake, but to make people's lives better. If you stop climate change by setting those people on fire, then you have accomplished nothing.

Kamiccolo's response:

But this is exactly why her policies are so dangerous. They would set fire to the economy and drive us towards rampant inflation and falling living standards since you're still diverting a ridiculously large percentage of economic production to non-consumer goods with no sustainable way to pay for it
This is an unsubstantiated claim based on things mentioned in a draft copy that didn't make it into the final resolution. The resolution is not a road map, it's an announcement of where we want to go. Basically what it says is "we want to mitigate climate change, but in a way that will improve quality of life for everyone". Can you mitigate the effects of climate change "more efficiently" by laser focusing on environmental issues alone and ignoring the costs that this would impose on people, especially the poor? Sure, that would definitely lower the total number of dollars such a program would cost. But I'd also argue that it's a worse program because it hurts more people.

The ultimate question is, is it worth the additional money to help people rather than just help "the environment" in the abstract? I'd say yes. You may disagree. But to complain that the GND tries to help people, not just the environment, is missing the point if the GND, which was explicitly and expressly intended to do both from the start.

I feel like I should emphasize the MMT point again. She has repeatedly come out in favor of that theory, which finds support in no respected economist working today (hence, why it's heterodox). It's the modern descendant of chartalism.[
I'll admit that I'm not particularly familiar with MMT, as basically everything I've heard about it comes from its critics, and without seeing the original arguments in favor of MMT it's difficult to judge whether the criticism is valid. But at core, MMT seems to be basically Keynesian economics — that is, the idea that (among other things) deficit spending is a useful policy tool that can and should be utilized at appropriate times (especially if it's used to fund things that invest in the economy, like infrastructure projects, rather than just being used as a way to cut taxes or the like).

We have a whole economics thread for this kind of discussion, as it gets off into the weeds rather quickly. But tldr, the idea that a government with a sovereign currency and all its debts issued in that currency can just print money to cover its debts rather than default isn't a whackjob radical left ideology — it's just straight literal fact. The concern when printing money is inflation — but pretty much only happens when an economy is supply-capped (that is, unable to ramp up production to meet consumer demand, which causes prices to rise as the supply-demand equation changes). And that pretty much only happens in the face of economic infrastructure being physically destroyed (such as after a war or natural disaster) or financial system collapse (such as a banking crash). Neither is relevant to the GND.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#271340: Feb 14th 2019 at 7:46:30 AM

Oh, Israel as it currently is isn't so bad. For a state that is increasingly using the Apartheid playbook on how to subjugate and dismiss the dreaded Other (be they Arabs, Palestinians or any other political opponants) to keep its highly biased 'democracy' floating... tongue

You can tell because it doesn't shut political discourse down by claiming the oppressed victim card every time.

There're a lot of reasons the GOP tends to get along with Likud. Corruption being a big one, too.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Feb 14th 2019 at 3:48:52 PM

HailMuffins Since: May, 2016 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#271341: Feb 14th 2019 at 7:49:32 AM

And it's not like the country has illegally occupied foreign territory for 3+ decades, now.

Just to be clear, I don't want Israel to dissapear, I just want it to stop fucking up, s'all.

Friendperson Since: May, 2018
#271342: Feb 14th 2019 at 7:55:43 AM

Regarding the primary candidates, I think Harris is the clear front-runner and will probably walk all over Trump and the GOP given how the midterms went.

smokeycut Since: Mar, 2013
#271343: Feb 14th 2019 at 8:03:24 AM

It definitely needs new leadership, there’s no question about that. I just dislike when people try to argue that the country should be eliminated. Especially since far worse countries have been allowed to better themselves.

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#271344: Feb 14th 2019 at 8:05:16 AM

"I do wonder how much political support for Israel among the U.S. right wing is based less on liking Jews and more on hating Muslims."

A few years ago, there was an effort to get Jews to move down to Georgia and 11 families moved down there. Last I had checked, only three were left. The casual prejudice and willful ignorance drove the rest to leave.

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#271345: Feb 14th 2019 at 8:09:03 AM

Re: Primary candidates

My answer is the same as last time in that I have no particular preference one way or the other. I have no special issues that are big hot buttons for me to make one or another more attractive. The single most important trait for me is general competence, which the majority of candidates seem to possess. The only one I'd hesitate on is Klobuchar if there's anything to her Bad Boss tendencies. Trump is already amply demonstrating the damage a Bad Boss in the White House can cause with what I can't imagine isn't an unusually high turnover rate in his own cabinet.

[down] You're right. I corrected that.

Edited by sgamer82 on Feb 14th 2019 at 9:18:02 AM

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#271346: Feb 14th 2019 at 8:10:17 AM

You’re thinking of Klobuchar, not Gillibrand, and where there’s this much smoke, there’s fire.

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#271347: Feb 14th 2019 at 8:20:09 AM

McCabe says he ordered the obstruction of justice probe of President Trump – The former FBI acting director tells 60 Minutes about the measures taken to ensure investigations into President Trump wouldn’t "vanish."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andrew-mccabe-says-he-ordered-the-obstruction-of-justice-case-of-president-trump-60-minutes/

Edit: An op-ed in each McCabe describes his initial days in office in his own words.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/andrew-mccabe-fbi-book-excerpt-the-threat/582748/

Edited by sgamer82 on Feb 14th 2019 at 10:35:23 AM

danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#271348: Feb 14th 2019 at 9:15:38 AM

A few pages back it was mentioned that some of the points in the GND seem somewhat protectionist. I was actually under the impression that it was to prevent companies from trying to bypass the US GND regulations by building pollution-heavy factories in other countries without those regulations. Like, yeah it comes off as protectionist, but its actual purpose is to try to prevent companies from trying to bypass one of the main purposes of the GND, which is to make companies cut down on pollution. Keep your enemies close, in a sense.

Larkmarn Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#271349: Feb 14th 2019 at 9:25:03 AM

Right, it's protectionist because if companies move their factories off-shore, then they won't be held to the same standards.

It's less about protecting American business (TM) as "we can't regulate Chinese factories."

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
DeathorCake Since: Mar, 2016
#271350: Feb 14th 2019 at 9:28:34 AM

[up]x11

I'm pretty much an MM Ter, plus or minus a few bits. As far as I can tell you've got things about right.

The USA "prints money" already, the deficit adds net financial assets to the private sector. The only major difference between the dreaded money printing and the current system of bond issuance is that you pay interest on the bonds, which is either a much-needed subsidy that provides safe assets to the financial sector or just a free lunch for banks and rich people depending on who you ask. Personally I lean more towards the latter. The fearmongering about inflation is just not borne out by the evidence (long, boring report with lots of stats, in essence "you can get high inflation with money creation, money creation with no inflation or inflation with no money creation, there doesn't appear to be much of a correlation"). If monetising government debt was so dreadful then dumping £400+ billion into the UK money supply probably would have done more than boost the Footsie a bit.

No MMT proponent is saying "we can print money and have infinite stuff", but the key point is that nothing is stopping the UK, the USA or any other currency-controlling nation from mobilising available resources as far as possible. If you want to spend past that point you need to lower demand so that resources stop being used by the private sector and you can buy them for use in government projects, so raise taxes, make credit harder to get or some other such method. The Green New Deal is big enough that it will almost certainly need some inflation offsets, but there's no reason they have to be 1:1 or that the particular numerical change in the deficit is of particular importance beyond the effect on the real economy. To quote Keynes, whatever we can do we can afford.

Edited by DeathorCake on Feb 14th 2019 at 5:29:10 PM


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