Rov_Scam
11mo ago
The FARA allegations weren't anywhere near strong enough for the government to prosecute. Having business dealings with foreign interests isn't illegal; it's only when you take the next step of lobbying for these interests without disclosing it. This is where the theory fails, because the evidence of any actual lobbying is weak. The most I've seen from conservative outlets is that he made numerous trips to visit his father while he was involved in these foreign dealings, which, yeah, the guy visited his father. He probably would have visited him regardless of what business he was doing at the time. The defense attorney in that case is going to call every person on the White House visitor log who could have conceivably been in the room with Hunter and Joe on the days in question and they're all going to invariably deny that any lobbying on behalf of foreign interests took place; meanwhile, the prosecution won't be able to put forth a single witness who would be able to testify that it had. This isn't evidence, it's conjecture, and the prosecution would never be able to get this in front of a jury. I'm not familiar with any potential drug charges so maybe you could clue me in on those.
Rov_Scam
11mo ago
It's more of a celebration than an activist event, so it's going to exist as long as there are gay people around. The same reason there are still Italian festivals, and Polish festivals, and Rusyn festivals. And most people haven't even heard of the last one (most people think they're Russian), so it's pretty hard to claim that they're still experiencing significant discrimination—though there was a time when all "hunkies" were lumped together and discriminated against—but that doesn't change the fact that they're proud of their culture and want to celebrate it. When the various Byzantine Catholic churches in the coal patches and mill towns around Western Pennsylvania stop having Carpatho-Rusyn festivals, you might be able to say that pride festivals will become "unnecessary" in the future.
Rov_Scam
1yr ago
I apologize that the language I used was probably stronger than what was warranted. But the general point remains—it's a less relevant side issue to attack a bigger idea. The problem is that attacking the bigger idea doesn't make sense unless there are concrete reasons to do so. If the best concrete argument you have for attacking the idea of transgenderism is that it has the potential to create unfair disparities in women's sports, then it doesn't come across as much of an argument to me, especially if criteria are put in place to mitigate those concerns and keep people from abusing the system. If the real reason you want to attack the idea of transgenderism simply boils down to "I just don't like the idea of it", then that's a pretty thin rhetorical reed.
Rov_Scam
1yr ago
From what I've read so far, Neely was walking back and forth yelling at nobody in particular that he was hungry and thirsty and that he didn't care if he went to prison and he was ready to die. He then aggressively threw his jacket onto the floor. I could be mistaken, but I was under the impression that that this is the kind of behavior that is usually reserved for the mentally ill and intoxicated. You can call it ranting, raving, or whatever, but it's certainly not normal and is certainly distinct from going off on tangents in a space specifically dedicated for the purpose. News reports indicated that Neely was schizophrenic and I'm assuming that that influenced his behavior, but I'm no psychiatrist.
Rov_Scam
1yr ago
But when people claiming there was foul play in the 2020 election point to "machine politics" as evidence, the implication is that this is a well-run political organization that does this kind of thing all the time to maintain their own power and thus already has the mechanisms in place to commit fraud. What you're arguing is that an ad hoc group of political opponents conspired to rig an election due to ideological consensus regarding one issue, despite that fact that none of them had ever done something like that before. That's the opposite of machine politics.
Rov_Scam
1yr ago
To say that it's hard to point at a closely-related subset of groups that have had an "outsized influence" on the development of Western, and American, civilization is just exceedingly obtuse. It was obviously founded and developed as a European civilization with European population groups that colonized the nation.
Well, no. It wasn't founded as a European civilization, it was founded first as an extension of the British Empire and later as an explicit rejection of traditional European civilization. Enlightenment ideals were certainly European in origin, but they were specifically northern, Protestant European in origin at the very widest definition, and for all practical purposes were English and Scottish in origin. The Italians, Hungarians, Poles, etc. had little to nothing to do with Enlightenment thought. And in practice most of Europe was living under a system much more illiberal than that which the colonists were rebelling against.
