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America - The Official Thread
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UKMikey
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Insert obligatory "I bet you did not see what all the fuss was about" joke here...
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Joey D
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What they did to Romney was disgraceful. I will switch my party affiliation so I can vote for him when he undoubtedly gets primaried because the other option will be QAnon, pseudo-Mormon looking to unseat him...kind of like Burgess Owens.
McLaren
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The Republican Party could nip this in the butt if McConnell would actually find his spine and take action against Trump instead of going, "He's a bad guy, but I hide in my shell when he retorts against me". It's not like McConnell can be voted out or removed, he's got a fresh term, he's still Minority Leader, he knows full well how to make everyone fall in line, esp. now that he knows the Dems don't have the full power over Congress because of guys like Manchin.
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- TexRex72
My apologies. I misunderstood the post to which I responded above.
As far as steering the party away from Trump, I don't think McConnell can accomplish that, and I really don't think he has the desire to. McConnell knows Trump has more of a base than anyone else they've got and he's hedging that current efforts to restrict voting access in population centers, where turnout for Democratic candidates and policies tends to be dominant, and the power to compel a particular outcome through partisan measures will be enough to regain the White House for Republicans in 2024.
McLaren
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I think he has more ability than anyone else, but I'd also have to agree you're right that he has no desire.
I guess one can laugh if this becomes true, then.
https://www.salon.com/2021/05/03/no...strictions-may-backfire-and-hurt-gop-turnout/
Joey D
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Trump praised and said he liked Kim Jong-Un while bashing South Korean President Moon Jae-In.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk/desk-xgkcg2abxc97/
How can anyone look at Kim and say, "you know what, he's not a bad guy"? It sounds like the edgy kid talking about how Hitler wasn't that bad.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk/desk-xgkcg2abxc97/
How can anyone look at Kim and say, "you know what, he's not a bad guy"? It sounds like the edgy kid talking about how Hitler wasn't that bad.
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Well both Trump and Jong-Un have a fondness for bad hairstyles, questionable real estate ventures* and and being generally out of touch with reality, so I can see why he feels a kinship there.
*Okay techincally this was Jong-Un's predecessor, and only tangentially, but whatever
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- TexRex72
You left out dictatorial aspirations. The difference being that Un has been successful on that front.
...
Has there ever been a whinier little bitch?
Danoff
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I just can't see this winning the general election. He won the first time around (having lost the popular vote), campaigning against a wildly unpopular candidate on a much more nebulous and uplifting platform. This conspiracy theory, nut-job, twice-impeached, corrupt, insurrectionist platform is just not going to get it done. The republicans should be fleeing him, but some of them are in some strangely drawn districts.
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Indeed.
Let's not forget what Trump actually did... he claimed/claims that the entire democratic process is corrupt and he tried (but failed) to overthrow a duly elected President.
Sadly, the GOP have mainly bought into it, and hence they are laboring under the belief that they don't need to win future elections, only to disenfranchise people who are most likely to vote against them and to set the precedent that any votes cast against them can be dismissed as fraudulent. This is the birth of fascism in the US and it is very scary.
It's almost analogous to the ridiculous ESL debacle that engulfed European
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Danoff
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It would be so much scarier if not for the "failed" part. We really needed Trump to lose 2020.
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Yeah it's scary. There are still so many unknowns.
I don't think the GOP so much buys into the notion that the election was illegitimate as this is the narrative they've chosen to justify actions taken in avoidance of losses in the future. I'm not even convinced the base buys into the notion either, rather the appeal of the narrative is that it justifies their support for win-at-all-costs measures.
I believe they see the election as a legitimate loss and harbor resentment for an actual majority of the voting public who came out against their interests, and what scares me is the question of what they will do in retaliation should their efforts to restrict voting access and flip results bear out with them regaining a significant enough portion of government.
I mean...I agree, to an extent, but--at the risk of mangling a quote whose origin escapes me at the moment--"darkness is a comfort for the horrors revealed in the light." In the absence of that loss, the right's fomentations wouldn't have culminated with the events of January 6th.
Keef
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So what's the likelihood that Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney split with Republicans on topics like the filibuster? What if Steve Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema suddenly find themselves less relevant in such situations? What if Romney and Cheney provide that 50/50 split that Kamala can decide?
Keef
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It was a stretch I'll give you that.
Speaking of eating coal, do you think the people of WV know we're lying when we say their coal mining jobs could be replaced by solar panel manufacturing jobs? WV is not in any large shipping corridor which makes both gathering materials and shipping product difficult, there is very little local market for solar panels which means you've got to move the product far before it makes money, space is at a premium for large manufacturing facilities, the list goes on. WV has historically suffered greatly because it's not a good place for anything productive, really.
