USPOL: Pulitzer Feeling Increasingly Out Of Place In New York Times Office

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL: Pulitzer Feeling Increasingly Out Of Place In New York Times Office

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

ThisIsWhyTrumpWon posted:

Take this language to the extreme and throw out every loving example out there.

Good idea, op. Let me try it for a pet cause:

Here's a perfectly reasonable (for some value of reason) extension of the bullshit policy of justifying any/all civilian death from drone strikes. Mow down an entire market full of women and children buying food? well one guy's brother may have had contact with Al Queada once 15 years ago so everyone there is an insurgent by proxy.

"The events of 9/11, while regrettable, were acceptable collateral damage in neutralizing the 12 Al Queada terrorists."

It comes off as edgelord, and I don't think it'd gain much traction trying to shift the dialogue on bombing anyone who might be an enemy.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2017 07:02

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 14:32

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Office Pig posted:

The headline of that article is insanely bad in the sense that it already makes immediately obvious the knavery of this vote, but leaves it somewhat unfulfilled. Here, let me flesh it out:

quote:

It attacked the use of execution against persons with �mental or intellectual disabilities, persons below 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the crime, and pregnant women�.

Ahh, the Texas clause.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2017 22:20

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

BarbarianElephant posted:

These guys need hunting guns, not handguns or military-style guns. You can ban them without banning hunting guns.

yeah, don't do this. It turns out that the exact same physics required to turn a deer into venison work perfectly well turning concertgoers into corpses. This is the stupid "a gun is legal or illegal depending on wood or plastic trim" poo poo that changes exactly nothing about the lethality but exists entirely to poke at people who vote their guns.

Everyone's dancing around the actual feature that they want to ban but can't due to popularity: semi-auto. Mag size laws are trying to get at it indirectly. legislating tacti-cool/intimidating (depending on your dicksize) features do nothing about the fact that the weapon they attach to can kill people as fast as you can point and pull the trigger.

If a democrat proposes a gun law that's not "you must remove your hand from the trigger and operate a separate mechanism to fire another bullet" it's a bad gun law and accomplishes nothing but raising the profits of gun manufacturers.

I'm not particularly against long-guns either - this poo poo is horrific but rare compared to handgun deaths. But let's all be honest about what the actual issue at hand really is.

Harik fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Oct 3, 2017

# ¿ Oct 3, 2017 22:40

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

evilweasel posted:

when we're talking "hunting rifles" bolt-action or the like as compared to semi-auto is the distinction that's being drawn, not the paint

This is utterly incorrect, as every "AWB" ever proposed or enacted has demonstrated. People see a wood stock and think "hunting rifle" and an all-black metal body as "assault weapon", even if they have the exact same firing mechanism. People, it turns out, are incredibly stupid.

Don't play games with things like "hunting rifle" vs "assault whatever", just talk about semi auto and how it's gamed into full-auto with poo poo like bump-stock and whatever grinder the vegas guy used.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2017 23:45

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Dead Reckoning posted:

I don't think you thought this through. "LEFT HANDED BOLT ACTIONS AND TOGGLE LOCKS AND ALL PUMP ACTIONS ARE ILLEGAL NOW, REEEEEE". If you go down this route, you end up like Australia, where whether or not a manually cycled gun can be operated too quickly to be legal is a matter of serious discussion.

I guess we'll have to ban all guns because lefties can use a right-handed bolt action illegally.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2017 00:18

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

DrNutt posted:

So uh, someone creating ads for the Walking Dead Facebook game has some poo poo timing.

When the gently caress did img tags become such a pain in the rear end?

They didn't, imgur became a pain in the rear end when they hid/removed the bbcode options.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2017 21:43

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Office Pig posted:

Believe it or not, criminal justice reform is underway in America.

Ok since you guys are too busy "engaging" with DR & Jackal to read this, I'll just quote some important parts.

quote:

McGahey had heard of Christian Alcoholics & Addicts in Recovery. People called it �the Chicken Farm,� a rural retreat where defendants stayed for a year, got addiction treatment and learned to live more productive lives. Most were sent there by courts from across Oklahoma and neighboring states, part of the nationwide push to keep nonviolent offenders out of prison.

Aside from daily cans of Dr Pepper, McGahey wasn�t addicted to anything. The judge knew that. But the Chicken Farm sounded better than prison.

A few weeks later, McGahey stood in front of a speeding conveyor belt inside a frigid poultry plant, pulling guts and stray feathers from slaughtered chickens destined for major fast food restaurants and grocery stores.

There wasn�t much substance abuse treatment at CAAIR. It was mostly factory work for one of America�s top poultry companies. If McGahey got hurt or worked too slowly, his bosses threatened him with prison.

