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The likely reason it its news in Florida its because the Tampa Bay Times did a longform investigative piece: https://project.tampabay.com/investigations/deadly-dose/kratom-industry/
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Jan 31, 2024 21:25
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So what's the end game here making this bipartisan....have the public polling turned against social media or are they playing for "censorship that helps my party"?
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Jan 31, 2024 21:31
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PhazonLink posted:listening to afternoon npr, and they're talking about some new herbal supplement notdrug call Kratom, never heard of it, but im a lame straightedge nerd. also i dont live in FL. (the guest journalist are in FL) It's extremely known and widely used. MixMasterMalaria fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 31, 2024 21:31
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Aztec Galactus posted:The likely reason it its news in Florida its because the Tampa Bay Times did a longform investigative piece: Thanks for the link. That is most likely the explanation and it is a great piece of journalism. I knew that a bunch of people had died from Kratom, but didn't realize it was in the hundreds in just Florida. The head of the American Kratom Association (a wild title to hold) is an actual sociopath. This is just a tiny sample of his comments: quote:For years, the American Kratom Association, which is the most influential kratom lobbying and advocacy group in the world, has told the public and legislatures across the country that the herb cannot be fatal, unless it’s contaminated or laced with drugs like fentanyl. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 31, 2024 21:32
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Jaxyon posted:So what's the end game here making this bipartisan....have the public polling turned against social media or are they playing for "censorship that helps my party"? Probably a bit of that and the fact that lawsuits from State AGs have produced documents showing that TikTok, Meta, and X were basically allowing child porn and targeting children for addiction without regard to their mental or physical health. It's pretty hard to publicly come out on the "we need more child porn" and "kill our children" side of a political argument.
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Jan 31, 2024 21:34
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You see a lot of concentrates which by most accounts have the same perils of other opiates: addiction, withdrawals, etc. I've known people who just use the herb as is and seem fine, and people who get weird and hazardously into the concentrates. There's good info in TCC.
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Jan 31, 2024 21:36
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Jaxyon posted:So what's the end game here making this bipartisan....have the public polling turned against social media or are they playing for "censorship that helps my party"?
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Jan 31, 2024 21:37
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Thanks for the link. That is most likely the explanation and it is a great piece of journalism. McClain “Mac” Haddow a.k.a. the head of the American Kratom Association (AKA).
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Jan 31, 2024 21:39
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MixMasterMalaria posted:You see a lot of concentrates which by most accounts have the same perils of other opiates: addiction, withdrawals, etc. I've known people who just use the herb as is and seem fine, and people who get weird and hazardously into the concentrates. There's good info in TCC. Is the appeal specifically because it is legal at the federal level and it is an ease of acquisition situation? Or is there something special about the high/effects that is drawing people to use incredibly high concentrate blends? I remember when it first came on the scene like 20 years ago, but it seemed really niche. I'm guessing part of the recent uptick is the crackdown on getting easy pain pills? Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 31, 2024 21:43
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Kratom is not new at all. It is extremely old. Kratom is not banned under the CSA but it's also not lawful as an ingredient in food, dietary supplements or drugs. It's not sold legally; there's just not sufficient enforcement. FDA seized the product at one of the largest manufacturers last year, though I don't think they actually shut them down; my impression is they're fearful because it's a multibillion dollar industry headed by people who make big tobacco look innocent. If you see a state bill trying to "regulate" kratom, that's the AKA trying for state legalization to interfere with federal regulation by tying their product to the state's revenue scheme. There's ongoing drug research on the active ingredient, but it's sufficiently obviously an addictive substance and a drug of abuse that if it gets approved it'll presumably be scheduled. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 31, 2024 22:35
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I love reading about Kratom in TCC because it sounds like such a miserable experience in every way. I just cannot imagine a reason to get into Kratom, at all. e: "yeah the taste is awful and I couldn't poo poo for days but hmm, I did feel like a little high for a few minutes"
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Jan 31, 2024 22:39
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:She's dumb because she clearly believed her actions would make her a presidential candidate and political celebrity rather than torching her own career which is what she did instead. She was already on the gravy train for life once she won her first senatorial race, yet she somehow managed to gently caress that up, which takes a kind of genius. She can't even raise money for a reelection campaign any more. I don’t think this aligns with what I know about America, where there’s no dumb, bad or wrong way to end up rich so long as you can keep it.
