American Politics I: It's All Applesauce

[San Lumen]

https://abc7ny.com/8701153/?ex_cid=TA_WABC_FB&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR25g2PelyS-SEqyi_q2cJnlNrTvQWjYWW3NnGT033hwrIUzJ1i4sdI6_fQ

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is under consideration to be Attorney General. I really hope he gets picked.

The other three contenders at the moment include outgoing Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates,

Oh god no. Anyone but Cuomo

What’s wrong with him? I don’t like our governor very much anymore but do think he’d make a great attorney General and if joining the administration gets him out then fantastic. His replacement would be light years better.

[Shrillland]

Oh god no. Anyone but Cuomo

What’s wrong with him? I don’t like our governor very much anymore but do think he’d make a great attorney General and if joining the administration gets him out then fantastic. His replacement would be light years better.

Actually, I agree with Therm, particularly if Garland's on the list. Biden should choose Garland purely as a "fuck you" to McConnell.

[The Archregimancy]

What remarkable planning on their part!

Perhaps they should first try planting this flag on a fort in Charleston harbour, just to test the reaction from the federal government? Perhaps three months or so after holding that February convention in Montgomery? Might I suggest 12 April 2021 as a felicitous date for the attempt?

April 9, more like. That's what a second war would more closely resemble.

Perhaps, but 9 April is also the day that Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House; hardly a glorious precedent for this new union of states proposed by the GOP Texas chair. I'm sticking with 12 April.



Anyway, it turns out that the Texas GOP chair isn't the only Republican in Texas encouraging secession, or rather that 'perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the Constitution'.

Texas state representative Kyle Biedermann [R] has stated that he'll table legislation for a Texas independence referendum, tweeting that 'I am committing to file legislation that will allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for the State of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation'.

It also seems that a recent awardee of the Presidential Medal of Freedom is also openly stating that 'I actually think that we’re trending toward secession ... It can’t go on this way ... There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different theories of life, theories of government, theories of how we manage our affairs. We can’t be in this dire a conflict without something giving somewhere along the way.'

For more fair and balanced coverage of the above patriotic pro-American remarks, see here: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas- ... ing-states.


As an aside, I was slightly surprised to read that the current president has awarded fewer Presidential Medals of Freedom than any president since the award was initiated in 1963. Trump has only handed out 19. Even Kennedy, who was assassinated the year the medal was created, chose 29 recipients (though they were only formally awarded in person under LBJ). Given that Obama handed out 123 - the most ever - you would think that this would have been an easy win for Trump. Perhaps he's planning on handing them out like candy in his remaining weeks in office, but if so he'd better get a move on; Obama only handed out one after November 2016 (to Joe Biden, about a week before Trump's inauguration).

[San Lumen]

What’s wrong with him? I don’t like our governor very much anymore but do think he’d make a great attorney General and if joining the administration gets him out then fantastic. His replacement would be light years better.

Actually, I agree with Therm, particularly if Garland's on the list. Biden should choose Garland purely as a "fuck you" to McConnell.

I wonder if McConnell would even allow him to be confirmed.

[Shrillland]

April 9, more like. That's what a second war would more closely resemble.

Perhaps, but 9 April is also the day that Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House; hardly a glorious precedent for this new union of states proposed by the GOP Texas chair. I'm sticking with 12 April.



Anyway, it turns out that the Texas GOP chair isn't the only Republican in Texas encouraging secession, or rather that 'perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the Constitution'.

Texas state representative Kyle Biedermann [R] has stated that he'll table legislation for a Texas independence referendum, tweeting that 'I am committing to file legislation that will allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for the State of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation'.

It also seems that a recent awardee of the Presidential Medal of Freedom is also openly stating that 'I actually think that we’re trending toward secession ... It can’t go on this way ... There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different theories of life, theories of government, theories of how we manage our affairs. We can’t be in this dire a conflict without something giving somewhere along the way.'

For more fair and balanced coverage of the above patriotic pro-American remarks, see here: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas- ... ing-states.


