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Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

Liked this, about Dinesh D'Souza's recent book on how the Left are the real Nazis.

Not because it's a takedown of it, but because it admits that A.) Like him or not, D'Souza pretty apt at this type of rhetoric B.) He has a very, very large audience for it.

So, yes, the book is full of silly arguments, using endless “guilty by association” type fallacies, selecting its evidence prejudicially, and relying on the ludicrous idea that if ever a “Democrat” did something, then Barack Obama can essentially be held responsible for it. But the book is deeper than it looks: D’Souza has done some research, and has long discussions of the proto-fascist syndicalism of Georges Sorel and Lenin’s ideas about imperialism. It’s sophistry, but sophistry works. Certainly, D’Souza’s book is better than large amounts of nonfiction that comes from our side, which is not nearly this accessible or clear. He actually responds to anticipated counterarguments, and has clearly read a lot of left writing, which is more than can be said for leftists who comment on the right. I don’t wish we wrote books this dishonest, but I do wish we wrote books this readable.

It’s time to start taking this stuff seriously. Historians have got to respond to books like D’Souza’s, and they have to do so in depth. They need to concede the points that are right, and vigorously contest the points that are wrong. It may seem like this is “beneath criticism,” but nothing is beneath criticism if large numbers of people believe it. And while Dinesh D’Souza may appear a laughingstock from the vantage point of the academy and the press, his books continue to quietly sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

And that’s scary. Because this book isn’t innocuous. D’Souza’s ultimate conclusions are downright frightening. Just as certain parts of the left believe that if someone is a “fascist,” they no longer have rights and you can do as you please to them, D’Souza calls for all-out war on the left, which he says is necessary to stop “Nazism”: “This will require, from the Right, a new creativity, a new resolve, and a new willingness to use lawful physical force. Anyone who says physical force is out of bounds does not know what it means to stop fascism.” People should be “duct taping Antifa thugs to lampposts,” D’Souza says, and “we should not hesitate to unleash the law and the police on these leftist brownshirts.” He even advocates using every arm of the government as a means of political repression, saying that Trump should “deploy the IRS, the NSA, and the FBI against the Left” and should stuff the Supreme Court with as many openly ideological justices as possible. All of this is justified, he says, because it is exactly what the “left” does, and anything is justified in beating them. It’s a chilling conclusion. But it’s all the more reason not to ignore the people who purchase books like this. Like fungi, ideas like these can grow in the dark, and by the time you notice them, it may be too late to stop them. I don’t know who the “real” Nazis are, but I certainly know I don’t want to be on the receiving end of whatever is directed against those who end up tagged with the label.

That kind of rhetoric has been coming from the right for decades. But now the Overton window has slid it into the mainstream.

San Diego gun buyback is so popular, police ran out of money

San Diego police officers bought back 164 unwanted guns from people in South Bay on Saturday — a no-questions-asked event that proved so popular, officers ran out of the gift cards they provided in exchange for weapons.

U.S. Supreme Court declines to consider Houston fight over same-sex marriage benefits
(Alexa Ura, The Texas Tribue, 2017-12-04)

Denying the city of Houston’s request, the U.S. Supreme Court will not review a June decision by the Texas Supreme Court, which ruled that the landmark decision legalizing same-sex marriage does not fully address the right to marriage benefits.

The high court on Monday announced it would not take up the case — which centers on Houston’s policy to provide spouses of gay and lesbian employees the same government-subsidized marriage benefits it provides to opposite-sex spouses — just months after the city of Houston filed its appeal, arguing the state court’s June decision “disregarded” precedent.

In that decision, the Texas Supreme Court threw out a lower court ruling that said spouses of gay and lesbian public employees are entitled to government-subsidized marriage benefits, and it unanimously ordered a trial court to reconsider the case. The ruling found that there’s still room for state courts to explore “the reach and ramifications” of marriage-related issues that resulted from the legalization of same-sex marriage.

That’s despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015 and noted that now-defunct marriage laws were unequal in denying same-sex couples the benefits afforded to opposite-sex couples.

In its decision, the Texas Supreme Court noted that Obergefell requires states to license and recognize same-sex marriages just as they do opposite-sex marriages but did not hold that “states must provide the same publicly funded benefits to all married persons.”

...

WTAF. "People of any gender can totally marry people of any other gender. Just... you know, you might not be treated the same as a married couple of one woman and one man. That's fair, right?"

Isn't that the very definition of separate, but unequal?

Tanglebones wrote:

Isn't that the very definition of separate, but unequal?

Is that the very definition of Texas?

How about same benefits&rights to unmarried people as married people

Turns out that forcing your victims to sign NDAs has it's downsides, like getting you in trouble when you violate your settlement:
Bill O’Reilly Is Sued by Woman Who Settled Over Harassment Accusations

A woman who reached a settlement with Bill O’Reilly over harassment allegations sued Mr. O’Reilly and Fox News on Monday for defamation and breach of contract, saying that public statements he and the network made violated the settlement and portrayed her as a liar and politically motivated extortionist.

This is a great, dismaying piece about Dollar General.