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Jan 31, 2024 22:40
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It's probably the crackdown on pill mills mostly (which is actually a problem because it means a bunch of people aren't getting adequate treatment for legit pain.) I'd bet there are also people who don't even realize it's an opioid since you can walk into a store and buy it all over the place here in FL.
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Jan 31, 2024 22:41
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selec posted:I don’t think this aligns with what I know about America, where there’s no dumb, bad or wrong way to end up rich so long as you can keep it. She didn't keep it though. That's the thing. She is actively failing to raise money for a senate race in a potential swing state. She managed to dumbfuck herself out of a revenue stream worth hundreds of millions.
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Jan 31, 2024 22:52
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PhazonLink posted:listening to afternoon npr, and they're talking about some new herbal supplement notdrug call Kratom, never heard of it, but im a lame straightedge nerd. also i dont live in FL. (the guest journalist are in FL) People were doing kratom when I was in college and my aunt sold it in Florida years ago. Its main claim to fame has always been that its legal (or quasi legal), its weird to suddenly see it in the news. Im guessing this in response to exactly that uptick in stores selling it as a legal alternative that she was a part of? GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 31, 2024 23:20
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:She didn't keep it though. That's the thing. She is actively failing to raise money for a senate race in a potential swing state. She managed to dumbfuck herself out of a revenue stream worth hundreds of millions. drat she’s just gonna have to settle for more money than 99.9% of all Americans and cushy no show board postings. If she’s living in a studio apartment running Spin classes in a couple years I guess I got it wrong, but that doesn’t comport with what I’ve observed about American politics and the ruling class. If she’s so dumb, why isn’t everyone running this grift? It’s easy enough a stupid person can do it.
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Jan 31, 2024 23:20
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Because intelligence is not the main determinator for this type of poo poo? Our society massively rewards dumb people all the time, I dont know why the idea is shocking to you.
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Jan 31, 2024 23:26
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Circa 2017, there was the beginning of effort to schedule kratom as a controlled substance and DEA was taking administrative actions. Some Representatives/Senators got involved on kratom's behalf and DEA backed down. The above is half remembered because I haven't had to care about kratom since about 2017, but I can track down sources/get names/confirm the accuracy of the above if it matters for anyone's purposes.
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Jan 31, 2024 23:32
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GlyphGryph posted:Because intelligence is not the main determinator for this type of poo poo? Our society massively rewards dumb people all the time, I dont know why the idea is shocking to you. Look, everyone calling Elon Musk a moron just doesn't understand his genius Also the same is true of Sinema except also calling her stupid is sexist for some reason selec posted:drat she’s just gonna have to settle for more money than 99.9% of all Americans and cushy no show board postings. If she’s living in a studio apartment running Spin classes in a couple years I guess I got it wrong, but that doesn’t comport with what I’ve observed about American politics and the ruling class. She was previously either competent in prior races or managed to convincingly fake competence, which is close to the same thing. She also caught a series of lucky breaks in terms of races coming open and being a telegenic candidate in the right times and places. Then she blew it all to hell by being national-scale stupid and torching her career in a series of self-inflicted wounds. Nobody other than Sinema is the reason that Sinema will never serve another term as Senator. That's real fuckin' dumb. I don't know if she was always that dumb or became dumb once her own success went to her head, but she sure as hell hosed up and has nobody to blame for it but herself. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 31, 2024 23:33
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Look, everyone calling Elon Musk a moron just doesn't understand his genius There was sexism around the criticisms of Sinema. Both things can be true. You can be fatphobic criticizing trump. While trump is certainly a piece of poo poo.