So to say that the American civilization was founded by Europeans may be a true statement, but if the founders had any nationalist tendencies at the time, they would have been limited to those of English and maybe Scottish or Dutch descent. Those who were wont to deny various outsider groups status as "real Americans" set their sights first on Swedes and German Protestants in the 18th century, then on Irish and German Catholics in the 19th, then on Poles, Italians, Greeks, Russians, Czechs, Slovaks, Rusyns, Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes in the early 20th. Is that the argument you're making now, that the only true inheritors of the American civilization are Anglo-Saxons? If not, why not?
Rov_Scam
5d ago
It's irrelevant because no one actually cares about their doctor's academic credentials. Maybe fail rates are higher at UCLA but UCLA is hard to get into to begin with, so I imagine the coursework is harder than at a place like NEOMED. And there are already schools of osteopathy that seem to attract people who couldn't get into MD programs. I'd be willing to bet that if I were to take a random poll few people would be able to tell me where their doctor even went to med school let alone how highly that school is regarded or what their grades were. Like almost everything else, once you get your first job your education is pretty much irrelevant.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
I could say the same thing about any American, though. Believing the United States should restrict trade and immigration is a luxury belief for Americans, almost all of whom have jobs and live decent lives compared to people in say, Guatemala or Venezuela. We all have the luxury of being born in a country where a shitty job at a convenience store pays well above what most of the world is making.
Rov_Scam
2mo ago
I'd be in favor of changing the law, the question, though, is whether the pro gun people would actually go for it. Say you limited private sales to 3 per year or 5 in any two-year period and required that the seller fill out a Firearm Bill of Sale and keep that and a copy of the buyer's photo ID on file for 5 years so that in the event the weapon was used in a crime they'd be able to demonstrate that it was sold? Or maybe do what Pennsylvania does and require FFL transfers for handguns (but not long guns). Or also require them for long guns with removable magazines. I think part of the reason why the law remains vague is that gun control is such a toxic issue right now that any change of the law is difficult to accomplish. For the gun rights people any clarification short of a total repeal of the FFL requirement is going to be seen as an unreasonable imposition, and for the gun control people anything short of eliminating private sales entirely is going to be seen as a useless half-measure. So there's no political will to do this.
That being said, I don't think the law is as ambiguous as you're making it out to be. In Abramski, there was no question that the defendant purchased the gun for immediate resale, and the evidence in the case didn't even support a defense that Abramski purchased the gun for himself and later decided to sell it. I also don't think Abramski really applies here in any context because the defendant transferred the gun to Alvarez through an FFL; at no point was he invoking the private sale exception. While I don't like the ambiguity myself, I don't know that the Malinowski case is really the best argument for the idea that the ambiguity needs correcting. I don't know the exact evidence, but I'd find it hard to believe that Mr. Malinowski wasn't acquiring these guns specifically for the purpose of reselling them. I mean, it's possible that he happened to inherit a bunch of guns all at once and wanted to get rid of them, or that he was constantly buying guns to try them out and getting rid of ones he didn't like, but absent specific evidence of that, it's safe to assume that someone who sells 150 guns over the course of a couple years is doing so for pecuniary gain.
Rov_Scam
3mo ago
The problem with that ad is that he just had to throw in abortion and LGBT stuff, when it was completely unnecessary. If the idea is to change the image of Christianity so it appeals more to liberals, you can't throw potshots at gays and abortionists when condemnation of gays and abortion is part of the reason that's keeping them away in the first place. It only confirms their suspicions. They also could have thrown a few people of color in there. I know conservatives don't like tokenism, and I know that blacks and Hispanics are already more religious than whites, but you have to know who your audience is. Otherwise, you're just preaching to the choir.
Rov_Scam
7mo ago
There's a pretty big distinction between zealous representation and defamation. Participation in a matter of public importance doesn't give you license to make shit up out of whole cloth.
Rov_Scam
8mo ago
Hillary may have theoretically had them insofar as she was a Democrat but there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm for her bordering on loathing. There's a reason she lost to Obama in '08 despite the sense of inevitability the party tried to create; the Democratic establishment either didn't learn that lesson or were pressured to ignore it due to the pervasive influence of the Clintons.
