Politics

[ColoradoIrish]

Ron DeSantis, using the levers of state government, ramps up efforts to defeat Florida abortion-rights ballot measure

Republicans and Democrats see the moves, which have drawn lawsuits from critics, as an attempt by the governor to re-exert his political sway.

www.nbcnews.com

DeSantis using his power as governor to shut down ads on television supporting an abortion rights amendment. Any outrage about him abusing his powers to shut down free speech an issue up for vote? Seems pretty authoritarian to me considering he's been doing anything within his power to keep it off the ballot as well. I thought we were for letting the people decide the issue and for keeping our government out of the media and the whole free speech thing

 

[ab2cmiller]

Ron DeSantis, using the levers of state government, ramps up efforts to defeat Florida abortion-rights ballot measure

Republicans and Democrats see the moves, which have drawn lawsuits from critics, as an attempt by the governor to re-exert his political sway.

www.nbcnews.com

DeSantis using his power as governor to shut down ads on television supporting an abortion rights amendment. Any outrage about him abusing his powers to shut down free speech an issue up for vote? Seems pretty authoritarian to me considering he's been doing anything within his power to keep it off the ballot as well. I thought we were for letting the people decide the issue and for keeping our government out of the media and the whole free speech thing

Have no clue why governmental agencies should be used in that manner.

 

[Jiggafini19Deux]

Ron DeSantis, using the levers of state government, ramps up efforts to defeat Florida abortion-rights ballot measure

Republicans and Democrats see the moves, which have drawn lawsuits from critics, as an attempt by the governor to re-exert his political sway.

www.nbcnews.com

DeSantis using his power as governor to shut down ads on television supporting an abortion rights amendment. Any outrage about him abusing his powers to shut down free speech an issue up for vote? Seems pretty authoritarian to me considering he's been doing anything within his power to keep it off the ballot as well. I thought we were for letting the people decide the issue and for keeping our government out of the media and the whole free speech thing

I'll go with no, then pivot to something about San Francisco.

The legislation this guy has signed down there, the constant culture war battles he instigates, the look on his face that resembles a man who wakes up in the morning and is confused at what his feet are....This guy is a complete bag of spunk. I give him full marks for being able to say the word woke 40 times in a span of 30 seconds, but apart from that, he's a carnival barker that's nowhere near as good as Trump at doing it.

His school board Moms For Liberty cronies got their assess kicked at the ballot box earlier this year.

 

[RDU Irish]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/14/us/fema-helene-north-carolina-reported-threats/index.html

Wild

I read the whole article and they alluded to threats multiple times without any indication of what actually happened. Judging from the misdemeanor release on bond of Mr. Moonshine the story seems like a nothingburger amplified to reinforce blue biases. Probably some rednecks threatening to shoot people trespassing with a high likelihood of covering illicit activity - aka moonshiners. Rural folk are defensive of their property - city folk can't comprehend it and gubmint folk think they own everything and you should be jailed for questioning them.

 

[BleedingGold]

We tend to forget these are the same families that the last time a government agent knocked on their door with their yankee accent was hearing:
“Hello, I’m from TVA, get the fuck out of the land your family has owned since before this was a nation.”
Or
“Hello, I’m here to relocate you so we can open a National Park.”
Or
“I’m from the government, your son’s draft number was called give us your child.”

Or the other type of yankee

“Hello, I’m interested in buying your mineral rights.”

These people moved to this country to get away from the tyranny of the crown. They feared the the revenue man coming after their home brew.

If nothing else, have some respect for the only people in America it’s still okay to laugh at and abuse.

In the backcountry of western NC they’ll be here long after the rest of you burn it all down.

 

[ulukinatme]

I dunno. Cruz doesn't have a leg to stand on with Roe v Wade obviously, so Allred got him there. There's a number of clips where Cruz hit him pretty hard on his voting record though as far as voting 3 times against border security. He also compared the number of bills he passed and jobs he's created compared to Allred, and he came back to women's rights to hit Allred on his record for supporting biological men in women's sports and allowing tax payer funded sex changes for children in the military. I feel like Allred may be further left than Beto was, which may not be a good sign for someone running in Texas.