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Jan 31, 2024 23:37
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Jaxyon posted:There was sexism around the criticisms of Sinema. Both things can be true. Selec's specific accusation of misogyny quoted my post regarding her intelligence specifically, not generalized misogyny out in the ether. There were hundreds of articles over the past few years trying to figure out what the gently caress was up with Sinema because her decisions made no sense. I read a lot of them because I also found her behavior inexplicable. What finally convinced me she was just a moron was a series of interviews with former close friends of hers and trusted advisers who all talked about trying to intervene and get her to wake up to what she was doing to her own career and she blew them all off because she thought she was going to be the next MAVERICKtm, when she clearly wasn't because she clearly did not understand how McCain had managed to walk that line or why, or why her electorate was changing under her, or why Americans increasingly don't want "moderate" candidates, or anything else about modern politics, and was just torching her own career out of misguided belief in her own genius (a belief that lobbyists proved happy to conveniently reinforce via wine cave vacations and the like). She's just a moron. I don't think that because of misogyny; I think that because I've sat down and researched what makes her tick and my educated opinion based on reported interviews with her friends and associates is that she lacks basic self-critique skills and is, in short, by the standards of competency necessary and expected for a successful politician at the national level, a goddam moron. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 31, 2024 23:41
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Selec's specific accusation of misogyny quoted my post regarding her intelligence specifically, not generalized misogyny out in the ether. People have been saying she's stupid just like people say black politicians/court justices are. There can be bigotry in both those criticisms, even if you have "good" opinions on things. Edit: You edited a lot more in Jaxyon fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 31, 2024 23:49
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Jaxyon posted:
Yeah, I was on my phone and had to sit down to write the rest of that out Point is, sometimes people are just morons regardless, and Sinema is just a moron regardless. I dunno. Maybe she's a fuckin' genius at Sudoku. Wikipedia says she was valedictorian of her high school. She must have had a brain at some point. She sure as hell hasn't used it in the past few years.
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Jan 31, 2024 23:55
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From Sinema's last financial disclosure she has less than $100k of assets and is still paying off student loans. It seems more likely that she had a galaxy brained plan to become president than that this is all a strategy to get as rich as possible which is going perfectly.
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Jan 31, 2024 23:55
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James Garfield posted:From Sinema's last financial disclosure she has less than $100k of assets and is still paying off student loans. It seems more likely that she had a galaxy brained plan to become president than that this is all a strategy to get as rich as possible which is going perfectly. Yeah. She's almost certainly never going to be living hand to mouth in a job at a 7-11 no matter how much she fails at her intended goals, that's true , but having a strong resume and proven networking abilities (not even active contacts) makes it a lot less likely for anyone to fall into poverty after walking away from one good job.. And not even in an "under capitalism" sense unless you're using the common secondary definition of "under capitalism" that means "in any human society with a concept of jobs." Anyone who makes it into high office has some real skills and capabilities. It's not as easy to just fail upward, buy in, or be pushed in by shadowy forces above as we like to think. But we like to think that in part because at the same time a lot of them are really bad at some other things, and have established patterns of making bad decisions that are counterproductive to their stated and/or logical goals. Many of them are ways ordinary people gently caress up too, leading other ordinary people to say "What was that idiot even trying?" There's not really any contradictions there, just people being people.
