uncle bernard

Very simple question: Would you feel the same way about an identical lobby PAC spending billions on behalf of the Chinese government? Or even the French or Germans? Why do you think it's normal to allow a foreign country to have such a profound influence on our elections?

No, you are citing extremely isolated incidents and numbers out of context to portray the image that these things are happening all the time, everywhere. They aren't. If you cared, you'd take the time to read baseline statistics on it and not your political hack websites. Have there been some doctors who acted too hastily or unwisely? Yes, undoubtedly, because that happens across every field of medicine. Is there an epidemic of trans teens undergoing irreversible and/or damaging medical treatment? No, absolutely not. Can we stop pretending this is about protecting kids? It's about you thinking being trans is wrong and 1 trans kid is too many. Anything that makes being trans easier or more pleasant is to be attacked. Every possible barrier to living safely and comfortably as a trans person is to be attacked.

This is such a straw man. Nobody is singling out AIPAC as a boogeyman. It's one bad lobby among many bad lobbies. The only difference is that AIPAC and its defenders use cynical accusations of anti-semitism to deflect from the reality of what it is - an organization that's spent billions lobbying on behalf of a foreign nation. And I don't know if you noticed, but our support for Israel is a huge political issue right now. So don't play dumb when their lobbying mechanism gets a lot of attention.

are you against minors taking birth control? thyroid treatments? where’s the line?

the discourse on this issue is completely divorced from reality. you are being sold a crisis that does not exist.

when multiple studies have returned results of 50% of trans youth considering suicide, it’s not just fear, it’s reasonable concern. and again, i can’t stress enough how few trans teens are actually receiving drugs and/or surgery. the vast majority do not. there are 300,000 trans minors in this country. only 5% of them have taken any sort of hormones, about 1% on puberty blockers. right wing media would have you believe that every kid who comes out as trans gets hormones within the week with little oversight. that just isn’t true.

The ultimate source of there being any gender-affirming care for minors is the extremely high suicide rate among trans teens. Doctors are very afraid if they don’t treat them quickly, they will kill themselves. That’s the reality they deal with. If you want to slow the process down, you should be focused on creating a more hospitable society for these kids to go through their own process.

It’s not nearly as black and white as you make it out to be. Denying gender-affirmation for minors across the board has consequences too. Suicide rates will rise. Many will suffer tremendous emotional damage. There’s a rational middle ground (and I think most doctors are already there). Gender confirming surgery for minors is extremely rare. It’s mostly chest masculinization, which is actually more common among teenage boys. I’d support limiting any sort of surgery for minors, but I think the risk of puberty blockers is acceptable and we need to trust the parents and doctors to make the best decision for the kid. What you’re essentially advocating for is the government telling families which medical care they’re allowed to seek for their children. And fwiw, very few minors are receiving gender-affirming care, be it puberty blockers or surgery. The vast majority of trans teens don’t start treatment until they’re older if at all and the rate of detransition is extremely low. Recent studies have it at 2-10%, with most of them having never started any sort of treatment. Family and social discrimination is the number one cited reason for detransitioning. Most of this social panic is ideologically driven and not about protecting kids. It’s about forcing other people to ascribe to your ideology.

Let me guess, you don’t actually live in “our” cities. If you actually did, you’d know they’re as safe now as they’ve ever been. Just a bunch of scared, old suburbanites telling ghost stories because they watch too much cable news.

do you think all the campaign finance reform legislation they advocate for just wouldn’t apply to him? by magic or something?

The biggest shame is that congress is losing its stoutest member. Moving 405 with ease at the local YMCA. 48, no arch, close grip. Freak stuff.

His position in his district was always tenuous because of this. He was specifically targeted by AIPAC for this reason. They are going all out on the squad and he was the weakest link. Most of his district is in Westchester, a majority white and wealthy county. The wealthy residents were presented with a more conservative candidate and were inundated by endless attack adds. It was the most expensive House race of all time and most of that was from Latimer. To demonstrate the divide, Bowman won the portion of his district in the Bronx by 70 points. No reason is isolated on its own and Bowman certainly made some dumb mistakes, but this is a far more competitive race without AIPAC's involvement. Do none of you think it's wrong that a lobbying group *for a foreign country* is targeting specific members of congress and flooding elections with millions of dollars? I suppose you'll be just fine if China starts buying elections right?

