The genocide in China against Uyghurs includes forcibly sterilizing women and sending anyone who objects to the concentration camps. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/10/world/asia/china-xinjiang-women-births.html
The government sends Chinese Communist Party officials literally into the homes of the local Uyghurs to live with them and interrogate them, imprisoning any woman who complains about being forced to get an IUD or sterilized.
Content warning for sexual assault: The CCP officials have been taking the opportunity to rape women, both in their homes and in the concentration camps. One woman reported that the rape included being penetrated with electric batons, on three separate occasions, by masked men in the camps.
The Party has been lying about the situation during press briefings and reporters are not allowed to investigate in person.
Last I heard earlier last week, the Arizona "audit" is going exactly how you'd expect. One of the supervisors admitted on camera they are looking for traces of bamboo among the ballots because they believe tens of thousands of illegal ballots were "shipped in from China" (wrap your head around the stupidity of how that would even happen, then move on to how racist it is). They WERE planning on knocking on the doors of voters to ask them how they voted to do some sort of cross-reference, but that has been nixed (terrifying it was even being contemplated). And they were, apparently, roughly 2% (yes, you read that right) done with their hand count before they had to surrender the facility to a high school graduation. Which means at their current pace they should be done by some time in 2023.
Anyone with any sense knows this is a farce, but a farce can still play it's role. And it's role plays into what this article is warning about in advance. What happens when Democrats win elections in States where these type of Republicans control the legislature and governorship and they refuse to certify the results??:
What's even more incomprehensible to me is how much of this nothingberder is being funded by donations from people who probably should be finding something else to do with their paychecks. Last I read, Trump supporters aren't exactly the upper crust of income earners...
There was what should have been a major scandal that came out weeks ago, but seems rather ho-hum next to January 6, 2021. The Trump campaign was automatically checking a box for donors who gave money online to automatically re-up the amount every month, and then, eventually, every week (which makes it easier to hide if someone only checks their statement monthly). This resulted in 10s of millions of dollars having to be refunded. But it essentially was an interest-free loan. What's more is that the company processing the transactions was charging a fee for each one, which weren't refunded. The processing company, Win Red (a for-profit version of the Dems NON-profit Act Blue) was, also, founded by the campaign.
The entire 5-year saga was, above all else, a massive grift. And one of the reasons aside from his rhetoric about the election Trump shouldn't be allowed back on Facebook is so they can't continue to run these transparent scams on people who either don't know any better, or don't want to know.
Edit: I just went and looked at the fee prices. They are positively absurd bordering on predatory. Nearly 5% combined for debit card transactions. But the kicker is if you want to dispute one, there is a $15.00 fee. Which is simply preying on the fact that many people might not know their bank is obligated to investigate disputes for free.
The Biden administration has explicitly decided that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is illegal for healthcare providers who receive government funds, reversing the Trump administration's policy on the issue.
The Biden administration has explicitly decided that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is illegal for healthcare providers who receive government funds, reversing the Trump administration's policy on the issue.
I've been seeing alot of anecdotal stories saying parents of trans youth are seriously having to consider outright leaving the state of Texas because of the laws that are about to be passed there in regard to medical treatments for minors. Is this what you're hearing on the ground (so to speak, I know you live there)??
This is news to me... I haven't been in frequent contact with my community lately and that's probably why I haven't heard of this.
I am not the least bit surprised that folks are considering leaving Texas to escape persecution. Trans healthcare just flat-out isn't optional; you can't keep treatment away from a trans child any more than you can keep it from a child with depression or bipolar disorder.
The bills want to ban even puberty blockers, the zero-risk option for trans kids, before age 18, when puberty has already done the bulk of the damage to one's body. Against all expert advice, against all medical research, and against the will of trans folks, their doctors, and even their families, the Texas government wants to prevent Texas kids from getting treatment, solely for the crime of being transgender.
It is no secret that suicidal ideation is common among the trans population, and anyone who has attempted to do honest research will know the ONLY treatment that reduces suicidal ideation for trans people is transitioning and getting acceptance.
Kids will die if these sorts of restrictions pass. That's not even an opinion; that's simply how this works. You may as well be outlawing therapy or medication for kids suffering from depression. Our government is actively trying to kill our children.
Honestly, if treatment was outlawed in Texas, I would encourage any family with a transgender child to either leave Texas if they could afford it or send their child to live with a relative somewhere out of state, if it meant saving their child's life and sparing them the pain of going untreated. I love my hometown and my home state, but I would leave in a heartbeat if that was the only way to protect my child from the government.
I don't accept ignorance as an excuse for elected officials. The only thing that really matters is what our politicians actually do with the power they give them, and this is just trying to kill children.
And just to add hypocrisy to the movement against trans rights, they want to imprison parents who try to get their kids treatment. The GOP has spent years pretending that opposing trans rights is just a "difference of opinion" to be worked out in the free market of ideas, but when it comes to using government power, they have no qualms about trying to lock up their political opponents and crush ideas they don't like through force.
Trying to take healthcare away from children is cruel. Trying to seize power away from doctors and give it to politicians is authoritarian. Trying to literally imprison people who disagree with you is fascism.
I'm expected to use the caveat that not every transphobe is a fascist, but the politicians trying to pass these laws are fascists.
This is news to me... I haven't been in frequent contact with my community lately and that's probably why I haven't heard of this.
I am not the least bit surprised that folks are considering leaving Texas to escape persecution. Trans healthcare just flat-out isn't optional; you can't keep treatment away from a trans child any more than you can keep it from a child with depression or bipolar disorder.
The bills want to ban even puberty blockers, the zero-risk option for trans kids, before age 18, when puberty has already done the bulk of the damage to one's body. Against all expert advice, against all medical research, and against the will of trans folks, their doctors, and even their families, the Texas government wants to prevent Texas kids from getting treatment, solely for the crime of being transgender.
It is no secret that suicidal ideation is common among the trans population, and anyone who has attempted to do honest research will know the ONLY treatment that reduces suicidal ideation for trans people is transitioning and getting acceptance.
Kids will die if these sorts of restrictions pass. That's not even an opinion; that's simply how this works. You may as well be outlawing therapy or medication for kids suffering from depression. Our government is actively trying to kill our children.
Honestly, if treatment was outlawed in Texas, I would encourage any family with a transgender child to either leave Texas if they could afford it or send their child to live with a relative somewhere out of state, if it meant saving their child's life and sparing them the pain of going untreated. I love my hometown and my home state, but I would leave in a heartbeat if that was the only way to protect my child from the government.
