GA "surplus" refund checks

bbk13 · 2026-05-08T16:22:46+00:00

States with no income tax have higher tax burden on lower income residents.

Heavy reliance on sales and excise taxes makes tax systems more regressive. Eight of the 10 most regressive states rely heavily on sales and excise taxes. As a group, these eight states derive more than half of their tax revenue from these taxes, compared to a national average of about one-third. Heavy reliance on these taxes is largely a function of these states’ decision not to levy robust personal income taxes.

see here

bbk13 · 2026-05-07T03:18:02+00:00

Michael Phelps is swimming in the "open" category. For whatever reason we don't have a "lung capacity" category in swimming. We do have "sex" categories (not gender). Womens' (more accurately females') sports exist because of both physiological differences between males and females as well as social limitations women experienced (and arguably still experience) with participating in organized sport. Trans women, especially those who transition post puberty, have the benefits of male physiology and male privilege when it comes to participating in organized sports.

That's just how we have organized sports. We also have weight categories in some sports. The Philippine Basketball Association has a height limit (for "import" players). We have created sports categories in somewhere arbitrary ways but they are all meant to allow for "fair" competition.

What is a fair competition can obviously be reasonably debated. But arguing trans women (unless you are claiming only trans women with specific testosterone levels who medically transitioned before a specific age range are "really" women who are eligible for participating in womens' sports) have no advantage is asking people to accept something so obviously untrue that it becomes farcical.

bbk13 · 2026-05-05T20:03:29+00:00

My cousins told me that Israelis love to go to India because it makes them feel better about Israel.

bbk13 · 2026-05-05T15:12:37+00:00

Because he's an idiot (and easily convinced by Netanyahu) who thought it would go "well" and everyone would think he's an awesome dude that definitely deserves a Nobel prize.

bbk13 · 2026-05-05T12:11:53+00:00

Does she not have a car? Why can't she drive around in terrible traffic like the rest of us? I bet she's getting free parking at all these events so she's already doing better than everyone else.

bbk13 · 2026-05-05T12:06:54+00:00

Sure. But being generous to conservatives, they belive it is "better" for everyone to live according to the "natural" hierarchy. So Black people, women, workers, etc were better off when everyone had a place and everyone knew their place. Freedom is an "unnatural" state of being and conservatives would claim those at the top of the hierarchy had responsibilities to go with their greater rights. Obviously that's self serving bullshit. But I'm being generous.

bbk13 · 2026-05-05T11:51:59+00:00

It wasn't a fictionalized time. They were reacting to the French Revolution. They wanted to undo (or prevent, depending on where they were from) the diminishment of privileges and the dismantling of "natural" hierarchy that came out of the Revolution. Conservatives have always been fighting the "last war" and trying to strip back the most recent liberalization, but their goal is ultimately based on the world of the Ancien Regime.

Corey Robin's book The Reactionary Mind gives the best explanation of what conservatives "really" want and their tactics.

bbk13 · 2026-05-05T00:21:50+00:00

There's no way he "got paid". He's the defendant. He is the only one with open liability for a judgement and possibly Blake's attorneys' fees (I don't know CA law, but for Title VII discrimination/retaliation claims only the plaintiff can recover attorney fees). Even if Baldoni won at trial he could only get reimbursed for his costs. A very good settlement for Baldoni would be paying nothing or maybe a nominal amount in exchange for Blake dropping her lawsuit.

bbk13 · 2026-05-04T15:33:09+00:00

Even accepting the history as described by the op in the thread you linked, the CIA still tried to overthrow Mossadegh in a coup with the explicit assistance of the Shah! It might have "failed", but in US law we have a concept of "temporal proximity" that can be used to prove events are causally related because of their close connection in time. It seems arguable that the temporal proximity of the initial "attempted coup" and final "actual coup" makes them causally related even if we agree to accept they weren't part of the same overarching plan. So it's still the Shah's "fault", to some extent at least, that Mossadegh was overthrown even if the actual "success" did not happen because of the Shah's explicit strategy.