And he worked for free. CAAIR pocketed the pay.

�It was a slave camp,� McGahey said. �I can�t believe the court sent me there.�

On May 27, 2010, three months into his time at CAAIR, something went wrong.

A machine dumped a mountain of parts onto the conveyor belt, causing chicken to pile up faster than he and his co-worker could sort it. As they plunged their hands into the heap of cold parts, McGahey remembers hearing a scream. His co-worker�s rubber glove was caught in the conveyor belt.

McGahey grabbed the woman�s arm, wresting her hand free. But the machine snagged his own hand. In a matter of seconds, McGahey�s wrist was jerked backward, lodged in the seams of the conveyor belt as it hurtled toward a narrow stainless steel chute overhead. Someone yanked the emergency kill cord, which should have stopped the machine, McGahey recalled. But it raced upward, dragging him along with it.

He felt a flash of panic. Then an excruciating crunch.

Medical notes later would say McGahey suffered a �severe crush injury.� The machine smashed his hand, breaking several bones and nearly severing a tendon in his wrist. When he finally yanked his wrist free, his hand was bent completely backward. The pain was so bad that he nearly fainted.

A nurse at the plant took one look at him and called CAAIR.

�The kid�s hand is mangled!� he recalled the nurse screaming into the phone. �He needs help!�

McGahey expected an ambulance. Instead, one of CAAIR�s top managers picked him up at the plant and drove him to the local hospital. Doctors took X-rays of McGahey�s hand, gave him a splint and ordered him not to work.

Back at CAAIR, he spent a sleepless night cradling his throbbing hand. He figured it would take months to heal and planned to rest. But CAAIR�s administrators would have none of it.

They called McGahey lazy and accused him of hurting himself on purpose to avoid working, former employees said. CAAIR told him that he had to go back to work � either at Simmons or around the campus until his hand healed, which wouldn�t count toward his one-year sentence.

Wilkerson said she doesn�t remember the specifics of McGahey�s case but acknowledged that CAAIR has given such ultimatums before.

�You can either work or you can go to prison,� McGahey remembered administrators telling him. �It�s up to you.�

He already had made up his mind.

�I�ll take prison over this place,� he said. �Anywhere is better than here.�

At some rehabs, defendants get to keep their pay. At CAAIR and many others, they do not.

Legal experts said forcing defendants to work for free might violate their constitutional rights. The 13th Amendment bans slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, except as punishment for convicts. That�s why prison labor programs are legal. But many defendants sent to programs such as CAAIR have not yet been convicted of crimes, and some later have their cases dismissed.

�You�ve got to be kidding me,� Noah Zatz, a professor specializing in labor law at UCLA, said when presented with Reveal�s findings. �That�s a very strong 13th Amendment violation case.�

CAAIR has become indispensable to the criminal justice system, even though judges appear to be violating Oklahoma�s drug court law by using it in some cases, according to the law�s authors.

Drug courts in Oklahoma are required to send defendants for treatment at certified programs with trained counselors and state oversight. CAAIR is uncertified. Only one of its three counselors is licensed, and no state agency regulates it.

Sharon Cain runs the drug court in rural Stephens County and decides where to send defendants for treatment. She said state regulators don�t stop her from using CAAIR.

�I do what I wanna do. They don�t mess with me,� she said. �And I�m not saying that in a cocky way. They just know I�m going to do drug court the way I�ve always done it.�

About 280 men are sent to CAAIR each year by courts throughout Oklahoma, as well as Arkansas, Texas and Missouri. Instead of paychecks, the men get bunk beds, meals and Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. If there�s time between work shifts, they can meet with a counselor or attend classes on anger management and parenting. Weekly Bible study is mandatory. For the first four months, so is church. Most days revolve around the work.

�Money is an obstacle for so many of these men,� said Janet Wilkerson, CAAIR�s founder and CEO. �We�re not going to charge them to come here, but they�re going to have to work. That�s a part of recovery, getting up like you and I do every day and going to a job.�

The program has become an invaluable labor source. Over the years, Simmons Foods repeatedly has laid off paid employees while expanding its use of CAAIR. Simmons now is so reliant on the program for some shifts that the plants likely would shut down if the men didn�t show up, according to former staff members and plant supervisors.

Read on for the other exciting highlights, like safety equipment not working (it would stop the line and you can't have that, the resulting injured workers being told to work with mangled hands or be dumped off in prison. Since they're not actually employees there's no workers comp. Gotta pad the bottom line, after all. I'm sorry, did I say there's no worker's comp? I meant the workers don't get it:

quote:

Brandon Spurgin was working in the chicken plants one night in 2014 when a metal door crashed down on his head, damaging his spine and leaving him with chronic pain, according to medical records. CAAIR filed for workers� compensation on his behalf and took the $4,500 in insurance payments. Spurgin said he got nothing.

