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Rent: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

moonsammy says...

Greed knows no specific political affiliation, nor does charitability. We should all insist on policies that do more to help those in actual need of it, and to reduce rampant profiteering at the expense of human suffering. Squeezing your captive customers just because you can is a pretty universal "dick move." Imagine if we had solid policies in place that actually encouraged giving a hand up to those who've encountered misfortune, rather than treating them as suspicious and dangerous.

I think a big part of the problem, which I was sad to see go entirely unaddressed by the show, is that owning rental properties is such an appealing option for wealthy private investors. The long-term (and generally short-term) returns on real estate in the US have been absolutely bonkers for many years, and it's a much more stable investment than the stock market can prove to be. Professionally, I've been in a position to have an understanding of the finances of many wealthy people, and damn near everyone with net worth of more than a couple million ends up having quite substantial real estate holdings.

How about we instead find a way to award stable profits to those investing in schools, or public parks, or the arts, or... I don't know, anything else which doesn't ultimately take people out of their homes?

Excavator driver decides to take a shortcut

Mordhaus (Member Profile)

Mordhaus (Member Profile)

Phil Robertson: What Liberals Did to Kavanaugh Is SATANIC

RFlagg says...

This is probably the greatest trick the GOP and the evengelical leadership managed to pull on the Christian masses, to make them believe that somehow the GOP is the most Christian, while the Demoncrats are just that, Demons.

Christ said, let those who haven't sinned toss the first stones, but Republican Christians are the ones who fight to deny equal rights under the law to LGBTQIA+ just for sinning differently.

Christ said to treat others as you'd have others treat you, but Republican Christians are the ones who fought all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to deny service against somebody, again for sinning differently, then while they are still cheering they can hate gays more openly, get upset and call for civility when the queen of lies under the king of lies gets kicked out of a restaurant. I guess, judging by the way Republican Christians treat LGBTQIA+, immigrants and the like, want to be treated like they are pieces of absolute shit.

To those they typically say they don't hate gays, they "love the sinner, hate the sin", lacking any sort of empathy on how it would be to be told "I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU, but I love you... in a distant way as one should love any human". They somehow think all the bigotry and hatred they do in the name of Christ is showing the love of Christ... despite the fact Christ said Love was the greatest commandment.

They also then try to put the blame of hatred of LGBTQIA+ people on Sodom. And while it is true that Sodom's sexual immorality didn't help, as it is specifically mentioned, it wasn't Sodom's sin. Also mentioned as a thing Sodom was guilty of was being hostile to foreigners, but they don't focus on that, just the sexual immorality. And they never focus and the actual sin of Sodom, which the Bible specifies as "This is the sin of your sister Sodom, she was a land of plenty and did little to help the needy and poor in her border." They ignore that, they ignore the hostility to foreigners, ignore that Sodom was vain and arrogant, and everything else listed after it says Sodom sinned greatly, ignore everything except the sexual immorality.

They love the rich, though Christ said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. To which they'll typically try to say Christ was talking just about that one guy, but he said "a" not "that", as that guy had left the scene. Now the instruction to sell your things and follow after me, was directed right at that guy.

Christ said to help the needy and the poor, and they are the ones who most want to stop programs to help the needy and poor, so they can save tax money on themselves, or make said needy and poor dependent on the church.

Christ said blessed are the peacemakers, but they are the biggest warmongers of them all.

Christ said heal the sick, and they are the ones most opposed to medicaid for all, and other programs that would guarantee everyone access to AFFORDABLE health care. Somehow they don't care about affordability, and focus only on "the ER isn't going to turn you away just because you can't afford to pay then"... no but you'll be in massive debt for the rest of your life, meanwhile every other Christian nation in the world has medicaid for all at the very minimum.