I don't accept ignorance as an excuse for elected officials. The only thing that really matters is what our politicians actually do with the power they give them, and this is just trying to kill children.
And just to add hypocrisy to the movement against trans rights, they want to imprison parents who try to get their kids treatment. The GOP has spent years pretending that opposing trans rights is just a "difference of opinion" to be worked out in the free market of ideas, but when it comes to using government power, they have no qualms about trying to lock up their political opponents and crush ideas they don't like through force.
Trying to take healthcare away from children is cruel. Trying to seize power away from doctors and give it to politicians is authoritarian. Trying to literally imprison people who disagree with you is fascism.
I'm expected to use the caveat that not every transphobe is a fascist, but the politicians trying to pass these laws are fascists.
I frankly also have a very, very, VERY hard time believing any person pushing this actually cares about trans children, even if they were acting from a position of ignorance. I'm not trying to put you on the spot, I just think it's important to get a perspective from someone who has actually lived through it rather than people who just opine about it from afar. It's not even that I have a hard time believing it, I'm just flat-out am CONVINCED no one pushing this gives a goddamn about any trans child's well-being. Putting these bills up for consideration is being done to pander to people who are uncomfortable sharing space in America with transgender citizens, and I just believe nearly all arguments that this is actually for the safety and welfare of the children are just 100% bad faith. It's not some sort of magical coincidence that all these bills are popping up at a time when anti-gay legislation has become anathema to the general population. It seems this country cannot cope for any period of time without labeling some group as (for lack of a better term) "sexual deviants" who must be stripped of rights everyone else is afforded by default.
@jjstraka34: These laws are not being written as good faith attempts to protect trans kids, no. Sheer incompetence is not enough to explain laws written to be this vicious; it's an active attempt to force trans people to conform to cis rules and lock up parents who don't share these politicians' views.
One of the things I've learned over the past couple years is that hate is stronger than love. It's not misguided love that makes people abuse trans kids; it's hatred. My friend E's dad didn't put her in the emergency room because he wanted to protect her from crossdressing; he did it to punish her. My mom didn't scream me out of the house because she wanted to protect me from volunteering at the Pride Center; she did it to punish me. People don't throw slurs at my friends because they want to protect my community; they do it to punish them. My friend D didn't mock my appearance because he wanted to protect me; he did it to hurt me.
It's not a false ideology that motivated politicians to write these laws. It's not misquoted studies or outdated research that made them do it. It's not manipulated statistics that urged them to action. It's not ignorance and it's not an accident. It's hatred.
Bigots always like to pretend they're acting on some nobler impulse. Racist mobs lynched black men in the twentieth century because they wanted to; not because they were honestly worried about women being raped. China is sterilizing Uyghur women because the Party wants to exterminate them; not because they were trying to liberate women from traditional gender roles. Whether it's the U.S. or China, whether it's ancient or recent, people will make up phony threats to justify cracking down on the people they hate.
It really gets to you, when you're the target. I have the incredible privilege to live in a safe environment with people who accept me, but this is a reminder that the world at large is not so safe for folks like me.
It's not just verbal abuse from your family. It's not just the threat of violence from strangers. It's the threat of government power being used to target you, specifically you. And not just to tweak your taxes or regulate dangerous behavior, but to dictate your everyday personal life at home, to control what you do with your body or how you care for your children.
You're outnumbered 99 to 1, and the 99 other people in the room are trying to decide what to do with you.
You seriously can't make this shit up. I was actually thinking about writing a novel with a conspiracy theory as its' basis, but I don't think anybody would bother reading it while the real world conspiracy theories are even weirder than anything I could come up with...
You seriously can't make this shit up. I was actually thinking about writing a novel with a conspiracy theory as its' basis, but I don't think anybody would bother reading it while the real world conspiracy theories are even weirder than anything I could come up with...
I pictured this as someone trolling them with this idea on a random forum and it picking up steam from there. All the while the culprit's snickering at how the scenario played out magnificently to hit media sites and that looks to be true, since the one quote they use about masks is from a 4chan site.
But it's actually much worse when you have a person being quoted in the article saying: "have a badge on their arms that say ‘I've been vaccinated even though it's not a vaccine’ so that we know to avoid them on the street, to not go near them anywhere in society." Ya, that doesn't bring up images of Nazi Germany at all. And this guy is a pediatrician? Oh well. If a person like that wants to social distance from me, I am not going to stop them.
You seriously can't make this shit up. I was actually thinking about writing a novel with a conspiracy theory as its' basis, but I don't think anybody would bother reading it while the real world conspiracy theories are even weirder than anything I could come up with...
If we can't talk about conspiracies anymore in this thread we'll have to quit talking about the Republican Party. I have NO (as in absolutely zero) love for Liz Cheney, but her ouster from leadership has nothing to do with her policies (she is a hard-right idealogue). She was, for lack of a better word, "cancelled" because she won't lie about the election. The only prerequisite left to get ahead in the GOP is to cynically pump as much bullshit into the American bloodstream as humanly possible. That's all that's left. I didn't like or very much respect the ideas of Reagansim, but they were IDEAS. The only position they have left is will to power.
You seriously can't make this shit up. I was actually thinking about writing a novel with a conspiracy theory as its' basis, but I don't think anybody would bother reading it while the real world conspiracy theories are even weirder than anything I could come up with...
If we can't talk about conspiracies anymore in this thread we'll have to quit talking about the Republican Party. I have NO (as in absolutely zero) love for Liz Cheney, but her ouster from leadership has nothing to do with her policies (she is a hard-right idealogue). She was, for lack of a better word, "cancelled" because she won't lie about the election. The only prerequisite left to get ahead in the GOP is to cynically pump as much bullshit into the American bloodstream as humanly possible. That's all that's left. I didn't like or very much respect the ideas of Reagansim, but they were IDEAS. The only position they have left is will to power.
They’re cowardly too. They did it by voice vote so there would be no record for how everyone voted, so regardless of how this spins in the next couple of months, individuals can claim they did or didn’t vote to oust her.
And the irony of wanting transparency in elections and this whole fiasco isn’t lost on me. It’s probably lost on everyone who wanted her gone but eh.
Here’s hoping this is a small step to a third party.
You seriously can't make this shit up. I was actually thinking about writing a novel with a conspiracy theory as its' basis, but I don't think anybody would bother reading it while the real world conspiracy theories are even weirder than anything I could come up with...
