[News] Post a Political News Story

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.

Tanglebones wrote:

Add Trey Gowdy to the retirement list:
https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/9...

Dead girl or live boy?

Paleocon wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

Add Trey Gowdy to the retirement list:
https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/9...

Dead girl or live boy?

IMAGE(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/thefutureofeuropes/images/1/1b/Why_not_both.png/revision/latest?cb=20151127174034)

I think he is terrible but this is a bit dark for me.

Agreed. More likely is that he's part of the Russia obstruction and wants to move into the judiciary, because carrying water for the president in Congress is less appealing than ruining the country from the bench. There are rumors of giving him an appointment for all his effort in obstructing justice.

The Two-Hundred-Year Era of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ Is Over

U.S. democracy may be government of the people, by the people, for the people. But who are “We the people”?

In the United States, every couple of years, one finds out. Elections reveal how the identity of the people — the sovereign person — has changed in body, will, and soul. As with human beings, certain moments in the life of the sovereign being are revealing of its true personality. Donald Trump’s victory was one such moment.

Before the primaries, it was possible to dismiss the electoral relevance of white working-class America, and those left behind by globalization more broadly, and many did: Look no further than the desiccated Washington-consensus platitudes regurgitated by Hillary Clinton and most of the Republican primary candidates.

Despite Trump and Bernie Sanders’s unexpected success in the primary campaigns, before Nov. 8, denial — most often heard in the form of a “surely Hillary can’t lose to Trump” plea — remained rife. But truth, whether electoral or existential, cannot be repressed forever. Now that the American sovereign being has made its biennial apparition for all to see, nobody can deny the fundamental changes in its personality.

Of course, this new political reality is not confined to the United States. We saw it with Brexit, we see it in populist movements across Europe, and we will see it again in the French and German elections next year.

Brexit and Trump were not anomalies, accidents of political history that can be explained away to maintain the integrity of the inherited notion that “normal” politics involves competition between a center-left party and a center-right party. Rather, in my view, they are symptomatic of a paradigm shift in the configuration of Western political life, one which has only just started.

Consider the familiar political category of left and right, which since 1945 has provided the basic organizing category of political differentiation in Western democracies across the vast majority of issues. Although the language of left and right dates to the French Revolution, the category started to take substantial political meaning in the late 19th century, and was forged over the following decades on the anvil of intense political fights over industrialization in the West, and all the changes in economic, social, and political relations that came in its wake.

The crucial point is that left and right are symbiotic, because they represent both sides of the argument over the problem of industrialization, over which there are good arguments to be made on either side. It is the interaction of these arguments set up by the mediation of the left-right categorization that produced sensible compromises across a whole range of issues.

Prederick wrote:

The Two-Hundred-Year Era of ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ Is Over

Before the primaries, it was possible to dismiss the electoral relevance of white working-class America, and those left behind by globalization more broadly, and many did: Look no further than the desiccated Washington-consensus platitudes regurgitated by Hillary Clinton and most of the Republican primary candidates.

Despite Trump and Bernie Sanders’s unexpected success in the primary campaigns, before Nov. 8, denial — most often heard in the form of a “surely Hillary can’t lose to Trump” plea — remained rife. But truth, whether electoral or existential, cannot be repressed forever. Now that the American sovereign being has made its biennial apparition for all to see, nobody can deny the fundamental changes in its personality.

Great article. If the democrats don't figure this out and field an inspiring candidate that appeals to more than the liberal base; or if there is a strong third-party candidate; or if the economy remains strong through 2020, we will have four more years of Trump.

Prederick wrote:

The Family That Built an Empire of Pain

This is a few months old, but I don't think I've posted it before and I wanted to. The opioid crisis is one of those things that, in the community I am in, I do not see, despite the fact that I know it's absolutely rife here (and nationwide). The Cincinnati Enquirer had an absoluetly heartbreaking story about the depths of the crisis that came out at about the same time as the above article as well. I'd say you should give them both a read.