Christ said Love is the greatest commandment, but they are the most hate filled and bigoted people I know. The most loving and Christ like of people I personally know, Pagans, followed closely by Unitarian Unversalists, followed a way back by Atheist, then liberal Christians, Muslims and way at the back is evangelical Christians... they are one of the biggest reasons why Christianity is loosing numbers, because they don't show the love of Christ, and they don't really care, they just have to do what they feel is right.

Abortions are at the lowest rate ever, because Obamacare gave women access to affordable health care, which was the key all along, but they want to get rid of those protections, because they don't actually want to stop women from having abortions by any means other than making it illegal and punishing women, you can't have them having any birth control or anything like that.

But Republican Christians somehow think they are the only real Christians, that no real Christian could vote Democrat... which you'd think would be their first clue that they are in a cult, when they start judging other Christians as not being Christian enough.

newtboy said:

I looked, they and their policies are amazingly, astonishingly more moral and Christian than the Republican party who gives Jebus public lip service when it serves their hatred but thoroughly ignores his instructions and blatantly worships the dollar.

Remember, your party embraces child molesters, frauds, thieves, rapists, and certainly would support murderers as long as they'll vote with Trump, the Democrats oust comedians who make an off color joke.....so who's immoral?

Is it just your position that Republicans are totally amoral (lacking any morals), so they can't be immoral (violating their morals)?

Btw, isn't that one of those fake hillbilly duck call millionaires that turned out to be a preppie who realized he could scam hicks by pretending to be one?

Cop Pepper Spraying Teenage Girl

Jerykk says...

I don't really understand why you think that ordering her to sit down would have somehow made her cooperate. The video shows her repeatedly ignoring everything the cops say. Her behavior wouldn't just magically change if the cops said "I order you to sit down." You even said yourself that an irrational girl isn't going to act rational.

As for her posing "zero threat," that's not true at all. She was throwing a tantrum and kicking the cops. They needed to detain her because she was a suspect in a crime and she was physically resisting, posing a threat to others and herself. Just because someone is unarmed doesn't mean they are harmless.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. You may have the legal right to ignore a cop that isn't officially arresting you but from a practical standpoint, that's a pretty stupid thing to do. It makes much more sense to be civil and cooperative, just like in any other interaction with human beings.

The fact that you proudly proclaim that you don't talk to cops shows a pretty clear bias against cops. Then you say you hope you get arrested so you can make money. With that mentality, it's pretty clear that you aren't interested in peaceful resolutions.

newtboy said:

I do. If they told her to sit, and she sat, problems solved.
She continuously said "don't touch me". They didn't need to if they told her to sit instead of letting her get on her bike and ride it. She clearly had an issue with being touched, they could have recognized that and used it, instead they exacerbated things.
You are expecting an irrational girl to act rationally. Impossible. That doesn't make her right.

You are also focusing on the part that, while more harsh than necessary imo, was understandable and you're intentionally ignoring the part most people find outrageous, macing her when she posed zero threat. Defend that.

If I'm not under arrest, I'm leaving. I don't talk to cops, so I'll be no help in their investigation anyway, none at all. I hope I get arrested for that, I can use the money.

Again, if her being injured was really a concern, pushing her over her bike, against a wall, to the ground, then carrying her like they did is the worst possible thing they could do...so I think the 'for her safety' thing is pure bullshit.

No single terror attack in US by countries on Trump ban list

bcglorf says...

If he was on America soil, I'd agree with you. If he was living in a European apartment, I'd agree with you. Heck, if he was living in Russia I'd agree with you.

The reality is he was supporting mass killing from within a lawless part of the world were no police or courts would touch him. He was living were the only force capable of serving any manner of arrest warrant was military.

And yes, he was supporting those mass killings. We know now that he was running a charity funnelling money to terrorists even before 9/11. We know that not 1, but 3 of the 9/11 hijackers attended his sermons, even spanning two different mosques. One of those being the same mosque he met with the Fort Hood shooter. It's not exactly rocket science to put together that his 'work' with the CIA, FBI and any other organisation opposing terror wasn't honest or open from the very start. It's pretty clear his jihadists teachings came first, not after.

