USPOL Oct: So this is how the thread dies: with a Star Wars derail

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL Oct: So this is how the thread dies: with a Star Wars derail

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

So glad we're back to gun chat. Could anyone do me a solid and PM me when it's over? I like reading about US politics in the USPol thread.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2015 17:35

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 00:51

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

OAquinas posted:

They won't be happy until she commits Sudoku on stage.

Not exactly riveting television but I'd watch it. Some of them things are really hard.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2015 17:43

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

http://www.npr.org/2015/10/14/448544926/texas-oklahoma-permit-companies-to-dump-worker-compensation-plans

"NPR article" posted:

"We can take care of injured workers more effectively, get them back to their families and their work as productive members of society [and] save incredible amounts of money that create new jobs," Minick adds.

The opt-out system saves employers 40 to 90 percent in claims costs, according to Minick.

"It's not about reducing benefits," he says. "We can objectively show you that we have saved our clients over a billion dollars against Texas workers' comp over the past decade. When you're saving that kind of money, you don't have to get hung up on squeezing the employee."

Welcome to America, how do you want to get hosed today?

# ¿ Oct 15, 2015 02:49

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

Combed Thunderclap posted:

Saying utterly stupid poo poo like "Wealth is the last taboo" and "protests can be very stressful for the rich" is just ridiculous, but I do feel sympathy for people who have money but are depressed and anxious from living unsatisfying and unhappy lives when they're supposed to "have it all". That's fundamentally hard to sympathize with, of course, but that only makes it worse.

I want to start off with that mindset, then I spend half a second thinking about the policies they put their wealth and effort behind which are specifically designed to warp the fabric of society and the workings of government to deny others access to even the tiny portion of that wealth which would allow them to not be homeless or have access to medical care or get fundamental nutrition taken care of.

So no, gently caress them. No sympathy. They can cry their crocodile tears into their gold plated therapist pillows and then get hosed. If they want to stop feeling bad about it how about they do something with their wealth to help others? Until then seeing these fuckers pilloried on a national scale is the best thing to come out of the Occupy movement and I hope it ferments into full throated Robin Hood-esque 'kill the rich, take their money'. If they won't work towards solving the situations, get a few guillotines and a bit more socialism going on then we can talk about the feelings of the people that contributed so much to the problems that exist.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 01:20

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

pathetic little tramp posted:

Wait so he bitches, saying how do you treat a wrist fracture without going to the hospital, then..... posts an x-ray to prove he has a wrist fracture.

Well, now we know why he's charging 30,000 dollars a month for that drug that used to cost 45, he obviously needs the cash to operate his in-home radiology lab.

A stock photo of a wrist fracture.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 16:09

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

Epic High Five posted:

Save us, Trump-san

Is it possible to laugh, cry and drink liquor all at the same time?

# ¿ Oct 19, 2015 23:13

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

SgtScruffy posted:

Part of me thinks that Obama should go full on Trollbama and just start endorsing Republicans left and right but being super sarcastic and ironic, so that it's clear he's not serious but hardcore Republicans who don't understand irony explode and start cannibalizing.

I see a smiling Obama slowly and deliberately chasing down a Tortilla Coaster, hand extended to shake his, with a predatory grin on his face while people run screaming from him like he's T2000 from Terminator.

I shouldn't laugh as much as I am but I can't get rid of the image.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2015 15:58

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

Hitting that debt limit would really be an unprecedented clusterfuck-and-a-half but as many people have pointed out if that sort of threat to global financial stability starts to be a possibility then the financial elites that have politician's balls in a vice will start to make phone calls and you'll get really sudden changes of heart all over the place. It's not something that seems likely to happen.

The damage that concerns me the most about playing chicken with the fiscal cliff is the kind of stuff represented by the S&P downgrading the US. Not that action specifically, but the idea behind it. The US doesn't have to actually default to make people start thinking the republicans are a pack of god drat lunatics that are running the asylum and there's no telling exactly what bed (floor?) they're going to poo poo on next. Financial markets as a whole hate hate hate risk, and as soon as you even begin to introduce even the seeds of that kind of doubt things start to go really, really bad. We're insulated from it at the moment because the Euro is looking sideways at Greece, China is finding out 10% plus growth every year is unsustainable and the Ruble is, well, from Russia but the kinds of changes these god drat lunatics are starting have almost unstoppable institutional inertia once you get them started.

And we don't know when that inertia is going to get started, if it hasn't already.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2015 17:50

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

Hodgepodge posted:

It is a beautiful dream. Please bring me crashing down to Earth tia.

Elections that are not-the-president have obscenely, mind-boggingly, incomprehensibly rich people astro-turfing everything in sight with just loving bonkers amounts of cash so they can purchase the American government and have what they want done regardless of whatever bread-and-circuses poo poo show takes place with the presidential election that is, at best, a delaying tactic to dehumanizing self and facing to bloodshed.

You're welcome.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 01:35

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

Presented for your consideration, the Republican Presidential Debate

# ¿ Oct 29, 2015 04:26

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

What are theories about where the leaked slides came from? Best guess I got is someone with a shred of sanity saw how hard and deep �Jeb! is hosed in the primary and wanted to get a favor from someone by passing it on.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 02:00

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

Riosan posted:

Even as a child, I knew that Yoda flipping around waving a tiny lightsaber was laughably cringe worthy. Particularly in Attack of the Clones.

You take that back!

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 16:30

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

pathetic little tramp posted:

This is incredible and the loving dumbest possible thing they could have done.

Is there any hope that, having now used the nuclear option of "You lose all your precious access", media outlets will respond with "Oh yeah? Well get hosed, the truth isn't in the middle anymore"

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 18:38

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 00:51

bird food bathtub: Aug 9, 2003; College Slice

ComradeCosmobot posted:

The New York Times' headline story today is an investigation into those pesky arbitration clauses.

Among the (unsurprising) facts uncovered are that corporations' claims that arbitration would allow individuals to resolve their grievances easily was a lie: 80% of class-action suits that companies try to push into arbitration end up losing class-action status, and only 505 consumers nationwide have moved forward to arbitrate cases involving under $2,500 in losses between 2010 and 2014 given the high costs of arbitration (one man mentioned in the article has spent $35,000 in arbitration over a $125 late fee on his credit card, a category of arbitration in which two-thirds of consumers fail to win any monetary awards).

As a result, corporations have been largely getting away with fleecing consumers scott-free, as planned.

But it's not just consumers: the Times has also found that the biggest growth sector for applying arbitration clauses is in labor disputes, allowing them to push wage disputes and discrimination claims into arbitration as well.

I feel like I'm getting unfairly screwed here. All we get is the hosed up, lovely parts of Shadowrun with corporations becoming their own government and writing more profitable laws that countries have to follow. I want a dragon for president dammit, not binding arbitration that can be boiled down to "gently caress you, got mine....and now yours".

# ¿ Oct 31, 2015 21:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL Oct: So this is how the thread dies: with a Star Wars derail