As an aside, I was slightly surprised to read that the current president has awarded fewer Presidential Medals of Freedom than any president since the award was initiated in 1963. Trump has only handed out 19. Even Kennedy, who was assassinated the year the medal was created, chose 29 recipients (though they were only formally awarded in person under LBJ). Given that Obama handed out 123 - the most ever - you would think that this would have been an easy win for Trump. Perhaps he's planning on handing them out like candy in his remaining weeks in office, but if so he'd better get a move on; Obama only handed out one after November 2016 (to Joe Biden, about a week before Trump's inauguration).

I was thinking more along the lines of Jorge Gaitan's assassination in Bogota in 1948 because La Violencia(72 years and counting) is what such a conflict would more closely resemble today.

[The Archregimancy]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/scotus ... ction-suit

Fox, actually. Just an interesting tidbit. They pointed out a couple other issues with the lawsuit including but not limited to hypocrisy on Texas's end.

Fox News has turned on Trump. I wonder how long they’ll last

It would be better to say that Fox is trying to have it both ways, near-simultaneously posting serious news reporting like the above link and stories that give voice to GOP and conservative politicians openly advocating secession in counter-reaction to the SCOTUS decision, as per the link in my previous post.

Fox are caught in a difficult position of their own making right now. It's hardly unprecedented for their news and opinion divisions to be taking different approaches to American political news, but they're currently facing a particularly acute problem in threading the needle between appealing to the president's supporters and factual reporting.

[Ifreann]

Turns out Tulsi Gabbard is a transphobe, so it's probably for the best that she didn't get anywhere in the primary.

Stealing a post from the trans thread:

Meh, it's purely symbolic at this point, she'll be out of Congress in a few weeks.

Sure, but it's symbolism for other transphobes that she hates trans people too.

---

Turns out Tulsi Gabbard is a transphobe, so it's probably for the best that she didn't get anywhere in the primary.

Stealing a post from the trans thread:

I do not know the context so I ain't gonna yay or nay what Ifreann and Hediacrana say on the matter because they may be correct on Tulsi being a Transphobe but I do believe that Trans Girls and Vice Versa trans men should have their own categories in sports.

A separate category in sports for the one transgender kid in a school. I'm sure that'll work out great.

---

I do not know the context so I ain't gonna yay or nay what Ifreann and Hediacrana say on the matter because they may be correct on Tulsi being a Transphobe but I do believe that Trans Girls and Vice Versa trans men should have their own categories in sports.

Trans women most definitely shouldn't be allowed in women's sports, if fairness is your primary concern. The argument to be made is whether or not it's worth sacrificing an equal playing field in order to be more inclusive to those who are going through/have been through a transition.

I hate to break it to you but there are biological differences there that don't go away for a very, very long time. It takes around 10-15 years for the effects of heightened levels of testosterone to disappear from the skeletal muscles. It'd take me a few minutes do dig up the links, and they were done on former AAS users, but the concept still applies. It's actually a great comparison, probably similar to a woman being on AAS. While a male starting AAS typically does 500 mg per week, a woman is probably going to be closer to 3-6 mg per day if she's using actual T. Men generate 6 mg, on average, daily. So at the most, a women doing steroids has the testosterone levels of a natural guy.

(point being, above, that the effect of having more testosterone through AAS lasts for 10-15 years, and that only women on the highest recommended dosages of test when using AAS even get to a natural man's test production)

More commonly used for women is anavar at 5-10 mg every day, but again at much lower ranges than what a man would take(50 mg daily). Anavar, like any anabolic, causes the 10-15 year competitive advantages I described above

(It has to do with the half-lives of the myonuclei in the muscles and how long they last for. Basically, going to the dark side and juicing up will give you a competitive advantage for 10-15 years after you stop using, barring other side effects of AAS)

Your speculation about trans women competing in sports effectively being on anabolic steroids relative to cis women is fascinating, not least because these conversations seem to always revolve around trans women competing against cis women and never trans men, non-binary people, or intersex people, but it's thoroughly irrelevant. Trans women already compete against cis women in a variety of sports. If they have such a huge advantage then instead of talking about athletes taking steroids, show us all the trans women dominating every women's sport they're allowed to compete in.