Following-up:

'It needs to make you uncomfortable': the opioid documentary set to shock America

Fifteen minutes into The Trade, a new docu-series about the US opioid crisis, a woman is seen injecting heroin in a dingy Atlanta hotel room.

“I hate this sh*t,” she mumbles as the drug takes hold.

It’s now her friend Skyler’s turn. He ducks into the bathroom to use and soon the two are sitting on the bed: the woman sobs while Skyler simply offers her a cigarette and sits quietly by her side. He’s not panicked and it’s clear this isn’t the first time they’ve gone to a hotel to shoot up.

Each day, 91 Americans die from an opioid overdose. The five-part docu-series, which premieres Friday on Showtime, bypasses the didactic timeline of how the US got to this position and instead places the audience in unvarnished scenes of human suffering.

It’s an intimate style the director, Matthew Heineman, used in the Oscar-nominated Cartel Land, and it puts a face to people affected by the crisis.

The camera keeps rolling as women with children are investigated by police for their connection to the opioid trade in a home filled with kilos of heroin, in a car driven by an intoxicated mother and in a front yard, being taken away by child protective services.

The children’s faces are blurred, unlike those of almost everyone else in the film, including the main characters: police, people with addiction and Mexican poppy growers.

Given the harsh criminal penalties and stigma attached to drug use, the access to people on the frontlines of the crisis is stunning – and often excruciating to watch.

In one wrenching scene, Jennifer Walton, the mother of two adult sons in recovery from addiction, faces off with her son, Skyler, and his friend, who appear to have just been using drugs. This violates the house rules, prompting Walton and her husband to force the pair out of the house.

Seeing the response from Walton, whose two sons became addicted around 2008 and 2009, is a dark reminder that there is no clear protocol, no matter how many times you’ve been in that situation before, for when your adult son and his friend, in the throes of drug use, stand, locked out outside your house, yelling, pounding on the front door and ringing the doorbell.

Walton said scenes like that were necessary.

“It needs to make you uncomfortable. You need to discuss this,” Walton said to the Guardian. “I think anonymity keeps people sick.”

This is the the reason Trump is a disaster. Because while we're dealing with his bullsh*t we're not solving actual problems. I've seen this sh*t up close. I've lost family to addiction. I've helped family get through it. There are solutions. We just have to do the right thing and help people.

We could be giving addicts Suboxone and putting them through treatment instead of forcing them to seek out heroin. It's a slow-motion disaster that absolutely doesn't need to happen, but there's no political will to do anything meaningful about it.

DSGamer wrote:

This is the the reason Trump is a disaster. Because while we're dealing with his bullsh*t we're not solving actual problems. I've seen this sh*t up close. I've lost family to addiction. I've helped family get through it. There are solutions. We just have to do the right thing and help people.

We could be giving addicts Suboxone and putting them through treatment instead of forcing them to seek out heroin. It's a slow-motion disaster that absolutely doesn't need to happen, but there's no political will to do anything meaningful about it.

The US enters Afghanistan, takes over, and opium production skyrockets. Then we don't do anything about the resulting issues here. Shall we wonder who is reaping the profits from our war, and why our country doesn't appear to care? Shall we wonder how the opium gets here? Will the answers surprise anyone?

LouZiffer wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

This is the the reason Trump is a disaster. Because while we're dealing with his bullsh*t we're not solving actual problems. I've seen this sh*t up close. I've lost family to addiction. I've helped family get through it. There are solutions. We just have to do the right thing and help people.

We could be giving addicts Suboxone and putting them through treatment instead of forcing them to seek out heroin. It's a slow-motion disaster that absolutely doesn't need to happen, but there's no political will to do anything meaningful about it.

The US enters Afghanistan, takes over, and opium production skyrockets. Then we don't do anything about the resulting issues here. Shall we wonder who is reaping the profits from our war, and why our country doesn't appear to care? Shall we wonder how the opium gets here? Will the answers surprise anyone?

We'll deal with that tomorrow. Now, look, a car crash!

