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Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#281126: May 19th 2019 at 11:36:16 AM

Basically,some guy had an idea but it wouldn't have harmed the Republic

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#281127: May 20th 2019 at 3:55:01 AM

Sooo....spend MORE money to send people across the border (or have the patients pay the trip themselves) to save a few pennies on medical procedures. Yep. Sounds about right.

No. From the article:

“It’s cheaper for us to pay for the drug down there, send them down there and then give them $500 than it is for us to do it here,” Loftis said.

Seriously, the US medical care system is so utterly fucked that you can take an entire vacation in Mexico near a hospital and get the care you need for half the price of getting the care in the US. This is well known enough that several towns and neighborhoods in Mexico have sprung up to cater specifically to "medical tourists."

The company isn't doing anything wrong; they're working around the sheer insanity of the American medical system.

Edited by Ramidel on May 20th 2019 at 2:55:55 AM

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#281128: May 20th 2019 at 3:57:27 AM

Who are you responding to?

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#281129: May 20th 2019 at 3:59:09 AM

Steven, who was in turn responding to Charles Phipps. We're talking about the company that's driving people down to Mexico to get their prescriptions.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#281130: May 20th 2019 at 8:48:59 AM

Does anyone actually profit from said insanely designed medical system, or is it simply sheer inertia that preserves it so far?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
GoldenKaos Captain of the Dead City from Cirith Ungol Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Captain of the Dead City
#281131: May 20th 2019 at 8:53:51 AM

When the entire system is designed to be profited from, yeah - pretty much everyone involved makes profit from the American Medical System.

Edited by GoldenKaos on May 20th 2019 at 4:57:27 PM

"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
Kayeka (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#281132: May 20th 2019 at 9:20:12 AM

Except the patients, obviously.

Edited by Kayeka on May 20th 2019 at 6:20:18 PM

GoldenKaos Captain of the Dead City from Cirith Ungol Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Captain of the Dead City
#281133: May 20th 2019 at 9:38:39 AM

Obviously. The patients are the targets of fiscal extraction, and everything else involved seeks to maximise that extraction.

"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
fruitpork Since: Oct, 2010
#281134: May 20th 2019 at 9:45:30 AM

So I have a question. How long is it going to take to hold Barr in contempt? I know it’s all about doing it right but this is getting ridiculous. They’ve held a vote to hold a vote to hold a vote. Also, if warren refuses to attack other candidates, how will she be able to debate Bernie or Joe Biden on their past racism? “He marched for civil rights once!” Isn’t enough to cancel out Bernie, and that’s not even getting into Biden.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#281135: May 20th 2019 at 9:59:30 AM

I mean, she thoroughly called out Biden for backing credit card companies, not consumers. You can call out other candidates without engaging in petty sniping or mudslinging.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#281136: May 20th 2019 at 10:30:43 AM

Attack records and policies, focusing on how they contrast with your own.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on May 20th 2019 at 3:33:24 PM

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#281137: May 20th 2019 at 11:15:15 AM

So I have a question. How long is it going to take to hold Barr in contempt? I know it’s all about doing it right but this is getting ridiculous. They’ve held a vote to hold a vote to hold a vote. Also, if warren refuses to attack other candidates, how will she be able to debate Bernie or Joe Biden on their past racism? “He marched for civil rights once!” Isn’t enough to cancel out Bernie, and that’s not even getting into Biden.

Warren is unfortunately disliked more on racial issues than Biden and Bernie's long history of activism is going to make those attacks look desperate. Mind you, I suspect Warren may also want a position in the administration if she falls behind.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 20th 2019 at 11:15:37 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#281138: May 20th 2019 at 11:17:24 AM

Got a source for that? Cause, uh... Warren building unlikely connection with black female voters

Edited by wisewillow on May 20th 2019 at 11:18:06 AM

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#281139: May 20th 2019 at 11:25:52 AM

Honestly, at this point, I just roll my eyes when people mention Bernie marching with MLK.

It's good and all but it seems kind of... damning by faint praise. After all, if the thing you're most proud about happened decades ago then that just means you haven't anything comparable more recently.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#281140: May 20th 2019 at 11:26:02 AM

Anecdotal but almost all the black women on my twitter feed favor Warren over any other candidate.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#281141: May 20th 2019 at 11:27:30 AM

The fact that Biden is dominating on black votes.

Honestly, at this point, I just roll my eyes when people mention Bernie marching with MLK.

It's good and all but it seems kind of... damning by faint praise. After all, if the thing you're most proud about happened decades ago then that just means you haven't anything comparable more recently.