Janet Wilkerson acknowledged that�s standard practice.

�That�s fraudulent behavior,� said Eddie Walker, a former judge with the Arkansas Workers� Compensation Commission. He said workers� comp payments are required to go to the injured worker. �What�s being done is clearly inappropriate.�

Yes, they take the payment as recompense for having to drop you off at prison and pick up another slave to replace you.

How about that rehab?

quote:

In addition to injuries, some men at CAAIR experience serious drug withdrawal, seizures and mental health crises, according to former employees. But the program doesn�t employ trained medical staff and prohibits psychiatric medicine.

That's right - take the people who are mentally ill off their medicine, work them until they break, then give them to the prison system to deal with.

Oh yes, and a 25% success rate - 75% of divertees end up being sent to prison anyway, after providing free labor for the time they were there.

I'd say it's shocking that they manage a 25% rate but I guess that's why they take in non-drug offenders

Parting gifts:

quote:

Jim Lovell, CAAIR�s vice president of program management, said there�s dignity in work.

�If working 40 hours a week is a slave camp, then all of America is a slave camp,� he said.

quote:

But today, the pain persists. All that seems to help, McGahey says, are pain pills.

Every morning and throughout the day, McGahey chugs a can of Dr Pepper with hydrocodone pills. When his doctor cut him off from his various medications, McGahey found another doctor to write a prescription.

Before CAAIR, McGahey had no interest in drugs. Now, he says he can�t live without them

�I�m addicted to them pills,� McGahey said. �I have to take them.�

Harik fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Oct 4, 2017

# ¿ Oct 4, 2017 22:19

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

JeffersonClay posted:

Government regulators sitting in a musty basement who've never experienced the raw dick hardening power of a firearm probably.

Can you guys point firearm chat at the kidnapping and robbery of the elderly above? Thanks in advance. Judges that sell people into literal slavery would be another good target.

I mean, seriously, WTF. This is so awful and both sides are too fixated on their dick-extensions to pay attention to some really bad poo poo going down.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2017 04:54

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

JeffersonClay posted:

It's been two days since 59 people got massacred at a concert, friend. Don't you dare "both sides" an argument about gun control or say we're paying too much attention.

Argue with someone not Dead Reconing or LeJackal then. They only come in to make the same arguments after every blood sacrifice to the 2nd amendment occurs. It's the same poo poo every time and nobody but them buys it.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2017 05:04

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

DACK FAYDEN posted:

Can someone just make another drat hellthread so USPOL can actually be useful again rather than having to put the actual political discussion in the Trump thread because this one is full of hellthread poo poo.

Won't happen because they want the audience of the USPOL thread for their slapfights. Besides, the trump tweets & thunderdome threads are more readable than this one, easier just to go there and drop this subscription.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2017 09:18

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Koalas March posted:

Us: Please vote for the (D) Candidate that doesn't want to round us up, deport our families, electroshock us, take away women's agency and autonomy, lynch, purge, or put us on concentration camps.

You: Why should I have to compromise!?

They're right, though. You're going to get hell-hosed by the casual racism the majority of America has in the guise of "but what about me?". Their privilege lets them accurately see both parties as the same poo poo (for them). It's not like the current Dem line is that pro-minority, the priority is to not let social issues get in the way of getting the economy moving for their big backers. It's why every politician had to be brow-beaten into supporting marriage equality for a recent example.

It doesn't help that the GOP is so unhinged that people interpret being told their actual plans and action as hyperbole. That's an actual, measured thing we discovered - people refuse to believe the system would allow someone as bad as Trump to get so far, so the media must be making poo poo up. It's the same when people are given the details of a GOP budget, or their plan to cut assistance for the elderly. Nobody can believe something so awful could be happening, so it must be lies from the other team.

That's why positioning yourself as the lesser evil doesn't work. Until Dems get that through their head, they're going to be left writing book after book about how it's Not My Fault I Lost.

No amount of yelling at politically interested SA posters is going to get the masses to vote for someone who has nothing to offer them. They voted D. I voted D. WE know why to do it. They're desperately trying to explain why making political arguments about "lesser evil" to the microscopic fraction of politically engaged voters lost this election and is about the only viable strategy to make trump a two-term president.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2017 01:56

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Spoke Lee posted:

What do you say to the disabled people who would be institutionalized after the money that pays for personal care assistants is set on fire because there wasn't a presidential veto or one less senator to prevent it.

When the next Bill Clinton "reforms" SSDI like Billy 1 fixed welfare, they won't be openly gleeful at the people that will die over it? :shrug:

That's why this is such a terrible argument - the current dem leadership do all the same poo poo but they do it politely and try to pretend nobody's getting hurt, while the tea party gloats in the misery they cause.