 

[ulukinatme]

I love how the "weird" thing was their slogan for awhile there, like Walz "friends with school shooters" and Cacklin' Kamala are completely normal. I wouldn't be throwing stones if those two are your candidates.

Thought this was funny, someone liked this post tonight, and I was also reminded this evening of this clip of Chris Farley posing as Newt Gingrich almost 30 years ago. About the @3:35 mark he starts passing resolutions, and one of them was a motion that all Democrats are officially considered "weird." They stole our thing again, dammit!
Good for a laugh:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?64364-1/newt-gingrich-impersonation

 

[GATTACA!]

I dunno. Cruz doesn't have a leg to stand on with Roe v Wade obviously, so Allred got him there. There's a number of clips where Cruz hit him pretty hard on his voting record though as far as voting 3 times against border security. He also compared the number of bills he passed and jobs he's created compared to Allred, and he came back to women's rights to hit Allred on his record for supporting biological men in women's sports and allowing tax payer funded sex changes for children in the military. I feel like Allred may be further left than Beto was, which may not be a good sign for someone running in Texas.

Beto might have won without one of the worst gaffes of all time with that answer about guns. People seem even more sick of Cruz at this point too.

 

[ulukinatme]

Beto might have won without one of the worst gaffes of all time with that answer about guns. People seem even more sick of Cruz at this point too.

TexasPolitics.com out of UT Austin has him at 45% favorability right now, which would be just a couple percentage points down from the Beto election. Earlier in April Cruz was actually at 49%, which was an all time high for him. I guess the question is if Allred has the same support or more that Beto had 6 years ago. Beto had quite a bit of money behind him in 2018.

 

[drayer54]

I'll be in Austin for election day. Prob going to wear this.

 

[ab2cmiller]

 

[NDMatt91]

I'm baffled as to why people still view him as a big-time Presidential candidate in the future. Why? Because he's a decent looking guy and he smiles? California has a massive budget deficit and he bungled Covid with respect to his lockdowns destroying businesses and contributing to the learning loss of children. In one of the bluest states in the country, he had to face a re-call and in 2022 had 41% put up on him by a guy that nobody could pick out of a lineup. For context, Mike DeWine and Ron DeSantis won by a greater percentage of the vote despite them both being in swing states.

 

[RDU Irish]

I'm baffled as to why people still view him as a big-time Presidential candidate in the future. Why? Because he's a decent looking guy and he smiles? California has a massive budget deficit and he bungled Covid with respect to his lockdowns destroying businesses and contributing to the learning loss of children. In one of the bluest states in the country, he had to face a re-call and in 2022 had 41% put up on him by a guy that nobody could pick out of a lineup. For context, Mike DeWine and Ron DeSantis won by a greater percentage of the vote despite them both being in swing states.

A strong majority are happy to look the other way on the bolded in order to avoid a hard look in the mirror.

 

[drayer54]

Weird that they would bury this

 

[ColoradoIrish]

Weird that they would bury this

Said this already in another thread the lack of transparency regarding the study is confusing.

Now that that's out of the way, the main quote under the article title was cut off short and purposely so for a few. Here's the full quote about puberty blockers impact on on mental health

"Puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements, she said, most likely because the children were already doing well when the study began."

The tweet also severely distorts the article by saying it "the study proved it wasn't good for the kids though." Nothing on that article leads to that conclusion.

And puberty blockers aren't designed to fix a kids mental health. They're too delay the onset of puberty to help stop certain changes so kids can work thru this stuff before making any life changing decisions regarding transitioning. The uproar from advocates for it, is that current bans of puberty blockers only apply to trans youth when it's been a common prescription for kids with other health issues like precocious puberty.