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Feb 1, 2024 00:11
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:There were hundreds of articles over the past few years trying to figure out what the gently caress was up with Sinema because her decisions made no sense. I read a lot of them because I also found her behavior inexplicable. What finally convinced me she was just a moron was a series of interviews with former close friends of hers and trusted advisers who all talked about trying to intervene and get her to wake up to what she was doing to her own career and she blew them all off because she thought she was going to be the next MAVERICKtm, when she clearly wasn't because she clearly did not understand how McCain had managed to walk that line or why, or why her electorate was changing under her, or why Americans increasingly don't want "moderate" candidates, or anything else about modern politics, and was just torching her own career out of misguided belief in her own genius My own magical sinema journey was pretty much the same process. the more firsthand accounts we got, especially detailing how she responded to pushback and doubled down on asinine bullshit no matter what internal counsel was against it, the more it eliminated the plausibility of any answer that wasn't "she is a giant moron" sinecure is her runner-up fallback trophy that's all she's got left to take to the bank. it's what she can get after loving up every advancement or political furtherance, it wasn't a preplanned choice or a master strategy, it's the political class consolation prize, and its weird that people still think that this was all an initial goal outcome of hers the one question I don't think has been answered to a satisfactory degree is what the process was that eroded her down to "just a moron" like was it some m night shyamalan thing where you had an ego feedback loop combined with growing too prominent and powerful to have to debase yourself to expert counsel and advice by your campaign staff and you start doing it "ur own way" with "ur uncorrupted vision" and it turns out to be ugly bad and erases your whole viable legacy
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Feb 1, 2024 00:12
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Failed Imagineer posted:There Will Be Probes If the thread title wasn't already excellent, then that would have been a winner.
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Feb 1, 2024 00:15
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If her whole strategy with being in the House was to parlay that into a job as a consultant or lobbyist, wouldn't breaking with your party and running as an independent kinda fly in the face of that strategy? Those kinds of jobs typically are paying you for your insider knowledge or connections which breaking with your party kinda hinders. Like, McCain's whole maverick thing wouldn't have worked or been notable if he switched to an Independent and then bombed out after 1 term.
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Feb 1, 2024 00:19
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Kratom is not anywhere near as good of a thing as the kraton advocates will tell you, but on the other hand I know quite a few people who have used it successfully to get off heroin and other hardcore opiate addictions. Out of all the opiate or opiate like agonists out there it's by far the least destructive. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be regulated more than it is and nobody should just start taking it out of the blue but if you are struggling with a bad opiate addiction it can be a real lifesaver.
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Feb 1, 2024 00:20
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:It's pretty hard to publicly come out on the [...] "kill our children" side of a political argument. My dude please sit down, I have bad news for you about the GOP, gun lobbyists, and the leading cause of death aged 1-17 in this country
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Feb 1, 2024 00:45
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Social media companies have the right to defend themselves.
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Feb 1, 2024 00:49
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The fact that Sinema was so happy pissing off her base by deliberately betraying them by working against everything she promised to work towards as a candidate is why I think she's just dumb as bricks and doesn't get that this is not going to help her.
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Feb 1, 2024 01:05
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Staluigi posted:My own magical sinema journey was pretty much the same process. Yeah, all the articles I'm referring to were posted right here in prior versions of this thread. None of this is or should be news to anybody here and I was kinda suprised I needed to explain it. quote:the one question I don't think has been answered to a satisfactory degree is what the process was that eroded her down to "just a moron" like was it some m night shyamalan thing where you had an ego feedback loop combined with growing too prominent and powerful to have to debase yourself to expert counsel and advice by your campaign staff and you start doing it "ur own way" with "ur uncorrupted vision" and it turns out to be ugly bad and erases your whole viable legacy My guess is that she thought in taking over McCain's seat she'd naturally benefit from taking over his "maverick" mantle, and that synced up nicely with a native inclination to turn more conservative anyway as she got richer and more well-rewarded and privileged and successful. Then, guessing further, I imagine she got heavily love-bombed by republican lobbyists willing to tell her she was a special genius, here have a wine cave vacation, all your old friends and supporters don't understand you, you're totally right blocking the Democratic agenda is the best way to advance your career and get real true Maverick bona fides, the Democrats don't believe in you like we do, etc etc etc. And she fell for it hook line and sinker because she wanted to believe it. Same way scientology recruits celebrities.
