Support for 'Assault Weapon' Ban at 20-Year Low, Executions at 40-Year Low, Congress Reaches Budget Deal: A.M. Links
- There was another round of GOP presidential debates last night! (Check out Reason staffers bon tweets and increasingly-inebriated observations from throughout the night here.) According to the pundits, there was "no clear winner," but a Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio debate over foreign policy "will have meaningful implications," Jeb Bush "finally showed spine"—not that it will matter—and Sen. Rand Paul "was in a fighting mood."
- Fifty-three percent of Americans oppose a ban on "assault weapons," the first time a majority has been against such a ban in more than 20 years of ABC News/Washington Post polling.
- Austrian police have arrested two men with suspected links to the recent terror attacks in Paris.
- U.S. use of the death penalty this year was at a four-decade low.
- Congressional leaders have reached a tax and spending deal in time to stave off the fabled government shutdown. More on the winners and losers in this arrangement here.
- The Tuesday terror threat at Los Angeles schools was a hoax, but the resulting increase in police in schools is real.
- The Federal Reserve is expected to raise short-term borrowing rates today.
- Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Brig. Gen. Diana Holland has been named the first female commandant of cadets at West Point.
New at Reason:
Brickbat: Could It Be…Satan? —By Charles Oliver
Pretend Answers on Terror: Politicians and pundits think they know what should be done. —By John Stossel
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The Tuesday terror threat at Los Angeles schools was a hoax, but the resulting increase in police in schools is real.
Crisitunity.
Hello.
Just Monday the Atlanta School Board voted to end their contract with the Atlanta PD and hire their own security based on the idea that cops are trained and equipped to deal with dangerous criminals when most of the problems in the schools are unruly schoolchildren and maybe the cops’ attitude of “see something, shoot something” is a poor fit for the environment. The APD of course thinks this is a terrible idea because they’re better trained for the heavily-armed flying ninja zombie pirates with lasers on their frickin’ heads that infest the Atlanta school system.
(If I know the ATL, the real reason for the switch is somebody’s getting a kickback and the real reason the APD is unhappy is because the one getting the kickback ain’t them any more. Absolutely nothing gets done in Atlanta that doesn’t involve a loot of palm-greasing.)
the real reason for the switch is somebody’s getting a kickback
^This. It’s the big city way.
Pfft. It’s the small-town way, too.
It’s the every-town-in-America way.
Mayberry RFD!
Despite the ideological differences and the vitriolic atmosphere, I keep coming back here for the permissive moderation standards. I got moderated elsewhere for the quite mild comment of calling Bernie Sanders a “relic of a deluded age” and a Socialist (*gasp* I used the term he uses to describe himself in a derogitory manner).
While the tools exist for the individual to not see what I have to say, that doesn’t feel like censorship, especially since it doesn’t prevent those who might be amuse by whatever prattle I go on from reading it. (These same tools also help get rid of the bot messages.)
I keep coming back in the hope the intern du jour will finally censor UnCivilServant
aww… I didn’t know you cared.
I come for the echo chamber… WHICH I DISRUPT AT EVERY TURN WITH MY CONTRARIAN WAYS.
I come for the running omnipartisan mockery. Speaking of…
You know who else caused disruptions with their contrarian ways?
James Tiberius Kirk.
Baby Jesus?
[tis the season]
Tulpa?
Rick Sanchez?
Our company’s bitchy marketing manager?
Colonel Oliver North?
I disagree!
Your face is about to disagree with a knuckle sandwich.
mmm. yummy! 🙂
Open-faced club sandwedge…
fore?
Fist you are like a duck in an echo chamber. For some unknown reason, your quacks never echo back.
They’re so awesome the walls want to absorb them all.
You say the sweetest things.
Only when I’m running on 30 minutes of sleep in the past 24 hours. Sleep deprived is as close as I get to drunk most days.
Oddly enough, I wish Reason had just a little bit more moderation specifically to get rid of some of the tools here.
Citizen X is not that bad.
[citation needed]
There are ways
First they came for the Tools, and I did not speak out?
Because I was not a Tool.
Then they came for the libertaRians, and I did not speak out?
Because I was not a libertaRians.
Then they came for the Anarchists, and I did not speak out?
Because I was not a Anarchists.
Then they came for One true Libertarian?and there was no one left to speak for me.
-1 Buttplug
I’ve got no where else to go! I’ve got no where else to go. / cries like Richard Gere
It was a gerbil.
Vitriolic atmosphere?
Did you tell them about our woodchippers?
I came for the waters. I was misinformed.
Bernie Sanders ?@BernieSanders 10h10 hours ago
Fifth #GOPDebate is over. Like the first, not one word about income inequality, climate change, or racial justice. The Rs are out of touch.
You’re out of touch!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_8KR-n2fBQ
Can’t believe you didn’t go with a rugby clip.
Anytime I can link to Philadelphia’s finest I will.
“WHAT. DO. THEY. DO???”
He really should try to stay awake and pay attention.
Senility set in. Fortunately for his career, senility and socialism are almost indistinguishable.
Did someone on the left explain how income inequality is actually bad for everybody before they started just throwing it around like a slur? Or did it just appear in the talking points one day and their mewling minions just read it off the teleprompter?
It’s an appeal to envy. Nothing more. Don’t keep up with the Joneses; drag them down to your level.
In certain parts of Africa, people are so backward that when someone sees that their neighbor is starting to have more chickens and goats, they’ll go and kill them all out of envy. That’s the model for America.
I’m pretty sure it’s the second one. I still haven’t heard any real explanation (let alone a good one) of why inequality is bad in and of itself.
The closest to such an explanation is probably Sanders’s “rigged economy” schtick. Has anyone else seen his ad where he purports to explain how the rigged economy works and then goes on to say nothing at all?
Then there’s the zero-sum view of the economy.
someone find Thatcher’s takedown of the income inequality guy in parliment. It’s still pertinent (and on youtube, which doesn’t work at work anymore)
As a fellow civil servant, I think it’s fair to say that nothing works at work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okHGCz6xxiw
She brings tears to my eyes!
There is nothing inherently wrong with a larger “gap” in income. The only things that matters is that those on the bottom have enough, which has absolutely nothing to do with if someone else has more.
A widening gap does not mean that those on the bottom are getting poorer. Say in 2000 the bottom 10% averaged $10k and the top 10% 10m. Now, 15 years later, the bottom 10% averages $20k while the top 10% average $30m. The bottom doubled, while the top tripled. The bottom is better off, even though the gap widened.
This is a feature of a growing economy. Those who make more do so mainly because they have better skills and work ethic. The only way for the gap to narrow if for those at the bottom to grow their income faster than those at the top, but how can that happen when they have fewer skills?
The solution is to tell those at the bottom to follow the Asian model – study hard and work your ass off.
Has anyone else seen his ad where he purports to explain how the rigged economy works and then goes on to say nothing at all?
Well, of course he doesn’t. If he were to discuss the ways in which the economy is rigged, he’d have to come to terms with the fact that its exactly the sorts of policies that he proposes that rig it. As things stand he can take advantage of people’s vague sense that things aren’t quite right.
And blame it all on campaign finance stuff as if that is the only (or the primary) way that politicians are controlled by monied interests. And, as you say, gloss over the fact that putting more of the economy in the hands of government is exactly how you get a rigged economy.
I feel like it’s a simplistic substitution for vastly more complex issues that we should be worried about: monetary policy, taxation policy, cronyism, etc. You are never going to “fix” income equality if, for example, quantitative easing fiat money only ever goes to the politically connected (which does seem to be the case). But nobody seems willing to actually talk to people about how to fix
these complex issues.