As you say, anywhere within the reach of the law; courts, arrest warrants and due process all protect the public well enough.

Back the original CNN clip, I dare say I must at least insist that it's not disingenuous to point to Anwar as an example of terrorism on American soil by Yemeni dual citizen.

And after all that, Trumps order is still stupid. Just because you can find such examples doesn't count as me supporting his order. I just don't see what the need is to deny facts just because Trumps order doesn't look bad enough without trying to deny reality to make it even more worthless.

enoch said:

@bcglorf
you left out that anwar had worked for the CIA and NSC as a consultant,and that in his earlier days as an imam was critical of al qeada and was very pro-american.

look,i am not arguing the fact that anwar did become radicalized,nor am i denying that his shift in attitudes (which was mainly due to americas handling of the iraqi war) had become not only critical,but had gone from condemnation to calls for violence,and praise for violence.

which brings us to the fort hood shooter nidel hasan who was an avid fan of anwar al awlaki,and DID have a correspondence with awlaki.which when examined,was pretty fucking one sided.it was apparent that hasan was attempting to get in the good graces of awlaki who,evidenced by the email correspondence,had no real relationship with hasan.though awlaki did praise hasan,and his violent actions.

so i do not get where 'the emails are closed".just google nidal hasan and anwar al awlaki emails,and you can go read for yourself.

and as for these emails as justification..i really do not see your logic in this respect.

so if someone becomes a huge fan of mine,and emails me constantly because we met ONCE and now they think we are buddies and share common interests (which,maybe we do),and that person perpetrates a violent act.

am i responsible for that act?

and here is where the crux of the discussion REALLY is:
maybe i AM responsible.
maybe i am guilty of inciting violence.
maybe i should be held accountable,because not only did i keep this mans violent intentions to myself,which resulted in death,but then praised his actions afterwards as being the will of god.

there are ALL possibilities,and they are valid questions.
they are legal questions,and maybe there should be a legal accountability.

should the proper pathway to a legal conclusion be:
a.a remotely piloted drone that targets my phone and launches a missile murdering (assasinating0 me,along with innocent by-standers?

or.

b.working with the yemeni government to bring me into a secure facility to be questioned,and possibly charged with inciting violence and prosecuted in an international court of law?

do you see what i'm saying?

the question isn't if anwar al awlaki,as a prominent imam,was vocally against american foreign policy,or that he openly supported violence in the form of terrorism.

the question is:
how do you address that situation,and prosecute the legalities?

because as scahill posited:how do you surrender to a drone?

could anwar al awlaki be guilty of EVERY charge the US accused him of?
quite possibly.
but we will never know because he was assassinated,as was his 16yr old son.

even your counter argument is speculation based on loose affiliations,and tenuous connections.

you will NEVER be able to supply a concrete,and verifiable accounting of anwar al awlaki's guilt,because you CAN'T..he was assassinated.

and THAT is the point.

now let us take this a step further.
let us examine how this can be abused,and watching trump consolidate executive power by surrounding himself with departmental loyalist,loyal only to him,we can begin to see the beginnings of trumps "soft fascism".

now lets take how you made your argument,and supplant a different scenario,but using the same parameters.

do you SEE how easily the drone program could be used to quickly,and efficiently remove opposing political players from the board? dissenting and opposing voices simply painted as violent enemies of the state that were in need of removal,because of the "possibility" that they may one day actually incite or cause violence?

the state can now murder a person for simply what they say,or write but NOT what they actually DO.

anwar al awlaki didn't actually kill anyone,didn't perpetrate any acts of violence.he simply talked about the evils of american empire,the mishandling of the iraq war (which he was originally in support of) and praised those who DID engage in violent acts of terror as doing the work of god.

should he have been held accountable in some fashion?
i think there is case to be made in that regard,but instead of going through proper channels,and adhering to the protocols of international law,he was outright assassinated.

and just how easily this can be abused is incredibly frightening.

again,i understand we approach things from different angles,but you have to see the danger in this practice,and how easily it can be misused to much darker and sinister purposes.