The fact Bernie has demonstrated he's been a part of a seminal moment of racial struggle and that he was doing it when it was dangerous to his health as well as social standing pretty much has the opposite effect. It means that he's put his money where his mouth is that few can equal.

And I don't like Bernie on racial issues.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 20th 2019 at 11:29:03 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#281142: May 20th 2019 at 11:27:54 AM

[up][up]Ditto, though that’s not definitive as you pointed out.

[up] Where is Biden dominating in “votes”? Nothing has happened yet but polling. Not even a single debate yet. At least note that Biden is doing well in polling via X and Y methods. Literally no one has voted yet.

Re: Bernie I’ve seen about half be impressed by that 60s protest and half VERY unimpressed. If 50 years from now someone cited attending an airport protest once as showing they’re great on Muslim rights, or going to an abortion rally this week meant they were great on repro rights, I’d slam the door in their face.

No credit for bare minimum, especially when thousands of people did the same thing without claiming to be special.

Edited by wisewillow on May 20th 2019 at 11:33:24 AM

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#281143: May 20th 2019 at 11:28:53 AM

So I have a question. How long is it going to take to hold Barr in contempt? I know it’s all about doing it right but this is getting ridiculous. They’ve held a vote to hold a vote to hold a vote.

It will take until such a time as the House grows a spine.

It's not procedure holding them back. Nancy Pelosi is sitting on the contempt vote, saying that she wants to wait until they have more people to vote on contempt for so that they can do 'em all at once.

It has never been specified who these "more people" are, and the House Judiciary Committee is not presently suggesting anyone else to hold in contempt at this time.

"More people" is a PR spin. The House is terrified of the Constitutional Crisis we're currently in, and would rather silently let their investigation die against the brick wall of Republican obstruction than take the incredible dramatic and complex measure of arresting the Attorney General.

As of about two weeks ago, Trump's officially beaten the Mueller Probe. The only people left to challenge him on it are more afraid of what it would take to actually challenge him than they are of shutting up, sitting down, and letting him win. Trump held a gun to the head of Washington Stability, and the House caved.

For the next two years, the resistance is dead. Trump is President For Realsies now, and all we can do is weather the consequences of his victory. Remember this when the Primaries roll around. I'm going to be paying keen attention to who refused to fight for us in next year's primary election.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#281144: May 20th 2019 at 11:29:01 AM

[up][up][up] Repeating yourself isn't citing a source.

Edited by sgamer82 on May 20th 2019 at 12:29:13 PM

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#281145: May 20th 2019 at 11:33:06 AM

[up][up]Whatever you say man

Oh really when?
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#281146: May 20th 2019 at 11:36:04 AM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/07/black-voters-helped-make-joe-biden-democratic-front-runner-will-they-keep-him-there/?utm_term=.e90847cd107e

Since he formally entered the race, polls have confirmed what many observers long assumed: Joe Biden is the front-runner for the 2020 Democratic nomination. CNN, Quinnipiac, the Hill, Harvard/Harris and Morning Consult have all registered strong post-announcement polling bumps for the former vice president, and he leads his closest rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), 39 percent to 15.5 percent in the Real Clear Politics average of national surveys.

One source of Biden’s strength is voters who look like him — older, whiter voters who don’t identify themselves with the far-left wing of the party. But despite the perception that Biden is the candidate who can bring white working-class voters back to the Democratic Party, and the presence of prominent black candidates in the race, he is, at least so far, overwhelmingly the choice of nonwhite voters. Those numbers might seem surprising, but they’re also a reminder not to make easy assumptions about why black voters are such staunch Democrats.

In these recent polls, Quinnipiac said Biden had 42 percent support among nonwhite Democrats. CNN put his nonwhite support at 50 percent. Biden’s closest competitor among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters of all races, Sanders, won 14 percent of the nonwhite vote in the CNN poll and 7 percent in Quinnipiac. Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) each earned less than 10 percent of the nonwhite vote in these polls. The Harris X and Harvard-Harris both have Biden leading Sanders by over 30 points with African American voters.

Public polls don’t always have a large sample size, so it can be tough to get pinpoint accuracy on the opinions of racial groups. But these numbers suggest Biden has significant backing from some African American voters. And despite Biden’s less-than-progressive record on issues such as busing and crime, the support he is getting from these voters shouldn’t be surprising.

Polling data and past election results suggest that black voters are almost uniformly Democratic — but not uniformly liberal. And black voters have at times happily supported establishment candidates. That makes Biden, an establishment liberal who served as vice president under America’s first black president, but whose policy stances are not notably progressive, a decent match for what these voters are looking for in a candidate.