How Dollar General Became Rural America's Store Of Choice

EVENSVILLE, Tenn.—The local Dollar General store, built on a rural highway and surrounded by farmland, sells no fresh meat, greens or fruit. Yet the 7,400-square-foot steel-sided store has most of what Eddie Watson needs.

The selection echoes a suburban drugstore chain, from shower curtains to breakfast cereal, toilet paper, plastic toys and camouflage-pattern socks. Refrigerators and freezers on one wall hold milk, eggs and frozen pizza.

Many items are sold in mini bottles or small bags, keeping costs lower than a trip to the Wal-Mart Supercenter down the road. The two registers are staffed by one cashier, except during rush hours after school and after work.

“It’s just closer,” said Mr. Watson, a 53-year-old construction worker who filled his cart with cans of chicken soup, crackers, cold cuts and toilet paper. “We call this the Evensville Wal-Mart.’ ’’

The store, 10 miles from the nearest small town, is one of three locations in Rhea County where Dollar General plans to open stores by next year. More than one in five people there receive government food assistance, higher than the U.S. average, and the county has Tennessee’s highest unemployment rate.

Dollar General is expanding because rural America is struggling. With its convenient locations for frugal shoppers, it has become one of the most profitable retailers in the U.S. and a lifeline for lower-income customers bypassed by other major chains.

Dollar General Corp.’s 14,000 stores yielded more than double the profit of Macy’s Inc. on less revenue during its most recent fiscal year. And its $22 billion market value eclipses the largest U.S. grocery chain, Kroger Co., which has five times the revenue.

The retailer relies on rapid store openings to keep revenue climbing and investors happy; 2016 marked its 27th consecutive year of sales growth in stores open at least a year.

While many large retailers are closing locations, Dollar General executives said they planned to build thousands more stores, mostly in small communities that have otherwise shown few signs of the U.S. economic recovery.

The more the rural U.S. struggles, company officials said, the more places Dollar General has found to prosper. “The economy is continuing to create more of our core customer,” Chief Executive Todd Vasos said in an interview at the company’s Goodlettsville, Tenn., headquarters.

“We are putting stores today [in areas] that perhaps five years ago were just on the cusp of probably not being our demographic,” he said, “and it has now turned to being our demographic.”

I live in a pretty nice part of my state, but it doesn't take long to drive to more rural areas, and yeah, I'm seeing DG take over in places.

My parents started going there for staples the last couple of years of my mom’s life. Poverty is grinding us down and literally killing us.

I've heard that "x town Walmart" line from relatives back in Kentucky. It's sad but true.

The more the rural U.S. struggles, company officials said, the more places Dollar General has found to prosper. “The economy is continuing to create more of our core customer,” Chief Executive Todd Vasos said in an interview at the company’s Goodlettsville, Tenn., headquarters.

“We are putting stores today [in areas] that perhaps five years ago were just on the cusp of probably not being our demographic,” he said, “and it has now turned to being our demographic.”

Man who made $8.6 million last year is celebrating the fact that more Americans are too poor to shop at another store.

Prior to the dollar store moving into my home town there was just 1 grocery store and a Wal-Mart 10 miles away. The dollar store was a boon to the community.

By contrast when I was a kid the same town had 3 grocery stores, a butcher, 2 drug stores, 2 hardware stores and 3 department stores. Wal-Mart and the economy in general destroyed every one of those save the single grocery store that’s still there.

Don't worry DSGamer, the new tax bill will provide plenty of trickle-down capital to revitalize your home town. Just look at how successful that tax policy has been in the past!

DSGamer wrote:

By contrast when I was a kid the same town had 3 grocery stores, a butcher, 2 drug stores, 2 hardware stores and 3 department stores. Wal-Mart and the economy in general destroyed every one of those save the single grocery store that’s still there.

I went to college in a small, rural Indiana town in the early 90s. This place was the epitome of small town Americana. It literally had the quaint town square, courthouse at the center complete with old cannons and war memorials, and local businesses in the surrounding streets. The biggest social event of the year was the summer's 4H festival, which had a parade that snaked through "downtown."

I worked at one of those businesses on the town square pretty much my entire time at college. It was a family-run one hour photo processor (Jesus, I'm getting old).

My junior year Walmart put in a major distribution hub about 10 miles away and then opened up a super Walmart. That killed town square.

A lot of those businesses had survived because they charged a freaking arm and leg for basic things. Case in point I also worked for the college newspaper and had to buy a bunch of office supplies pre-Walmart. The local town square business supply store charged way more than ten 1990s' bucks for a ream of paper and a crazy amount for a toner cartridge. I know part of that was that the owner couldn't get bulk discounts, but part of it was that he could charge what he wanted because he was literally an hour plus drive to the nearest big city.

Walmart f*cked his business (and others). But I'm not sure that was such a bad thing.

With Walmart people were able to buy the same office supplies--and everything else--for a lot less money than they were paying the town square businesses.

OG_slinger wrote:

Walmart f*cked his business (and others). But I'm not sure that was such a bad thing.

With Walmart people were able to buy the same office supplies--and everything else--for a lot less money than they were paying the town square businesses.

