Random political thought thread.

[Virtual ghost]

Why Nevada might not matter in the GOP presidential race

Continuation of the story.

Worse than you can imagine: Haley loses to ‘none of these candidates’ in Nevada

Overview and Live Results: Nevada Presidential Primary



Losing by 30+ points when Trump isn't even on the ballot is indeed a campaign problem.

 

[The Cat]

raising the retirement age to 70 is like offering your sex while advertising its corrosive to human flesh. I mean sure, some people are still gonna do it, but not as many who might have.

 

[Red Herring]

Remember Shahak Shapira, the Israeli-German comedian with the impro show on the Oct 7th attack who also did a 2-3 hour long conversation clip with a Palestinian friend? The one whose grandfather on his mother's side was murdered by Germans in the holocaust for being Jewish and whose grandfather on his father's side was murdered by Palestinians during the 1972 terrorist attack on the Olympic games in Munich for being Jewish/Israeli? Well, his younger brother, a university student in Berlin, just got physically assaulted and beaten up (ended up in hospital) by a pro-Palestinian student for ... well, I'll let you guess why.

 

[The Cat]

 

[SensEye]

Is old Beau being disingenuous when he says "they do see it but they have some other reason"? I know the other reason, Trump likes Putin. They are Trump sycophants and parroting his view wins them points with his (and therefor their) supporters. Duh.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Rudy Giuliani claims Donald Trump’s campaign owes him $2m

Now, this is a funny story.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Reagan ‘must be turning in his grave’: Poland’s Tusk slams Republicans over Ukraine aid

Tucker Carlson joins long line of ‘useful idiot’ journalists helping tyrants


Some things to think about.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Senators ask CEOs why their drugs cost so much more in the U.S.

​

Sanders asked Merck's Davis if he had ever searched GoFundMe to see if anyone was trying to raise money to pay for Keytruda. He said he hadn't. Sanders said his staff had.

"We have found over 500 stories of people trying to raise funds to pay for their cancer treatments," he said. "And one of those stories is a woman named Rebecca, the school lunch lady from Nebraska with two kids who died of cancer after setting up a GoFundMe page because she could not afford to pay for Keytruda. Rebecca had raised $4,000 on her GoFundMe page, but said the cost of Keytruda in a cancer treatment was $25,000 for an infusion every three weeks."

 

[Red Herring]

Senators ask CEOs why their drugs cost so much more in the U.S.

​

I just checked and found the official price here in Germany to be around 3,000 Euros per bottle (assuming your insurance refuses to pay for it). The copay, I think, is 10 Euros.

That still makes it one of the most expensive medications around.

To be fair though, the list price in the US is $22,230.08 (not 25,000) and the price actually paid in the US tends to be around 6,000, from what I could find, with a copay of 25 Dollars.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Live Results: Republican Caucus in Nevada and US Virgin Islands


Trump won both quite convincingly. So if Haley loses her own home state in a few weeks that is it. There is no path.

Just saying.

 

[Virtual ghost]

‘It’s devastating’: Trump seizes unmatched control over GOP

 

[SensEye]

Pretty damming indictment on Biden's mental health while being acquitted on having classified documents. Basically, he's not mentally competent to form criminal intent (or at least for anyone to prove it). Yikes!

Then Biden dug the hole deeper in a press conference trying to defend his mental competency. Tough to do when you can't organize your thoughts cohesively.

CNN has been pretty shameless trying to defend their boy. The special counsel should not be making such comments, it's not that bad, etc. etc.

In any event, the Tweedle Dum vs Tweedle Dictator election showdown continues unabated.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I just checked and found the official price here in Germany to be around 3,000 Euros per bottle (assuming your insurance refuses to pay for it). The copay, I think, is 10 Euros.

That still makes it one of the most expensive medications around.

To be fair though, the list price in the US is $22,230.08 (not 25,000) and the price actually paid in the US tends to be around 6,000, from what I could find, with a copay of 25 Dollars.

Yes, well it is more then possible the person mentioned in the article was either unable to get insurance or was unable to have insurance cover it.

 

[Coriolis]

You've grossly oversimplified, but you have the gist of it right. I hold right of center political views on a number of topics. I am certainly no bleeding heart either. I do view basic humanity as something afforded to all human beings, but the devil is in the details of what one considers "basic". However, my political views vary from left to right on depending on the subject. Sure I am on the right regarding strict immigration regulation, and a firm justice system. OTOH, on subject such as socialized healthcare and abortion rights I hold views generally considered on the left. Those are just examples, mainly to demonstrate my views vary based on each issue depending on what I consider the most rational and reasonable position for both my well being and society over all.