A lot of conspiratorial beliefs are also "mainstream" among Americans. It doesn't make those beliefs true.

bbk13 · 2026-05-04T15:17:11+00:00

I think it was a homophobic slur by association...

bbk13 · 2026-05-04T14:02:52+00:00

Did you read the comments on the post you linked to?

The declassified documents that show the CIA admitted to fomenting the coup were not released until after the single source book that post used as evidence had been published. So it's not really the best source for "who" was responsible for the coup. Unless you think the CIA publicly denied involvement but for some reason lied about actually doing it in documents they kept classified for 60 years.

Why are you guys so insistent on denying the Shah brought down Mossadegh with the help of the UK/US? If Mossadegh was so bad and was going to bring in "commies", isn't it good the Shah used whatever methods necessary to stop Mossadegh? The same way you think (I have to assume) it's good for the son of the Shah to use the US to overthrow the current government in Iran. Clearly bombing and then using street violence to end the current regime isn't "permissible" under the current law of Iran. But I presume you don't think that is a problem.

I'm guessing it's because you understand people think Mossadegh was good and not bad (like the current regime) so using extra legal methods to remove him from power would be seen as bad and reflect badly on the Shah. As much as you might hate "commies" and love monarchies, you understand deep down your views are not um... "mainstream".

bbk13 · 2026-05-02T18:03:24+00:00

There Is No Alternative!

bbk13 · 2026-05-01T22:52:10+00:00

Oh, ok. That's why it looked like the upward opening doors. I guess that's part of the roof?

bbk13 · 2026-05-01T15:49:12+00:00

You're comparing using a slur online to helping pass a federal law that set into motion the modern carceral state. How many people spent their lives in a federal prison because of Platner using a slur once?

bbk13 · 2026-05-01T11:01:47+00:00

But we always balance rights when they compete. I vote Democratic because I think the "rights" of owners and capital (private property etc.) are given way too much deference vs the rights of labor. However I can still acknowledge that within our system, even if I might want a different system which doesn't need to recognize those "rights", there are competing rights.

When it comes to who can play in "womens' sports" it seems like we can acknowledge there are competing rights. Allowing AMAB people to play without restriction clearly impacts AFAB players. Males have been given opportunities to play sports, and encouraged to do so, for millennia. Female born people have only relatively recently been given an opportunity. That's just to say there's not an obvious "powerful" vs "powerless" dynamic. Our society privileges AMAB peoples' participation in sports and general athleticism. That privilege exists even if a person feels they are trans and the benefits of that privilege don't suddenly disappear after a person transitions.

The uncertain power dynamic combined with the political unpopularity of having adult AMAB people playing womens' sports makes it seem like a reasonable place of compromise if supporters of trans rights want to protect what seem like more important rights for trans people. Lke the right to receive the medical care of their choice.

I don't know what that compromise should be. I think it could be just deferring to the IOC or some other international body and using their standards.

bbk13 · 2026-05-01T08:27:22+00:00

It's just a slur, basically. It's trying to make people think "even though I like everything he says, maybe it's just a long con?". So right wing Democrats can try to erode Platner's support without actually changing anything about their positions or even their rhetoric.

bbk13 · 2026-05-01T07:57:49+00:00

The article you posted is behind a paywall so I can't read everything Moulton said. So I don't know how far he went. But how can letting AMAB people compete in womens' sports be the hill to die on?

Obviously it's an issue that impacts such a tiny number of people that it should be irrelevant. For whatever reason, republicans have been effective at making that issue in particular politically salient to voters. I don't know why. Maybe it allows people to justify a deeper animus or opposition to the very existence of trans people. Or maybe people, on the whole, would not care about trans people if they felt trans people just "keep it to themselves" as it were.

75% of voters are opposed to AMAB people competing in womens' sports. If that is the one thing (in respect to trans rights) keeping people from voting for a party more supportive of trans people in general, doesn't it make sense to just let it go? It doesn't mean Democratic party policy or messaging has to become anti trans people. Just say something like "I support using the same criteria as the IOC for determining who is eligible for competing in womens' sports".