I know most people here don't believe in it at all and think every trans person is bat shit crazy. And that might be so, but why cut off access to health care that seemingly helps people struggling with this? I get the whole protect the children argument and I wouldn't wish this struggle upon any kid. But all this anti trans healthcare laws that have been passed and continue to try and get passed isn't helping the kids. Since these laws began being passed there's been an uptick in suicide attempts amongst teens and kids struggling with this.

http://bit.ly/4fhFHIk

I don't think it should be easy or anything for kids to transition and for the most part it's not, I'm sure there's probably doctors that are too pushy and gung ho with everything, but that's why there needs to be more research, and strict standards to follow, and no life altering surgeries before 18.

 

[Bishop2b5]

Said this already in another thread the lack of transparency regarding the study is confusing.

Now that that's out of the way, the main quote under the article title was cut off short and purposely so for a few. Here's the full quote about puberty blockers impact on on mental health

"Puberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements, she said, most likely because the children were already doing well when the study began."

The tweet also severely distorts the article by saying it "the study proved it wasn't good for the kids though." Nothing on that article leads to that conclusion.

And puberty blockers aren't designed to fix a kids mental health. They're too delay the onset of puberty to help stop certain changes so kids can work thru this stuff before making any life changing decisions regarding transitioning. The uproar from advocates for it, is that current bans of puberty blockers only apply to trans youth when it's been a common prescription for kids with other health issues like precocious puberty.

I know most people here don't believe in it at all and think every trans person is bat shit crazy. And that might be so, but why cut off access to health care that seemingly helps people struggling with this? I get the whole protect the children argument and I wouldn't wish this struggle upon any kid. But all this anti trans healthcare laws that have been passed and continue to try and get passed isn't helping the kids. Since these laws began being passed there's been an uptick in suicide attempts amongst teens and kids struggling with this.

http://bit.ly/4fhFHIk

I don't think it should be easy or anything for kids to transition and for the most part it's not, I'm sure there's probably doctors that are too pushy and gung ho with everything, but that's why there needs to be more research, and strict standards to follow, and no life altering surgeries before 18.

It's past my bedtime so no long discussion tonight, but I'll give a quick reply to the bolded and we can talk about it more in depth in the next day or so if you like. Those of us on the Right are absolutely NOT against kids struggling with this issue getting health care. We're not convinced they're all bat shit crazy either. We do think it's primarily a psychological or social issue, not an actual physical/medical issue, and the proper care in the overwhelming majority of cases is psychiatric/psychological care, not hormone therapy or surgery. By social issues I mean that the enormous uptick in people claiming to be trans in the past decade or so is almost certainly not any sort of genetic change to humans or physical change, and just society being more accepting doesn't account for the HUGE increase. I think most of it in children is something close to Munchhausen by proxy where neurotic, attention seeking mothers push it, or in teens it's more of an attention thing or a way for the outsiders and social misfits to feel accepted and part of the currently "in" group.

Given that we don't allow minors to make many major decisions given the fact that their brains aren't fully developed and they lack the experience and wisdom to vote, sign most contracts, join the military, buy alcohol or tobacco, get a tattoo, and lots of other things, allowing them to do something as profound and radical and life changing as taking puberty blockers and getting gender reassignment surgery seems dangerous and extremely ill-advised from a psychological, medical, and social perspective. We're not against anyone getting good medical care and mental health care. We don't think some of the ideas or drug therapies or surgeries in this area constitute such care, though.

 

[ulukinatme]

It's past my bedtime so no long discussion tonight, but I'll give a quick reply to the bolded and we can talk about it more in depth in the next day or so if you like. Those of us on the Right are absolutely NOT against kids struggling with this issue getting health care. We're not convinced they're all bat shit crazy either. We do think it's primarily a psychological or social issue, not an actual physical/medical issue, and the proper care in the overwhelming majority of cases is psychiatric/psychological care, not hormone therapy or surgery. By social issues I mean that the enormous uptick in people claiming to be trans in the past decade or so is almost certainly not any sort of genetic change to humans or physical change, and just society being more accepting doesn't account for the HUGE increase. I think most of it in children is something close to Munchhausen by proxy where neurotic, attention seeking mothers push it, or in teens it's more of an attention thing or a way for the outsiders and social misfits to feel accepted and part of the currently "in" group.

