Twitter response from Paul Gosar:

Paul GosarVerified account
@DrPaulGosar

US House candidate, AZ-4
Official campaign twitter of U.S. Republican Congressman for Arizona's Fourth District. Husband,Father,Constitutional Conservative,Defender of the Rule of Law.

My siblings who chose to film ads against me are all liberal Democrats who hate President Trump. These disgruntled Hillary suppporters are related by blood to me but like leftists everywhere, they put political ideology before family. Stalin would be proud. #Az04 #MAGA2018

Yes, and....
U.S. District Judge David Norton, in issuing the sentence, said Slager shot Scott with "malice and recklessness" and then gave false testimony to investigators. Norton ruled that Slager, 36, was guilty of second-degree murder and obstruction of justice, and he also sentenced Slager to two years of supervision after his release.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/walter-scott-shooting/walter-scott-shooting-michael-slager-ex-officer-sentenced-20-years-n825006

Bob, you're reply couldn't be dumber.

Arpaio isn't placating him, he's agreeing, having no idea what he's agreeing with, that's the MO of the right today. If a right wing nut says anything, they vehemently agree, even when they cannot make heads or tails out of the nonsense the nut job said.

Sad that so many ignorant fools still support this ignorant fool who's proud he created a concentration camp for people waiting for court where many innocent people have died.

I wish you would get pulled over and falsely accused of something in his district to experience his form of law and order for yourselves.

In Houston in the 70's, my parents paid vast (for then) sums of money to send me to private prep schools. They never complained about also paying taxes for public schools until they sent me to public school in 4-5th grade and saw what their money was buying....low quality daycare with no education. Sadly, like many, their reaction was not to think they needed to pay more taxes to achieve better results, it was to think they should pay less because the results were so bad.
Public school in California was slightly better, but here I went to schools in Los Altos Hills and Palo Alto, incredibly rich school districts that got millions from alumni yearly. Other nearby public schools offered much lower quality education (if any).

Again...Race is not the ONLY criteria looked at, finances, family, school districts, etc all come into play....and the two students I mentioned were excellent students, far better than I was, and I'm certain their applications were accepted before race had been factored in, their scores were that good. As I understand it, race is only factored in to choose between two relatively equally scoring students, never to accept students who aren't proficient simply due to ethnicity.
Given the same educational opportunities across the board, race could be removed completely....that's simply not where we are. The proper order of things seems to be fix the underlying issues like unequal schools/education THEN remove the programs implemented to address the results of those issues. Reversing that order only further harms the downtrodden and likely never addresses the underlying issues as it removes any incentives for the ruling class to do so.

Properly funding public education so it's on par with private education seems to be step one to me. As I mentioned, we are moving in the other direction here, defunding it in multiple ways.

I mentioned why racial assumptions are often used instead of a full individual examination of all factors, lack of staff to do that examination thoroughly and a desire for diversity in the outcome.

Nice discussion, thanks for staying respectful. Time for me to move on, though....my opinion doesn't matter anyway, I'm no policy maker, just an unemployed welder/house husband with an opinion.

That only works if there's equality in lower/mid level education, giving all students a reasonable opportunity for quality education before that SAT testing, and there is not.
Low income district schools are at a distinct disadvantage in funding, facilities, and availability of assistance, as are low income students. Female students have, historically, been discouraged from pursuing science and math, especially at high levels.

Equality of opportunity at least to a reasonably competent base level of education is considered a civil right. Because we are still far from reaching that ideal, rolling back programs designed to address the continued shortfalls IS a rollback of civil right protections in the same way rolling back civil right protections in our election system was a rollback of the voting rights for a large, specifically targeted population which led instantly to attempts to return to old, clearly discriminatory practices designed to deny voting rights.

The news just keeps coming.

Oregon legislator says campaigning in own district triggered 911 call
https://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2018/07/black_oregon_state_rep_says_he.html

Subway employee calling police on black family
https://www.wftv.com/news/trending-now/subway-employee-accused-of-racism-after-calling-police-on-black-family/782655212

Man accuses Walgreens of racial profiling
https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/man-accuses-walgreens-of-racial-profiling/63-570483519

Pretty good video. Specific things:

Too many prostitutes: Most of the non-Thai people that complain about this went to the wrong places in Thailand. Pattaya was a tiny fishing village before the Vietnam war. Then, soldiers started getting shipped into the country for R&R. The Thai government didn't really know what to do with them, so they sorta passed the buck and decided to send them to Pattaya to relax. Bunch of stressed out dudes there, nothing to do, high demand for alternate activities ... the market answered.

Fast forward to today, and Pattaya knows exactly what put it on the map. I hate that place -- it is like what would happen if you took the worst/sleaziest elements of Vegas and Tijuana, and then built a "city" around it. Shittiest beach in Thailand, chock full of sleaze, disgusting. However, it is one of the most major tourist destinations. Gee, why could that be? Is it in spite of the nature of the place, or because of it? No false advertising here, you know what you're getting when you book a trip there. And if that is your thing, more power to ya.

Now, I don't want to act like prostitution exists in Pattaya and Soi Cowboy / Patpong in Bangkok, and is absent elsewhere. Far from it. Every town, down on to tiny ones, likely has a red-light district and brothels. The ones you hear about are sex tourism pits like those major ones, but the trade is alive and well pretty much everywhere -- and mostly caters to local Thais.