"well,he said nasty things about us and had a lot of friends who were on the terror watch list"

is simply NOT a valid enough excuse to simply murder someone.

there are protocols and legal procedure for a REASON,and anwar al awlaki may certainly have been in breach of international law and therefor possibly SHOULD have been prosecuted under those terms.

but we will NEVER know,because he was killed.
by an american president.
a nobel peace prize winner and constitutional law professor.

anwar al awlaki was an american citizen,his SON was an american citizen,but due to those abominations:MCA of 2006 and the NDAA of 2012.obama had the power and authority to assassinate them both.

where was there right to face their accuser?
habeas corpus..gone...a legal right that dates back to 1205 a.d by the BRITISH..gone.
innocent until proven guilty....gone.
the right to provide evidence in your defense...gone.

all the president has to do..and DID in this case,is deem you an "enemy combatant" and BOOM..dead.

i really hope you reconsider your attitude in this case my friend,because this shit is fascism incarnate,and now trump has his chubby little fingers on the "fire" button.

god help us all......

RetroReport - Nuclear Winter

RedSky says...

Your arguments are the same kind used by black lung / coal miner or cancer / smoking skeptics. Sure, it seems like when we control for every other factor in longitudinal studies that these factors are strong predictors. But you can't guarantee that all coal miner will get black lung or a smoker will get cancer. So it must be some other lifestyle factor.

Same with climate change. Your right wing blogs / websites argue that just because you can't create a model with perfect certainty, the inexorable trend isn't obvious. No thanks, I'd rather go with a 97% scientific consensus that has convinced most scientific organisations, large multinational companies (without a countervailing interest) and national governments from America to China.

If you're so certain that the science is wrong, why not publish a countervailing journal article? Oh wait, no, you almost certainly don't have training in the field or actual understanding of the science, and are just copy pasting fancy phrases like "decadal scale oscillations" because it makes you sound more credible.

Buttle said:

Climate science has devolved to scientism. Like a cargo cult it uses methods that share an appearance with it's model, but loses the essence. Science is all about proposing falsifiable tests of a theory, and putting them to the test. As far as I can see climate science has not done this at all, nor does it seem likely to in the near future. None of the current climate models are remotely capable of predicting the decadal scale oscillations that are seen in the Earth's real climate. If they are actually capable of predicting extremely long term trends then we'll have to wait an awfully long time to test that.

I agree that it will be self-correcting, but the process will sow seeds of doubt in all of science. That's ok, doubt is good.

Ex politician on Dallas: 'This is war. Watch out Obama.'

RFlagg says...

My Facebook feed is filled to the brim from right wing nuts about cops, "pray for cops", "cop lives matter" and the like. Not a single one of them posted anything about the two recent killings that sparked the demonstrations.

And it's like newtboy said, nobody is saying cop lives don't matter, or that black lives matter more than others. What they don't seem to understand is they rush to find an excuse for a cop killing a black man, "oh look at his prior records" and don't care that he was doing nothing in the situation that caused the fatal shooting. They focus on the report that says the one guy didn't raise his hands and say "don't shoot me" and ignore the other report by the same people, released the same day that there was "systemic" racism in Ferguson, and similar reports have said the same about Cleveland and far too many others. When Brock Turner got 6 months for rape, they evoke his swimming records, and deny that if he was black and poor they would have searched for priors instead of his outstanding swimming records, and if he had no priors these same people would have been outraged had a black judge given him only 6 months in jail. They deny such things, but it's evident from their actions every time something like this happens. They lack any real empathy... which is especially funny since many of these people post things like the reason Christians suffer depression so much is they have so much empathy, and I'm thinking I don't see it, and I'm sure those in the LGBT don't see it when you deny them equal rights under the law, or deny them access to the bathroom of their gender identity, and I doubt blacks don't see it when you ignore their plight and instead post about how cop lives matter, or white lives matter.