Yeah, Pol Pot had a rather effective model for that
Hey, Tejicano. Got some time this winter break? A super, mini Reason Tokyo soviet might be nice.
According to our own mtrueman, Pol Pot meant well, but things just got a little out of hand.
*takes off eyeglasses*
This. The financial system is rigged, but it’s not the 1% versus everyone else, it’s the .01% that gets free money from the Fed in billion dollar chunks that drive inflation that’s the issue.
Even more than supposed “entitlement”, that’s why I hate the $20 minimum wage drive; It’s not going to fix the real problem, which is inflation, it’s just a temporary fix. Like taking tylenol to deal with your brain cancer.
It’s them, of course, and also grifters like the Clintons.
“It’s not going to fix the real problem, which is inflation, it’s just a temporary fix. Like taking tylenol to deal with your brain cancer.”
Eh… Tylenol has a therapeutic benefit in some cases. Minimum wage law is more like taking bath salts to cure brain cancer.
Income inequality, like many Prog issues, just feels wrong. You have really rich people and you have poor people- it the type of situation that people can impute all of their fears into. The middle class is shrinking! Rich guys are hoarding money for their decadent lifestyles! For most people, it is “self evident” why having a couple people with a vast proportion of the money is bad.
The real work is actually describing why this isn’t a bad thing- getting people to wrap their heads around the fact that an economy isn’t a zero sum game; helping them understand that real unfairness is expecting a doctor to earn only slightly more than a barely literate immigrant; convincing them that arbitrary definitions of “need” are a more unfair way of determining the price for our services.
So I don’t think it is surprising at all to see people just accept that income inequality is bad. As with most things libertarian, those are Seen Costs, and getting them to understand Unseen Costs can be difficult.
So basically the teleprompter option.
“Let’s say you want a swimming pool installed in your yard and a guy with a backhoe shows up and says he can have the hole dug by lunchtime for $1500. Then I show up with my rusty tablespoon and tell you I can have you a hole dug by next August for $45k. You’re going to hire me because I’m working much harder than the guy with the backhoe and my daily rate of $225 is much lower than his daily rate of $3000, right?”
“No, that’s stupid.”
“So you’re saying that working smarter is better than working harder and investing in capital – like a backhoe – is working smarter?”
“Well, of course.”
“But if working smarter pays just the same as working stupid, why bother working smarter? We pay people more when they find the most efficient method of giving us what we want. Finding the most efficient method means competition and competition produces winners and losers. If everybody gets the same trophy at the end of the tournament, what’s the point of even having a contest?”
“Well, it’s not fair that the losers don’t get as much as the winners.”
“And yet you were the one who hired the guy with the backhoe instead of the guy with the tablespoon. You are the one who determines who wins and who loses. If you want a different winner, change your choices.”
Nicely done.
The middle class is going to shrink even more if they get their way on the minimum wage.
LOL. Or maybe those people are very much in-touch with what matters to most Americans.
The Rs are out of touch.
Yeah, but they’re tied for 1st place in the NFC East!
WOOOOO!!!! HTTR!!!!!
I’m not sure they’re vying yet to be in touch with Bernie Sanders.
Holy shit. UnCivil hit the nail on the head. Relic of a deluded age.
It is remarkable to me that a major party in this country can run on nothing but fake bullshit. One giant empty suit.
Well, you know, nothing says “progress” like an angry, elderly white man with an industrial-era ideology.
It is remarkable to me that a major party in this country can run on nothing but fake bullshit.
Then it must really shock you to see two of them.
Yeah, but their bullshit is totes different. One party’s bullshit comes from corn-fed bulls while the other party’s bullshit comes from grass-fed bulls.
Are you sure that was the real Bernie Sanders and not our own Jackanapes complaining that the GOP isn’t addressing the issues the Dems are campaigning on?
Jackand Ace|12.15.15 @ 10:37AM|#
How about any detailed discussion for once on climate change? Particularly in light of the just agreed upon accord in Paris, which if you believe the right is a debacle of unprecedented proportions. That’s foreign policy AND domestic policy, you know. Just whining about the solutions coming from the left when you only ignore the issue is kind of sad.
My moderated comment was on another site – in particular, This article at the Times Useless It had nothing to do with the debate or Sanders’ comments on it.
Sorry, I mixed up the threading because there were a lot of sanders comments I didn’t see that there was a new top-level comment.
Carry on.
So there should be no surprise or mystery that when you tuned into the Republican debate, that you didn’t see a bunch of Democrats on stage. Except for John Kasich of course.
And Jeb! Bush. And Marco Rubio. And Donald Trump. And Chris Christie…
Neocons are vaguely leftoid I get that. But John Kasich goes above and beyond, he’s the guy who said people who want to cut welfare benefits are evil sinners for that position.
John Kasich…. I’m still smiling about that comment.
Rich Democrats don’t want to do anything about income inequality either.
mmm, Pie
Man. Bernie Sanders really is fucking turd burglar isn’t he.
Fights, fury and the Ku Klux Klan: Finland faces wave of vigilante mobs targeting migrants as arrest of an Afghan asylum seeker for rape of 14-year-old schoolgirl pushes one town to the brink
…In Kempele, the rape of the schoolgirl, just a fortnight after the centre for young migrants opened, sent shockwaves through the community.
Rumours quickly spread around the town that two asylum seekers from Afghanistan had been arrested over the assault.
It has since emerged that police have arrested a 17-year-old boy at the centre, who is in custody awaiting trial.
It was the spark needed for those who had opposed the centre in the first place to take to the streets – as hundreds turned out for a protest march demanding it be closed immediately.
‘Finland for the Finns! Close down the centre!’ they chanted….
…The day after the schoolgirl sex attack in Kempele, another 14-year-old girl was attacked in the southern town of Raisio. This time, the man arrested was a 19-year-old asylum seeker.
Two days later, Afghan Ramin Azimi was jailed for life for raping a 17-year-old Finnish girl from Pori and burning her alive….
Good freaking lord. That’s a lot of rape really really quickly. I can see why the locals are upset.
That’s a lot of rape really really quickly.
U R racist, according to Shikha Dalmia, because you think that. Report to the reeducation camp immediately.
What kind of assclowns could possibly oppose unrestricted immigration from these places? Shikha says they should stop shitting their pants, all immigrants are an asset.
I’m all for unrestricted immigration of teenage Finnish girls, in order to prevent this travesty!
So does Cytotoxic but I don’t think he’s let any of them move in with him yet.
Sweden is absolutely falling apart according to the internet.
Hundreds of Swedes wole to find letters on their doors giving them 3 days to convert, pay a religious tax, or be beheaded.
Who are the idiots that though that mass immigration of such a stone age culture into a modern wellfare state was a good thing ?
I would love to see their thought process laid out line by line.
See, when conquerors of a land are victorious, they get to rape the women (or children), plunder the gold and steal the land. It’s the spoils of war.
The “victorious” part doesn’t seem to have happened.
The invasions are looking pretty successful, so far.
Uh, did you read the article?
Not actually being serious, there, Zeb.
Sorry, it’s hard to keep track. There are plenty who would say that seriously.
And I’m still entirely unconvinced that “invasion” is the right word.
Well “invasion” implies there might be some sort of resistance. What is it called when a nation welcomes the invaders? Suicide?
Well “invasion” implies there might be some sort of resistance.