Given that we don't allow minors to make many major decisions given the fact that their brains aren't fully developed and they lack the experience and wisdom to vote, sign most contracts, join the military, buy alcohol or tobacco, get a tattoo, and lots of other things, allowing them to do something as profound and radical and life changing as taking puberty blockers and getting gender reassignment surgery seems dangerous and extremely ill-advised from a psychological, medical, and social perspective. We're not against anyone getting good medical care and mental health care. We don't think some of the ideas or drug therapies or surgeries in this area constitute such care, though.

I agree with a lot of this, but I would stress the victims in all this. There's a higher percentage of mental illness in the community, and it can often stem from abuse at a young age. I mentioned it before, but that was the case for my niece and she questioned her own identity for years. She struggled to trust men after her own father preyed on her. Obviously every person's story is different, some will have it pushed on them by parents as you mentioned, and I've seen friends of my daughter's in junior high that flip flop regularly on their status because it's popular in some of their circles. There are definitely a lot of victims of abuse though, and they deserve the best care at a young age, but that shouldn't include any operations before they're adults.

 

[ColoradoIrish]

It's past my bedtime so no long discussion tonight, but I'll give a quick reply to the bolded and we can talk about it more in depth in the next day or so if you like. Those of us on the Right are absolutely NOT against kids struggling with this issue getting health care. We're not convinced they're all bat shit crazy either. We do think it's primarily a psychological or social issue, not an actual physical/medical issue, and the proper care in the overwhelming majority of cases is psychiatric/psychological care, not hormone therapy or surgery. By social issues I mean that the enormous uptick in people claiming to be trans in the past decade or so is almost certainly not any sort of genetic change to humans or physical change, and just society being more accepting doesn't account for the HUGE increase. I think most of it in children is something close to Munchhausen by proxy where neurotic, attention seeking mothers push it, or in teens it's more of an attention thing or a way for the outsiders and social misfits to feel accepted and part of the currently "in" group.

Given that we don't allow minors to make many major decisions given the fact that their brains aren't fully developed and they lack the experience and wisdom to vote, sign most contracts, join the military, buy alcohol or tobacco, get a tattoo, and lots of other things, allowing them to do something as profound and radical and life changing as taking puberty blockers and getting gender reassignment surgery seems dangerous and extremely ill-advised from a psychological, medical, and social perspective. We're not against anyone getting good medical care and mental health care. We don't think some of the ideas or drug therapies or surgeries in this area constitute such care, though.

Seriously thanks for the response and taking the time to respond. I've been sincere about wanting to have an actual conversation on the subject. And I don't disagree with everything you said either, and I feel like I've communicated that previously. I think the uptick of trans people in the last decade happened not because the society is more accepting, but more so because there's been more visible trans people, so for people struggling with it, this isn't such a abstract idea in our heads anymore.

I don't want this to devolve in argument, so I just want communicate, I agree that those under 18 psychological help is the most important medical care they can receive. The argument advocates make, is you just can't outlaw procedures only to trans kids. Puberty blockers have been prescribed for decades to non trans kids. Surgery for trans youth is exceptionally rare and when it does happen it's overwhelmingly breast reduction surgery, which is fine for non trans kids to get, both boys and girls can get it for medical issues.

If gender reassignment surgery is happening on minors (I'm speaking specifically of bottom surgery), I 100% agree with you that it shouldn't be allowed. I just haven't seen anything to suggest it does. I'll gladly admit I'm wrong tho.

Again, I think proper mental health is the most important aspect of this whole thing. The banning of procedures only for trans kids but allowing non trans kids to receive the same treatment, makes the whole "protect kids" thing seem a little disingenuous and comes across specifically targeting this community.