Yeah, that's part of the larger problem. Of course, Walmart also vacuumed up the profits that the downtown businesses were making and took them elsewhere, paying their employees starvation wages and relying on the local safety net to keep them alive. Walmart did some things better because they could leverage economies of scale, but one way they used their size was to keep wages depressed and sabotaging efforts to create unions.

And now Amazon is eating Walmart.

Gremlin wrote:

Of course, Walmart also vacuumed up the profits that the downtown businesses were making and took them elsewhere, paying their employees starvation wages and relying on the local safety net to keep them alive. Walmart did some things better because they could leverage economies of scale, but one way they used their size was to keep wages depressed and sabotaging efforts to create unions.

And now Amazon is eating Walmart.

I'm absolutely not a fan of Walmart. But that doesn't change the fact that they made a lot of sh*t a lot cheaper for the average consumer.

The downtown businesses I mentioned weren't raking in the cash. They were surviving. The office supply place had like one part time employee besides the owner. They charged a lot because they had to (and price gouged were they could because it kept the place alive).

Somewhere there's a balance between the savings of massive economies of scale and increased operating efficiencies that lets you offer more to consumers for less and being so heartlessly capitalistic that you f*ck over the people that work for you and the communities in which you operate. Where that balance exists, I don't know.

But every time someone figures out how to do something better it's always going to negatively impact someone else who's business is based on exploiting that inefficiency in some way.

OG_slinger wrote:

Somewhere there's a balance between the savings of massive economies of scale and increased operating efficiencies that lets you offer more to consumers for less and being so heartlessly capitalistic that you f*ck over the people that work for you and the communities in which you operate. Where that balance exists, I don't know.

There's this thing called minimum wage. It hasn't been raised in 20 years.

OG_slinger wrote:

Man who made $8.6 million last year is celebrating the fact that more Americans are too poor to shop at another store.

/r/latestagecapitalism

Netflix decided to start taking the rape accusations against Danny Masterson seriously after one of its executives publicly told someone that Netflix didn't believe the accusations...specifically, he told one of the victims without realizing she was one of the victims.

HuffPost: Netflix Exec Tells Woman The Company Doesn’t Believe Actor’s Rape Accusers. Then She Said She Was One.

After that story came out Netflix coincidentally announced they were taking action.
EW: Netflix cuts ties with The Ranch star Danny Masterson amid rape allegations

Gremlin wrote:

Netflix decided to start taking the rape accusations against Danny Masterson seriously after one of its executives publicly told someone that Netflix didn't believe the accusations...specifically, he told one of the victims without realizing she was one of the victims.

HuffPost: Netflix Exec Tells Woman The Company Doesn’t Believe Actor’s Rape Accusers. Then She Said She Was One.

After that story came out Netflix coincidentally announced they were taking action.
EW: Netflix cuts ties with The Ranch star Danny Masterson amid rape allegations

My default is to believe the accusers... it takes an INCREDIBLE amount of guts to come forward - nobody (ie: a number approaching zero) is going to put themselves through that "circus" for a paycheck.

Good riddance. The show was crap, and now I know he was also crap.

Oh, speaking of sexual assault, convicted rapist Brock Turner is appealing his conviction:
NYT: Brock Turner Is Appealing His Sexual Assault Conviction
Salon: Brock Turner is appealing his conviction because the prosecutor used the word “dumpster”

As a reminder, this is the swimmer who was caught red-handed in the middle of committing sexual assault. This is also the guy with the father who "made a statement saying that his son should not go to jail or have his life ruined for “20 minutes of action.”

The statement the victim made is still worth reading.

To me it says a lot about what the parties are today when the headlines on CNN right now are

1. a democrat stepping down from congress after aligations of sexual harrasement
2. Republicans fully embracing a candidate accused of sexual harassment.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/oFSld9M.png)

tag to follow the thread.

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Netflix decided to start taking the rape accusations against Danny Masterson seriously after one of its executives publicly told someone that Netflix didn't believe the accusations...specifically, he told one of the victims without realizing she was one of the victims.

HuffPost: Netflix Exec Tells Woman The Company Doesn’t Believe Actor’s Rape Accusers. Then She Said She Was One.

After that story came out Netflix coincidentally announced they were taking action.
EW: Netflix cuts ties with The Ranch star Danny Masterson amid rape allegations

My default is to believe the accusers... it takes an INCREDIBLE amount of guts to come forward - nobody (ie: a number approaching zero) is going to put themselves through that "circus" for a paycheck.

Good riddance. The show was crap, and now I know he was also crap.

the things any woman suffers for daring to come forward, I don't see how you could do anything but give the benfit of the doubt to someone doing it knowing the hell they are putting themselves through simply for speaking up, let alone the trauma of reliving the experience. For every Duke Lacross Team there are a million Weinsteins and Brock Turners.

I'm going to blow up this political landscape just like I blew up those mines

So felons can hold office at the highest level in the land?

Seriously: the f*ck you guys doing down there??

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

Seriously: the f*ck you guys doing down there??

Mostly children, apparently