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rscott posted:Has there been any effort to recalculate BMI for modern populations given that average heights have increased by like 8-9% since the 1830s? It seems to me that it breaks down for taller populations because it's kg/m^2 but body mass increases somewhat more because we're 3 dimensional beings and not 2 dimensional. Like if you're 6 foot even and weigh 185lbs you're technically overweight and that seems a little ridiculous to me as someone who is 6'4" like most goons are. 185 is supposed to be like my ideal weight per BMI and when I weigh that much I have to buy all my pants online because no one stocks 32/36 in the stores. BMI is good enough for risk stratification in most contexts, which is all it really needs to do in the medical setting. An individual with a BMI of X is at Y risk of complication Z, etc. Just another number among dozens of others. Any decent healthcare provider will make decisions based on the patient as a whole and not just one number. “Ideal weight” at 6’4” is up to 205 which is/was perfectly normal. Stores not carrying your pants size just means that the general population is overweight, not that it’s an unhealthy weight for you. I laughed at the time but Jon Stewart was surprisingly prescient when he made this joke in like 2004: 
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Apr 28, 2023 12:05
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BMI is loving bullshit and I will never feel otherwise. I used to be friends with a girl who was 5' nothing, and weighed 100lbs soaking wet and holding weights. BMI told her she could stand to lose a few pounds. Short of a haircut or an amputation, she had no weight to lose. And I used to wonder why she was bulimic. And then in my specific experience, BMI says I'm severely morbidly obese. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm overweight, but SMO to me says "Too fat to be able to function and should be collecting disability for it", and I'm far from that. I have to do this loving song and dance with the Coast Guard every 5 years because they are all the gently caress in on BMI when it comes to merchant mariner credentials, though I honestly suspect that someone is getting kickbacks from CPAP manufacturers for that, because their immediate go-to is always "You're fat? Must have a sleep apnea. You have to use this machine forever now to keep your license."
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Apr 28, 2023 13:13
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I believe if I remember correctly, BMI was never intended to be used the way it gets used now when it was created as a concept
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Apr 28, 2023 13:23
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FlamingLiberal posted:I believe if I remember correctly, BMI was never intended to be used the way it gets used now when it was created as a concept Yeah, it's supposed to be used for population data. Groups of people. You get skewed results when you try to use it on individuals, but apparently it's easy and convenient to math out, so people keep using it wrong.
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Apr 28, 2023 13:34
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the_steve posted:BMI is loving bullshit and I will never feel otherwise. If someone was 5 feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds, then they would be on the low end of normal BMI and close to underweight.
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Apr 28, 2023 13:39
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Discendo Vox posted:BMI categories have been repeatedly updated by modern organizations. CI has the same inputs and thus the same underlying issues as BMI. Most better indices require additional measurements and inputs, which has been the primary reason they're not used in clinical guidelines. The AAP guideline revision that was discussed in the recent winter thread has a section devoted to the question of BMI use that may be illustrative of why it sees ongoing clinical use. See section VII A. This is for kids though and not for adults?
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Apr 28, 2023 13:43
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Mellow Seas posted:Yeah, but the fact that the drug works, and how it works, kind of suggests that "better habits" are not really the product of some individual exertion of will but rather just the chemical processes in your brain. I 100% agree (and agree with what everyone else posted), I was just posting it because it sucks. I mean worth it if there's no long term effects, etc. Just an annoying thing. Gyges posted:If they were just testing the efficacy of the drug, wouldn't they encourage people in the trial not to additionally adopt known weight loss changes such as significant dietary or exercise regimes? So, if we know it's just a temporary "hack" to help you make changes it should still be effective in helping you solidify a diet/lifestyle change. No idea about a trial, this was just reported in real world usage.
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Apr 28, 2023 13:47
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Weight is pretty much an excellent case of the problem where social issues are oversimplified to completely useless bloviating about 'personal responsibility' with systemic and material factors of any kind considered utterly unimportant compared to assuming everyone's just choosing to have problems, and should choose to not have problems.