Once again, did you read the article this was in response to?
Interestingly the Visigoths were originally refugees fleeing the Huns.
Look the Visigoths were just there to do the jobs the Romans wouldn’t do. Think about how much they must have boosted Rome’s economy.
The purported fact that it’s “not really an invasion” doesn’t really matter to the results.
And the same goes for the purported fact that it is really an invasion. I guess future historians will have to argue it out.
Are you from the future? Do you really think that the entire world is going to come under Muslim rule?
T’was a joke…
The “victorious” part doesn’t seem to have happened.
Victory is a state of mind….it smells like Napalm for some. For others, goats.
That means the rate actually went DOWN. Good news!
A thousand rapes per year…in small towns?
3 rapes in six days all committed by the religion of peace.
Religions have dicks? Who knew?
Islam has a lot of dicks, and assholes.
Catholic altar boys?
Huckabee?
Asylum seekers of all nationalities constitute half of 1% of Finland’s population, so at that rate, they’d be pretty dramatically overrepresented among Finland’s rapists.
It’s three rapes in six days in an entire country. A country with easily over a thousand rapes per year, per Wikipedia.
So, let’s do the math. Call the baseline rate three rapes per day. These immigrants are committing 1/2 a rape per day. That would be an increase in the rate of rape of around 16%. That’s pretty astonishing, considering that the immigrants are a microscopic percentage of the population of the country as a whole.
At what point do you think the increased rate of raping merits concern?
Well, you have to understand, FS, if she were to acknowledge your point she couldn’t feign moral superiority over having the right political opinion.
And of course she just can’t find a reason to live if not to feign moral superiority.
It sounds like 2 rapes in six days. The third refers to a conviction; presumably he wasn’t arrested, tried and convicted within a week.
total rapes per unit time committed in Finland:total number of Finnish males::total rapes per unit time committed by migrants:total number of male migrants
…is the part you’re missing.
That’s even better math.
Rape culture, anyone?
Or what those other guys said.
Part of me is glad there are still some Europeans who aren’t pussies, part of me is filled with dread.
Er, not because of the klan stuff, but because they’re actually resisting instead of meekly accepting it, like in Rotherham.
The KKK outfit appears to have been trolling the press. And effectively at that. See below.
European ethnic issues tend to be settled with someone being stuffed into rail cars.
Not really, Hitler took that out of fashion so dramatically that even appearing to have an interest in your cultural or ethnic identity or showing a desire to protect those things is considered basically genocide.
What you said only really applies north of the Danube. Southeastern Europe has a quite recent experience of ethnic cleansing.
Also, if you didn’t see it — apologies for yesterday.
I really prefer my Europeans pussified. The alternative sucks.
The alternative is going to be a bunch of Muslims who are not pussified. Nope I think that alternative sucks far worse.
The alternative is Europe as the Middle East. A pussified culture is a dying one, and the dying give way to the living. Muslims don’t typically share the same desire to just bend over and take it. Put that in the context of social evolution and you’ll notice that the cultural environment is selecting for Muslim savages and against multiculturalist betas in Europe.
Great, more massive generalizations.
As we are seeing in Finland and other places, Europe is not entirely made up of pussies and “betas” (please stop that tiresome nonsense). I don’t know what will happen, but I very much doubt that we will see European culture simply give way to Muslims.
While we don’t agree too much on this topic, I do appreciate your mostly thoughtful and engaging responses.
Thank you and likewise. What I really appreciate from you is that despite disagreements we have, you always keep it civil. Only a tiny proportion of people, even on these relatively enlightened message boards, are capable of doing that.
Finns may be crazy but they are in no way pussies.
Immigration from backward failed states is great for the economy.
Girls? Not so much.
The girls just have to take one for the team so we can live in this new wonderful multicultural shithole.
See, nothing about Syrian refugees! Those are totally safe. Afghan asylum-seekers are different, peanust. /shriek
Remind me not to fuck with the pub owner.
Yes, there was a photo of one person in what looks to be a hastily contrived KKK outfit. The hood looks like it’s a sheet of poster paper rolled into a cone with eyeholes cut out. The robe is more of a poncho, like someone cut a hole in a bedsheet. And I’m pointing this out only because the Daily Mail (et als) are totally getting the vapors about one person in a silly costume.
You’re right. At worst he was trying to make a statement about getting rid of the refugees, who should be a lot more frightened of the “Sons of Odin” foot patrols.
I am guessing that outfit has nothing to do with the KKK.
Looks like a local wannabe making a statement, and an apparently impactful one since that one costume got mentioned in the headline and caused the Daily Fail editors to soil themselves. Either that or a really effective provacteur. Those people aren’t doing themselves any favor by going all KKK since that group has a history of nasty violence and for-reals racism and general bigotry (including anti-Catholic bigotry, Eddie).
Judging by overall image quality (not to mention the raver in the camo pants), that photo looks to be of roughly 1997 vintage.
…burning her alive….
what. the. fuck.
If I was this girls father, I would be insane.
It’s important to always remember that she doesn’t own her sexuality, no matter what.
At this point, having been burned alive, she doesn’t own much of anything.
Nikki, would it be okay, and an example of her “owning” her sexuality, if we didn’t invoke her father but said that – after she recovers from being burned alive – she should come back and murder the scumbag. Would that be sufficiently PC and LBGTSTFU?!?!?!
It’s got fuck all to do with that, Nikki, and more to do with parental grief and rage at losing a child in such a horrible manner.
When my little sister was 19, and just off to college, I explicitly told her boyfriend that I didn’t care what they did consensually, but I’d still have been overwhelmingly enraged if he’d fucking killed her.
Yep, that’s the bit that made me stop and think, “Fuck jail, hand him back to the scumbags he was fleeing”
I’m not sure I can take any more ‘news’ today. This has made me ill.
A second burned-alive body should have been found. Nobody saw anything.
Look carefully at the second photo, the one just below the wannabe KKK person. I don’t read Finnish, but looks like that’s a pro-immigrant demonstration which isn’t reflected in the caption – the poster in the foreground shows an earth globe, a heart and Finnish and Iraqi flags.
The flag says “we are looking for security.” I believe those banners are being held by asylum-seekers.
Thanks, hon. That’s what I thought. Notable that the ‘Fail didn’t mention that in the caption.
Good. It is about time. The Finns seem different than their Scandanavian kin. They seem to have spine.
Finns are not Scandinavians by any measure except proximity. They don’t even speak an Indo-European language.
And the Finns have never been pussies. The beat the shit our of Russia, several times.
And the Germans, during the same war.
I’m pretty sure the Finno-Ugric language family is Indo-European, although not really related to the Scandinavian languages. Where’s Heroic when you need him?
HM isn’t the only linguist around here.
But he may be the most cunning
I’ll give him that.
a master of many tongues?
More closely related to Korean IIRC
There was some old theory it might be related to Japanese but it was never widely accepted.
It is related to Hungarian and some Siberian languages, FWIW.
I think that one is a bit of a stretch and far from certain. But I suppose there could be some Siberian connection.
Comparative linguistics only really took off in the 20th century so some of the earlier theories like the Japan connection are definitely a little fanciful. The Siberian connection is well-established.
I find that whole “Altaic” hypothesis to be a bunch of bullshit. It’s predicated mostly on loanwords and similar pronunciations of phonemes, which are just about the worst correlations you could point to as evidence of a familial connection. (since loanwords and pronunciations are often borrowed without disrupting the core vocabulary or grammatical rules)
From my skimming of the wikipedia page it looks like Finnish is not considered Indo-European
Nope. Part of the Uralic languages.