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Danoff
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There's a lot of talk about waiving IP rights for covid vaccines. I'm not sure what this would accomplish given that we have huge rollouts of vaccine supply right now, except that... I guess we feel like it costs too much? I'm not sure anyone is complaining about costs.
The line seems to be "protect people, not big companies". There are a number of problems with this, not the least of which is whether there is a contract associated with government grants for some vaccine development. Good luck getting companies on board in the future if the US is willing to break its contractual agreements, or seen as willing to undermine its own contracts by "waiving" guaranteed rights (if that's even remotely allowed by a limited government).
But there is another element. One of the biggest vaccine suppliers, Pfizer, doesn't seem to have done so based on government funding. And they've saved thousands upon thousands of American lives in doing so already. Yet America is lining up to vilify them? Doesn't want to pay the relatively low price? Pfizer should be making money on this. We want them to make money because we want them to come to our aid in the future, just like they did this time around.
It is disgusting to me how greedy this sentiment is. Beg big phrama, pay them whatever the cost, throw money at the problem, until we feel relatively secure again, and then screw them, I got mine, they don't deserve the money. Have a little respect for the absolute back breaking effort that went into rolling out vaccine in unbelievable time, and the number of lives saved. Take a break from the class warfare for just a moment.
The line seems to be "protect people, not big companies". There are a number of problems with this, not the least of which is whether there is a contract associated with government grants for some vaccine development. Good luck getting companies on board in the future if the US is willing to break its contractual agreements, or seen as willing to undermine its own contracts by "waiving" guaranteed rights (if that's even remotely allowed by a limited government).
But there is another element. One of the biggest vaccine suppliers, Pfizer, doesn't seem to have done so based on government funding. And they've saved thousands upon thousands of American lives in doing so already. Yet America is lining up to vilify them? Doesn't want to pay the relatively low price? Pfizer should be making money on this. We want them to make money because we want them to come to our aid in the future, just like they did this time around.
It is disgusting to me how greedy this sentiment is. Beg big phrama, pay them whatever the cost, throw money at the problem, until we feel relatively secure again, and then screw them, I got mine, they don't deserve the money. Have a little respect for the absolute back breaking effort that went into rolling out vaccine in unbelievable time, and the number of lives saved. Take a break from the class warfare for just a moment.
Joey D
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And really, the biggest cost right now that anyone is enduring comes from the health systems themselves. Between the overtime, the new spaces, and just supplies, it's costing health systems a ton of money to vaccinate people and they're not charging the patient anything at all. Yes, most non-profit and not-for-profit health systems will bill your insurance an administration charge, but if the patient doesn't have insurance or is underinsured, the health system just eats the cost. I'm not even sure how many millions of dollars extra we've spent on this and while it'll eventually all wash out with taxes, we still have to carry that debt. This is already in addition to a year of not having elective procedures, which are money makers for health systems plus the mandatory overtime from pretty much everyone. This is the first year since I've worked in healthcare where I haven't gotten a bonus and/or a cost of living pay adjustment just because we don't have the money to do it. I couldn't even get a new laptop because of the cost.
Seriously, let these organizations function because if you start to lose too many healthcare employees it impacts the community as a whole.
The same goes for the vaccines too. As you pointed out, we want Pfizer to make money since they will see that it makes sense to continue doing this sort of stuff. With mRNA vaccines being proven to work, we're on the cusp of having a whole new set of vaccines to ward off other illnesses. Can you imagine if you could get a yearly "common cold" vaccine? That would be incredible and is theoretically possible with mRNA vaccines. For the benefit of world health, we want these companies to make money because it will incentivize them to keep developing new vaccines.
With Moderna, that's another story. They took government money and should probably be subjected to a bit of ridicule. It probably makes sense to allow them to make money, but would they've developed the vaccine as quickly as they did without government funds? I doubt it.
Big pharma also sort of shot themselves in the foot. By buying up smaller drug companies and dissolving competition, then dragging their feet on new treatments, they've gotten a bad wrap. They've also continued to increase the cost of drugs simply because they can. I don't think the government should step in, but big pharma could do themselves some favors by reducing their prices and making drugs more available. They can also quit paying off politicians and getting into bed with insurance companies (along with socialized medicine too).
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I was just reading about the bison-killing lottery in the Grand Canyon, would it be better to ask the first nation peoples to take care of the overpopulation problem? It just feels like an uncomfortable precedent, however carefully the authorities are supervising things.
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