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Apr 28, 2023 13:48
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:If someone was 5 feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds, then they would be on the low end of normal BMI and close to underweight. At the time, it was telling her that she was 5 pounds or so over the ideal. I don't remember her exact measurements, but she was fuckin' tiny.
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Apr 28, 2023 13:57
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rscott posted:This is for kids though and not for adults? quote:illustrative
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Apr 28, 2023 14:09
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the_steve posted:At the time, it was telling her that she was 5 pounds or so over the ideal. I don't remember her exact measurements, but she was fuckin' tiny. At 100lbs (which you seem to have proposed as the max), she'd have to be 4ft5 inches tall to be considered "heavier than ideal". At 5ft, she'd have to be over 128lbs to be. This isn't just a bit of playing around the edges of uncertainty about exact values - what you're saying here is a massive mismatch versus the numbers you're citing and the reality. If she had an eating disorder, are you sure she wasn't just... making things up, to you, to make it sound better? Mendrian posted:"You can will your way through a diet, I've done it, it's just hard" is sort of the core of the problematic attitude. If you've done it, we can conclusively say that the sum total of factors in your life contributed to it being possible for you. As a human, when something feels difficult that we nonetheless achieved, it is natural (but wrong) to conclude that your own strength was the primary contributing factor and other people, if they merely exercised the same tenacity, would also succeed. If this is in response to me, maybe you should finish reading the post before you respond since the point seems to have flown completely over your head. On a sociological scale it can absolutely be 100% true and still result in the outcomes we have right now. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Apr 28, 2023 |
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Apr 28, 2023 14:10
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I think the_steve is probably a bit off on the heights and weights but I'm sure his friend was right about her BMI; the general phenomenon he’s describing, of somebody being pretty much flat-out skinny but being overweight by BMI, is a thing. If you saw a 5 foot tall 130 pound person you would probably not think "that person is overweight" or even "that person could lose a few pounds". Granted that is partially social expectation; maybe in a time when average BMI was lower such a person would be noticeably "thick."
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Apr 28, 2023 14:18
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Mellow Seas posted:I think the_steve is probably a bit off on the heights and weights but I'm sure his friend was right about her BMI; the general phenomenon he’s describing, of somebody being pretty much flat-out skinny but being overweight by BMI, is a thing. If you saw a 5 foot tall 130 pound person you would probably not think "that person is overweight" or even "that person could lose a few pounds". Granted that is partially social expectation; maybe in a time when average BMI was lower such a person would be noticeably "thick." Thank you, yes. I haven't talked to this woman, let alone been friends with her, in over 10 years. And even back then, it isn't like I kept charts and scales around. I just know what she told me at the time when I was complaining to her about my BMI woes with the Coast Guard and I have no reason to believe she was lying, especially given how obsessive she was about her own weight.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:27
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Most peoples failed diet has been a fad diet that doesn't have a chance at actually working, usually because it's a condition specific diet not designed for weight loss. People think you will lose weight on a diet plan because a competent nutritionist will prescribe you a diet at a 250 day calorie deficit if your overweight and have diet related health issues weight loss will improve. Anyone scared enough by their health issues to stick with their diet plan will drop about 25 pounds a year, and when people ask will talk about the diet, forgetting or not even realizing it's calorie controlled. Calorie control is the only way to reliability and safely loose weight. If we found the chemical that helps with that great, because calorie control really sucks. No fasting is not effective because most people react by unconsciously binge eating. It also seriously affects your mood All that said society could make it way easier by considered weight loss related claims as medical claims and cleaning house on the utter garbage claims pushed by the supplements lobby and food lobbies.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:33
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On that note, just for reference the way the distinction is drawn with supplements is that weight loss is considered a structure-function claim (so supplements can make it) and treating obesity (a disease condition) is a drug claim. That's the simple version, setting aside a bunch of other factors. A lot of the worst poo poo in supplements is in the area of weight loss products (including, infamously, ephedra). Many states are currently considering legislation to at least age-restrict weight loss and bodybuilding supplements this year- if that sounds appealing, you may want to see if your state is one of them and contact your state legislators about supporting those bills.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:41