I’ve spent some time in Finland. They are a breed apart.
+1 my grandmother was Finnish, normally very sweet but she had a side to her that didn’t take crap from anyone
Finland is heavily armed? Norway and Sweden, not so much.
Every Finnish person I have met is awesome. It’s not a very large sample, but I can’t say that about any other nationality.
Ditto that.
There was another round of GOP presidential debates last night!
How many laps left in this race to lose to Hillary anyway?
They’re just killing time until the Justice Department indicHAHAHAHAA!! Damn, couldn’t quite get it out!
Not a smidgen of corruption, Rich. NOT EVEN ONE SINGLE SMIDGEN!!!
Sans peur et sans reproche!
I didn’t watch, but based on the analysis I’ve been reading, it sounds like they all whipped out their war-boners and spent the hour arguing over whose was the most throbbing
It was reminiscent of a boy scout camping trip.
Yep, that was about it.
I only saw a little bit. When Christie was advocating for shooting Russian planes out of the sky, I pretty much gave up.
Rand’s response:
“If you want WW3, he’s your candidate”
was great.
Taking antidepressants during pregnancy linked to increased risk of autism
Not holding my breath on this one. The first study showing such a link, with several prior studies finding no such link…. I’d say wait for the follow-up studies to see if the effect firms up, or if it starts to fade away as studies become more rigorous.
Well, and avoid antidepressants while pregnant, if possible. I mean, you can’t be too careful..
So do we charge these women, their doctors or their pharmacists with fetal endangerment?
Yes.
Mens rea.
The drug manufacturers have deeper pockets.
Congressional leaders have reached a tax and spending deal in time to stave off the fabled government shutdown.
I thought installing the moon roof in the debt ceiling already took care of that.
“I thought installing the moon roof in the debt ceiling already took care of that.”
It was largely construed as a glass ceiling, imposed by the man-o-centric maleocracy… it had to be broken..
Vero Beach man high on flakka tries to break into jail ‘to visit friends’
“My Friend Flakka”
My Friend Flakka
I thought he was out for the season?!
/Go ravens
Hey, it’s CLAUSEN TIME.
When you get down to using Bears’ rejects, you know you’ve hit a new low.
He elited himself right off the field.
*applause*
Achieved his mission. He got into the jail.
Vox: Hiking the alcohol tax could help fight gonorrhea as effectively as distributing condoms
Trying to keep booze out of the hands of the ignorant riffraff, lest they become victim to their own sexual depravity. Do progressives ever change?
There’s no problem in the world that more taxes can’t fix /voxtard
Don’t ever change, Vox.
“Moreover, condom distribution programs cost, whereas alcohol taxes generate, revenues.”
*facepalm*
Not for nothing, but isn’t the timing of the drop in gonorrhea correlated with Martin O’Malley changing his campaign focus from Maryland to the national stage?
Correlation == causation.
“Vox: Hiking the alcohol tax could help fight gonorrhea as effectively as distributing condoms”
If only there was some head to toe garment that would completely obscure women in public, connected to a political religious ideology that expressly forbade drinking alcohol.. we could end gonorrhea (and many other social ailments) tomorrow..
The ends always justify the progressive means.
Hey, if taxing alcohol in order to reduce consumption results in lower gonorrhea rates, I bet that if we banned alcohol entirely, we’d wipe out gonorrhea overnight! I wonder if that’s ever been attempted before…
Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Brig. Gen. Diana Holland has been named the first female commandant of cadets at West Point.
Home Ec ribbons, here we come.
That’s what ISIS wants!
…and fears.
She still has a job? Being at the head of those two failed nation building efforts doesn’t make a great resume.
Will I Risk Going to Star Wars Opening Night?
Holy shit, he’s delusional. The scary thing is he isn’t alone. I can’t imagine being terrified to go to a movie theatre because someone once got shot in one in another state a couple years ago.
That certainly took a strange twist. The leap from irrational fear of mass shootings to “the gun industry buy(ing) a majority of our Congrespeople” then on to “now they’ve come for Star Wars”.
The layers of imaginary boogie men is impressive.
One thing he is able to point out with perfect clarity: Nobody of the left can even fathom that there might be a principled second amendment argument.
The other day a friend was telling me that his parents are in the process of getting some European citizenships recognized, because they think it’s too close to what their parents saw leading up to the Nazis. Literally, they are so concerned that Trump is going to be Hitler that they are trying to move to France.
I decided to go with the tactful “Oh, that’s nice” rather than “Your parents might actually be retarded.”
You know, if you’re worried about nationalist/ethnic backlash against minorities, Europe might not be the place to go.
Good riddance. If only all of our proggies would move to europe.
I read an old Utne Reader about a progressive family that did just that. As soon as they settled in Austria they couldn’t tolerate all the anti-semitism they saw and moved right back. Some people will never be happy and will see injustice or oppression everywhere.
Trump should make a commercial using the self-deportation of the ultra-progressives at its theme.
“Trump should make a commercial using the self-deportation of the ultra-progressives at its theme.”
I’m thinking of a more “Flowers for Algernon” approach, where a cutting edge medical procedure gives them a fleeting glimpse of self-awareness.. and an ounce of humility..
And the French backlash against their highly segregated and not assimilated minorities is going to be all peace and flowers and art, right?
Read the headline and thought it would be about having to deal with crowds of nerds with raging space-boners. Was not expecting gun derp.
Protip: ALWAYS expect gun derp.
I figured someone was afraid of having spoilers shouted at them while they waited in line.
and now they’ve come for Star Wars.
Except, umm, no. Only in your childishly b terrified imagination
No, you see, everything that happens once is now a trend. Local news people are getting gunned down all the time now. Didn’t you know? And every major movie premier features at least one mass theater shooting.
“the gun industry” threatens our schools, etc? Was it Sig Team Six?
given the increasing number of mass shootings at movie theaters
Um, what? How many is that?
if my friends were having this conversation, certainly others across the nation were having it too
Well, there are a lot of idiots out there. They really do live in a fantasy world, don’t they. If you’re going to do that, at least make it a fun one.
I can think of many good reasons not to go to the opening night of a highly anticipated movie, but I never would have thought of this in a million years.
1 is an increase from 0. Therefore, we’re all going to die.
To be fair, they are nerds. So it is entirely possibly they only think in Binary.
Statistically speaking.. yes, if the NRA and their feckless congressional cronies have anything to say about it. Theaters were just the beginning.. When “0” crossed the Rubicon and became “1”, death became the inevitable outcome for all of us.. It’s only a matter of time before NRA armed and sanctioned killers will be mass-murdering families as they watch blockbuster titles at home on netflix and pay-per-view..
“given the increasing number of mass shootings at movie theaters ”
Cite?
Oh, that’s what I thought. No fucking research as usual.
…the first time a majority has been against such a ban in more than 20 years of ABC News/Washington Post polling.
A ban on Muslims, however…
Fifty-three percent of Americans oppose a ban on “assault weapons”
Hmm. Practically every word in that factoid should be in scare quotes.
Fifty-three percent of “Americans” oppose a ban on assault weapons.
Fifty-three percent of Americans oppose a “ban” on assault weapons.
Fifty-three percent of Americans “oppose” a ban on assault weapons.
Fifty-three percent of Americans oppose “a” ban on assault weapons.
Fifty-three percent of Americans oppose a ban “on” assault weapons.
That means that 47% are….
Not paying taxes.