I've honestly never been to such an establishment or sought those services (in 11 years of being here), but I don't care that they are available. The most significant negative is that they are NOT well-regulated like, say, what I've heard about Amsterdam. Prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand. So the de-facto situation is that brothels have to pay protection money to police in order to avoid getting shut down or "inspected", etc.

Corruption is a major problem -- much worse than prostitution, in my opinion.


Too many ladyboys: It is certainly true that there are more trans people per capita here than pretty much anywhere else that I know of. It took me a while, being a country kid from Kansas, but I see that in pretty much the same light as the German narrator in the video at this point. Acceptance is good. You do you, man.

As a stereotype on the flip side of the coin, I think the ladyboys tend to be great in custom interaction kinds of jobs. Cashiers at 7-11, waitpeople at restaurants, etc. Polite, attentive, helpful. And often the most willing to attempt to use English. A lot of the best students that I've taught English to have been ladyboy leaning.


Freedom: I'm with @Mordhaus here. When your personal liberty is mainly due to the apathy / incompetence of the governing authority, and they may choose to get off their asses and revoke that at any time ... perhaps it isn't something to brag about. Very basic stuff like dissenting speech and protesting is met with being carted off for little re-education chats, etc. Pretty scary shit, actually.


Basically I tend to think that just like anywhere on Earth, there's a lot of good here and plenty of bad too. There's plenty of legitimate gripes with cultural elements and stuff in Thailand, but the most common ones (that the video pretty accurately listed) are pretty insignificant in my opinion.

This is the Besisahar-Chamé Road( https://goo.gl/SeMX4Q ) in the Manang District of Nepal.

When i was traveling in Nepal (over 20 yrs ago) I took a bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara on a then dirt road that had crazy cliffs and no guard rails at all. We also road on top of the bus with the luggage on the trip back to Kathmandu. It's crazy how close they had to drive to the cliffs edge. Looking at the road now, on google maps, it seems quite harmless as it's all paved.

Sooo...anyway. Had a cop friend who worked in my district and he used to pull me over every time he saw my car, just to say Hi. I drove a bright yellow Karmann Ghia, so it was easy to spot. Then one day he pulled me over...except it was my wife driving the car. He felt really bad. Never pulled me over again after that.

Yes, chapter 5 is the "Lotus Eaters" chapter, with Bloom at the Turkish Baths at the end.

My favorite chapters are 15 "Circe" in the red-light district where Bloom and Daedalus are visited by apparitions, both euphoric and demonic.

And Chapter 17 "Ithaca" the one written entirely in a question and answer format:

What act did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination?
At the housesteps of the 4th Of the equidifferent uneven numbers, number 7
Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back pocket of his
trousers to obtain his latchkey.

Was it there?
It was in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on
the day but one preceding.

Why was he doubly irritated?
Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded
himself twice not to forget.

Based on a novel, if anyone is interested.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17457008-apocalypse-now-now

This is being developed as a feature film, a joint Canadian, South African project (as predicted, there appears to be no Hollywood involvement). Same screenwriter as District 9. I think this video is just to help drum up some financial support.

I thought Trump was the world's best deal maker, didn't he have a book ghost written for him (because he can't read and write well past the 4th grade level) called the "Art of the Deal"? During the campaign he said again and again how "Only I can... [insert whatever]". None of those things are done that only he could do. It's like he lied... "lies, all lies!" to quote Frau.

They blame Democrats for not joining in, but they weren't even invited to participate in Trumpcare on the Senate side at all... hell, most of the Republicans themselves weren't allowed to participate in the creation. Compare that to the ACA, which had over a year of public debate and had plenty of Republican input and amendments. The Republicans have the number of people to pass anything they could want to pass, but the world's best deal maker, can't make a deal with his own party?

I think this shows more and more how the Republican party needs to split. The divides in the party itself are becoming too great. The problem of course is then they loose control as you split the vote, Fox News and the right wing media would follow the more right wing split, while the Reagan era style Republicans would be sidelined, though maintain a big voting block among less brain washed Republicans.

The party can't even get a simple repeal passed, which they've passed before, of course it was just symbolic then, actually passing a repeal seems harder. They campaigned for years on how they had a better plan, of course they didn't show it, which should have been the first warning they didn't have one, and now they spend all this time trying to come up with something better and still can't pull it off, despite having a clear majority. Of course another warning sign should have been the fact that last break, only 2 of them had enough guts to actually hold town halls, the rest avoided their constitutions...

Unrelated side note: I still say all the Senators and Representatives should stay home, in their home districts. Technology is such that they don't need to all be in Washington at all. Of course I'd also cut their pay then, say to what an entry level soldier (sans hazard pay) would make since it is a service position, not a career, term limit them (12 years House, 12 or 16 years Senate, 8 years President, or 20 years combined total max). And then you make the number of Representatives actually be based on population, we've had 435 Reps since 1911, and the population has grown a lot since then... say one Representative for every 500,000 people, which would give us 646 Representatives, which stay in their home districts. But of course that would rob them of their money, their political careers, and make them more liable to the people they represent, so congress would never make those changes.

Looks cool. very district 9 vibe

*promote!

Macarthur must have been terrified of being primaried by the Kochs---so F--ing terrified---to decide to back the second round of the Ryan/Trump bill knowing that this would be the result.

However, he did the 3rd district of NJ in 2016 60-40% versus a Democrat--that's basically a landslide---And Trump won it 51-45. So, he's probably going to win again in 2018 (I would predict with a smaller margin, but nonetheless, he should win)

But for some other marginal Republican guys---this might not end so well.

*promote.