domain:npr.org
netstack
Texas is freedom land
19m ago
I’d personally count the Trump travel bans, but I understand that’s contentious.
North Carolina gerrymandering. Pretty explicit. Appealing to the VRA was a fig leaf; the easiest way to satisfy it would have been to draw reasonable districts.
If you’re willing to go back a generation, the cadre of former Southern Democrats provided plenty of examples. Thurmond and Byrd held on into the 2000s, even!
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
29m ago
Okay wait, am I reading this right? Is 1 million times $20,000 actually TWENTY BILLION?
Good Lord, well I guess if you're going to give a naked bribe don't go small. But still. That is an INSANE amount of money to just casually throw out to a small part of the populace...
sun_the_second
32m ago
Recreation is not a valid use? Why? We have a long list to go through if we just start crossing off anything that's not at the bottom of the Maslow pyramid.
Magusoflight
34m ago
The idea is that since drug dealers are disproportionately black, they must have some special expertise that will give them an edge in legal cannabis sales.
I think it’s more the idea of reparations. Given the war on drugs has hit blacks harder. They should profit more from the repeal of unjust drug laws, so as to heal their communities from these laws. Or something. I dunno it just feels like more racial welfare giveaways. But that’s the spin.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
35m ago
No, I still don't believe them. What was the question asked of the experts? "Is this plausibly a child wounded by a bullet", or "Is this plausibly a child shot at close range with an assault rifle"? I have already said that I thought the photo I linked was a child hit with a nearly-spent bullet; that does not fit the narrative of this opinion piece.
FiveHourMarathon
Just a Wawa Stan Account
37m ago
While we're doing a campaign thread, I can't get through the ALCS without seeing ten of these fuckers, so y'all need to as well: How does everyone feel about this ad?
You may be wondering what's the difference between Bob Casey and me on abortion. We both believe in exceptions for rape incest and the save the life of the Mother. We differ on the third trimester. I support Pennsylvania's limits on elective abortion in the last months of pregnancy. That seems reasonable. Bob Casey supports late term abortion and tax dollars to pay for them. Senator Casey has the more extreme position. I'm more middle of the road and. looking for common ground. I'm Dave McCormick I approve this message
I generally think it is smart and well produced, except for the use of the term "Trimester" which is obfuscating for most people who don't think about abortion much, I think it would be more clear to say "after six months." I'm sure there's a focus grouped reason not to do that. Every time I talk to an abortion activist, pro or anti, they always talk in trimesters or weeks, instead of in months.
This represents a pretty major change from the messaging I, as an involved Republican, had been getting from the McCormick campaign for years now, which went something like "Pro-Life" or at the most liberal "Leave it to the States (Does Not Support a Federal/National Ban)."
This is McCormick directly advocating for a policy of elective abortion through six months of pregnancy, with exceptions for Rape etc. Though he does not indicate an intention to introduce national legislation on the matter, that is implied by the context of the ad when he's running for Senate, though limited by supporting "Pennsylvania's" laws on the matter. I suppose you could maybe weasel what he says here into supporting abortions for reasons of rape, incest*, life of the mother through six months; but it seems like the obvious meaning of his phrasing is that he's in favor of elective abortion through six months and exceptions later. This would, in my mind, be very hard to flip-flop on later; though of course we've seen worse.
My first thought is that this is the polity healing itself. Now that the legislated-from-the-bench forced compromise of Roe v Wade is behind us, Americans and their politicians are getting down to horse trading and finding a reasonable political compromise on the issue.
But of course this is dependent on McCormick winning using this strategy. If he gets back more votes from squishy pro-abortion voters than he loses from strident pro-lifers, then the compromise has been accepted and succeeded. But if he loses because pro-life voters are now watching him on TV every day say that he supports six months of abortion-by-choice, well then we might see a hardening of positions after this election.
Of course, my biggest frustration with McCormick remains that he refuses to talk about his best achievements. Every ad, every day, talking about how he grew up in Bloomsberg, went to West Point, wrestled. That's it. Nothing about his PhD from Princeton. Nothing about running one of the world's largest hedge funds. I only know these things about him from outside newspaper articles and wikipedia. According to McCormick's own campaign, he sorta went into stasis after the Army. By outside qualifications he is probably the smartest politician I've had the chance to vote for since Romney, and he refuses to bring any of it up. Sad commentary on modern politics.
*I've never understood why incest gets its own heading on the list. All the examples pro-abortion folk use to talk about incest are just rape-by-family-member which would obviously fall under the rape heading; and it's not clear to me that voluntary adult incest leading to pregnancy leading to abortion is a common enough situation to even need an exception drawn for it, or harmful enough to require one.