DSGamer wrote:

This is the the reason Trump is a disaster. Because while we're dealing with his bullsh*t we're not solving actual problems. I've seen this sh*t up close. I've lost family to addiction. I've helped family get through it. There are solutions. We just have to do the right thing and help people.

It isn't just Trump. The only thing the federal government has ever done that made sense in the War on Drugs was the Obama administration backing off from states that had legalized weed, and the Trump administration appears to be abandoning even that. State governments are all fully committed to "aggressive enforcement", despite decades of evidence that it doesn't work. If you're waiting for "political will" to solve the problem, you're going to be waiting a very long time. By far, the most effective political action is getting the government out of the way so that people can actually work on solving the problems. As an example, New Hampshire recently scored a big win by removing prescription requirements for Naloxone. Prices plummeted, availability skyrocketed, and hundreds of people have been saved from overdoses in the last couple of years.

Aetius wrote:

By far, the most effective political action is getting the government out of the way so that people can actually work on solving the problems.

So what you’re saying is the people should seize the means of production. Got it.

ruhk wrote:
Aetius wrote:

By far, the most effective political action is getting the government out of the way so that people can actually work on solving the problems.

So what you’re saying is the people should seize the means of production. Got it.

And that a strong federal government is important to keep the tyranny of local governments in check.

*even as I typed this I think I may have typed it before, but I have been here so long and we have talked about this in so many different threads and different years that I can't remember for sure!

I feel so jaded about the "opiod epidemic" because I remember the meth epidemic and the crack epidemic and the host of other epidemics we have had in my lifetime.

Don't get me wrong, I am very sorry for the families that suffer and I don't want to seem to make light of the issue but I feel like our policies are a stupid game of "wack-a-mole" The best example being the most recent epidemic - we had a big meth problem so we started restricting how much pseudoephedrine people could buy we limited how much of some farm chemicals farmers could buy.....and people switched to opiods.

So we never seem to try to fix the problem of why people start using, we just try to stop the (current) way they are using.

farley3k wrote:

*even as I typed this I think I may have typed it before, but I have been here so long and we have talked about this in so many different threads and different years that I can't remember for sure!

I feel so jaded about the "opiod epidemic" because I remember the meth epidemic and the crack epidemic and the host of other epidemics we have had in my lifetime.

Don't get me wrong, I am very sorry for the families that suffer and I don't want to seem to make light of the issue but I feel like our policies are a stupid game of "wack-a-mole" The best example being the most recent epidemic - we had a big meth problem so we started restricting how much pseudoephedrine people could buy we limited how much of some farm chemicals farmers could buy.....and people switched to opiods.

So we never seem to try to fix the problem of why people start using, we just try to stop the (current) way they are using.

My general "meh" reaction is mostly due to the collective call for compassion for rural whites that wasn't evidenced in the treatment of urban blacks.

The fact that we aren't treating the "opiod epidemic" with a military grade law enforcement response (and putting an entire generation of rural whites in federal prison) tells you loads about our institutional race problems in the US.

Paleocon wrote:
farley3k wrote:

*even as I typed this I think I may have typed it before, but I have been here so long and we have talked about this in so many different threads and different years that I can't remember for sure!

I feel so jaded about the "opiod epidemic" because I remember the meth epidemic and the crack epidemic and the host of other epidemics we have had in my lifetime.

Don't get me wrong, I am very sorry for the families that suffer and I don't want to seem to make light of the issue but I feel like our policies are a stupid game of "wack-a-mole" The best example being the most recent epidemic - we had a big meth problem so we started restricting how much pseudoephedrine people could buy we limited how much of some farm chemicals farmers could buy.....and people switched to opiods.

So we never seem to try to fix the problem of why people start using, we just try to stop the (current) way they are using.

My general "meh" reaction is mostly due to the collective call for compassion for rural whites that wasn't evidenced in the treatment of urban blacks.

The fact that we aren't treating the "opiod epidemic" with a military grade law enforcement response (and putting an entire generation of rural whites in federal prison) tells you loads about our institutional race problems in the US.

The war on drugs is just another example of the supply-side economics mindset and why it's terrible and never works. It seems conservatives (particularly religious ones) are always trying to solve demand problems and moralistic/paternalistic supply solutions. You can't deter someone with the rational threat of jail time, when someone deep in an addiction isn't making decisions rationally.

thrawn82 wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
farley3k wrote:

*even as I typed this I think I may have typed it before, but I have been here so long and we have talked about this in so many different threads and different years that I can't remember for sure!

I feel so jaded about the "opiod epidemic" because I remember the meth epidemic and the crack epidemic and the host of other epidemics we have had in my lifetime.

Don't get me wrong, I am very sorry for the families that suffer and I don't want to seem to make light of the issue but I feel like our policies are a stupid game of "wack-a-mole" The best example being the most recent epidemic - we had a big meth problem so we started restricting how much pseudoephedrine people could buy we limited how much of some farm chemicals farmers could buy.....and people switched to opiods.

So we never seem to try to fix the problem of why people start using, we just try to stop the (current) way they are using.

My general "meh" reaction is mostly due to the collective call for compassion for rural whites that wasn't evidenced in the treatment of urban blacks.

The fact that we aren't treating the "opiod epidemic" with a military grade law enforcement response (and putting an entire generation of rural whites in federal prison) tells you loads about our institutional race problems in the US.

The war on drugs is just another example of the supply-side economics mindset and why it's terrible and never works. It seems conservatives (particularly religious ones) are always trying to solve demand problems and moralistic/paternalistic supply solutions. You can't deter someone with the rational threat of jail time, when someone deep in an addiction isn't making decisions rationally.

It was never about deterring people. It was about incarcerating scary black people.

See I thought it was about creating an permanent underclass (blacks) that could do the menial work while the powerful (whites) get the rewards! .... Maybe both?

farley3k wrote:

See I thought it was about creating an permanent underclass (blacks) that could do the menial work while the powerful (whites) get the rewards! .... Maybe both?

See the Amendment that legalizes slavery of incarcerated individuals.

Demosthenes wrote:
farley3k wrote:

See I thought it was about creating an permanent underclass (blacks) that could do the menial work while the powerful (whites) get the rewards! .... Maybe both?

See the Amendment that legalizes slavery of incarcerated individuals.

And then individual state laws that bar convicted felons from ever voting, combined with some super broad definitions for what constitutes a felony.

Man, I super hope the Florida ballot initiative passes. Aside from the basic civil rights level, I'd love to see what that shift does to the elections there.

farley3k wrote:

*even as I typed this I think I may have typed it before, but I have been here so long and we have talked about this in so many different threads and different years that I can't remember for sure!

I feel so jaded about the "opiod epidemic" because I remember the meth epidemic and the crack epidemic and the host of other epidemics we have had in my lifetime.

Don't get me wrong, I am very sorry for the families that suffer and I don't want to seem to make light of the issue but I feel like our policies are a stupid game of "wack-a-mole" The best example being the most recent epidemic - we had a big meth problem so we started restricting how much pseudoephedrine people could buy we limited how much of some farm chemicals farmers could buy.....and people switched to opiods.

So we never seem to try to fix the problem of why people start using, we just try to stop the (current) way they are using.

I feel the opioid epidemic is a bit different than the other ones you listed because we got here methodically and legally. Lots of the people now addicted didn't get there by going to a shady guy looking to get high. They got started because they had knee surgery and they found out not only did it stop their knee from hurting, but their back, feet, and neck also stopped hurting, and they felt pretty good for the day. This goes back even further with Bayer pushing it so very hard to the point where the philosophy of treatment changed. Doctors were taught that patients should be free of pain, and by the way oxycodone is great for that.

That said, you're still on track with the failure of the war on drugs. People who can't get their opioids legally turn to heroin since it's much cheaper and easier to get. Then sprinkle in a little fentanyl and they're dead.

Delbin wrote:

...This goes back even further with Bayer pushing it so very hard to the point where the philosophy of treatment changed. Doctors were taught that patients should be free of pain, and by the way oxycodone is great for that.

That said, you're still on track with the failure of the war on drugs. People who can't get their opioids legally turn to heroin since it's much cheaper and easier to get. Then sprinkle in a little fentanyl and they're dead.

Don't forget: 'Heroin' was originally a Bayer trademark name.

A good snippet that is pretty far down, so it may be missed:

I researched white supremacist groups and visited the same sites that my husband frequented. After a month of clicking on platforms that ranged from The Drudge Report to The Daily Stormer and reading about the alleged takeover of Illuminati Elite, my computer turned into a Nazi.

Up until then I hadn’t realized that my computer, like me, was ethnically Jewish. The ads that normally filtered through my Facebook feed were preoccupied with celebrity gossip, yarn sales and timely reminders from Chabad.org advising me to pre-order kosher lamb legs for Pesach.

As it turned out, becoming a Nazi was not unlike catching a common virus like the flu, and then having it spiral out of control as it hijacked your immune system and ultimately your common sense. As I tried to retrace my ex-husband’s descent into madness, my very Jewish computer became an alt-right conspiracy theorist whose new interests included obsessing over the “fake news” of the far left and praising President Donald Trump’s (then candidate Trump’s) candor and can-do promises which, as of yet, remain largely unfulfilled.

Online advertisements included everything right of the aisle, from saving unwed mothers to praying for the heart of America, to religious church tours of the Holy Land, promotional sales for Mylar bags (in what appeared to be a far-sighted effort to prep for the inevitable reign of the Anti-Christ), guns, guns, NRA ads and, yet again, more guns, collector’s coins, how-to advice on hoarding gold and book reviews for authors who re-envisioned history “as it truly happened,” along with white-power graphic tees that made the unabashed claim, “Hitler Was Right.”

Don't read the comments...

Green card veteran facing deportation starts hunger strike

A U.S. Army veteran and green card holder with a felony drug conviction began a hunger strike Wednesday to protest his likely deportation, after a federal court denied his appeal to remain in the U.S., where he has lived since age 8.

Miguel Perez Jr., 39, a Chicago resident who served two tours of duty in Afghanistan and recently finished a prison term on a drug conviction, had sought to remain in the U.S., arguing his life would be in danger if he were deported to Mexico, where drug cartels target veterans with combat experience to work on their behalf, or else.

A three-judge panel for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument last week.

Perez said he believes deportation means certain death and the only thing left to do is commence an “extreme fast” until he is granted relief.

"If it comes down to me being deported, I would rather leave this world in the country I gave my heart for,” Perez said in an interview from the detention center where he has been in custody for the last year.

Perez, who has two children who are U.S. citizens, is one of many legal permanent residents who served in the U.S. military then confronted the possibility of deportation to their native countries after committing a crime.

Support the troops, right?

And you thought Roy Moore was bad.
Holocaust denier poised to claim GOP nomination in Illinois race for Congress

Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.

It's a state seat, not a national one, but still:

“And given the fact that I’ve got no opposition in the primary, OK, I win that one (the primary) by default all right,” Jones said during an interview in a coffee shop in Lyons.

That leaves Illinois Republicans saddled with a nominee who is well known for his racist and white supremacist activities.

Tim Schneider, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party said in a statement to the Sun-Times, “The Illinois Republican Party and our country have no place for Nazis like Arthur Jones. We strongly oppose his racist views and his candidacy for any public office, including the 3rd Congressional District.”

Jones told the Sun-Times he is a former leader of the American Nazi Party and now heads a group called the America First Committee. “Membership in this organization is open to any white American citizen of European, non-Jewish descent,” he said.

Gremlin wrote:

And you thought Roy Moore was bad.
Holocaust denier poised to claim GOP nomination in Illinois race for Congress

Arthur Jones — an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist — is poised to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat representing parts of Chicago and nearby suburbs.

What's going on where holocaust denier gets the headline, but literal Nazi leader is 12 paragraphs and 2 ads down?