+1 dog tied to the roof of a car
Fifty-“three” percent of Americans oppose a ban on assault weapons.
“scare quotes”
“53%” of Americans “oppose” a “ban” on “assault weapons” and fricken laser beams.
Fifty-three “percent” of Americans oppose a ban on assault weapons.
Maybe some folks in San Bernardino are wondering, if it was Muslim terrorists doing the killing, why are you coming for our guns? Maybe the term “victim disarmament” is sinking into the national consciousness.
Texas school reviewing step-by-step cocaine trade assignment
Innovative teacher gets fired or being interesting. News at 11.
Good economics lesson. The school administrators are probably far more freaked out that students might attain some economic literacy than they are about anything having to do with drugs.
^This. They always get nervous when people learn how to follow the money.
Shoot, you can even make the assignment interdisciplinary at a 6th grade level, by showing how demand for drugs in the U.S., combined with their illegality in most of the countries they must travel through, as well as the most common country of origin (Columbia), causes massive amounts of corruption and disruption to other countries’ economies because of our bad habits. And there you go, now it’s saying don’t do drugs kids, because you’ll F*** over poor people in the 3rd world (which seems like something a school district would support, even if it isn’t fully accurate or thought through).
The cocaine assignment has all kinds of bad lessons in it, namely the lesson that a thriving market will still exist for something even if the government makes it illegal, and in fact create more violence than would exist if the legal markets were allowed to handle it.
No, It Is Not A Crime For A 57-Year-Old Guy To Carry A Rifle While Only Wearing Light Blue Thong Underwear
Advised to avoid a perfectly legal behaviour? Why should he? (Other than to save the sanity of others)
More to the point, why was he cuffed for a perfectly legal behaviour?
Officer safety.
Oh, of course, now I understand. It was an assault thong
You of all people should know it’s a real thing.
I hope you’re watching his new venture, Dumb Criminals
I am now. Thanks!
Because if the cops get tired of being called for this non-crime, they’ll arrest him on some false charges.
What about a darker blue g-srying?
Only if it matches your lovely eyes
Light blue pair of thong underwear. Nice. Ricky don’t lose that number.
But did the thong have that thing that goes up?
#doSomething
Florida man in French maid costume arrested in prostitution sting
This was covered yesterday. The sheriff thought it was his duty to publicly mock and shame people engaging in consensual, victimless “crime.” We sort of went nuts on the sheriff in the comments.
That’s what I get for not reading any of the articles…
I missed that thread, but Grady Judd is a wannabe Joe Arpaio who does ridiculous shit to get publicity at every turn.
Grady Judd looks like he knows firsthand exactly how much lube is too much.
Grady Judd looks like he knows firsthand what santorum tastes like. And enjoys it.
Fed opens meeting to put an end to crisis era policy
They must be expecting a Republican to win the Presidency.
I recently read a big todo article womewhere that Hiliary’s supporters were begging the Fed to leave things alone until after the election.
Something something something would look bad for her if it connectetd her to the Obama economy.
Real-life Grinches steal 190 Christmas trees from seller
This Day in History
I love these “Spot the Not” games. I’m going with #5. “Battle of the Bulge” just sounds too silly to be real.
It was actually #6, there’s no such country as “Haiti”
You work at the Clinton Foundation?
I’m not that well paid, and I don’t parrot their party line.
Actually, on further consideration, it’s clearly #7. General Powell is a Republican and therefore can’t be black
There is some doubt over #3 – Rasputin might have been whacked by British intelligence who let Yusopoff take the credit
Poisoned, shot twice, rolled in a rug and thrown in a river. Sounds like how a Russian would kill you.
No evidence of poison, or water in the lungs, in the autopsy – he was beaten and shot, with the coup de grace in the middle of his forehead. The legend of his murder is, sadly, dramatic bullshit from Yusopoff’s memoirs
Sadly indeed. Autopsies ruin the best stories.
Especially if the story is about you.
DUDE!!!!! Rasputin…. Ras- Putin. Do you see? Do you See?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!ELVENTY!!!!!!
+1, Funny
+1, Funny
“Battle of the Bulge” just sounds too silly to be real.
I think it’s something to do with trannies
Hardcore History has a bit on Rasputin that was a really interesting listen.
Do you pay for it? I am cheap and listen only to the free ones.
Its in the free ones, the ww1 series.
Why don’t betting markets believe in Donald Trump?
Black on black crime
The Republican debates would have been far more interesting if they did this.
Rogue Star Wars fans threaten to ruin The Force Awakens via ‘spoiler jihad’
He’s only trying to avenge the man who died after seeing The Force Awakens
Have they ever considered that they could just care about the characters they enjoyed, regardless of what someone else says about them?
Florida boy who has been arrested 20 times steals car from 89-year-old man
Son of Florida Man
12 years old, and he’s been arrested 20 times? Take up a new vocation, you suck as a criminal.
Stop writing off kids BP. I have faith that with the right mentoring, this kid can become a great criminal
ifh, I think we both know he should become a politician.
I just want to be his attorney.
Why worry about getting caught if he knows nothing will happen?
But how many times has he not been arrested? He might have an incredible batting average.
SF, you and AJB are right. I still think he should become a politician.
If you’re going to steal, learn how to do it right.
I agree. In High School, I got suspended for two days for skipping school by calling the school claiming to be my dad and excusing myself. The principal laughed at me for trying something so stupid and unbelievable, he said that it could never work. I didn’t exactly tell him that I had done that successfully probably 20 times in the previous two years.
More on the winners and losers in this arrangement here.
This better just be a link to a mirror.
Massive spending agreement reached; 2,009-page bill spends $572 million per page
something something party of small government
My favorite part is wherer the try to Lucy all the smallhov Charlie Browns. “Sure, we’re fucking you over again, but Speaker Ryan promises this is the last time. He has to play the hand he was dealt.”
Or what? Boehner and his allies will each knife him on the House floor? Fucking tools.
What is it with you Yanks and 2000 paged manifestos?
At least our crony capitalism is condensed into 30 pages or less.
One – we have more people to employ writing it up.
Two – we can’t do anything small.
One person per page?
There are a *lot* of nieces and nephews of donors that need internships.
Yet Rufus remains free…
North Korea sentences Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim to life in prison
Visiting the DPRK is a bad idea.
You just fear the challenge of building it into the most powerful one in the world, into a people’s fairyland, as wished by the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il!
I can’t imagine the horror of actually having to live there. The “free” world is bad enough.
But at least their girl band wasn’t detained at the border for 15 hours. Still, they also chose to leave.
“Moron bong”? REALLY?!?
We are building a fighting force of extraordinary magnitude. We forge our spirits in the tradition of our ancestors. You have our gratitude.
His punishment doesn’t sound any different than that of other Norks.
His punishment: A lifetime of labor, the agency said.
So… citizenship?
“I currently judge that US economic growth is likely to be sufficient over the next year or two to result in further improvement in the labor market,” she said. “Ongoing gains in the labor market, coupled with my judgment that longer-term inflation expectations remain reasonably well anchored, serve to bolster my confidence in a return of inflation to 2%.”
“Longer-term inflation expectations remain reasonably well anchored”? What does that even mean? And what, exactly, does Janet Yellen *do*?
Like all central bankers, Janet’s job is to prop up the stock market and make government debt artificially cheap at the expense of the lower and middle classes.
As nice a summary of central banking as I have seen.
While using enough big words to make it sound all mathy and scientific. Gotta make sure the plebes are bored whenever the subject comes up.