Magusoflight
40m ago
Guns have valid uses, recreational drugs have less of a claim
In b4 “but what about alcohol” yes that’s also bad but much harder to restrict given yeast and fermentable carbs are omni-available
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
54m ago
Specifically, I've heard that the quality of healthcare is better in India and that the standard of living is generally higher. The people who say this still want to stay here, despite having been among the most privileged people in their home countries and living in a country that often doesn't recognize their qualifications or experience.
From what I've heard online, the health-care system in Canada is highly overburdened, though if it's better or worse than the NHS, I can't comment.
When most Indians abroad say that healthcare was better back home, they're referring to private hospitals, decidedly not the government ones (I'd know, I've worked in both).
There's no months long queu to see a GP and you can pretty much self-refer to see a specialist. And a single consultation costs maybe 1% of your monthly salary to boot. And once in, I can't say the quality of care is any worse than in the West, and probably much more timely too for elective procedures. Look at me, staring the alternatives of being out a thousand quid for a psych assessment for ADHD here versus a 2 year wait list through the NHS.
In terms of standard of living, I'd say they're missing the creature comforts that come from low wage menial labor being available. There are so many things that are starkly better in the West, to the point where I don't feel the need to elaborate here.
Of course, by revealed preferences, the people you speak to still opt for Canada over their native lands. I don't think they literally mean that things were better back home, but certain aspects that they're missing now that they're gone, even if on an intellectual level they knew what they were getting into.
TheDag
Per Aspera ad Astra
1hr ago
Ahh yeah fair. Perhaps I'm just looking back with rose tinted glasses.
FiveHourMarathon
Just a Wawa Stan Account
1hr ago
A far more reasonable standard for a good year would be to have a strong enough regular season to get invited to a decent quality bowl, and to win that bowl game.
Yeah, around 2001 or so when I was forming my sports fandoms, I just couldn't figure out the whole Bowl Game hierarchy, and never much got into college sports at all as a result. It confused me that the AP rankings seemed just kind of arbitrary, compared to NFL or MLB standings which were very clearly based on winning/losing games between teams that have relative parity between them. I've always preferred the American professional sports model to the NCAA or UEFA models, in my mind a good season is finishing over .500 and making the end of season tournament.
I do wonder how much of that is downstream of location: as a child I went to tons of Phillies and Eagles games with my father, we never really went to college football games. I feel like my sports fandoms were really "set" by the time I was 12 or so, after that I've never formed a real emotional attachment to another team. I might decide to root for another team, but they can lose me just as easily by playing or acting in ways I don't like. Where the teams I fell in love with as a kid, short of, like, a major diddling scandal there's probably nothing that can change my fandom, though the Sixers have done their best to the point where I don't bother with the regular season.
It's interesting to me that this has quite obviously impacted my opinions on NBA and NCAA ethical issues, relative to how I feel about MLB or NFL ethical issues.
AnarchyDice
1hr ago
Something to keep in mind for that impulse against being setup or referred. You chose to associate and build relationships with the people that set you up or referred you.
Secondarily, do you ever recommend, encourage, and create opportunities for others? Do you do it because those recipients are lesser? Take the longer view that they are creating opportunities for you as well.
All except the worst sinecures still require the recipient to perform after they get the foot in the door. They still have to convince the blind date for another, still have to make friends under their own power at a meetup, and still meet performance quotas at a job.
Mantergeistmann
1hr ago
I don't know about doctors, but I believe there was an Al Jazeera journalist that met that fate.
Yeah, I do personally think of Brazil as sort of a "Tropical USA", other than the weird fact we once had a monarchy the other big difference is demographics/ethnicity which as a consequence reflects in each respective nation's economy. Outside of the rest of LATAM I would pick USA as the most similar when it comes to politics, we even had our own "Trump" (Bolsonaro) and the idea of "government interference on the rest of society should be minimal" seems to be increasingly unpopular with young american voters (it was never popular in Brazil I think).
I almost consider American problems as part of my problems because I know whatever ideas becomes popular there will eventually be imported here, if you look up the first flag of the Brazilian Republic it's basically the USA flag with green/yellow.
Folamh3
1hr ago
I've written to my representatives on several occasions during Covid, but only one responded (which I did appreciate).
Turniper
1hr ago
Yeah, but you don't have to sell your car. Savings and a fixed expense means you're vulnerable on both sides. Your cost of driving can go up, and your savings lose value at once. Owning a paid off car is locked in on cost of ownership. Sure, it can break down, but market fluctuations are irrelevant to you.
Throwaway05
1hr ago
Wasn't one of these types of doctors killed recently because he was holding one of the hostages and was killed in the retrieval? Could be misremembering, but I suspect that's what we are working with. And I say that as an ardent doctor defender.
jkf
1hr ago
I suppose -- he was about as discriminating as a largemouth bass in terms of bait-taking, which didn't help.
jkf
1hr ago
Don't forget he's also a Sovereign Citizen -- he probably just told the FBI that they can't touch him because he's a Free Man on the Land, and they knew that they had to cover the whole thing up if they didn't want to face an Admiralty Tribunal!