And this guy is a pediatrician?
I don't think I'd bring my little girl to this quack...
"She has the sniffles? Here let me write you up a scrip for hydroxychloroquin and hey, while I'm at it, how about some colloidal silver and a tinfoil hat to go with it!"
You seriously can't make this shit up. I was actually thinking about writing a novel with a conspiracy theory as its' basis, but I don't think anybody would bother reading it while the real world conspiracy theories are even weirder than anything I could come up with...
And this guy is a pediatrician?
I don't think I'd bring my little girl to this quack...
"She has the sniffles? Here let me write you up a scrip for hydroxychloroquin and hey, while I'm at it, how about some colloidal silver and a tinfoil hat to go with it!"
I have to preface this by saying it will make people uncomfortable. It can be said that it is not political, I disagree. We see political as being government and what they do, I would argue that what they don’t do is just as damning and damaging as what they do.
My friend just found out today that her 14 year old son had been molested by her brother for over eight years. It is a nonexistent crime unless the predator happened to be a priest or scoutmaster. No one sees it, no one perceives it. It is so icky that it makes everyone’s skin crawl so they look at it as someone else’s domain, not something they can do to help. You can, you can make a difference.
Before I say what you can do, and how to spot it, I will tell you why you should do something.
The effects of being molested are lasting, lifelong in most cases. Self esteem, belief in security or safety, even their relationships can be forever effected. It is a form of walking death. Like somehow you believe that is your fault, you don’t belong with normal people. Molesters are murderers in a way, their victims deal with it every day for the rest of their lives and live in terror that someone will find out their secret. Their secret? They were the victims, it never feels that way to them though. I won’t go into what the act is like.
Statistically speaking all of you have known someone who has been molested or been molested yourselves. It is a statical fact that you all know someone who has molested a child.
What to look for?
Avoiding getting undressed in front of anyone.
Bed wetting or other such behavior they had grown out of.
Knowledge of sexual topics they should not know or talking about sexual topics they should know nothing about.
Spending an unusual amount of time alone.
Very passive demeanor, compliant.
Avoiding certain people.
Being alone more than normal.
Increase in headaches and stomach aches.
Losing interest in things they cared about.
Bad dreams.
Fear of being alone.
Sudden increase of aggression.
Change in their eating habits.
Hurting themselves.
What you can do?
Listen to them. Don’t grill them, give them time and listen.
They are going to have feelings, shame, being embarrassed, fear are all normal, be careful of how they feel. It is not about you, it is about them.
Make sure they know they are safe.
Make sure they know it is not their fault.
Find professional help. It hasn’t always been available but it is now. This is not something a parent or loved one can fix.
Politically speaking domestic violence, abuse is on their radar as much a suburban housewife that sprained her wrist taking her child’s soccer equipment out of the back of her suv.
Everyone feels like they can take a stand. Take a stand here. Please.
It's good to see that the US has published the EPA report suppressed by Trump since 2017 on the impacts of climate change. The report also acknowledges for the first time in a publication by the US federal government that humans have a role in causing climate change. While that's a bit of a "no shit, Sherlock" moment it's still symbolically important - particularly given Biden's desire to encourage other countries to tackle climate change.
Is it going to happen?? 98% chance of that answer being "no". Does it change the fact that nearly 700,000 citizens of this country have no voting representation in the House or Senate?? That answer is also "no". Shit, at this point, we should settle for everyone agreeing that we should still have elections at all, because new polling suggests almost HALF of GOP voters aren't really interested in doing so anymore.
That people are so comfortable just ADMITTING they think their vote is fine, but the votes of everyone else are problematic and don't really deserve to be counted is.......ominous, at best. This is THE platform of the Republican Party now. Issue #1, #2, and #3 on their list is making sure vote totals don't actually matter. Even though the board is ALREADY stacked SIGNIFCANTLY in their favor.
Is it going to happen?? 98% chance of that answer being "no". Does it change the fact that nearly 700,000 citizens of this country have no voting representation in the House or Senate?? That answer is also "no". Shit, at this point, we should settle for everyone agreeing that we should still have elections at all, because new polling suggests almost HALF of GOP voters aren't really interested in doing so anymore.
That people are so comfortable just ADMITTING they think their vote is fine, but the votes of everyone else are problematic and don't really deserve to be counted is.......ominous, at best. This is THE platform of the Republican Party now. Issue #1, #2, and #3 on their list is making sure vote totals don't actually matter. Even though the board is ALREADY stacked SIGNIFCANTLY in their favor.
Granted, that is a vague statement.
It doesn’t say restrict voting. Perhaps there are those who answered the polls who believe that the laws should be less restrictive.
Is it going to happen?? 98% chance of that answer being "no". Does it change the fact that nearly 700,000 citizens of this country have no voting representation in the House or Senate?? That answer is also "no". Shit, at this point, we should settle for everyone agreeing that we should still have elections at all, because new polling suggests almost HALF of GOP voters aren't really interested in doing so anymore.
That people are so comfortable just ADMITTING they think their vote is fine, but the votes of everyone else are problematic and don't really deserve to be counted is.......ominous, at best. This is THE platform of the Republican Party now. Issue #1, #2, and #3 on their list is making sure vote totals don't actually matter. Even though the board is ALREADY stacked SIGNIFCANTLY in their favor.
Granted, that is a vague statement.
It doesn’t say restrict voting. Perhaps there are those who answered the polls who believe that the laws should be less restrictive.
Not likely, but there is talk on the conservative side of issuing picture voter ID cards now. I'm not necessarily for that (another card I'd have to keep in my wallet), but at least it's an idea. Not sure how they'd do absentee or mail-in ballots though.
Is it going to happen?? 98% chance of that answer being "no". Does it change the fact that nearly 700,000 citizens of this country have no voting representation in the House or Senate?? That answer is also "no". Shit, at this point, we should settle for everyone agreeing that we should still have elections at all, because new polling suggests almost HALF of GOP voters aren't really interested in doing so anymore.
That people are so comfortable just ADMITTING they think their vote is fine, but the votes of everyone else are problematic and don't really deserve to be counted is.......ominous, at best. This is THE platform of the Republican Party now. Issue #1, #2, and #3 on their list is making sure vote totals don't actually matter. Even though the board is ALREADY stacked SIGNIFCANTLY in their favor.
Granted, that is a vague statement.
It doesn’t say restrict voting. Perhaps there are those who answered the polls who believe that the laws should be less restrictive.
