President Trump & the USA

[Jattdogg]

9 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Brilliant

 

Alabama

"this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious & that every life is a sacred gift from God"

 

Also Alabama

Alabama has the highest per capita death penalty rate in the country. In some years, its courts impose more death sentences than Texas, a state that has a population five times as large

Nothing to see here, move along, deflect, praise jesus. 

I understand people having a belief and respect it even if i disagree with it.  Heck im sure people disagree with things i do, words i speak or things i believe in. When it comes to things like this religion should be taken out of the situation. Church and politics must be seperate.

 

We live in a society where abortion should be and is available. Should it be abused, no definitely not. It shouldnt be used as a consistent form of birth control (self opinion) but at the same time be there for the one off "accidents " or in situations where youve been raped etc.  

 

For god loving folk they seem to be just fine having life saving surgeries. You'd think they love god so much they would pass on any medical procedure to be  at the best place around, in heaven with god!

[Carl the Llama]

23 minutes ago, Swan Lesta said:

If you believe in other people’s right to choose, I think you can, yes.

 

But if you don’t believe in other people’s right to choose and still wish to hold office, then I’m not so sure where the line is if I’m honest.

And if you believe in Christian doctrine then you absolutely should believe in it.  God-given free will is kind of a big thing with them.

[Buce]

48 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

And if you believe in Christian doctrine then you absolutely should believe in it.  God-given free will is kind of a big thing with them.

 

Only by way of explanation for bad shit happening.

 

Everything good is down to God's will.

[MC Prussian]

The concept of high-speed trains in the US gains some traction:

Go for it. You can do it.

[leicsmac]

45 minutes ago, MC Prussian said:

The concept of high-speed trains in the US gains some traction:

Go for it. You can do it.

This would certainly be worth the investment, long past time too.

 

Let's see it done.

[Guest SO1]

53 minutes ago, MC Prussian said:

The concept of high-speed trains in the US gains some traction:

Go for it. You can do it.

Think it would be nice if we could have public transportation( electric streetcars etc.) so that normal folks in the cities 100,000+- could travel around town without a car.

High speed rail has absolutely no value to me if we can't have affordable health care for everyone. For something I might maybe use twice a year its just another give away to the well off and connected to go shopping in Atlanta and Charlotte. Subsidised by the rest of us because there's no way it would pay for itself and the Evil Rich don't pay their fair share.

I'm not against HS rail just the deception of anything else but what we really need. 

Health care, homelessness, jobs, a living wage vs driverless cars and trucks, drone delivery, military, space, money for anything but something of actual use for the majority of people.

Anything that can be turned into a scam by the Evil Rich will be. Sorry for the rant but we're so far behind the rest of the world and seem to be dragging all of you back down to our level. We learn nothing. 

There has to be balance between socialism and capitalism but we all are losing the plot.

 

Edited 16 May 2019 by SO1

[UPinCarolina]

13 minutes ago, SO1 said:

Think it would be nice if we could have public transportation( electric streetcars etc.) so that normal folks in the cities 100,000+- could travel around town without a car.

High speed rail has absolutely no value to me if we can't have affordable health care for everyone. For something I might maybe use twice a year its just another give away to the well off and connected to go shopping in Atlanta and Charlotte. Subsidised by the rest of us because there's no way it would pay for itself and the Evil Rich don't pay their fair share.

I'm not against HS rail just the deception of anything else but what we really need. 

Health care, homelessness, jobs, a living wage vs driverless cars and trucks, drone delivery, military, space, money for anything but something of actual use for the majority of people.

Anything that can be turned into a scam by the Evil Rich will be. Sorry for the rant but we're so far behind the rest of the world and seem to be dragging all of you back down to our level. We learn nothing. 

There has to be balance between socialism and capitalism but we all are losing the plot.

 

How were you a Trump voter? I mean that in an appreciative way. Sensible post.

Add affordable higher education and an end to the loan crisis to healthcare and we're on to something. Rail matters in a metropolitan area - Atlanta, Charlotte, etc - but it's not what's going to save this country from the onset of the new, oligarchic feudalism.

Edited 16 May 2019 by UPinCarolina

[Guest SO1]

How was I a Trump voter? The best answer I can come up with but takes some time. https://dedona.wordpress.com/2016/11/10/donald-trump-and-the-politics-of-resentment-john-michael-greer/

Add lots of stuff to our list of what we need. Europe 20 years ago would be a good place to start.

Oligarchic feudalism? How long has Ford, Standard Oil, IBM and on and on been around? Who killed train travel at the turn of the century?