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1hr ago
In the case of Hlynka, his rule-breaking posts were generally highly visible, and usually when he broke the rules he did it with gusto. He simply was not willing to abide the rules, so eventually he ran out of second chances and was banned. I don't think him having a "fan-club" of reporters mattered much one way or the other.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
1hr ago
There’s a reason why I trust the NYT on this specific topic. If the NYT tells me that Assad used poison gas against civilians, I doubt it pending further evidence because it is aligned with American geopolitical interests and the interests of the NYT’s Democrat + wealthy bent. Same with the hilariously biased title reporting on Kamala’s plagiarism today. This is par for the course of NYT. But NYT has no compelling reason to post anti-Israel falsehoods. It doesn’t help Democrats, it doesn’t help their financial status, and it goes against the values of some of the execs who have ties to the Jewish community (CEO and chief editor). Why would the NYT be particularly critical of Israel? I think because the truth actually compels them here. There’s no financial, status, or political reason for them to criticize Israel. Now in this particular article, there is also an element of objective reporting, not pure subjective storymaking. No, it’s not perfectly objective, but polling a good sample of doctors is better than your usual Israel-Gaza coverage.
Re: your point that the doctors are forced to testify like this, they can simply abstain from answering if that were so, or they could answer anonymously. Is Hamas forcing them to answer with a gun to their head? I don’t recall reading this from previous medical workers. One of them is bound to spill the beans.
already ignored a pile of contradictions to even your most specious claims (e.g., that the Israeli military is mostly made up of religious extremists)
See: “Israel’s army, for much of its seven decades the country’s pre-eminent secular institution, is increasingly coming under the sway of a national religious movement that has made bold moves across Israeli society in recent years. About 40% of those graduating from the army’s infantry officer schools now come from a national religious community that accounts for 12 to 14% of Jewish Israeli society and is politically more aligned with Israel’s right and far-right political parties and the settler movement. Critics charge that its growing influence – including from the more orthodox portion known as Hardalim – is pursuing its own agenda within the army. Two-fifths of infantry graduate officer cadets now come from section of Israeli society aligned with far-right parties and settler movement” […] “In 1990, 2.5% of the graduate officer cadets of the infantry came form the national religious,” Shaul said. “By 2014 it is 40%. That is three times the representation of the national religious in Jewish Israeli society.” […] “Already we have seen discipline issues [related to national religious ideology] become almost unenforceable, and that has consequences elsewhere, including on issues like the rules of engagement.”
It's only plausible that Israelis think sniping children is fine if one accepts your premise that Jews (all Jews!) literally Other gentiles into a "not human" category
No, it is sufficient to show that there is an extremist section of Jewish Israeli society which is so radical that it would kill enemy children. And that such a section serves in the military at a higher rate. I think I proved this. I also made a general point about how this is a unique vulnerability of the Jewish religion.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1hr ago
Point taken. I’m willing to believe that the images are real per Media Rarely Lying.
My arguments about selection bias and lack of statistical evidence stand.
zoink
1hr ago
What are some examples of Republicans trying to implement overtly - not systemic - racist policies? The best example from Republican's I can think of are ant-ABS laws on behalf of Israel.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1hr ago
concur that time will tell, and if there's any solid evidence of intent, I'm open to hearing it.
My understanding is that the fake ID and fake plates is standard sovereign citizen behavior. they make their own license plates and IDs routinely (or use novelty reproductions) because it's part of the sovereign citizen memplex; they believe they're the "real" united states government, so they issue themselves "official" ID. I've heard he claims not to be a sovereign citizen, but I'm not sure if that's just a permutation of the meme, where he'd claim to actually be a "free citizen traveling" or whatever not-actually-a-distinction.
Multiple weapons isn't that weird. When I travel with guns, I usually travel with more than one.
FiveHourMarathon
Just a Wawa Stan Account
1hr ago
I'm just mystified by the idea that Harris is so certain that young men, especially young black men, would benefit from greater availability of recreational marijuana, that she has made it a highlight of her campaign.
This feels like it rhymes with the argument that because most gun deaths are suicides, it's net negative for my own well being to own a gun.
It may be statistically correct, but it doesn't justify restricting my liberty to make my own choices.
These are two different groups of fanatically religious Jews. The Haredim rely on divine providence and prefer to pray the problems away, while the Srugim don't expect G-d to do all the work. They are the ones that would start building the Third Temple as soon as they knew they had enough nukes to glass all resistance in the Muslim word. For now, they want everything from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River.
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