Biden isn't exactly the most inspiring candidate, but the only people who seem to despise him are the kind of people who wouldn't vote Democrat anyway. The only real knock against him is his age and aloofness. There are obviously attempts to paint him as corrupt, but they'll probably only damage him to the extent that Whitewater damaged Hillary. Basically, he isn't unlikeable the way Hillary was, and his policies are anodyne enough as to not scare away anyone who's actually paying attention. Trump's a much more divisive figure in that he actively insults anyone who doesn't kiss his ass, and who has no problem floating insane policy proposals only for his aides to walk them back later. Especially after the election nonsense and January 6, it's hard to see what his appeal is to the 2020 Biden voters he needs to pick up to win this time.
Rov_Scam
9mo ago
Usually, though, this ends up being that he was talked out of it by his own advisors, not that some life-tenure civil servant had anything to do with it.
Rov_Scam
9mo ago
See my post above. He's not doing anything you wouldn't do if you found out someone had full control of your affairs for the past 20 years.
Rov_Scam
9mo ago
A lot of this is more Trump than transplants. Ten years ago Pittsburgh's wealthier suburbs were all Republican strongholds. Now Mt. Lebanon and Fox Chapel (old money) are as blue as anywhere and Upper Saint Clair (new money) is about 50/50. A decade ago this would have been unthinkable. Even wealthier places that still lean R aren't leaning as much as they used to; even exurbs like Peters and Cranberry saw a pretty big swing towards Democrats. The only places that are actually moving right are the poorer white areas where people have a bunch of crap in their yards and smack their kids in supermarket checkout lines. It's almost become a joke around here that if you see a dumpy, unkempt house in an otherwise nice area there's probably a Trump sign in front of it. It's sort of replaced having a dog tied up in the front yard.
Rov_Scam
10mo ago
I'm not describing any library. I'm describing something much simpler than any library to illustrate a point that archival science is a lot more complicated than laymen think, largely in part because the professionals working behind the scenes have done such a good job that we don't notice them. And just because computers can handle a lot of our work now doesn't mean that the professionals in charge of these systems don't need to understand the underlying theory. Most people don't use 99% of the underlying theory they learned in school. I mean, why do we give a fuck if the kids can add when we live in a world with calculators?
Rov_Scam
11mo ago
Team Red also brings up religious freedom in every conceivable context, usually to get an exemption from a generally applicable law. I don't necessarily disagree with this, but it's an odd position to take for a group that then specifically opposes migration based on religion.
Rov_Scam
11mo ago
But is DeSantis more popular with the general electorate? There was a time when this would have seemed plausible, but the headlines he's generated since he became the media's golden boy have all been related to whatever culture war bullshit he's promoting in his state. He painted himself into a corner and now he finds himself running to the right of Trump. Had he focused his campaign on administrative competence that vaguely hinted at effective implementation of MAGA-adjacent principles, I'd say he has a good chance of winning the general election. But the hasn't done that. He's publicly waged an all-out war against wokism and LGBT stuff, not to mention his quixotic war against Disney and the stunt where he sent immigrants from Texas up north. If he'd done these things quietly it may have provoked some kind of backlash but not nearly as much as centering his entire public persona around them. Plus, he seems unwilling to give interviews to anyone who will do anything other than lob softballs at him. It's nice work if you can get it, but he can't do this all the way through a fucking presidential election and expect to win. Remember, he needs to convince people in swing states who voted for Biden that he's the more reasonable candidate than Trump, and those states have all either stood pat when it was expected they may shift right a bit (Nevada, Arizona) or decisively shifted left (Pennsylvania, Michigan).
Trump was able to win in 2016 largely because he was a totally unknown entity running against a lousy Democtratic candidate. Once people knew what to expect, he lost. DeSantis doesn't have that advantage, and simply being a Trump who can wage the culture war better provided he has a compliant legislature isn't going to convince moderates and independents that he's much of an improvement.