Seems to me there's nothing new about it. Who makes the choices? The Evil Rich do.They have always owned the government. 

Onset, I'd say hundreds of years. Dutch East India company?

Transportation matters to people who live 10 miles+ away from work and can't afford a car. Roughly $9000 a year to own a car. That's half of someones full time pay.

3 hours ago, UPinCarolina said:

How were you a Trump voter? I mean that in an appreciative way. Sensible post.

Add affordable higher education and an end to the loan crisis to healthcare and we're on to something. Rail matters in a metropolitan area - Atlanta, Charlotte, etc - but it's not what's going to save this country from the onset of the new, oligarchic feudalism.

 

Edited 16 May 2019 by SO1

[leicsmac]

Missouri hops on the misogynist bandwagon:

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48296927

 

[Jattdogg]

7 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Missouri hops on the misogynist bandwagon:

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48296927

 

Pathetic. I respect their opinions but to me its just pathetic. Im sure they'd feel the same way about me.

 

Incest and rape victims really?????? Shake your fcking head people, wow! You might as well decriminalize rapes and incestuous relationships.

 

Hope the women vote kills off these idiots at the ballot box although i wouldnt hold my breath.

 

Edited 17 May 2019 by Jattdogg

[Koke]

US is a weird country in some ways. First world country, highly developed, high standard of living, highest number of PhD holders per capita in the world, home to some of best liberal progressive minds etc yet their dedication to religion is second to none in fhe West. 

 

Religiosity and poverty is highly connected, give people security, decent paying jobs and access to education and you will see them leave religion bit by bit ,  but US seems to the the exception to the rule.

[leicsmac]

11 minutes ago, Koke said:

US is a weird country in some ways. First world country, highly developed, high standard of living, highest number of PhD holders per capita in the world, home to some of best liberal progressive minds etc yet their dedication to religion is second to none in fhe West. 

 

Religiosity and poverty is highly connected, give people security, decent paying jobs and access to education and you will see them leave religion bit by bit ,  but US seems to the the exception to the rule.

You've touched on what the problem is right there tbh - the US does have some of the highest standard of living in the world and all that...but only the for rich. And the divide between rich and poor is more pronounced there than is any other OECD nation.

 

I think the religiosity is a consequence of the poverty, not a cause of it. Of course, you have the rich folks who buy into religion too but tbh I think for them it is more about using it as a means to exercise power and control than anything else.

[Guest SO1]

Religion or country. Some people will do anything(kill) for their belief system. Same all over the world. Very hard to watch the pain we inflict on others day after day.

Not an easy thing for a soul to negotiate an existence on planet earth. Empathy is key no matter what the pain.  Easier said than done. For all of us.

[leicsmac]

https://www.ajc.com/news/national/missouri-lawmaker-apologizes-for-using-term-consensual-rapes-abortion-bill-debate/YYPEvB11T22PPxoTyxh7MN/

 

"Misspoke".

 

Yes, we all misspeak about rape from time to time, no big deal.

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48326118

 

And Trump picks his position.

 

TBH I think he's being forced to do so by circumstances here because he'd be privately sure that any fight over abortion in the 2020 election contest will be one where he comes second - there's not enough popular support for the measures this extreme in the places he needs them.

[leicsmac]

On the topic above, I See You does it again:

 

"I see you, Kay Ivey.

I see your wide Alabama smile, your face all apple pie and good Christian values, your voice a rolling tide of Deep South charm and hospitality. Gosh darn it if you aren’t just the sweetest thang, Kay Ivey, using your pen and your position as Governor to preserve life and protect all of God’s innocent children. You’ve swooped in on a bald eagle, the stars and stripes fluttering from your javelin as you fly down from the heavens to pierce the dark heart of corruption that’s been pumping liberal poison into the veins of your state. It’s all in a day’s work, isn’t it? Serving Christ and the Creator, one nation under God, legislating in the name of religion to save those too feeble-minded to save themselves.


 


That’s what you tell yourself at least. It’d probably be totes awks to take a proper look in the mirror and see the seething fundamentalist hate-monger you truly are staring back at you. It doesn’t matter if it looks like a rosy-cheeked Mrs Doubtfire and serves up tastier darn grits n’ gravy than even your dear old momma ever made. You and your kind are the Taliban with a tithing plate, the foulest of hypocrites going, pushing the most vulnerable and desperate into unthinkable suffering. That you do it all in the name of a carpenter who wouldn’t have existed at all had Mary had enough Plan B to cover up the fact she boffed a Nazarene builder on the side would be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic.