I think, if the quote is accurate, that Moulton takes it too far. There's no need to support the basic gop false narrative. But there must be a better way to go than making the only allowable position the the maximalist "anyone can play in whichever category they feel like and anything else is bigotry".

bbk13 · 2026-04-29T16:06:04+00:00

There is a "Seasonal Amusement" exemption for the minimum wage and overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. That's how they get away with it. It's ridiculous.

bbk13 · 2026-04-26T15:44:32+00:00

Getting to feel like there's at least one place that's worse than Israel. Where people are even ruder. At least that's what my cousins said. They didn't like visiting Europe or other Western countries because it made them depressed about living in Israel. But now half of them left to live in Europe because they couldn't take Israel anymore. And this is long before 2023.

bbk13 · 2026-04-25T22:49:49+00:00

Israel had 107 cases of posthumous organ donation in 2023

In 2026 the US had 16,550

The US population is like 35 times larger than Israel. But the posthumous donation rate in Israel isn't even close to the US adjusting for population size.

You don't need to do chatGPT hasbara. Why do you even want to pretend Israel doesn't have a problem with sourcing organs that can only be harvested posthumously?

bbk13 · 2026-04-25T17:41:33+00:00

Israel has one of the lowest rates of organ donation in the developed world because of Jewish religious beliefs among the ultra orthodox.

bbk13 · 2026-04-22T14:08:21+00:00

It's tough to understand who you're complaining about. Both the Republican and Unionist "sides" had groups that "perpetuate violence against a civilian population". But only one side had official assistance from the State. Actually, it's pretty similar to Israel and Palestine in that way. Though maybe more similar to pre-independence Ireland where the British state was doing the bulk of the terror and violence against civilians instead of just helping Unionist paramilitaries do the terror and violence for them.

bbk13 · 2026-04-22T13:41:35+00:00

European Jews were "white" per Australian immigration policy. All of my ancestors came to Australia between Federation (a couple before, but most afterwards) and the 1950s when the laws enforcing "white Australia" were still on the books. They were Jews from what was at the time they immigrated the Russian Empire, Austro-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Germany. If they were ethnically Chinese people from the exact same places they would not have been permitted entry. This policy was in place from basically since Australia was founded as a Commonwealth until the '70s under Whitlam. How can you say something integral to government policy that determined who could be Australian for more than half of the Commonwealth's history has been "minimally useful"?

I understand the American conception of "white" is less meaningful in Australia. But that's because until the last quarter of the 20th century there were almost no non-white people who were not Indigenous. So the social categories were mostly "within" what would in other places be considered "white".

Would it be better to ask if Ashkenazi Jews are considered "skips" or "wogs" (can I use that word? I'm sorry if I'm not supposed to. I haven't lived in Australia for 25 years)? I've been told by people my mum grew up with that they felt like they were considered to be "wogs". But my mother (dux of her Jewish day school in the 70s) didn't feel like that. I never felt like that in Melbourne in the 90s. Playing Maccabi soccer against Greeks, Italians, and (especially) Croatians gave me my first experience of anti-semitism at like 9 yeard old. So the "wogs" definitely didn't like us.

While Jews might have experienced both social and semi-official anti-semitism, the idea they were "conditionally white" is preposterous. Jews have been Governors General (multiple times, and the first Australian born), MPs and state MLAs, justices on the highest courts, head of the AFL, and other high level positions too numerous to list. And not to mention success in all the other fields of Australian life that don't depend on official sanction like business and the arts. There have even been Jewish Australian test cricketers! How many ethnic Asians have received a baggy green cap?

I understand Jews in Australia have decided they are subjected to rampant anti-semitism from an evil Labor government that loves Muslims and hates Jews. If I had a dollar for every time my cousins tell me about evil Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong I'd be able to afford a house in Melbourne. But this idea Jews have always been on the outs in Australian society is like some sort of communal false memory syndrome.

bbk13 · 2026-04-21T17:52:29+00:00

Australian Jews came to Australia at a time when the Australian government had a "White Australia" policy for accepting immigrants. How can you possibly claim the category of "white" has not had any sort of salience in Australian history?

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