Not likely, but there is talk on the conservative side of issuing picture voter ID cards now. I'm not necessarily for that (another card I'd have to keep in my wallet), but at least it's an idea. Not sure how they'd do absentee or mail-in ballots though.
The ideas at the core of what we'd refer to as American conservatism have certainly shifted over the last 40 years, but if I were to sum up the eras, this is where I would come down.
Reagan- Government is the problem
George W. Bush- National security and family values
Trump- What pisses liberals off??
Post-Trump loss- Liberals don't deserve to have any say in anything, even if they decisively win elections.
There aren't many more steps to take before they just decide the abandon the entire thing. Even you are quite aware of what the vast majority of these people are actually suggesting, and it isn't greater access to the ballot box.
Republican voters care about the "integrity of the ballot" the way Gamergate cared about "ethics in games journalism". It's a disingenuous veneer meant to provide some level of plausible deniability to their actual beliefs. Moreover, 9 out of 10 times you actually DO get a verified story of voter fraud, it's a Trump voter who is attempting to "counter" the supposed fraud they have been hearing about because of their media consumption. It's usually some guy voting for his dead mother, or, in the example this week, his dead wife, who he is also suspected of possibly murdering.
As for the wide-scale fraud that they also allege supposedly took place, the ONLY recent example of this was a Republican operative directly tied to the Republican candidate In North Carolina who was literally collecting and tampering with massive amounts of absentee ballots. You don't hear a WORD about either from ANYONE who supposedly cares about this issue. All you hear about is amorphous theories about "Philadelphia" and "Atlanta" which I can translate for anyone who is interested. It means "we don't trust or want to recognize the results in places where a lot of black people live."
Is it going to happen?? 98% chance of that answer being "no". Does it change the fact that nearly 700,000 citizens of this country have no voting representation in the House or Senate?? That answer is also "no". Shit, at this point, we should settle for everyone agreeing that we should still have elections at all, because new polling suggests almost HALF of GOP voters aren't really interested in doing so anymore.
That people are so comfortable just ADMITTING they think their vote is fine, but the votes of everyone else are problematic and don't really deserve to be counted is.......ominous, at best. This is THE platform of the Republican Party now. Issue #1, #2, and #3 on their list is making sure vote totals don't actually matter. Even though the board is ALREADY stacked SIGNIFCANTLY in their favor.
Granted, that is a vague statement.
It doesn’t say restrict voting. Perhaps there are those who answered the polls who believe that the laws should be less restrictive.
Not likely, but there is talk on the conservative side of issuing picture voter ID cards now. I'm not necessarily for that (another card I'd have to keep in my wallet), but at least it's an idea. Not sure how they'd do absentee or mail-in ballots though.
The ideas at the core of what we'd refer to as American conservatism have certainly shifted over the last 40 years, but if I were to sum up the eras, this is where I would come down.
Reagan- Government is the problem
George W. Bush- National security and family values
Trump- What pisses liberals off??
Post-Trump loss- Liberals don't deserve to have any say in anything, even if they decisively win elections.
There aren't many more steps to take before they just decide the abandon the entire thing. Even you are quite aware of what the vast majority of these people are actually suggesting, and it isn't greater access to the ballot box.
Republican voters care about the "integrity of the ballot" the way Gamergate cared about "ethics in games journalism". It's a disingenuous veneer meant to provide some level of plausible deniability to their actual beliefs. Moreover, 9 out of 10 times you actually DO get a verified story of voter fraud, it's a Trump voter who is attempting to "counter" the supposed fraud they have been hearing about because of their media consumption. It's usually some guy voting for his dead mother, or, in the example this week, his dead wife, who is is also suspected of possibly murdering.
Unfortunately, both sides have forsaken the middle-ground to kowtow to their bases. In some ways that's the risk of having a two-party system. Neither side can win without their crazies. What's lost is that both sides have some good and some bad ideas but neither side can really try them out without at least some support from the other side. This whole situation is turning into 'our side has power so let's issue a bunch of Executive orders', then the other side wins and it's 'let's get rid of the old Executive orders and issue a bunch of our own'. Meanwhile Congress gets to sit on their asses and let Presidents and SCOTUS do their job for them. The real problem is Congress on my opinion.
Is it going to happen?? 98% chance of that answer being "no". Does it change the fact that nearly 700,000 citizens of this country have no voting representation in the House or Senate?? That answer is also "no". Shit, at this point, we should settle for everyone agreeing that we should still have elections at all, because new polling suggests almost HALF of GOP voters aren't really interested in doing so anymore.
That people are so comfortable just ADMITTING they think their vote is fine, but the votes of everyone else are problematic and don't really deserve to be counted is.......ominous, at best. This is THE platform of the Republican Party now. Issue #1, #2, and #3 on their list is making sure vote totals don't actually matter. Even though the board is ALREADY stacked SIGNIFCANTLY in their favor.
Granted, that is a vague statement.
It doesn’t say restrict voting. Perhaps there are those who answered the polls who believe that the laws should be less restrictive.
Not likely, but there is talk on the conservative side of issuing picture voter ID cards now. I'm not necessarily for that (another card I'd have to keep in my wallet), but at least it's an idea. Not sure how they'd do absentee or mail-in ballots though.
The ideas at the core of what we'd refer to as American conservatism have certainly shifted over the last 40 years, but if I were to sum up the eras, this is where I would come down.
Reagan- Government is the problem
George W. Bush- National security and family values
Trump- What pisses liberals off??
Post-Trump loss- Liberals don't deserve to have any say in anything, even if they decisively win elections.
There aren't many more steps to take before they just decide the abandon the entire thing. Even you are quite aware of what the vast majority of these people are actually suggesting, and it isn't greater access to the ballot box.
Republican voters care about the "integrity of the ballot" the way Gamergate cared about "ethics in games journalism". It's a disingenuous veneer meant to provide some level of plausible deniability to their actual beliefs. Moreover, 9 out of 10 times you actually DO get a verified story of voter fraud, it's a Trump voter who is attempting to "counter" the supposed fraud they have been hearing about because of their media consumption. It's usually some guy voting for his dead mother, or, in the example this week, his dead wife, who is is also suspected of possibly murdering.
Unfortunately, both sides have forsaken the middle-ground to kowtow to their bases. In some ways that's the risk of having a two-party system. Neither side can win without their crazies. What's lost is that both sides have some good and some bad ideas but neither side can really try them out without at least some support from the other side. This whole situation is turning into 'our side has power so let's issue a bunch of Executive orders', then the other side wins and it's 'let's get rid of the old Executive orders and issue a bunch of our own'. Meanwhile Congress gets to sit on their asses and let Presidents and SCOTUS do their job for them. The real problem is Congress on my opinion.