You are a typical left wing social liberal, dare I say "woke", and you post your views here regularly as well. You suffer from the typical arrogance of the left, in that you feel your views are correct and virtuous, and anybody who disagrees with you is therefore incorrect and a bad person. I recognize your view as simply a different way of looking at things. Your views are a bit dogmatic and not logical in many instances from my viewpoint, but I don't consider you bad for holding them.

What exactly do you mean by "woke"?

Also, do you consider yourself a Christian?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Noting ‘unprecedented’ coral bleaching and heat stress, NOAA expands coral reef alert system

 

[The Cat]

Willful Retention is why Biden and Pence arent in trouble and Trump is.

​

One might hope no one criticizing people on the basis of stuttering in an interview or the elderly ever stutters or grows old, lest they find themselves trapped in the outer limits of life.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Tomb1]

I don't think I am missing the point. I do not feel my "freedom" is an illusion. I do agree Democracy does not rely as heavily on pain stimulation as other non-democratic systems and that in itself probably makes it the best system. Nobody wants pain.

In any event, it's fine to criticize, but what would you propose as an alternative? Communism has been shown not to work. Sure the masses don't compete with each other because there is no benefit to doing so. The problem is, nobody is motivated at all because there is no disincentive to free riding. Not to mention when the 'state' has zero accountability, it always leads to massive corruption. Perhaps you have some sort of ultra libertarianism approach in mind (you seem to have a burr under your saddle regarding freedom). Not workable IMO. That's basically anarchy.

If you've got something better than democracy in mind please share. I can't think of any such system.

Centrally-planned State democracies feature massive corruption. Governments avoid accountability by having a "fall guy" take the blame. Courts of law set such anal-retentive standards for evidence that actually being able to hold an entire department or branch of the executive accountable is extremely difficult to do. That would take a lot of wire-tapping. You'd be asking legislatures to pass laws that provide for wire-tapping themselves, so that won't happen

Democracy with a State succeeded over communism largely because the hordes of low to average intelligence masses in the latter has really no idea its being controlled. Communist intelligence agencies had a harder time creating internal strife. Nobody retained an illusion of freedom under the communist countries (which were really dictatorships that controlled through pain stimulus) so the CIA and British Intelligence found more success running campaigns of subversion. But if you're comparing physical health for example men in cuba have much lower obesity rates than men in the USA....sitting at desks all day looking at computers and stuffing their faces with processed food and tons of sugar and getting health problems before sixty characterizes the American prototype. If it weren't for medications, the life span in the USA would be among the lowest in the world.

Of course anarchy and even libertarianism is more workable. Anarchy extinguishes the State's pathological obsession with herding and controlling masses of people for its own gain, so the population is freed from false needs. But it sounds like you have a preference for being governed under a system in which case centrally-planned State demoracy is more your cup of tea. I don't....I'm anti-state but not about to sit around waiting for some political upheaval to occur....so the practical alternative in my own life is carving out my own path towards beating and opting out of the system...whatever advantage I get I take and whatever string can be cut gets cut and i do it in a way that involves the least interdependence....free and clear

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Of course anarchy and even libertarianism is more workable. Anarchy extinguishes the State's pathological obsession with herding and controlling masses of people for its own gain, so the population is freed from false needs. But it sounds like you have a preference for being governed under a system in which case centrally-planned State demoracy is more your cup of tea. I don't....I'm anti-state but not about to sit around waiting for some political upheaval to occur....so the practical alternative in my own life is carving out my own path towards beating and opting out of the system...whatever advantage I get I take and whatever string can be cut gets cut and i do it in a way that involves the least interdependence....free and clear

I was in an anarchist group in college that was very cult-like. In addition, you had one or two guys always calling the shots on everything, but they used the word "we" instead of "I" so it was ok. If that's what a "leaderless" group looks like, no thanks. If you're going to call all the shots, just make it obvious and give yourself a title. The fact that you don't have an official title doesn't make it better. I never had an issue with people in leadership positions anyway. Better them, than me.

What finally made me walk away was realizing that the one or two guys running things had no plan and no desire to engage in politics. This was 2008. I said to them something like "maybe we should think about how the political climate might change in November and how we should handle that." This was shrugged off with a "we don't want anything to do with elections" (even though I wasn't asking him to vote). This made it clear to me that this was a performance for them, and that these people (or at least the ones leading the "leaderless" environment) had no real interest in changing things. (Even if they don't vote, I think they should still be able to acknowledge that an election has the power to change the "climate". I supposed if they did that, though, that would weaken their case for elections not mattering.)

If you know other anarchists, ask them what their plan is for November and see how they respond.

Maybe some anarchist groups are different, though.