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Joe Biden's anti-Hank Hill agenda to ban gas cooking nationally may have been delayed, but New York is still moving forward. There is likely going to be a lawsuit because the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 technically says that the federal government must set the minimum standards for certain appliances that use energy. They don't specify whether that includes bans for environmental reasons, but that is likely the leg on which the lawsuits against it will rest. They will likely argue that banning something because of its energy use qualifies as a local regulation pre-empting federal law. But, this question hasn't really been challenged before. So, it will be somewhat new territory. https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1651843970865983488 quote:New York is on the cusp of becoming the first state in the nation to pass a law banning natural gas in most new buildings, according to a handshake agreement that Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced she and state lawmakers had reached late Thursday.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:47
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Sounds like this could be its own thread
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Apr 28, 2023 14:47
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it's pretty funny how we (US) subsidize massive overproduction of corn and cheese then turn around and wonder why everyone is obese, you gotta stop eating all these cheap calories that were specifically engineered to be extremely delicious
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Apr 28, 2023 15:06
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Mellow Seas posted:I think the_steve is probably a bit off on the heights and weights but I'm sure his friend was right about her BMI; the general phenomenon he’s describing, of somebody being pretty much flat-out skinny but being overweight by BMI, is a thing. If you saw a 5 foot tall 130 pound person you would probably not think "that person is overweight" or even "that person could lose a few pounds". Granted that is partially social expectation; maybe in a time when average BMI was lower such a person would be noticeably "thick." Having seen a 5'6" person who weighed less than 130 pounds, I disagree. They were a bit skinny. Someone who weighed more than them despite being half a foot shorter definitely wouldn't qualify as "flat-out skinny". BMI isn't a perfect measurement and the expectations set by current BMI charts have their flaws, but I don't believe there's much reason to think a bunch of Americans who are goony as gently caress are going to be better than doctors at setting weight standards.
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Apr 28, 2023 15:06
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Main Paineframe posted:BMI isn't a perfect measurement and the expectations set by current BMI charts have their flaws, but I don't believe there's much reason to think a bunch of Americans who are goony as gently caress are going to be better than doctors at setting weight standards. Also remember that these were weight standards set by doctors during the Van Buren administration. Wasn’t most medical treatment still done by barbers back then? I’ll allow that a 5’0 130 pound person is not “skinny,” but they are also not a person who is gonna to have a lick of health problems because of their weight. They could because of their diet or activity level but so could a 5’0 110 pound person. The “overweight” status is just a correlated, but poorly correlated, metric for estimating one’s diet and activity level. Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Apr 28, 2023 |
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Apr 28, 2023 15:21
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BTW there is a separate body of research suggesting that regardless of weight, low calorie diets are associated with slower aging and greater longevity. Quick link on that: https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/calorie-restriction-slows-pace-aging-healthy-adults This is a good argument for taking appetite suppressing medication, even for people who aren’t dramatically overweight. DV is right though that it’ll be a while before we can really be sure these drugs are safe long term or that they have an overall positive effect on health.
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Apr 28, 2023 15:32
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zoux posted:https://twitter.com/AlKapDC/status/1651295037697687575 Isn’t this just going to be vetoed along with all the other dumb poo poo republicans try to use the Congressional Review Act to do? Don’t get my wrong I think Feinstein should resign immediately and stop holding up judicial appointments (aka the one useful thing this congress is likely to do other than routine appropriations and reauthorizations—assuming they can manage those!). But let’s not be hysterical.
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Apr 28, 2023 15:33
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I honestly don’t understand why somebody can’t just trick Feinstein into resigning.
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Apr 28, 2023 15:34
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Mellow Seas posted:I honestly don’t understand why somebody can’t just trick Feinstein into resigning. You'd have to get her to sign a letter that says I resign and ensure that none of her staff know. Even just saying I resign doesn't mean much.