A potential second coup attempt in 5 years is apparently under way in Bolivia. The military has forcefully entered the presidential palace. President Arce is calling for democracy to be protected. For those who don't remember the last one, popular president Evo Morales was on his way to an impressive re-election when his opponents claimed malfeasance. The claims were supported by western agencies. It ended up being a math error (or maybe on purpose) and the claims were bogus, but the military already stepped in, removed Morales, and installed a far-right politician whose party received 4-5% of the vote. Fortunately, the position of that illegitimate government was not tenable and they were forced to have an election a year later which resulted in MAS, Morales' party, sweeping back to power. Hopefully, this second attempt fails. If you know anything about the long history of coups in this region, you know there's a very real chance we are involved in some measure. Bolivia has the world's largest Lithium reserves. The coup government immediately signed a large Lithium deal with a major German company to start upping extraction.

I think you'll find 99% of progressives don't think George Soros should be able to buy elections either.

the main goal is to make their exports cheaper to increase international trade while making imports more expensive so money stays in the country. paired with intense government spending cuts to reduce the deficit. a major criticism of this strategy is that it concentrates wealth at the top. the rich who own the exports make money from increased trade. the regular people who buy imports lose money. in theory, the wealth is supposed to eventually trickle down, but that’s never totally worked the way it “should.” another hallmark of shock therapy is the selling of government assets to the rich for pennies on the dollar. the offload puts money in the bank and reduces the overall spending profile long term, but it also continues to concentrate wealth at the top as the rich gain extremely valuable assets for little to nothing. this is the origin of the russian oligarchs. it’s a hard strategy to stomach morally. nearly all of the burden is born by the poor and middle classes. it has extreme material effects on people. one of the largest collapses in life expectancy in recorded history was in the soviet union when they transitioned to capitalism through shock therapy.

No, our efforts at removing air pollution - in the form of aerosols - makes the reduction of total emissions even more necessary. Both must be reduced. Pollution causes serious health issues. Carbon causes rapid temperature increases that are too fast for the environment to adapt.

He slashed the value of the peso against in the dollar by 50% in his first days in office, which was part of his plan. Millions of people became poorer overnight, which caused many to fall below the poverty line. We'll see how it works out. The effectiveness of "shock therapy" is highly controversial. It also has historically been paired with right-wing authoritarianism to control the social unrest caused by such painful policies for the poor and middle classes. The "Chilean Miracle" under Pinochet is the classic example. Came to power with a military coup in the early 70s (with the aid of the CIA), murdered thousands including the extremely popular elected president, and let the "Chicago Boys," economists from UChicago, take control of the economy. Proponents of shock therapy point to this as an example of its success, but many point out that it was largely unsuccessful until copper and lithium, which Chile had vast reserves of, became far more valuable in the 90's. The other unquestioned effect of this strategy is vastly increased income inequality, which causes its own problems and is unsustainable. If you're looking for a fun read, check out The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

"What do we do with this?' Well, you could start by actually reading the article before assuming it's stupid. The gist is that the heating effect of increased carbon in the atmosphere has always been slightly offset by the air pollution caused by those gases. The aerosols in carbon cause darker cloud cover which better blocks the sun. As air pollution is cleaned up, less of the greenhouse effect is offset because the aerosols block less sun which means that the Earth would heat even faster than it has been.

1) Israel has blocked ton of aid from going into Gaza for 8 months. That's a fact. It's something they brag about. That's why the US felt it needed to build the pier. 2) Do you think Hamas shooting at aid trucks has anything to do with the IDF *using aid trucks* for their raid that killed almost 300 people? There is a reason why that tactic is highly controversial. It has obvious consequences. There are two combatants in this conflict and your (the rhetorical "you") one-sided ignoring of the actions of one of them is the major reason this conflict is on-going and people are still dying.

Won't Trump's tax cuts add to the deficit?

hadn’t seen it until i read your post. i condemn it.

there can be more than one psychopath in the world. this isn’t highlander.

Looking forward to your complaint that there are an excessive number of cop shows as part of a specific agenda. Seriously, how many NCIS agents are there in this country? Do they really need that many shows? What agenda are they pushing?!

Personal responsibility! Well said.

wait, you saw sexual behavior at mardi gras, the festival famous for women flashing??