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Feb 1, 2024 01:13
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Sinema is like the Civil War When you have a basic familiarity with her, you know she’s an idiot When you research her actions, you know she is enacting a subtle, carefully planned scheme to gain personal wealth and power at the expense of Democratic national priorities When you fully understand the life and career of this woman, you know she’s an idiot
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Feb 1, 2024 01:53
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WebDO posted:My dude please sit down, I have bad news for you about the GOP, gun lobbyists, and the leading cause of death aged 1-17 in this country Huh. The numbers are still quite low, but looks like you're right, firearms seem to be involved in a plurality of child deaths, taking the lead somewhere in the last decade. I think one of the things that threw my dim recollection is that some of the stats file "accidents" as the leading cause, rather than breaking out "firearm related accidents" and making it a bit easier to sum up with homicides and suicides. just more proof imo that firearms are a public health problem
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Feb 1, 2024 02:02
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Is the appeal specifically because it is legal at the federal level and it is an ease of acquisition situation? It's mostly the former but there's some of the latter. Some people treat it as opiates lite and a tool to move off harder stuff. Some as an alternative. Its rise is absolutely related to the crackdown on pill mills (as is our whole heron/fent epidemic imo) as people started looking for alternatives. It's also a quasi legal intoxicant that some find pleasurable so people use it, along with kava, as an alternative to drinking alcohol. In FL at least there are bars that serve flavored drinks with it, though they always advertise as Kava bars with Kratom being the shady 'real' draw. I tried it a long time ago and it def gave me a feeling somewhat reminiscent of opiates, but the one prepared drink I had from the bar was too strong for my zero tolerance and I got violently sick. Since then I can't even smell the stuff without nausea. That TBT article was illuminating, but I fear a ban will push a lot of users into the absolute meat grinder of illegal opiates. The way pill mills were shut down left a lot of people low and dry and kicked off the situation we have now with massive numbers of fatalities from non standardized dosing + fentanyl contamination. It's a situation that requires regulation,and a nuanced approach to navigate if there's any hope of a soft landing with minimum intervention-induced harm.
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Feb 1, 2024 02:07
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burnishedfume posted:If her whole strategy with being in the House was to parlay that into a job as a consultant or lobbyist, wouldn't breaking with your party and running as an independent kinda fly in the face of that strategy? Those kinds of jobs typically are paying you for your insider knowledge or connections which breaking with your party kinda hinders. Like, McCain's whole maverick thing wouldn't have worked or been notable if he switched to an Independent and then bombed out after 1 term.
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Feb 1, 2024 02:47
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Staluigi posted:My own magical sinema journey was pretty much the same process. Everyone knows she started out super left, but what doesn't get so much attention is that every time she encountered a political obstacle or wanted to move up a rung on the political ladder, "moving to the right" was the strategy that consistently helped her overcome those challenges. Moderate compromise worked pretty well to bring her success in Arizona state politics, but she failed to understand its limitations and she failed to understand how national politics were changing under Trump. Kchama posted:The fact that Sinema was so happy pissing off her base by deliberately betraying them by working against everything she promised to work towards as a candidate is why I think she's just dumb as bricks and doesn't get that this is not going to help her. Eh, her voters had a decent idea of what they were getting with her. All her old leftist rhetoric was long gone by the time she set her sights on Congress. By 2018, she was pretty much openly campaigning on her willingness to defy Democratic leadership and show how independent and unconcerned with partisan politics she was.
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Feb 1, 2024 03:07
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From the DoJ:quote:U.S. Government Disrupts Botnet People’s Republic of China Used to Conceal Hacking of Critical Infrastructure From related reports it appears the group was testing a set of tools and procedures that would let them selectively shut down or manipulate web traffic flowing across the Pacific at the infra level. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Feb 1, 2024 |
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Feb 1, 2024 03:48
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I'm going to take any pro-kratom stuff with a huge grain of salt personally, because (as mentioned in the thread) the industry is pretty sleazy and the big guy in the industry group would (and possibly does) make developing world oligarchs go "whoa man, maybe cool your jets a little". It's a legit dangerous opioid, just less so than street versions. I do agree that banning Kratos without taking a look at how to assist the people utilizing it would be a bit silly, but that just means the answer is "staple something about that to the bill / policy and also have relevant agencies and organizations ready". fake edit: leaving that one in
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Feb 1, 2024 03:49
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