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Apr 28, 2023 15:38
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Mendrian posted:"You can will your way through a diet, I've done it, it's just hard" is sort of the core of the problematic attitude. If you've done it, we can conclusively say that the sum total of factors in your life contributed to it being possible for you. As a human, when something feels difficult that we nonetheless achieved, it is natural (but wrong) to conclude that your own strength was the primary contributing factor and other people, if they merely exercised the same tenacity, would also succeed. Yes. When I lost that weight I had a well paid job (sufficient to be a sole income provider for a family of 5) with 40 hours a week and showers at work (cycling to work was part of it). If I had stayed at Activision with 70+ hours of work, endless crunch, and LA traffic I might have never lost the weight.
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Apr 28, 2023 16:03
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Charlz Guybon posted:You think Koreans and Japanese salarymen don't just chow down on cup ramen and pound down shots when they get out of work? Because that's what they do. The Ramen there isn’t junk and in Tokyo at least, you do a lot of walking, the subway stops aren’t that close to each other. Japanese diet as a whole is far more nutritious than the typical US one.
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Apr 28, 2023 16:05
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The next person who talks about dieting or BMI is getting banned. Don't ask me how I could possibly enforce that. Just beware the ban and shut the gently caress up. Mellow Seas posted:I honestly don’t understand why somebody can’t just trick Feinstein into resigning. The people around Feinstein have a lot of soft power and influence they will lose instantly the second she is gone. They will definitely not let that happen. Yawgmoft fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Apr 28, 2023 |
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Apr 28, 2023 16:16
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The economy still continues to confuse everyone and be unpredictable since the pandemic. Good News: - Real wages have gone up for several months in a row for the first time since 2020. - Inflation continues to fall. - The U.S. economy is still growing, so there is no recession. The technical recession from last year has been technically over for about 9 months. - Unemployment continues to be at record lows. Bad News: - Inflation is heading in the right direction, but much more slowly than anticipated. - Now that real wages are rising again, Fed officials worry that inflation will continue to come down even more slowly because the average person is better able to absorb price increases. - This means that the Fed may go through with at least one more rate hike after they had initially planned to slow down or pause - once again raising the costs to buy a new home or car. - GDP is still growing, but the most recent quarter of growth was about half of the previous quarter. Mixed/Uncertain News: - Nobody is really sure if the recent rate hikes are having a very small effect or a very delayed effect. If it is small, then the Fed will likely keep raising rates further than initially planned. - Nobody is really sure if the recent rise in real wages is a blip or part of a longer trend. - Nobody is really sure if the rise in real wages will have a significant impact on prices or inflation. - If the impact of the Fed's rate increases is delayed, then they may be able to get inflation down without any major economic downturn - the so-called "soft landing." - If the impact of the Fed's rate increases are not delayed, but are minimal, then it implies that higher than usual inflation will linger around for longer than expected. It also increases the chance that the Fed pushes too far and does more damage to the labor market and GDP growth than intended. - GDP growth slowing while real wages rise is a confusing pairing and not really giving clear guidance on what direction the economy is heading or what impacts the recent rate increases have had. tl;dr: Things are moving in the right direction and are good on some fronts, but there are warning signs on other fronts. Chronic uncertainty about the economy since 2020 continues. GDP, the labor market, and wage growth have all been much stronger than anticipated, but also unpredictable. The supply chains for many different industries are still backed up through 2024 and that will make things even more confusing/indicators lagging. Things are turning out better than expected, but nobody has really been able to accurately predict what is happening since 2020 and they still aren't confident about where it is heading even now. A minor/moderate recession, better than expected growth/soft landing, and muddling through without too much change are all very real possibilities in the next year and nobody really knows what is the most likely. quote:Wages Continue to Grow, Good for Workers but a Worry for the Fed https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/business/wage-inflation-march.html Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Apr 28, 2023 |
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Apr 28, 2023 16:23
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Yawgmoft posted:The next person who talks about dieting or BMI is getting banned. That's a pretty heavy punishment. 