 


It’s tricky to pick out just one face in the tide of growing evangelical anti-abortion sentiment in the US, such is the force of the shrieking torrent. Alabama is far from the only state now looking to roll back women’s reproductive rights. It’s just that your legislation is the most sweeping and restrictive, removing exceptions even for rape and incest and unviable pregnancies, actively endangering lives and punishing victims in its horrific push towards challenging Roe vs Wade. Every old white man voting it through is as culpable as you are, dusty old hypocrites signing away women’s rights whilst more than happy to push their mistresses in the direction of a chemist whenever their hips seize up and they fail to pull out. Nevertheless, there is something uniquely grotesque about a woman willing to go along with that tide of oppression, selling out her own gender and ignoring the reams of scientific evidence that undermine their misogynistic bullshit with a sweep of her pen.


 


Removing access to abortions doesn’t prevent them happening. At all. Countless studies prove it. The suffering inflicted by pro-life dogma nullifies completely any sanctimonious bullshit about the preservation of life, the fevered willingness to terrorise and condemn the most vulnerable about as un-Christian as shitting in the Pope’s hat at a Cradle of Filth concert. This legislation does nothing but punish women and children, endangering both quality of life and life itself. Even ‘heartbeat bills’ themselves are a grotesque attempt to rephrase the legal consensus, seeking to create a mental image of viable life when no such thing exists outside the womb at a stage when most women haven’t even realised they’re pregnant yet. They reduce women to incubators with no personal autonomy and that’s before we even consider the worst-case scenarios they could find themselves in.

 

That anyone could even consider forcing pregnancy on women and children raped and brutalised by men who would carry none of the burden is one of the sickest ideas imaginable, to the point that even desiccated evangelical testicle Pat Robertson himself thinks it goes too far. This hysterical bullshit, enabled and empowered by a shameful grab at the power balance of the Supreme Court, tilts America so far towards Gilead that the current vision of its moral future is truly terrifying. The difference is that at least Atwood could write a three-dimensional villain, rather than a series of cartoon vultures picking at the nation’s uterus.

 

As for you, Kay Ivey? A day after signing this bill, you signed another. It’s about time your supposedly Christian principles were truly tested.

 

I see you, Kay Ivey, whistling as you shut your office door behind you. I see you stop in the corridor, looking at your forearm as something shifts in the air. I feel the static prickling across your skin, lifting the tiny hairs, the air suddenly tasting of hot metal. I see the hot white suddenly flash around you, consuming you, tearing you away from reality and throwing you elsewhere.

 



I see the woman in the street, Kay Ivey, stumbling for no reason and falling against a wall, her chest heaving up and down as she struggles to breathe. It’s you, yet it isn’t you; something drastic has changed, something in reality shifted and placed elsewhere. You’re outside but the billboards, the clothes, the people… it’s all so different.

 



It’s 1977, Kay Ivey, and across the street a teenage girl cries as her mother tries to shield her with her jacket as she walks her past a crowd of snarling protestors and into a clinic. I see you look up and staring at you from the sidewalk I see the man in the red shirt and the colourful tie. I see him pressing buttons on the device in his hand.

 



Al and Ziggy are here to guide you through, Kay Ivey. To help you make the right decision on every leap. Today you’re a pregnant Alabama woman in 1977, standing outside a clinic, the life of Michael Brandon Samra growing inside you. He’ll kill four people in his lifetime and in 2019 you’ll sign the paper condemning him to death. This should be the easiest one, surely? A life you’ve already ended, this way saving four others. Unless you’re actually a shameful hypocrite.



Strap in, Kay Ivey. After this it only gets more complicated. After this there’s the ectopic pregnancies, the assault victims, the terrified twelve-year old girls. You think you know what’s best for each of them? Time to prove it, to live their individual horrors in the face of legislators and politicians so far removed from their struggles that they couldn’t possibly comprehend them.

 



I see you, Kay Ivey. I fvcking see you."

[MC Prussian]

Ok, here's something more positive from the US of A.

 

Fantastic gesture by billionaire Robert F Smith, paying off student loan debt of close to 400 youngsters at his alma mater:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2019/05/20/student-loans-robert-f-smith-morehouse-college-billionaire-commencement/3741079002/

[leicsmac]

3 hours ago, MC Prussian said:

Ok, here's something more positive from the US of A.

 

Fantastic gesture by billionaire Robert F Smith, paying off student loan debt of close to 400 youngsters at his alma mater:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2019/05/20/student-loans-robert-f-smith-morehouse-college-billionaire-commencement/3741079002/

Unfortunate that the system is built in such a way that such gestures have to happen, but good for him for actually putting his hand in his wallet and doing it.