If they do so out of ignorance, it is purposeful.

I used to be a evangelical, far right wing nut. Then I started vetting the information and news. Learned what sources are trustable and not. There started to be a pattern. I started educating myself further and changed positions. I became a liberal Christian, and eventually lost the faith due to the far right's overly big influence. So if I, who's not overly intelligent (perhaps more than the average person, but not nearly as intelligent as many family think I am), with no skills or real worth can get out via self education, they can to, but they prefer the comfort of their ignorance, and that I can't abide. You can point things out until you are blue in the face and they will just dig in harder to hold on to that ignorance and their limited world view.

I think we can trace a lot of this back to the rise of right wing radio and eventual rise of Fox News which convinced the Christian right that the regular, responsible news outlets were "liberal" when pretty much all news is controlled by a very select few, and none of them have an interest in making people aware of the truth... just because you can watch perhaps 12 hours of CNN before they point out something in the Obama administration that is bad, where Fox does it several times an hour doesn't make CNN liberal... it makes Fox an ass that is singly focused on making people angry at the Democrats and what they deem as liberals, and then they shift the goal post and make old Reagan era style political beliefs the new liberal... and they work to build the division. It's not longer acceptable to work with Democrats on finding a reasonable middle ground, that's being weak, and they want to dig their heals in and have it their way or the highway (basically they want a dictatorship but under the guise of a democracy). Then the rise of social media is perhaps the thing that really pushed the schism further as they further surround themselves in an echo chamber. So when people say "black lives matter" their echo chamber fills up with "well so do white lives and cop lives" and their echo chamber fills up with the idea that those on the left don't care about cops and that we think most of them are corrupt and don't care about their lives.

...aborts rant early as I'm already a million miles off topic...

Woman almost hits biker by merging, gets caught by cops

artician says...

I think people, everyone, takes for granted how mobile bikes are. Just because you can bob and weave somewhat easily doesn't mean you should when someone invades your space. He was against a double-yellow line and the back of a truck.
Where are the cops when you need them? Right there, for once!

MEOW

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Abortion Laws

dannym3141 says...

Bob, you're off your rocker if you think that it's a good thing to make doctors give unsound and incorrect advice to patients. Just take a minute to consider what sort of crackpot dystopia you're promoting with that line of thinking. Government regulations that force a doctor to lie to patients is ok if you need to get your own way. Is it worth poisoning the water with that kind of Orwellian shit just because you can't win the debate about abortion? What comes after legally forcing doctors to lie to patients, if that becomes the norm?

What am i saying, apparently it IS the norm..!?

Civilisation is descending into madness right in front of our eyes, whilst teams of people work day and night on press releases to make it seem perfectly normal. Some of you god-botherers can be real dangerous lunatics when you want to be.

bobknight33 said:

Because murder is murder.

Being a Godless soul that you are I don't expect you to understand.

I do agree these are messed up laws that put roadblocks into a woman's choice to murder their child. But law makers use what is available to them.

Mick Fanning shark attack. World Surf League final

Bruti79 says...

I'm getting tired of people sending out hit sharks in Professional Surf Competitions. Just because you can't come in first doesn't mean you have to hire a hit shark.

Seriously, I'm glad he's okay. Takes some big floatable balls to surf in shark waters.

Is NAACP Leader Rachel Dolezal African-American Or Faking It

GenjiKilpatrick says...

@bobknight33

You're just mad cause you got a little dick.

Go away. Burn your computer. Only read the bible.

Just because you can't wrap your tiny brain about complex concepts..

Doesn't mean you have to come here to mock everything that you're afraid of.

Recoil 2: Unleashed in Ensenada

Ashenkase says...

So I guess Monster Energy has a new moto?: "Endangering the lives and property of disadvantaged peoples". Just because you can doesn't mean you should. But hey, bikinis make it all good right?



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