Ongoing gains in the labor market, coupled with my judgment…
‘my judgment’ is no way to run an economy.
The first step would be admitting that no one “runs” an economy as long as scarce resources may be allocated by more than one party.
yeah…the idea of some cabal running an economy successfully is the height of hubris. It is certainly is a good way to ruin an economy, though.
“Fifty-three percent of Americans oppose a ban on “assault weapons,” the first time a majority has been against such a ban in more than 20 years of ABC News/Washington Post polling.”
The first rule of progressive club is: The people want what we want,
The second rule of progressive club is: If the people don’t want what we want, see the first rule.
The biggest lie progressives tell is to themselves: That they speak for the people.
Not only do progressive not speak for the people, they hate the people they claim to speak for.
This is true. Most progressives I’ve met talk loudly about how much they care about the poor while other times expressing a revulsion at the very thought of poor people.
Three foreign women assess America’s gender equality:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/…..li=BBnb7Kz
AND THEY ARE APPALLED!!!!
Basically, we’re no better than Saudi Arabia. Fuck it, we’re MUCH worse…
“They found the U.S. to be lagging far behind international human rights standards in a number of areas, including its 23 percent gender pay gap, maternity leave, affordable child care and the treatment of female migrants in detention centers.”
We’re not socialist enough for them.
My idea of gender equality has it that women are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.
Their idea of gender inequality is that the government isn’t doing enough to take care of women.
You don’t understand. Like blacks and Latinos, women are inferior to white men. They require the government to give them a helping hand to make them equal.
If you disagree then you are waging a war on women.
It’s certainly paternalistic to suggest that women need someone to help them.
Women in Saudi Arabia are treated as if they can’t take care of themselves, too.
And the issues women do face in balancing career and the costs of raising children have NOTHING to do with the distorted markets and perverse incentives created by politicos tinkering with social engineering plans or the high tax and regulatory costs imposed on employers.
“The lack of accommodation in the workplace to women’s pregnancy, birth and post-natal needs is shocking,” Raday said.
Wait. One second you talk about lack of equality, but what you really meant was lack of inequality.
“They found the U.S. to be lagging far behind international human rights standards in a number of areas, including its 23 percent gender pay gap, maternity leave, affordable child care…”
How in the hell are these human rights issues?
While the delegates were shocked by many things they saw in the U.S., perhaps the biggest surprise of their trip, they said, was learning that women in the country don’t seem to know what they’re missing.
If only the administration would explain gender inequality better ….
Civil rights criticisms coming from people whose governments, with their enthusiastic support, throw individuals in jail for speech should be afforded all the seriousness they deserve.
“The women’s other recommendations for the U.S. include passing campaign finance reform that would allow more women to be elected into office, because the networks that raise money for political candidates are mostly dominated by men. “
It is impossible to parody such people.
You cannot exaggerate aspects of their positions for comedic effect beyond the actual lengths of their ridiculous positions.
Ooh, they’re back on campaign finance. With all the obsession with guns lately, i thought they’d forgotten their urge to overturn the First Amendment.
Campaign finance laws, aside from being unconstitutional, heavily favor incumbents, the established big two political parties, and the wealthy. I’ve explained this to some progtards before, but the only response i ever get is “herp-a-derp! KKKERPERAYSHUNZ!”
They’re blaming it on the maleness of the donors!
104 Comments at 9:22 am. What in the?
too much? too little?
Without John, the comment count is always lower.
He’s over in the Ben Carson thread arguing that humans don’t get angry when you murder their friends and relatives.
Actually, I might not either.
well seeing how us libertarians are all suffering from a sliding scale of Aspergers he probably has a solid argument.
Was the subject blowback in the middle east, where you disagree with that sentiment, or xenophobia against immigrants, where you do agree with that sentiment?
Many of us didn’t survive the RNC debate thread of 12/15/15, those that did are still drunk.
GET WITH IT, FLASHMAN!!!
Lack of caffeine! And I have actual work to do, dammit!
Charles?
No, cider.
Wow, I’m shocked:
Buffet to back Hildabeast
Lick those cankles, Shreeky, lick em!
I expected more from old Jimmy. I guess his pirating and Margaritaville days are behind him.
OK, I laughed.
Incidentally, that the Saudis allowed women to vote for the first time the other day is a joke.
Saudi Arabia is a vicious dictatorship.
How men in Saudi Arabia vote doesn’t make any difference, so why NOT let the women cast their useless votes, too?
And on top of that? We’ll get a bunch of good press coverage for being so forward thinking and open-minded!
MUHAHAHAHAHA!
Yeah, the plaudits that got were unreal. I get it, voting is the most visible application of direct democracy and so people revel in (the idea of) it because they’re simple-minded rubes and twits like Lena Dunham. But still, what on earth do they think it will change? But voting is a shibboleth because once upon a time women weren’t allowed to and so it must be venerated, however impotent it is.
While I share your cynicism, incremental progress is better than no progress. Also, these things tend to snowball. Maybe they’ll have their own Runnymeade in a few centuries.
I caught Sicario at the dollar theater last night in lieu of watching the debate. Very tense, intriguing, highly entertaining. Maybe unfair to Juarez.
I’m going to wait for Netflix, there are too many movies coming out that I want to see in the theater this season- Creed, Hateful Eight, the leo vehicle and the Tard Wars.
The problem with the Longmire site is that once you’ve seen all the Longmire episodes and Longmire is back in production, there’s no more Longmire to watch.
It feels like I’m spending $12 a month, or whatever, sitting around waiting for the next season of Longmire, and that wont’ be until September.
There are only like five or six shows anywhere that I care about, and I swear, none of them have new episodes right now–not the Hockey and Football box, and not on the Longmire site.
People say this is the golden age of TV, and there’s more quality out there than there ever was before. That may be, but maybe because there’s so much choice now, and you can binge watch shows you like over a weekend, you notice more when there’s nothing on that you really want to watch.
It’s like you can watch more than you ever could before, but you feel like there’s nothing on now like you didn’t before, too.
uh I got into a longmire phase as well. I didn’t realize Wyoming was such murderous hive of villains and thieves.
The League is good if you like puerile humor.
It’s like I’ve already seen everything I want to see on that site.
They’ve got Archer. I’ve already seen Archer.
I’ve already seen the movies they’ve got.
I suspect their GenX subscription rate is relatively low compared to Millenials, who maybe haven’t seen some of their older content. There’s probably more and more obscure content available on Amazon instant video. Going to original content made a ton of sense for them because once you’ve worked your way through the back catalog, you’re eventually going back to watching (or streaming) broadcast content anyway.
I liked it.
Slate: ISIS Gives Us No Choice but to Consider Limits on Speech
“Don’t make me hit you, baby”
Yo, fuck Slate.
We’ll see restrictions on speech in this country within 20 years.
It will require new Supreme Court justices.
Welp, I think we’re pretty certain to have new SCOTUStards in 20 years, so . . . .
I’ll have more faith in Cruz’s appointments than Clinton’s.
They rewrote the Constitution to save Obamagare and give the sacred Homos government recognized marriage, they can and likely will rewrite it for this. Libertarians didn’t seem to have a problem when the Court rewrote the Constitution for their pony, how can they now complain when it does it for someone else’ pony? Live by the living Constitution die by the Living Constitution.
The only “They” that matters is Roberts.
And Kennedy. They seem to form a tag team. I don’t believe Roberts’ dissent in the gay marriage case for a moment. That crap weasel just let Kennedy do the dirty work on that one.
