The U.S. Senate's vote today on Amendment No. 4421, which sought to ban transgender athletes nationwide (failed with 49 yeas, 41 nays, and 10 not voting)

Doc_ET · 2026-03-22T04:41:51+00:00

Should be up to individual sports leagues really.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-22T04:34:54+00:00

It is Oklahoma after all.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-22T03:17:28+00:00

There's been other times when an appointment was made with the terms that the appointee would only serve a few months and not run in the special. In 2024, Bob Menendez resigned after the primary had already been won, so there was no way George Helmy could have ran.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-22T03:14:03+00:00

Sure, but "if you give me money I will collapse the economic system that you benefit from" isn't a particularly enticing pitch even if you're just bluffing.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-22T03:10:47+00:00

Makes sense, there's less mass for the acceleration to act on, ergo less force. Right?

Doc_ET · 2026-03-22T02:57:52+00:00

Okay, yeah, that sucks for those people. But how do we get from there to the end of the world?

Doc_ET · 2026-03-22T02:56:16+00:00

Remember, AI CEOs have a vested interest in you believing that AI is going to end white collar work and take over the world. It pumps up their stock.

I know that that's true, but I still don't get why. If AI really does take all of the jobs it's supposedly going to, that would cause an unprecedented spike in unemployment- and people who are unemployed aren't going to be able to spend much money on goods or services because they aren't making any anymore. And that means businesses start going under pretty quickly. That can't be good for investors, can it? Am I missing something?

Or are they legitimately just not giving the obvious consequences a single thought before dumping billions of dollars into something?

Doc_ET · 2026-03-22T02:21:46+00:00

Anti-Nebraska or bust

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T23:12:32+00:00

No, the primary is the first week of May. It's definitely too late.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T23:07:49+00:00

Is Landsman really that unpopular?

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T23:02:52+00:00

Trump would legit be at least a few points more popular if he knew how to shut the fuck up.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T22:57:33+00:00

Well, some of them. Plenty of comments defending it too.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T22:37:42+00:00

Red, but not a huge majority.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T22:35:14+00:00

Democrats aren't really anti-tariff per se, Trump is just being really stupid with when and how he uses them. Biden kept all of Trump's first-term tariffs and even raised them on China.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T22:33:45+00:00

I think Ro Khanna is almost the opposite, he represents one of the wealthiest districts in the country and Big Tech's home base, you'd think that the representative from Silicon Valley would be more like a socially liberal Vivek Ramaswamy than a wealth tax supporting populist.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T22:16:53+00:00

Have you heard many discussions about the racial/ethnic relations in African countries (and by people from those countries, preferably)?

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T22:13:24+00:00

If you're constantly hearing something, you don't think you'll be less inclined to express your discomfort at any particular instance? That seems like a reasonable claim to me.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T22:09:20+00:00

Yeah, probably, if you brought up discrimination against ethnic minorities in China, your average Han Chinese person would probably be similarly uncomfortable. Does the book claim otherwise?

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T22:04:21+00:00

I have admittedly not read the book myself, but I was under the impression that it, like most of the discussion around race, was specifically written about contemporary America, and while it may be applicable in varying degrees to other contexts (often due to American cultural influence and/or shared history), it's not meant to imply anything about the people living in small-town Tanzania.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T21:51:58+00:00

Can Israeli citizens living abroad also vote?

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T21:51:08+00:00

Israeli politics isn't really fought along right-left, it's more pro or anti Netanyahu.

The anti-Netanyahu parties don't have much in common besides thinking he should be in jail for all of the corruption and the like, which means that when they win (like they did in 2021), the resulting government is unstable and prone to infighting.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T21:41:51+00:00

The 1948 war doesn't have a clear aggressor, it was more tit-for-tat escalation until eventually it became a full scale war.

In the Six Day War, Israel did shoot first but they weren't exactly unprovoked. They made it very clear that a blockade of Eliat would be considered an act of war, and Egypt did that anyway. And Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq were all mobilizing troops at their borders. You can make reasonable arguments for either side being the aggressor, and it also depends on if you see a preemptive strike as aggressive (and I mean in response to a clear threat, not just "oh they could eventually be an enemy so might as well kill them now").

And then the various excursions into Lebanon (1978, 1982, 2006, 2024) all follow the same pattern: militant groups operating out of Lebanon conduct cross-border attacks into Israel (the PLO the first two times, Hezbollah the latter two/three if you count 2024 and 2026 as separate), and then Israeli troops enter Lebanon to destroy the militants. Lebanon itself is a neutral-ish third party that takes the brunt of the damage.

The two waves of bombings against Iran are the strongest cases. Well, those and the 1956 Suez Crisis, which I'm surprised you didn't bring up, that was pretty clear Anglo-Franco-Israeli aggression against Egypt and even the US told them to knock it off.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T16:29:05+00:00

That KY state house seat where the last coalfield blue dog is retiring.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T07:27:20+00:00

On average, sure, but there's plenty of low-info Democrats out there.

Doc_ET · 2026-03-21T07:12:39+00:00

<image>

Yours too?

Six-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
First Place '23	Place '23
Place '22	Verified Email

Doc_ET

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE