America - The Official Thread
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UKMikey
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To be fair you are far from the only country to do this. On the other hand you do maintain garrisons in other countries to protect us from the scourge of communism. At our invitation, of course. A guy I used to know worked on a USAF base in East Anglia and it was like a mini America inside with US vendors supplying food and clothes for the military kids. I guess this is so you didn't impact the local economies.
Keef
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It's mainly a supply line guarantee type of thing. We offer the comforts of home not because the host country can't but because we need to be able to be self sufficient no matter the situation. Our personnel still go off base often and have a good old time in the local communities and they're allowed to spend whatever they want out there. Civilian military employees are actually allowed to buy housing off base and apparently the housing situation near Rammstein is pretty glorious because our civilians get a massive stipend. A buddy of mine was trying to get transferred there because his stipend would've afforded him an equivalent $600,000 house near Rammstein, 3x the cost of his current house, and still have enough left over to pay for an RS3.
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Danoff
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Politico just missed some old school politics:
Biden won’t embrace filibuster reforms even as the rest of his party does
Those words were picked carefully. "Preference". My preference is that the republicans work with democrats to pass good legislation on voting rights (and bringing DC into statehood) as well. This is setting the republicans up to be the ones who refuse bipartisanship, it's old school politics. The democrats are willing to work with republicans (is what this is trying to say) and when the republicans refuse, it will not be because the democrats refused to work with them.
Old school politics, the way it used to be. Biden is not Trump, politico forgot that for a moment.
Biden won’t embrace filibuster reforms even as the rest of his party does
article
Those words were picked carefully. "Preference". My preference is that the republicans work with democrats to pass good legislation on voting rights (and bringing DC into statehood) as well. This is setting the republicans up to be the ones who refuse bipartisanship, it's old school politics. The democrats are willing to work with republicans (is what this is trying to say) and when the republicans refuse, it will not be because the democrats refused to work with them.
Old school politics, the way it used to be. Biden is not Trump, politico forgot that for a moment.
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Which will happen when pigs fly, considering that there is overwhelming evidence that expanding voter access (mail-in ballots, allowing felons to votes, early voting, longer poll hours, automatic voter ID registration more polling locations in Black&Brown neighborhoods, etc) help the Democrats and hurt Republicans. The most surefire way in which the Republicans can remain to be relevant in future elections is restricting voter access. It's a travesty.
They would refuse bipartisanship anyways.
Which is precisely the problem. Democratic leadership, especially Biden, virtues bipartisanship, or at least the facade of bipartisanship, far more than today's Republicans. My rationale is, Trump and the McConnell-controlled senate was as flagrantly partisan as they could get. Why must the Democrats counteract this putting bipartisanship ahead of their own policy agenda? Ideally, "bipartisan" legislature would be voted through by both Dems and Republicans in Congress and satisfy the needs of both Dem and Republican voters. Though most of the time in actuality, "bipartisan" bills tend to be heavily watered-down and worse off for the average American citizen.
Danoff
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I can see why they would have a "preference" for bipartisanship, and this is my preference as well. But if push comes to shove, and it will, because the republicans are not interested, I would like them to go ahead and shove. The fact that Biden is using "preference" indicates that he is willing to go there if he needs to. He's just hoping not to need to.
Again, I think this is a pure political move, to look less fringe, and less partisan. It's entirely aimed at persuading moderates that democrats are not playing the same terrible game the republicans are.
The democrats do not have the "luxury" of being insanely partisan and refusing moderate compromise. Republicans have their seats, and their advantage, baked into the political system. If the democrats ignore centrists, they'll lose. Republicans can ignore centrists all they want, and it's why they do.
Edit:
And to be clear, I don't highlight "losing" as a bad thing purely because go team rah rah. Losing to the republicans is very bad right now, they're craaaaazy.
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Your point about the Democratic party not having the luxury of moving farther left (while the Republicans in fact do have the luxury to move farther right) given the current state of congressional leadership rings correct, and seems to be overlooked by many fellow Leftists who seem to be under the impression that a progressive agenda can just be implemented through the stroke of a pen. Especially considering that due to the very makeup of the senate, Republicans will always have the advantage, simply because there are more Republican states than Democrat ones, despite there being more Democrat voters. In recent years (post-party switch), the Republicans have had more control over the Senate than the Dems.
Though to be fair, I don't quite see how the Biden/ the Democrats sticking to the agenda they ran on ($2000 checks, $15 minimum wage, lessening student debt, ending the filibuster, expanding healthcare access at the very least, etc), is going to alienate moderate Dems and cause them to vote for Republicans. These are all policies that polls report that the majority of Democratic voters support, anyway. No one is expecting that the Biden admin is going to be leftist or radically change our institutions.
Anyway, there's no valid excuse for the filibuster, one of the dumbest practices in American government to begin with, to stay in place. It's self-evident as to why those who support keeping the filibuster feel the way they do. The filibuster is a direct obstacle to things getting done in the Senate, plain and simple. The main excuse seems to be "keeping the traditions". But what's the point of keeping a tradition if the tradition sucks?
Though to be fair, I don't quite see how the Biden/ the Democrats sticking to the agenda they ran on ($2000 checks, $15 minimum wage, lessening student debt, ending the filibuster, expanding healthcare access at the very least, etc), is going to alienate moderate Dems and cause them to vote for Republicans. These are all policies that polls report that the majority of Democratic voters support, anyway. No one is expecting that the Biden admin is going to be leftist or radically change our institutions.
Anyway, there's no valid excuse for the filibuster, one of the dumbest practices in American government to begin with, to stay in place. It's self-evident as to why those who support keeping the filibuster feel the way they do. The filibuster is a direct obstacle to things getting done in the Senate, plain and simple. The main excuse seems to be "keeping the traditions". But what's the point of keeping a tradition if the tradition sucks?
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Danoff
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Rosy reason? Because it enables the minority to have an opportunity to make their case, cause debate, and protest over legislation - furthering the political discourse, enabling cooperation and compromise.
Cynical reason? Because the public would see abolishing the filibuster immediately as the opposite of everything Biden campaigned on. Unity, cooperation, healing, representing all people. And would then make him look like a liar, and cause a backlash in the next election.
Real reason? There isn't one really. It doesn't work, it's antiquated, and just gives the republicans even more disproportional leverage in the senate than they already have.
Danoff
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If nothing else gets done this congressional session, let's get this one done. 
https://fox8.com/news/u-s-senators-reintroduce-bill-to-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent/
Permanent daylight saving time.
https://fox8.com/news/u-s-senators-reintroduce-bill-to-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent/
Permanent daylight saving time.
Brett
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If nothing else gets done this congressional session, let's get this one done.
https://fox8.com/news/u-s-senators-reintroduce-bill-to-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent/
Permanent daylight saving time.
This would make me so happy. I am not sure how to quantify how much the time changes affect me, but they cause a big impact.
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Good luck having Republicans passing a bill named after John Lewis when they couldn't even tell difference between John Lewis and Elijah Cummings.
CodeRedR51
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Counterpoint:
Keef
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Agreed. Adjusting it for winter is pointless because it's always dark as hell anyways.If nothing else gets done this congressional session, let's get this one done.
https://fox8.com/news/u-s-senators-reintroduce-bill-to-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent/
Permanent daylight saving time.
Well this brings us to all sorts of other problems our society has invented. Virtually every study ever conducted on the subject shows that school children of all ages are simply ineffective at the early hours we force them to go to school. That needs to be changed - they should be going to school later and staying later. Pretty sure in middle school I had to be at school before 7am - 6:55 is ringing a bell for some reason - which is positively insane. That majority of us kids were completely useless at that time of day. And frankly, permanent DST - which is a good thing overall - will actually make this problem even worse as kids can play in daylight later into the night. I see no reason that kids should be forced to try and learn a damn thing before 8am.
Along with this DST shift, the schedule of our daily activities from school to work should shift as well.
Edit: Also, what's the deal with this whole summer break concept? That needs to be tossed for gradeschool kids, arguably for high school as well. We could feed our kids literally years more education by making that summer semester or quarter mandatory. If America is going to keep talking about this "hard work" nonsense then America needs to start by making their education system as efficient as possible. We're falling behind the rest of the world because of our stubborn habits and its unacceptable.
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BobK
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If nothing else gets done this congressional session, let's get this one done.
https://fox8.com/news/u-s-senators-reintroduce-bill-to-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent/
Permanent daylight saving time.
I don't see the need for daylight savings time. Why not just make the standard business day, for instance, 8 to 4 instead of 9 to 5? Basically move opening and closing times forward an hour..
Danoff
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I don't particularly care whether we adopt DST or Standard for the year, as long as it's just one. However, I do think DST is preferable, because, at least for me, the light is more useful at the end of the day than the beginning.
Most of the year is on DST, and it's what people are used to, so I say we get rid of the smaller amount of standard time remaining.
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Why is DST such an issue for some people? It's an honest curiosity. I have vaguely heard about it being "a thing" in the US before.
I'd say to most people in Europe, it's just something that happens twice a year. I don't look into it much more than that.
I'd say to most people in Europe, it's just something that happens twice a year. I don't look into it much more than that.
Danoff
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It's annoying, and it's also bad for you. Periodically people who are significantly affected by the time change petition various states to eliminate it. For some people it increases seizure frequency, which is indicative of the (presumably small) increase in stress on your brain due to disruption of your daily sleep cycle. Don't get me wrong, I definitely have gone through more to adapt to the local time following a long plane flight.
It's also just a waste of time adjusting clocks and trying to get your kids to sleep at the right time so that they're not monsters at school for a few days - so, presumably, some amount of educational... uh... inefficiency I guess you could call it. Lost education would be another way to refer to it.
...and for what? Not a damned thing as best I can tell.
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