Rov_Scam
1yr ago
And that only follows if there is broad public consensus that some people are human garbage who are undeserving of basic rights and that violence against them should be ignored provided it's executed with some broad excuse of having the "public interest" in mind. Something tells me that no such public consensus exists.
Rov_Scam
1yr ago
How does arming rural citizens to the teeth help here? You already said that people in rural areas should be given special treatment (for what reason, I don't know, since rural meth heads are just as obnoxious as urban ones in my experience), so you have to give them special treatment. A guy with a shotgun willing to shoot anyone who enters onto his property has even less opportunity to evaluate if the person he's shooting fits into one of the special categories you seem willing to create wherein people are given a free pass to violate laws that ostensibly apply to everybody. If it becomes clear that antisocial behavior is tolerated beyond a certain line then ne'er do wells will have an incentive to go there and urban leaders will have an incentive to make sure they go there, especially progressive ones who don't want to put them in jail.
Rov_Scam
1yr ago
My sister-in-law is a PA and worked in the COVID ward of her hospital. Ventilation isn't and never was something that is done lightly, and it especially wasn't something that was done lightly in the early days of COVID given the fears of a shortage. She said that people didn't go on ventilators until they couldn't breathe on their own and were otherwise going to die. I'll grant you that some of the early COVID treatments were later found to be sub-optimal, but in those early days they were the best that we had, and we can't fault the medical profession for not knowing everything that we know now.
Rov_Scam
1yr ago
I mean, yeah, it's a cool toy, but other than that, what's the point? On a different note, is there any kind of payoff? I"m not terribly familiar with the genre you were having it work in, but I'd be curious if it's capable of writing a unique story with different cool plot twists and an original ending, or if it just regurgitates common tropes, i.e. there are two opposing sides fighting it out and the good guys win at the end. I was playing with GTP3 a while back getting it to write a satirical obituary for the past Penguins season, and while it seemed impressive at first, rerunning the prompt with other teams (including those from entirely different sports) produced practically identical results. It spoke in generalities rather than cite specifics, and when asked for specifics, it was still vague and often wrong. For instance, it said something about Sidney Crosby not having a good season while anyone who remotely followed the team knew that the problems weren't with the stars but with depth and goaltending. The fact that it's not up to date wasn't the problem, either, since it wrote the same obituary for other teams that were within its purview.
Rov_Scam
1yr ago
I just commented above that the disconnect between the private statements and the statements he made on air is probably enough for him to get through any interview that tries to nail him on the subject. That being said, I don't for a second believe that Carlson believed that the election was stolen in a general sense but didn't believe any of the specific theories that Trump was putting forth. I was on here quite a bit during the election and I don't remember any of the fraud proponents expressing such a position. I did see a lot of fraud proponents mentioning these kinds of things as evidence of fraud and then backing off when challenged, either by gish galloping another spurious claim forward or by retreating to a Carlsonesque position of speaking in generalities. Which is what I'd expect from a place like this; if this is an intelligent community that cares about evidence and process then I wouldn't expect people to just cite vague claims about security as proof of fraud. But Carlson's audience wanted to hear what they wanted to hear and he didn't have to worry about getting any pushback, so he was able to couch his statements as vaguely as possible. I don't normally agree with the guy but he's not stupid.
I don't know that any of what you said really changes based on race, though, at least from a practical perspective. Yeah, black guy approaching me in a grocery store parking lot is probably going to ask me for money. But I can't think of many situations where I white guy doing the same thing doesn't end the same way.
Even the canonical example of an urban looking black guy being treated suspiciously for walking around a white suburban neighborhood at night doesn't make sense when you think about it. Yeah, black people commit more crime in general. But most of that crime isn't committed in white suburbs. Disaffected urban youth who want to rob houses aren't likely to drive 45 minutes to an unfamiliar neighborhood where they'd be about as inconspicuous as a brontosaurus at a time when the home is all but guaranteed to be occupied. The modal burglary takes place in the middle of a weekday by a guy driving a panel van who doesn't linger too long. But no one ever reports those guys as suspicious because they're so inconspicuous.
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