I dont know - this sounds like more "both sides" type talk that isnt consistent with our current situation. Consider the last 5 presidents.
Clinton - a fairly centrist Democrat who supported reduced government spending and enforced some pretty gnarly crimebills.
Bush - Conservative to the bone - non centrist that was probably not as far to the right as Reagan, but still strongly conservative.
Obama - Cast himself as a progressive, but governed far closer to the center than anyone really expected.
Trump - Cast himself as non-ideological, but governed strongly to the right as a cultural conservative and economic populist.
Biden - Life-long center-left politician. So far governing to the left, but it's only been a few months.
My point is: From the executive branch, most Democrats have been center left or left. Most Republicans have been Far right, or right.
We can also look at congress to see that the DW Nominate score has consistently shown the GOP governs further to the right than the Democrats govern to the left. That's historically accurate and locally accurate (Consider that the Tea party has no analogue in the modern Democratic Party, for example).
Voters reflect this as well. There are more "conservative" or "moderate" Democrats than there are "liberal" or "moderate" Republicans (according to self identification, from what I've seen). It's true that Conservative Democrats are only just now starting to die out more and more, but in general - for the last 30 years, there's been a much larger footprint for conservative or blue-dog Democrats that the reciprocal from the GOP.
The Democrats, by virtue of being a big tent party that attempts to include a wider range of people and issues are fundamentally more likely to represent more of the center than Republicans are, who are running to the right and attempting to stay in power through perpetual minority rule.
The constitutional issues? Mexico has pretty much the same issues (they copied the USA's constitution, after all). And Mexico City has had full representation in the national legislature for over a hundred years. There are ways to make it work.
Copying the Mexican solutions here would mean not making DC a state, but instead granting it seats in the House and Senate. Much easier on the constitutional law issues, though still subject to all of the partisan political obstacles.
Is it going to happen?? 98% chance of that answer being "no". Does it change the fact that nearly 700,000 citizens of this country have no voting representation in the House or Senate?? That answer is also "no". Shit, at this point, we should settle for everyone agreeing that we should still have elections at all, because new polling suggests almost HALF of GOP voters aren't really interested in doing so anymore.
That people are so comfortable just ADMITTING they think their vote is fine, but the votes of everyone else are problematic and don't really deserve to be counted is.......ominous, at best. This is THE platform of the Republican Party now. Issue #1, #2, and #3 on their list is making sure vote totals don't actually matter. Even though the board is ALREADY stacked SIGNIFCANTLY in their favor.
Granted, that is a vague statement.
It doesn’t say restrict voting. Perhaps there are those who answered the polls who believe that the laws should be less restrictive.
Not likely, but there is talk on the conservative side of issuing picture voter ID cards now. I'm not necessarily for that (another card I'd have to keep in my wallet), but at least it's an idea. Not sure how they'd do absentee or mail-in ballots though.
The ideas at the core of what we'd refer to as American conservatism have certainly shifted over the last 40 years, but if I were to sum up the eras, this is where I would come down.
Reagan- Government is the problem
George W. Bush- National security and family values
Trump- What pisses liberals off??
Post-Trump loss- Liberals don't deserve to have any say in anything, even if they decisively win elections.
There aren't many more steps to take before they just decide the abandon the entire thing. Even you are quite aware of what the vast majority of these people are actually suggesting, and it isn't greater access to the ballot box.
Republican voters care about the "integrity of the ballot" the way Gamergate cared about "ethics in games journalism". It's a disingenuous veneer meant to provide some level of plausible deniability to their actual beliefs. Moreover, 9 out of 10 times you actually DO get a verified story of voter fraud, it's a Trump voter who is attempting to "counter" the supposed fraud they have been hearing about because of their media consumption. It's usually some guy voting for his dead mother, or, in the example this week, his dead wife, who is is also suspected of possibly murdering.
Unfortunately, both sides have forsaken the middle-ground to kowtow to their bases. In some ways that's the risk of having a two-party system. Neither side can win without their crazies. What's lost is that both sides have some good and some bad ideas but neither side can really try them out without at least some support from the other side. This whole situation is turning into 'our side has power so let's issue a bunch of Executive orders', then the other side wins and it's 'let's get rid of the old Executive orders and issue a bunch of our own'. Meanwhile Congress gets to sit on their asses and let Presidents and SCOTUS do their job for them. The real problem is Congress on my opinion.
I dont know - this sounds like more "both sides" type talk that isnt consistent with our current situation. Consider the last 5 presidents.
Clinton - a fairly centrist Democrat who supported reduced government spending and enforced some pretty gnarly crimebills.
Bush - Conservative to the bone - non centrist that was probably not as far to the right as Reagan, but still strongly conservative.
Obama - Cast himself as a progressive, but governed far closer to the center than anyone really expected.
Trump - Cast himself as non-ideological, but governed strongly to the right as a cultural conservative and economic populist.
Biden - Life-long center-left politician. So far governing to the left, but it's only been a few months.
My point is: From the executive branch, most Democrats have been center left or left. Most Republicans have been Far right, or right.
We can also look at congress to see that the DW Nominate score has consistently shown the GOP governs further to the right than the Democrats govern to the left. That's historically accurate and locally accurate (Consider that the Tea party has no analogue in the modern Democratic Party, for example).
Voters reflect this as well. There are more "conservative" or "moderate" Democrats than there are "liberal" or "moderate" Republicans (according to self identification, from what I've seen). It's true that Conservative Democrats are only just now starting to die out more and more, but in general - for the last 30 years, there's been a much larger footprint for conservative or blue-dog Democrats that the reciprocal from the GOP.
The Democrats, by virtue of being a big tent party that attempts to include a wider range of people and issues are fundamentally more likely to represent more of the center than Republicans are, who are running to the right and attempting to stay in power through perpetual minority rule.
Presidents can't write laws. They are irrelevant in that regard. Congress is the branch that is abrogating their duty. We need laws not ephemeral Executive orders. I swear to God we're getting more like a Monarchy all the time...
This is generally correct. I mean, I've always despised the fact that Buckley is such a deified "intellectual" when he (and Goldwater for that matter) were staunchly against civil rights when it actually mattered, but had the sense the moderate later when the monster they created grew beyond their control (sorta like people like Liz Cheney today).