Roberts is one of the most craven and lousy human beings ever to serve on the court.
When the derptards currently being graduated from Yale and HLS are old enough to get appointed to the Court and the right type of demagogue is in the White House, it’ll happen. We’ve got a few decades left because they need to work their way through the system, but it’ll happen.
Perhaps our only hope is when they finally jump the shark and decide to confiscate all guns.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
ISIS is our adversary. This fucking American who wants to erode our liberties through government force is our enemy.
Well said.
Texas plumber sells used truck…it ends up with ISIS
You know who else came under suspicion after their family was caught doing business in the middle east…
Captain Ahab?
+1 Zoroastrian
Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat?
George Bluth?
I hear that Lou Reed died. And there is a Mosque to be built at ground zero.
“He’s now suing the AutoNation dealership that sold the truck for $1 million.
No. AutoNation did not sell the truck for $1 million.
Thanks, Grammarman!
What about the support for an alt-text ban? An all time low, I assume.
Let’s get a Freddy Gray update up.
http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/
Will he allow the jury to think — as many in the public think or want to think — that failure to put a seat belt on Freddie Gray could be considered a criminal act?
Totality of the circs.
Gray was deliberately restrained (hands behind his back) in a manner that made him unable to protect himself from falling, he was deliberately not secured to the seat so as to make sure he would fall, and the van was deliberately driven in an erratic manner so as to maximize injury to an unrestrained prisoner.
Add that all up and yeah, it’s a fucking criminal act.
Will anything else happen? Doubt it. The cops will be acquitted.
On CNN, I just heard Jennifer Granholm call Hillary “the adult in the room”.
Well she is in her late 60s and likely suffering from the long term effects of a traumatic brain injury. That is “adult” though probably not in the sense Granholm means it.
http://www.bostonherald.com/ne…..is_clearly
This guy of course should go to jail for assault. The judge wanted to also force him to undergo reeducation about Islam. What makes that funny is that the defendant is from Nigeria and likely has more experience with actual Muslims than the dipshit progressive judge would have in ten lifetimes living in Cambridge. The guy is a criminal and has problems, not understanding Islam however is not one of them.
“We don’t have thought reform in this country. It’s not allowed under the First Amendment. There should not be thought-reform classes for the guilty.”
Well, we kind of do, don’t we? Mandatory classes are used as punishment for all kinds of things, e.g. DUIs, minor domestic assaults, etc.
But mandating religious education does cross a bright line. Though I’d say that a lot of the other mandatory reeducation stuff does too (particularly when all of the DUI classes are often religiously/AA based).
http://www.nationalreview.com/…..-americans
Remember, mass immigration has no effect on employment or standard of living. And even if it does, it is a moral issue. It was apparently this woman’s moral duty to be fired from his job and become homeless.
They got rid of us,” said Mary Jo Fuller, referring to black workers. A field-worker on and off for most of her life, she said she was abruptly terminated from J&R Baker Farms, near Moultrie, as part of a mass firing in 2010. Unable to find other employment, the 59-year-old said she wound up homeless for more than a year. “We don’t really have jobs no more.” Moultrie is “nowhere, really, for a young person trying to make it,” added Green. “It just makes you angry, very angry,” he said. “We right here in America, and you don’t want us to work. You’d rather get foreigners.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/…..-americans
Mary Jo Fuller, Libertarian hero. Someone who suffered for Libertarian ideals. Somehow she doesn’t seem very happy about that.
Yeah, we’re all about corporations teaming up with government and taking benefits from government programs. John, you’re close to being a troll at this point.
Reason loves the HB1 program. This is what open borders looks like. If someone from Honduras can do Ms. Fuller’s work faster and cheaper, then Fuller can go fuck herself. The only Libertarian objection to what happened there is that they had to go through the HB1 program to do it rather than just do it.
It is not trolling at all. It is the truth. You just call it trolling because you don’t like being shown the actual effects of your policies. If open borders are a moral imperative, then it was a moral imperative that Ms. Fuller got thrown out onto the street. If you don’t like hearing about that, tough shit. You are the one claiming open borders are a moral imperative not me.
If someone from Honduras can do Ms. Fuller’s work faster and cheaper, then Fuller can go fuck herself.
Good point. We should ban all immigration. Between states as well. Wouldn’t want someone from Seattle stealing Ms. Fuller’s job.
The injustice isn’t that Fuller lost her job to a migrant. It’s that she lost her job to a migrant whose availability to even do the job is only made possible by tax payer subsidy and distortion by government created incentives.
^This.
There are a thousand things working against Ms. Fuller that have nothing to do with immigration policy, including:
Min Wage
Shitty Public Schooling
Welfare
etc.
I blame Ms. Fuller.
Yeah, show me where I’ve argued for open borders. This may be hard for you to grasp, but the fact that Reason says something doesn’t mean everyone here (or all libertarians) agree/s with it.
Like his hero Tony, John loves to battle the straw men in his head.
John, you might want to look for some of those illegal aliens from Honduras. I can give you a tip for where to find them. Look for landscaping crews and hotel housekeeping staff. You’ll find them. Show me even one illegal from Honduras who is working in a job that an American will do. Americans will go on welfare before doing that type of work, because they’d be better off and most of them are lazy to start with.
If we have a problem with displacing Americans from jobs, it’s because of the bullshit affirmative action laws and the Democratic party’s non-stop war on white Americans.
It’s H1B and these are not H1B. But you’re still correct that bot the H1B and this program are corporatism that constrains the wages of the citizen and the employment freedom of the immigrants. Indentured servitude is real. Especially in H1B industries with a history of non-poaching agreements.
Yeah, this. The H1B program is for white collar jobs and requires the temporary worker to hold at least a bachelor’s degree in their related field. Farm workers tend not to enter on legal visas as the number available is far lower.
H1B employees don’t actually get paid much less than native workers either. Statutorily they are not allowed to be paid less than the “prevailing wage” in the same geographic region for the same job, but the enforcement on that is very lax. They just happen to usually be working in fields that pay pretty well.
If someone from Honduras can do Ms. Fuller’s work faster and cheaper, then Fuller can go fuck herself.
Well, that is how markets work. It’s not open borders fucking up the labor markets (as if we have anything close to open borders). As others point out, it’s stupid visa policies and subsidies that do it. And H1B and other work visa programs have nothing to do with open borders. They are in fact pretty contrary to open borders.
H1b is exact opposite of open borders. It is cronyism.
Yeah, a lot of people really don’t seem to get what “open borders” means. The existence of any kind of selective visa program at all is a pretty good indication that what you have is no where close to open borders.
“If a business wants to hire someone better at the job than Ms. Fuller, the owners can go fuck themselves.”
Though if the owners are practicing Christians, maybe they’ll get more of John’s sympathy.
Nothing says more about your value as a human being than which side of an imaginary line you were born on, you know.
Meh, I still don’t buy into the ‘they took our jerbz’ propaganda.
I hear the same thing from IT workers and I’ve been hearing it for 20 years and nothing has changed. Most of the people complaining are people who have not kept their job skills up to date and cannot be put on new projects because they don’t have the skillz. If they had up to date skills they would never be out of work. And I have first hand experience with this as I often sit in on interviews for a couple of my clients. They literally cannot hire American workers with up to date skills, because they are not available. They either already have a very good job or they want 2x the money my clients can pay. Because of this they almost always have to hire foreign nationals. All my clients also use the E-verify (however it’s spelled) and they will not even hire H1-B workers, they prefer citizens but will hire permanent residents.