"Be hosed over with a smile instead of a sneer" is a winning campaign ad.

Sure, Generic Democratic Suit won't be pushing for bathroom laws, but it'd use precious political capital to fight back on them, capital better spent getting "tax reform" to enrich the only people who matter. The stolen SCOTUS won't be expanded and corrected because ~~decorum~~ so we'll just have to live with no legislative or judicial counter to right-wing bigoted bullshit for the next decade or two. I'm sure everyone'll be able to ride that out, right?

And goodness me, we wouldn't want to take a stand on cops murdering unarmed black youth, that'd be divisive. No, it's better to say some platitudes and let the riot police do their job of sweeping the anger back under the rug where it won't disturb the suburban peace.

Harik fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Oct 22, 2017

# ¿ Oct 22, 2017 06:03

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Rent-A-Cop posted:

I would be absolutely shocked if a rich white South African had a problem with the Jews.

Shocked I say!

This is weird and ahistorical, since white SA and Israel were best of buds under white rule, and it was the native majority that severed the ties post-apartheid.

# ¿ May 29, 2018 01:47

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Paradoxish posted:

Eliminating a federal agency (even a fairly new one) is a really hard thing for any politician to advocate for. ICE is poo poo and Bernie Sanders and any Democrat who doesn�t advocate getting rid of it entirely is poo poo by association, but it�s still understandable why there�s so much resistance to actually saying the words. Actually saying that you want to eliminate the whole agency is tantamount to admitting that we are the bad guys.

And yet saying this:
"It's three agencies of government, when I get there, that are gone: Commerce, Education and, the, uh, what's the third one there?" gets you put in charge of the department you forgot.

It's almost like every evaulation of politicians is one-sided!

# ¿ Jul 4, 2018 20:06

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Condiv posted:

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1047287469207515136

gently caress you and your 12.50/hr over 50 years hillary

Coincidentally, working fulltime at 12.50/hour for 50 years is about what one speech to gold mansacks is worth.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2018 22:28

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Radish posted:

Every one of our leaders is so goddamned stupid.

Mitt Romney, leader of... Bain capital?

# ¿ Oct 12, 2018 03:03

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Lightning Knight posted:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/trump-changes-terminal-dues-and-epacket-rates/573337/

Trump is trashing established rules surrounding package shipping to try and go after Chinese and other international sellers in the US. It seems like a wash; bad for international relations, minor benefits to small businesses, a big hand out to Amazon and bad for consumers.

Not really a handout to amazon, a lot of the sellers are on AZ as third parties; instead of getting the free percentage of all those sales they have to do all the work themselves now. It's probably a wash for them in the end. Big fuckyou to ebay who has a massive contingent of asian parcel post sales.

Probably good for US businesses who can't even give their stuff away because shipping it domestically costs more than the total price from Asia.

It's been a source of conflict for quite a while, specifically from small US webshops who have been asking for the international rate to be at least as much as the domestic rate.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2018 03:07

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

LeJackal posted:

You know what you're lying about, we know what you're lying about, and you know we know it. So maybe take your trolling elsewhere? This dance gets really tiring.

The lie is the unstated assumption that the judicial system is impartial. Both men know the reality of the situation and made the move that was best for them - that move was different entirely due to the racial bias in the judicial system.

E: There's a lot more that could be said but it devolves rapidly into cheerleading.
vvvvv

Harik fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Oct 19, 2018

# ¿ Oct 19, 2018 23:01

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Office Pig posted:

Smokin hot take coming at you from the twitter of America's savior.
https://twitter.com/MichaelAvenatti/status/1054700025887051776?s=19

In order to distinguish ourselves from the other party, we should become indistinguishable is an evergreen take. Don't forget to follow that up with condemnation to anyone who points out the parties are the same on an issue.

It's not like Avenatti is speaking complete insanity, that's absolutely the ~~serious people~~ consensus.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2018 04:37

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Radish posted:

https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1052265445552738305?s=19

Between the Kelly debacle and poo poo like this I think I hate NBC about as much as Fox.

How can you manage to write a story like that without ever once stopping to ask "do we really want to live in a society where the only way to get help is to hope you're photogenic enough to go viral?"

Every time this happens, or someone has to get donations for chemo, it's an indictment of this horrible country.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2018 18:51

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 14:32

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Stexils posted:

common sense.

Not picking on you specifically but I hate that pair of words. The most accurate translation is "an unfounded assertion I pulled out of my rear end and pretended you would be stupid not to agree with."

Politicians use it all the time and it grates.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2018 02:06

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL: Pulitzer Feeling Increasingly Out Of Place In New York Times Office