Historian (admittedly liberal) Rick Perlstein has written the definitive story of modern American conservatism in his 4 books thus far on the subject (and it seems to me has at least material for three more):
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan
Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980
I've mentioned it a hundred times, but it's what I believe. There is a direct line from Goldwater's quixotic campaign against LBJ to (if we're gonna put a marker on it) January 6, 2021. The bill was always gonna come due, not just for the GOP, but for the country in general.
As for Cheney, she alluded today on one of the Sunday shows that Kevin McCarthy is in no mood to sign off on the commission to investigate what happened at the Capitol, because he might be a witness. He had direct contact with the President, who we now know was only interested in sending help if it was FOR the people who stormed the building, not the other way around.
The Texas legislature is now killing transgender children in my state. They're blaming God for their crimes. Life-saving mental health treatment is being banned for the people who need it most. Children are going to die of suicide because of this legislation.
I never thought in my life that I'd see government power deployed to kill people in my community but that's the reality of the world we live in.
I've been looking for an article that can coherently and easily pull back the veil cryptocurrency, and I think this one really does the trick. There are many points here I haven't been able to articulate very well until reading this article, but have been thinking about, foremost among them being:
1.) Evangelists about the currency will bury you in techno dude-bro jargon that is meant to sound really impressive and intricate, but means very little in the grand scheme of things.
2.) There is a heavy overlap between libertarian political views and the rise of these "currencies".
3.) Much of the appeal is about "taking control of you own money without a middle-man", but as this author quite astutely points out, while people may have a problem with banks when it comes to things like overdraft fees and overzealous fraud alerts, the simple act of the bank holding onto your money for you is not even an on-the-radar issue for most people.
4.) Alot of the third parties crypto purports to phase out are, in fact, what give you at least SOME semblance of protection against fraud.
5.) If the dollar frequently lost 10% of it's value in one day (like these currencies often do) we'd be in an inflation crisis the likes of which we've never seen.
6.) As with any pyramid or ponzi scheme, a bunch of people WILL make significant money off of it before it crashes and burns. But in the end, a whole lot a people are also left holding the bag.
Comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/10/world/asia/china-xinjiang-women-births.html
The government sends Chinese Communist Party officials literally into the homes of the local Uyghurs to live with them and interrogate them, imprisoning any woman who complains about being forced to get an IUD or sterilized.
Content warning for sexual assault: The CCP officials have been taking the opportunity to rape women, both in their homes and in the concentration camps. One woman reported that the rape included being penetrated with electric batons, on three separate occasions, by masked men in the camps.
The Party has been lying about the situation during press briefings and reporters are not allowed to investigate in person.
There was what should have been a major scandal that came out weeks ago, but seems rather ho-hum next to January 6, 2021. The Trump campaign was automatically checking a box for donors who gave money online to automatically re-up the amount every month, and then, eventually, every week (which makes it easier to hide if someone only checks their statement monthly). This resulted in 10s of millions of dollars having to be refunded. But it essentially was an interest-free loan. What's more is that the company processing the transactions was charging a fee for each one, which weren't refunded. The processing company, Win Red (a for-profit version of the Dems NON-profit Act Blue) was, also, founded by the campaign.
The entire 5-year saga was, above all else, a massive grift. And one of the reasons aside from his rhetoric about the election Trump shouldn't be allowed back on Facebook is so they can't continue to run these transparent scams on people who either don't know any better, or don't want to know.
Edit: I just went and looked at the fee prices. They are positively absurd bordering on predatory. Nearly 5% combined for debit card transactions. But the kicker is if you want to dispute one, there is a $15.00 fee. Which is simply preying on the fact that many people might not know their bank is obligated to investigate disputes for free.
I've been seeing alot of anecdotal stories saying parents of trans youth are seriously having to consider outright leaving the state of Texas because of the laws that are about to be passed there in regard to medical treatments for minors. Is this what you're hearing on the ground (so to speak, I know you live there)??
This is what I was referring to:
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/04/20/texas-transgender-health-care-restrictions/
I am not the least bit surprised that folks are considering leaving Texas to escape persecution. Trans healthcare just flat-out isn't optional; you can't keep treatment away from a trans child any more than you can keep it from a child with depression or bipolar disorder.
The bills want to ban even puberty blockers, the zero-risk option for trans kids, before age 18, when puberty has already done the bulk of the damage to one's body. Against all expert advice, against all medical research, and against the will of trans folks, their doctors, and even their families, the Texas government wants to prevent Texas kids from getting treatment, solely for the crime of being transgender.
It is no secret that suicidal ideation is common among the trans population, and anyone who has attempted to do honest research will know the ONLY treatment that reduces suicidal ideation for trans people is transitioning and getting acceptance.
Kids will die if these sorts of restrictions pass. That's not even an opinion; that's simply how this works. You may as well be outlawing therapy or medication for kids suffering from depression. Our government is actively trying to kill our children.
Honestly, if treatment was outlawed in Texas, I would encourage any family with a transgender child to either leave Texas if they could afford it or send their child to live with a relative somewhere out of state, if it meant saving their child's life and sparing them the pain of going untreated. I love my hometown and my home state, but I would leave in a heartbeat if that was the only way to protect my child from the government.
I don't accept ignorance as an excuse for elected officials. The only thing that really matters is what our politicians actually do with the power they give them, and this is just trying to kill children.
And just to add hypocrisy to the movement against trans rights, they want to imprison parents who try to get their kids treatment. The GOP has spent years pretending that opposing trans rights is just a "difference of opinion" to be worked out in the free market of ideas, but when it comes to using government power, they have no qualms about trying to lock up their political opponents and crush ideas they don't like through force.
Trying to take healthcare away from children is cruel. Trying to seize power away from doctors and give it to politicians is authoritarian. Trying to literally imprison people who disagree with you is fascism.
I'm expected to use the caveat that not every transphobe is a fascist, but the politicians trying to pass these laws are fascists.
I frankly also have a very, very, VERY hard time believing any person pushing this actually cares about trans children, even if they were acting from a position of ignorance. I'm not trying to put you on the spot, I just think it's important to get a perspective from someone who has actually lived through it rather than people who just opine about it from afar. It's not even that I have a hard time believing it, I'm just flat-out am CONVINCED no one pushing this gives a goddamn about any trans child's well-being. Putting these bills up for consideration is being done to pander to people who are uncomfortable sharing space in America with transgender citizens, and I just believe nearly all arguments that this is actually for the safety and welfare of the children are just 100% bad faith. It's not some sort of magical coincidence that all these bills are popping up at a time when anti-gay legislation has become anathema to the general population. It seems this country cannot cope for any period of time without labeling some group as (for lack of a better term) "sexual deviants" who must be stripped of rights everyone else is afforded by default.