So now let’s look at unskilled labor. Again, I can look at the organizations of a few of my clients. About 100% of their blue collar labor force are black Americans. I don’t see any illegal aliens in those jobs. You know where I see the illegal aliens? Doing landscaping or the laundry crew at hotels. Do you think Americans will do those jobs? No.
Your clients cannot find Americans with up-to-date skills at their preferred price point. There are several hundred thousand Americans with bleeding edge skills gor any given IT skillset.
I’ve never once seen a highly skilled American come to an interview who didn’t already have a really good job. That’s what I’m saying. They didn’t come in because they were unemployed, they came in to see what we could offer and then decide if they could better themselves by making a move. I’m a contractor now so I don’t need to play those games, but when I had full time gigs, I did it all of the time, everyone does it.
So up to date slills cost 2X as much as out of date skills? True that. And your clients do not want to pay that rate to get American workers?
Ever consider that the rate offered is near the market clearing rate? It usually is.
Ok, let me make clear what I’m saying. My clients pay fair market value to contractors and they also pay your average fair market wage to retain full time workers. The issue with hiring American citizens with highly marketable skills is that they are already making FAR ABOVE the average pay scale. From what I’ve seen, and remember I’m on the inside, not on the outside looking in and guessing what I see, companies are forced to hire foreign nationals because they cannot possibly staff to the desired level by only hiring native born American citizens. From what I’ve seen, it’s just not possible.
Do you think Americans will do those jobs? No.
This is fucking retarded every time it gets trotted out. I’m 100% confident there is some price point where Americans would do those jobs. But there exist many incentives that make it preferable not to. It’s not entirely because of wages either. In shit-paying jobs like that, regulatory compliance often matches or exceeds the hourly cost of the worker. You’ll be amazed how many more “lazy Americans” turn up when the min wage hits $15.
Not as surprised as you will be when Americans turn up for those jobs and the doors are closed because the company couldn’t possibly be profitable paying unskilled workers $15 an hour, and decided to just close shop instead.
Even if regulatory compliance is equal in cost to wages, doubling wages still represents a 50% increase in combined costs from those two expenses. The only places where that’s not going to be an issue are ones where other expenses dominate, and in those cases wages are already generally above minimum anyway. A 25-50% increase in prices is not going to be something felt lightly and will affect consumption patterns. But here’s where an important seemingly paradoxical effect sets in:
The businesses where labor and regulatory compliance dominate costs tend to have the least elastic demand. All well and good it seems, as consumption will not be severely affected by a change in prices. But that means less disposable income in consumers’ hands, which means less money to spend on higher-priced goods, which tend to be the ones where labor doesn’t dominate the production cost. So the knock-on effect of driving up the cost of labor at the lower end is actually to drive down wages in the mid and upper-mid tiers.
You will have marginally more domestic employment at the expense of markedly lower domestic standards of living. Raising the minimum wage and driving out employment of illegal immigrants is a recipe for economic malaise and stagnation.
Raising the minimum wage and driving out employment of illegal immigrants is a recipe for economic malaise and stagnation.
Which will, obviously, only be treatable by further government interventions. You’re not seeing the bright side* here!
*for professional parasites, anyway
You should look in the parking lots at the petro chem plants and construction sites up and down the Gulf Coast.
It’s harder for a non Spanish speaker to get hired than it is for an illegal with false ID and if hired it’s impossible to be a productive and accepted co worker with the clique.
Remind me why I’m obligated to pay more as a consumer to subsidize marginal businesses or their marginal employees? I don’t buy it when American industries want to keep out foreign commodities, I don’t buy it when manufacturing workers lose their jobs to automation, I don’t buy it when jobs are “outsourced,” and I don’t buy it in this case.
And while we’re at it, remind me why I’m suddenly fully in favor of the feds intervening in labor disputes and harassing employers when in every other case I’m skeptical of federal involvement. Or why I would buy a story told by people party to a lawsuit against their former employer.
I have no doubt there are abuses. But, much like the drug war, it’s a product and not the absence of federal enforcement. The H-2 program is indentured servitude enforced by the government.
The woodchippers are busy in my neighborhood today. By this afternoon there will be a missing tree.
You’re some sort of ecoterrorist.
Tree murderer!
The subpoena is on its way.
This government shutdown crap has gotten so ubiquitous that they don’t even brief us on contingencies anymore. Two years ago or so, memos and meetings were hot-and-heavy.
Like there’s any chance of the can NOT getting kicked a little further down the road at the last minute.
Greatest wink of all time.
Would make any SJW feminist swoon.
Who was worse?
The Detroit Pistons (c. 1989-92) or the Philadelphia Flyers (c 74-78 )and the Broadstreet Bullies?
Flyers. It’s really not a contest, Philly always takes everything too far.
The biggest Hanson brother played for that Piston team, so I go with them.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/23428
Enough said.
You know who else had an unplanned encounter at sea…
Prince Eric?
Wasn’t the Pacific Fleet at harbor when that occurred?
Captain Ahab?
Captain Ahab?
Ahab?
Natalee Holloway?
(too soon?)
Some whale.
Natalie Wood?
Kublai Khan?
John Kennedy?
Pi Patel?
Tundra, stop reading my mind!
Totally planned.
I’m sure Han was happy that he was packing in that cantina. And that that planet had stand your ground laws so he didn’t get in trouble for shooting first.
I maybe tailored that one a little narrowly…
Not with clitorises, no.
Fuck no. I am just dying for this stupid movie to be released so I can stop hearing the hype. I’ll wait until it goes to the Cinema Grill in No Hope. Then I can drink.
I won’t be far away though. I’ll be across the street at Total Wines. Have you tried it out?
Total Wine is da bomb. Their online ordering thing will be the death of my liver.
Also planning on seeing Star Wars at the Roadhouse Cinema. Awesome seats, very credible beer selection, and good bar food. I doubt I’ll ever go to a multiplex again.
Ouch.
Nice.
Thanks for that. Being from Florida, I’m only dimly aware that hockey even exists, much less that they actually have the cameraman and announcers follow and narrate the action during fights. Many lolz.
So was Savard’s moustache.
80s hockey was old-time hockey in retrospect!
Pre-corp days when rivalries and fans were still nasty.
Now all the pearl clutchers got their hands on the game ‘tutto polito’. Bah.
On in the background while I was microwaving something.
It’s Granholm, so she was serious. Remember, she’s originally from Canada.
CNN is also on tv in public lobbies of places you would never voluntarily visit like government buildings.
It does. I was apparently a cross faith bitch fight that the Muslim lost. Don’t screw with Nigerians I guess is one of the lessons of this case.
She can’t wait to get her burqua, they’re all the rage.
Yeah, I wish those camel fuckers luck getting that woman in a burqua.
I used to know a guy who was on complete disability because of his bad back. He walked around all bent over with a cane everywhere he went. Then on weekends he would come down to the park where some of us guys were playing football and he would magically transform into Jerry Rice. One guy was really pissed off about it and threatened to film him and send the film to the disability office. He stopped coming after that.
Why threaten? Just do it. Asshole deserved to get caught.
I know. I haven’t seen the guy in 15 years so I don’t know what happened. He had a job as a truck driver making like 50k a year which was pretty good money back then for someone in that part of the country. But it was just too much work I guess.
all three Carlson brothers played in Johnstown. The “Hansons” were characters, of course, but they guys weren’t acting, just being themselves under a different name.
So you live in Sunshine?
They seem to barely know hockey exists when it is played right in front of them.