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Apr 28, 2023 16:38
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Joe Biden's anti-Hank Hill agenda to ban gas cooking nationally may have been delayed, but New York is still moving forward. I just bought a new high efficiency tankless hot water heater because my old tank started leaking. My mother (who gets all her information from Fox News) is insisting this means Hochul will send her goons to rip it off my wall. No matter how many times I tell her it only applies to new buildings, she keeps saying "no the state is going to force us all to upgrade to electric."
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Apr 28, 2023 16:44
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KillHour posted:I just bought a new high efficiency tankless hot water heater because my old tank started leaking. My mother (who gets all her information from Fox News) is insisting this means Hochul will send her goons to rip it off my wall. No matter how many times I tell her it only applies to new buildings, she keeps saying "no the state is going to force us all to upgrade to electric." It won't make a difference how many times you tell her. My mom swears that, any minute now, Biden is going to lower the estate tax threshold to $200,000. I've tried numerous times to convince her that it won't happen.
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Apr 28, 2023 17:43
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Kith posted:That's a pretty heavy punishment. Yeah but how tall is the punishment? It might still be at a healthy weight.
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Apr 28, 2023 18:22
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Kith posted:That's a pretty heavy punishment. Don't worry, it's just a ban but no probe so it'll go by pretty fast.
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Apr 28, 2023 19:41
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volts5000 posted:It won't make a difference how many times you tell her. My mom swears that, any minute now, Biden is going to lower the estate tax threshold to $200,000. I've tried numerous times to convince her that it won't happen. Your mom is at least sort of in the realm of realism. Biden did propose lowering the estate tax threshold to $1 million as part of the BBB. She's just way off on the exact number and doesn't seem to know it died almost two years ago. I don't think Kathy Hochul has ever promised to send the police to every home and forcibly remove water heaters and stoves.
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Apr 28, 2023 19:49
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It would be pretty hilarious to see someone detained by police outside their home while a guy in a Samsung uniform replaces their gas stove with an electric.
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Apr 28, 2023 20:01
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Conservative media star Steven Crowder was caught on tape verbally abusing his 8-month pregnant wife. There's about 4 minutes of video in total where he also threatened to hit her and says that he only has one car for the two of them so he can be in charge of her movement. He also accuses her of failing to do "wifely things" around the house and forcing him to discipline her. His wife alleges that he refused to be in the delivery room when she gave birth to their twins because he thought she was failing as a wife and didn't want to acknowledge her as a mother until she got her act together, so he scheduled an elective doctor's appointment on the same day she was due. Crowder has also cut his wife off from all of their money, moved out into his own house, and is in the middle of divorce proceedings. Sadly, I doubt this will impact his career much. One or two conservative media stars associated with him (including Candace Owens) have already distanced themselves and disavowed him, but everyone else seems to be sticking by him. https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1651645745043472384 https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1651707138333626369 Full video of one of the recorded incidents: https://twitter.com/Imposter_Edits/status/1651883280931647488 Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Apr 28, 2023 |
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Apr 28, 2023 20:05
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Governor Hochul, please forcibly replace my gas stove, it's old and busted and I had been thinking about doing it myself
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Apr 28, 2023 20:07
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Florida's legislature finally got around to repealing the law that would require elected officials in Florida to resign if they run for another office. It's not clear why they are repealing this law now. They are most likely just doing a review of old laws and this was one they needed to change right away for no specific reason. https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1652021140531888159
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Apr 28, 2023 20:30
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Florida's legislature finally got around to repealing the law that would require elected officials in Florida to resign if they run for another office. That’s a bit surprising. I guess I gave a bit too much credibility to the rumors that the legislature was growing tired of him so blatantly using the governorship as a springboard to a national campaign.
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Apr 28, 2023 21:07
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Maybe they think that if he can just declare and start campaigning he will finally be too busy to bother them. 
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