Edited 21 May 2019 by leicsmac

[MC Prussian]

12 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Unfortunate that the system is built in such a way that such gestures have to happen, but good for him for actually putting his hand in his wallet and doing it.

The cynic in me says it's merely a one-off to make him look rather benevolent, it remains to be seen whether he'll be consequential and repeat it in the near future. Good on the lucky 400, though. In the end, it's merely a drip in the ocean.

 

A big issue in the US are the extreme costs of higher education and the student loan debt it produces/provokes.

 

A serious debate on the topic of higher education, its value and some of its major flaws needs to be had in the States. Because it's become an industry, financially crippling youngsters very early on.

See the recent college admissions scandal for reference.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/13/felicity-huffman-guilty-college-admissions-scandal

[leicsmac]

15 minutes ago, MC Prussian said:

The cynic in me says it's merely a one-off to make him look rather benevolent, it remains to be seen whether he'll be consequential and repeat it in the near future. Good on the lucky 400, though. In the end, it's merely a drip in the ocean.

 

A big issue in the US are the extreme costs of higher education and the student loan debt it produces/provokes.

 

A serious debate on the topic of higher education, its value and some of its major flaws needs to be had in the States. Because it's become an industry, financially crippling youngsters very early on.

See the recent college admissions scandal for reference.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/13/felicity-huffman-guilty-college-admissions-scandal

Yep, and it's not the only industry that needs looking into over there - yes, "healthcare" (those quotation marks are deliberate) system, I'm looking at you.

[leicsmac]

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/19rs/hb148.html

 

From the PDF text of the bill:

 

"All women who are Kentucky residents, and of child bearing age, shall acquire a signed and notarized statement from a practitioner licensed pursuant to this chapter each month that states whether she is pregnant or not pregnant. If pregnant, the signed and notarized statement shall provide the status of the pregnancy. The woman shall submit the signed and notarized statement to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services each month. Any woman who fails to provide this monthly signed and notarized statement to the cabinet shall be subject to arrest and fines. Any woman who is pregnant and fails to provide this monthly signed and notarized statement to the cabinet will be fitted with an ankle monitor for the duration of the pregnancy in addition to any arrest and fines."

 

 

 

 

.......no words.

[Jattdogg]

50 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/19rs/hb148.html

 

From the PDF text of the bill:

 

"All women who are Kentucky residents, and of child bearing age, shall acquire a signed and notarized statement from a practitioner licensed pursuant to this chapter each month that states whether she is pregnant or not pregnant. If pregnant, the signed and notarized statement shall provide the status of the pregnancy. The woman shall submit the signed and notarized statement to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services each month. Any woman who fails to provide this monthly signed and notarized statement to the cabinet shall be subject to arrest and fines. Any woman who is pregnant and fails to provide this monthly signed and notarized statement to the cabinet will be fitted with an ankle monitor for the duration of the pregnancy in addition to any arrest and fines."

 

 

 

 

.......no words.

If thats legit, america has gone way too far to ever come back to normal (if they ever were normal)

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48375140

 

Speaking at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee, Mr Mnuchin said "the primary reason" for the changes was for "counterfeiting issues", and that the department would focus on the image later.

 

Pull the other one, Mr Mnuchin, it's got bells on.

[Guest SO1]

On 21/05/2019 at 21:42, Jattdogg said:

If thats legit, america has gone way too far to ever come back to normal (if they ever were normal)

Thanks for the generalization. As if I looked at all England's people and thought that they were the same. That's the way genocides happen. Do I need to spell it out.

I can understand your feelings and reading that makes me sick with feelings of anger. But that's what the Evil Rich want.

They want to destroy and control the rest of us my any means necessary. But talk is cheap. Before we lose our minds lets see them try it and watch what happens. Then act. 

Edited 23 May 2019 by SO1

[Jattdogg]

4 hours ago, SO1 said:

Thanks for the generalization. As if I looked at all England's people and thought that they were the same. That's the way genocides happen. Do I need to spell it out.

I can understand your feelings and reading that makes me sick with feelings of anger. But that's what the Evil Rich want.

They want to destroy and control the rest of us my any means necessary. But talk is cheap. Before we lose our minds lets see them try it and watch what happens. Then act. 

I didnt say all Americans but if you feel like I did so be it. Intolerance is everywhere but america borders on insanity with the gulf between dems/repubs lately. A very divided nation. Far right, far left are nut jobs and i can only hope they come back to the middle for their own good.