 

[ColoradoIrish]

I agree with a lot of this, but I would stress the victims in all this. There's a higher percentage of mental illness in the community, and it can often stem from abuse at a young age. I mentioned it before, but that was the case for my niece and she questioned her own identity for years as she struggled to trust men after her own father preyed on her. Obviously every person's story is different, some will have it pushed on them by parents as you mentioned, and I've seen friends of my daughter's in junior high that flip flop regularly on their status because it's popular in some of their circles. There are definitely a lot of victims of abuse though, and they deserve the best care at a young age, but that shouldn't include any operations before they're adults.

I'm really sorry your niece went through all of that. No child should have to go through anything like that. I hope she's doing better now that some time has passed

 

[drayer54]

Majority opposes fraud

 

[ab2cmiller]

 

[Sea Turtle]

I actually have no problem with them becoming a state. It's time.

 

[ab2cmiller]

I actually have no problem with them becoming a state. It's time.

The point of the article was that in all previous referendums they’ve given them a choice of statehood or the status quo. They’ve always chosen status quo.

This year they’ve taken away the choice of status quo, basically guaranteeing that statehood will win.

Why did they take away status quo?

 

[Irish#1]

I actually have no problem with them becoming a state. It's time.

Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?

 

[ab2cmiller]

Who took it out and is it even binding?

Non-Binding. But it was implied that if the Dem's have the chance, they will use it to show as "support" that the people of Puerto Rico overwhelmingly want to be a State.

 

[Sea Turtle]

Non-Binding. But it was implied that if the Dem's have the chance, they will use it to show as "support" that the people of Puerto Rico overwhelmingly want to be a State.

I guess we could just take Alberta to even it up. I don't know the politics of Guam, Marshall Islands, Marseilles, Virgin, etc.

 

[GATTACA!]

The point of the article was that in all previous referendums they’ve given them a choice of statehood or the status quo. They’ve always chosen status quo.

I don't think this is true. Statehood won the last three times it has been on their ballot in 2012, 2017, and 2020. 2017 is kind of murky though because opponents of statehood sat out the election so statehood won with 97% of the vote. Seems like statehood would have won anyways that year though.

This year they’ve taken away the choice of status quo, basically guaranteeing that statehood will win.

Why did they take away status quo?

Seems like it's because being a territory is the worst of both worlds. They still have the option to vote for independence, or independence with free association.

Puerto Rico will include status plebiscite in November's general elections

The executive order follows approval of a bill by the U.S. House in 2022, aimed at helping Puerto Rico move towards changing its territorial status. The Puerto Rico Status Act, spearheaded by Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, would exclude the island’s current territorial status as an option.

That status has lost support since the federal government established an unelected fiscal board in 2016, which has the authority to override local political branches after the island declared bankruptcy.

“These elections are about deciding the future of Puerto Rico’s reconstruction, the health system, education, and the disastrous service of LUMA,” said Jesús Manuel Ortiz, president of the pro-commonwealth Popular Democratic Party, in a statement. “This election is not about political agendas; it is about addressing the well-being of families and the country we want to build.”

 

[Sea Turtle]

I don't think this is true. Statehood won the last three times it has been on their ballot in 2012, 2017, and 2020. 2017 is kind of murky though because opponents of statehood sat out the election so statehood won with 97% of the vote. Seems like statehood would have won anyways that year though.

Seems like it's because being a territory is the worst of both worlds. They still have the option to vote for independence, or independence with free association.

Puerto Rico will include status plebiscite in November's general elections

Seriously though, they should really be a State at this point if they want it.

 

[GATTACA!]

Seriously though, they should really be a State at this point if they want it.

💯

I can’t fathom voting against it if I was a Puerto Rican.

 

[NorthDakota]

💯

I can’t fathom voting against it if I was a Puerto Rican.

North and South Dakota split up because ND didn't want to be a state. Territories get taken care of very well relative to states.