One of the things I've learned over the past couple years is that hate is stronger than love. It's not misguided love that makes people abuse trans kids; it's hatred. My friend E's dad didn't put her in the emergency room because he wanted to protect her from crossdressing; he did it to punish her. My mom didn't scream me out of the house because she wanted to protect me from volunteering at the Pride Center; she did it to punish me. People don't throw slurs at my friends because they want to protect my community; they do it to punish them. My friend D didn't mock my appearance because he wanted to protect me; he did it to hurt me.
It's not a false ideology that motivated politicians to write these laws. It's not misquoted studies or outdated research that made them do it. It's not manipulated statistics that urged them to action. It's not ignorance and it's not an accident. It's hatred.
Bigots always like to pretend they're acting on some nobler impulse. Racist mobs lynched black men in the twentieth century because they wanted to; not because they were honestly worried about women being raped. China is sterilizing Uyghur women because the Party wants to exterminate them; not because they were trying to liberate women from traditional gender roles. Whether it's the U.S. or China, whether it's ancient or recent, people will make up phony threats to justify cracking down on the people they hate.
It really gets to you, when you're the target. I have the incredible privilege to live in a safe environment with people who accept me, but this is a reminder that the world at large is not so safe for folks like me.
It's not just verbal abuse from your family. It's not just the threat of violence from strangers. It's the threat of government power being used to target you, specifically you. And not just to tweak your taxes or regulate dangerous behavior, but to dictate your everyday personal life at home, to control what you do with your body or how you care for your children.
You're outnumbered 99 to 1, and the 99 other people in the room are trying to decide what to do with you.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88nnwg/anti-maskers-ready-to-start-maskingto-protect-themselves-from-the-vaccinated
You seriously can't make this shit up. I was actually thinking about writing a novel with a conspiracy theory as its' basis, but I don't think anybody would bother reading it while the real world conspiracy theories are even weirder than anything I could come up with...
I pictured this as someone trolling them with this idea on a random forum and it picking up steam from there. All the while the culprit's snickering at how the scenario played out magnificently to hit media sites and that looks to be true, since the one quote they use about masks is from a 4chan site.
But it's actually much worse when you have a person being quoted in the article saying: "have a badge on their arms that say ‘I've been vaccinated even though it's not a vaccine’ so that we know to avoid them on the street, to not go near them anywhere in society." Ya, that doesn't bring up images of Nazi Germany at all. And this guy is a pediatrician? Oh well. If a person like that wants to social distance from me, I am not going to stop them.
If we can't talk about conspiracies anymore in this thread we'll have to quit talking about the Republican Party. I have NO (as in absolutely zero) love for Liz Cheney, but her ouster from leadership has nothing to do with her policies (she is a hard-right idealogue). She was, for lack of a better word, "cancelled" because she won't lie about the election. The only prerequisite left to get ahead in the GOP is to cynically pump as much bullshit into the American bloodstream as humanly possible. That's all that's left. I didn't like or very much respect the ideas of Reagansim, but they were IDEAS. The only position they have left is will to power.
They’re cowardly too. They did it by voice vote so there would be no record for how everyone voted, so regardless of how this spins in the next couple of months, individuals can claim they did or didn’t vote to oust her.
And the irony of wanting transparency in elections and this whole fiasco isn’t lost on me. It’s probably lost on everyone who wanted her gone but eh.
Here’s hoping this is a small step to a third party.
I don't think I'd bring my little girl to this quack...
"She has the sniffles? Here let me write you up a scrip for hydroxychloroquin and hey, while I'm at it, how about some colloidal silver and a tinfoil hat to go with it!"
You forgot the pine needle tea. ?
My friend just found out today that her 14 year old son had been molested by her brother for over eight years. It is a nonexistent crime unless the predator happened to be a priest or scoutmaster. No one sees it, no one perceives it. It is so icky that it makes everyone’s skin crawl so they look at it as someone else’s domain, not something they can do to help. You can, you can make a difference.
Before I say what you can do, and how to spot it, I will tell you why you should do something.
The effects of being molested are lasting, lifelong in most cases. Self esteem, belief in security or safety, even their relationships can be forever effected. It is a form of walking death. Like somehow you believe that is your fault, you don’t belong with normal people. Molesters are murderers in a way, their victims deal with it every day for the rest of their lives and live in terror that someone will find out their secret. Their secret? They were the victims, it never feels that way to them though. I won’t go into what the act is like.
Statistically speaking all of you have known someone who has been molested or been molested yourselves. It is a statical fact that you all know someone who has molested a child.
What to look for?
Avoiding getting undressed in front of anyone.
Bed wetting or other such behavior they had grown out of.
Knowledge of sexual topics they should not know or talking about sexual topics they should know nothing about.
Spending an unusual amount of time alone.
Very passive demeanor, compliant.
Avoiding certain people.
Being alone more than normal.
Increase in headaches and stomach aches.
Losing interest in things they cared about.
Bad dreams.
Fear of being alone.
Sudden increase of aggression.
Change in their eating habits.
Hurting themselves.
What you can do?
Listen to them. Don’t grill them, give them time and listen.
They are going to have feelings, shame, being embarrassed, fear are all normal, be careful of how they feel. It is not about you, it is about them.
Make sure they know they are safe.
Make sure they know it is not their fault.
Find professional help. It hasn’t always been available but it is now. This is not something a parent or loved one can fix.
Politically speaking domestic violence, abuse is on their radar as much a suburban housewife that sprained her wrist taking her child’s soccer equipment out of the back of her suv.
Everyone feels like they can take a stand. Take a stand here. Please.
have guessed that making DC a state might not be easy as it sounds? Me maybe...
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/16/washington-dc-statehood-guide-constitutional-workaround-political-obstacles-488349
Is it going to happen?? 98% chance of that answer being "no". Does it change the fact that nearly 700,000 citizens of this country have no voting representation in the House or Senate?? That answer is also "no". Shit, at this point, we should settle for everyone agreeing that we should still have elections at all, because new polling suggests almost HALF of GOP voters aren't really interested in doing so anymore.