It’s hard to overstate exactly how crucial Democratic black voters are. According to the Pew Research Center, Hillary Clinton won black voters by 91 percent to 6 percent over Donald Trump in the 2016 election. That’s far greater than the 66 percent of Hispanic voters Clinton won; the 65 percent of religiously unaffiliated voters who went for her; and the 58 percent of voters 18 to 29 who supported her. It’s a much more intense level of support than Trump’s much-vaunted success with non-college-educated white voters, 64 percent of whom voted for him; or even his margin among white evangelical Christians, 77 percent of whom voted for him. That already astronomical margin is even steeper among black women: Clinton earned 98 percent of their votes.

Not all African Americans explicitly identify as Democrats, but overwhelming majorities of black voters regularly cast their ballot for Democratic candidates.

But that doesn’t mean that African American voters are ideologically monolithic: Polls show that black voters disagree on policy internally, and many aren’t progressive on every issue. Fewer than 30 percent of non-Hispanic black Democrats and Democratic leaners described themselves as liberal in 2017, while the majority of non-Hispanic white Democrats did.

Less than 50 percent of black respondents told the General Social Survey that a woman should be able to get an abortion for any reason. Nearly 2 in 10 African Americans strongly disagree that “homosexuals should have the right to marry.” In 2018, 22 percent of black adults said that “if America is too open to people from elsewhere in the world, we risk losing our identity as a nation.” Just a little over half of African American voters believe that “having an increasing number of people of many different races, ethnic groups, and nationalities in the U.S. makes this country a better place to live.” (Only 11.4 percent say it makes the United States a worse place to live, and the rest say it makes no difference).

There are issues black voters care about that could make Biden a mismatch for them — 77 percent of African Americans believe “discrimination against blacks by police and the criminal justice system” is a problem, and Biden had a hand in crafting that system through the 1994 crime bill. But African Americans aren’t necessarily unified on other issues that have been hailed as the marker of a racially progressive candidate. Fifty-eight percent said the government should make cash payments to the descendants of former slaves, but 17 percent disagreed and 26 percent were unsure.

This is mostly good news for Biden. The prevailing perception on Twitter and other bastions of hyperpolarized political analysis is that Biden is out of step with contemporary Democratic politics and that his performance in the Clarence Thomas hearings and his role in the 1990s crime bill would make him radioactive to black voters. But black voters and Biden may be more aligned than Tweet Deck analysts want to believe.

And Biden has an advantage with black voters that no 2020 candidate can match: He was Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years. According to Gallup, Obama maintained an 80 percent to 90 percent approval rating among black voters for almost the entirety of his presidency. Clinton’s close association with Obama — she served as his secretary of state — likely helped her with black voters in 2016. Her popularity with black voters dropped as she fought him for the 2008 nomination but soared when she was in his Cabinet. Biden could leverage his association with Obama in a similar way in 2020, while other candidates, among them South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, have to start building a relationship with the national black electorate from the ground up.

This support isn’t necessarily durable. Biden is, after all, the guy who said Obama was “the first mainstream African American who is articulate, bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” while he was running for president in 2007. He’s fully capable of saying stupid things and losing by a wide margin, just as he did in the 1988 and 2008 Democratic primaries. Moreover, with Obama pointedly refusing to endorse in the primaries, Biden is competing with other candidates, including Harris, Booker, Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke, who can channel Obama’s style and further his barrier-breaking in ways Biden himself cannot.

But for now, Biden is in the lead. And black voters may keep him there.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#281147: May 20th 2019 at 11:37:06 AM

... you know, it’s really helpful to summarize key points that support your assertion rather than post such a massive quote block.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#281148: May 20th 2019 at 11:37:14 AM

Mind you, Warren is my No. 1 candidate of choice.

I just have continually held the depressing belief Biden isn't going to just win but is going to dominate the other more progressive candidates like Warren and Sanders.

... you know, it’s really helpful to summarize key points that support your assertion rather than post such a massive quote block.

It's, "Biden is going to win on minorities and probably the whole shebang."

Edited by CharlesPhipps on May 20th 2019 at 11:38:05 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#281149: May 20th 2019 at 11:48:37 AM

It's, "Biden is going to win on minorities and probably the whole shebang."

What? No, it's "Biden is not necessarily doomed".

That is not the same thing as saying that he's definitely going to win their vote.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#281150: May 20th 2019 at 11:48:40 AM

[up][up]That is not summarizing key points to support an assertion. That’s just restating your conclusion again.

Edited by wisewillow on May 20th 2019 at 11:48:53 AM


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