That people are so comfortable just ADMITTING they think their vote is fine, but the votes of everyone else are problematic and don't really deserve to be counted is.......ominous, at best. This is THE platform of the Republican Party now. Issue #1, #2, and #3 on their list is making sure vote totals don't actually matter. Even though the board is ALREADY stacked SIGNIFCANTLY in their favor.
Granted, that is a vague statement.
It doesn’t say restrict voting. Perhaps there are those who answered the polls who believe that the laws should be less restrictive.
Not likely, but there is talk on the conservative side of issuing picture voter ID cards now. I'm not necessarily for that (another card I'd have to keep in my wallet), but at least it's an idea. Not sure how they'd do absentee or mail-in ballots though.
The ideas at the core of what we'd refer to as American conservatism have certainly shifted over the last 40 years, but if I were to sum up the eras, this is where I would come down.
Reagan- Government is the problem
George W. Bush- National security and family values
Trump- What pisses liberals off??
Post-Trump loss- Liberals don't deserve to have any say in anything, even if they decisively win elections.
There aren't many more steps to take before they just decide the abandon the entire thing. Even you are quite aware of what the vast majority of these people are actually suggesting, and it isn't greater access to the ballot box.
Republican voters care about the "integrity of the ballot" the way Gamergate cared about "ethics in games journalism". It's a disingenuous veneer meant to provide some level of plausible deniability to their actual beliefs. Moreover, 9 out of 10 times you actually DO get a verified story of voter fraud, it's a Trump voter who is attempting to "counter" the supposed fraud they have been hearing about because of their media consumption. It's usually some guy voting for his dead mother, or, in the example this week, his dead wife, who he is also suspected of possibly murdering.
As for the wide-scale fraud that they also allege supposedly took place, the ONLY recent example of this was a Republican operative directly tied to the Republican candidate In North Carolina who was literally collecting and tampering with massive amounts of absentee ballots. You don't hear a WORD about either from ANYONE who supposedly cares about this issue. All you hear about is amorphous theories about "Philadelphia" and "Atlanta" which I can translate for anyone who is interested. It means "we don't trust or want to recognize the results in places where a lot of black people live."
Unfortunately, both sides have forsaken the middle-ground to kowtow to their bases. In some ways that's the risk of having a two-party system. Neither side can win without their crazies. What's lost is that both sides have some good and some bad ideas but neither side can really try them out without at least some support from the other side. This whole situation is turning into 'our side has power so let's issue a bunch of Executive orders', then the other side wins and it's 'let's get rid of the old Executive orders and issue a bunch of our own'. Meanwhile Congress gets to sit on their asses and let Presidents and SCOTUS do their job for them. The real problem is Congress on my opinion.
I dont know - this sounds like more "both sides" type talk that isnt consistent with our current situation. Consider the last 5 presidents.
Clinton - a fairly centrist Democrat who supported reduced government spending and enforced some pretty gnarly crimebills.
Bush - Conservative to the bone - non centrist that was probably not as far to the right as Reagan, but still strongly conservative.
Obama - Cast himself as a progressive, but governed far closer to the center than anyone really expected.
Trump - Cast himself as non-ideological, but governed strongly to the right as a cultural conservative and economic populist.
Biden - Life-long center-left politician. So far governing to the left, but it's only been a few months.
My point is: From the executive branch, most Democrats have been center left or left. Most Republicans have been Far right, or right.
We can also look at congress to see that the DW Nominate score has consistently shown the GOP governs further to the right than the Democrats govern to the left. That's historically accurate and locally accurate (Consider that the Tea party has no analogue in the modern Democratic Party, for example).
Voters reflect this as well. There are more "conservative" or "moderate" Democrats than there are "liberal" or "moderate" Republicans (according to self identification, from what I've seen). It's true that Conservative Democrats are only just now starting to die out more and more, but in general - for the last 30 years, there's been a much larger footprint for conservative or blue-dog Democrats that the reciprocal from the GOP.
The Democrats, by virtue of being a big tent party that attempts to include a wider range of people and issues are fundamentally more likely to represent more of the center than Republicans are, who are running to the right and attempting to stay in power through perpetual minority rule.
Copying the Mexican solutions here would mean not making DC a state, but instead granting it seats in the House and Senate. Much easier on the constitutional law issues, though still subject to all of the partisan political obstacles.
Presidents can't write laws. They are irrelevant in that regard. Congress is the branch that is abrogating their duty. We need laws not ephemeral Executive orders. I swear to God we're getting more like a Monarchy all the time...
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/16/opinions/fareed-gop-special-op-ed/index.html
This is generally correct. I mean, I've always despised the fact that Buckley is such a deified "intellectual" when he (and Goldwater for that matter) were staunchly against civil rights when it actually mattered, but had the sense the moderate later when the monster they created grew beyond their control (sorta like people like Liz Cheney today).
Historian (admittedly liberal) Rick Perlstein has written the definitive story of modern American conservatism in his 4 books thus far on the subject (and it seems to me has at least material for three more):
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan
Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980
I've mentioned it a hundred times, but it's what I believe. There is a direct line from Goldwater's quixotic campaign against LBJ to (if we're gonna put a marker on it) January 6, 2021. The bill was always gonna come due, not just for the GOP, but for the country in general.
As for Cheney, she alluded today on one of the Sunday shows that Kevin McCarthy is in no mood to sign off on the commission to investigate what happened at the Capitol, because he might be a witness. He had direct contact with the President, who we now know was only interested in sending help if it was FOR the people who stormed the building, not the other way around.
I never thought in my life that I'd see government power deployed to kill people in my community but that's the reality of the world we live in.
1.) Evangelists about the currency will bury you in techno dude-bro jargon that is meant to sound really impressive and intricate, but means very little in the grand scheme of things.
2.) There is a heavy overlap between libertarian political views and the rise of these "currencies".
3.) Much of the appeal is about "taking control of you own money without a middle-man", but as this author quite astutely points out, while people may have a problem with banks when it comes to things like overdraft fees and overzealous fraud alerts, the simple act of the bank holding onto your money for you is not even an on-the-radar issue for most people.
4.) Alot of the third parties crypto purports to phase out are, in fact, what give you at least SOME semblance of protection against fraud.
5.) If the dollar frequently lost 10% of it's value in one day (like these currencies often do) we'd be in an inflation crisis the likes of which we've never seen.
6.) As with any pyramid or ponzi scheme, a bunch of people WILL make significant money off of it before it crashes and burns. But in the end, a whole lot a people are also left holding the bag.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/04/why-cryptocurrency-is-a-giant-fraud