Further, we're talking about children's school sports here. Do you remember being a teenager? When I was 13 a bunch of girls in my class were head and shoulders taller than me and most of the other boys. By the time I was 18 I was taller than them. Would you say that I actually had an advantage in sports the whole time? Over people who were significantly taller, faster, and probably stronger than me?

Having separate categories for trans men and women is a decent and maybe the best solution, but it would be difficult to implement due to sheer numbers, distance, mileage, etc. However, based on how smaller schools allow their students to participate in other schools' sports if they don't sponsor that sport, perhaps either a club system could be established or certain schools could pool together to make their teams. Difficult, but certainly not impossible.

So effectively ban trans people from school sports. Cool.

But if you're arguing that trans women can fairly participate in women's sports, consider that there's a reason most sports are separated in the first place.

Conservative social beliefs around the physical inferiority of women to men.

What, did you think it was based on science? Broad trends in men being stronger than women in certain respects are just that, broad trends. That doesn't translate to it always being unfair for men to compete against women in every sport. Not every sport is a simple competition of muscular strength, and even when they are, there are plenty of women who are stronger than a lot of men.

As much of a hot-button this issue is, reality can't be ignored. Beyond that, most trans women aren't able to succeed in getting T levels to that of a normal female range.
Only the highest suppressing quartile of trans women successfully suppress their testosterone levels to normal ranges. The next quartile are almost always below male ranges, but not at female ranges. One quartile failed to achieve significant suppression of testosterone

And again, 10-15 years before the effects of heightened testosterone are gone.

Levels of T in Men, Women, Trans Women

Sex         average range
Male        270-1070 ng/dL
Female       15-70 ng/dL
Trans Female

Ridiculous difference, right?

What difference? You haven't put any average range for trans women. And even if you did, it's absurd to suggest that fairness in sports is a simple function of average ranges of testosterone. And again, trans women do compete against cis women. Trans women are allowed to compete in women's events in the Olympics. Instead of talking about the amount of testosterone in their blood, show me the medal tables that are full of trans women taking gold, silver, and bronze and leaving cis women in the dust. That would show a clear advantage.

It's not fair but it's true. So the issue of a level playing field is probably where whoever you were talking about is coming from. Because what we're looking at is that 1/4 of trans women would have no competitive advantage 10 years after achieving steady suppression. But that isn't practical, obviously

Like I said though, an argument can be made that in the interest of inclusivity, trans women should be allowed to participate in women's sports at the cost of the other women involved. My take on this is that it would be much more practical for team sports (i.e. basketball or volleyball) than it would be for an individual (wrestling), because in a team sport very rarely is one athlete going to be able to do it all. But I can see where you're coming from in that sense.

I don't know why you think you can see where I'm coming from when talking about something you said, not me.

Now, here's a more fringe argument that I find intriguing (but not one I particularly agree with): Some men have a shitload more testosterone than others. I can dig up this link to, but a dude that got busted for getting steroids to Olympic athletes without getting caught for years legitimately thought he was promoting fairness in the sport. So maybe the dividing line should be based off of T levels? Just a thought.

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps owes his success in part to a quirk of his biology. His body naturally produces less lactic acid than most other people. Lactic acid build-up is what causes your muscles to hurt after prolonged use, and Phelps just doesn't experience that as much as other people. This advantage has nothing to do with the amount of testosterone in his blood.

TLDR: Trans women cannot participate in women's sports, on a level playing field, in a practical time frame based on our current medicines and whatnot. An argument can, however, be made that they should be allowed to participate based for the sake of conclusiveness. An alternative, if radical and perhaps impossible, solution might be to separate sports based on testosterone levels rather than gender.

edit: for a second disclaimer, I know way more about AAS than I should.

Trans women do compete in women's sports. The advantages that you claim they have should bear out in the results of actual competitions rather than just blood tests.

---

Regarding McConnell are you suggesting he might not finish his term? A Democrat would replace him if so.

No, stepping down as Majority Leader because he is old, tired, and can't keep a tight grip on things the way he used to.

I still can't get over that one fringe candidate who called him Cocaine Mitch. Like, what? Can you imagine anyone less likely to be on cocaine than Mitch McConnell?

[-Ra-]

The fact that some people argue that biological males should be allowed to play in sports against biological females when the former has a clear physical advantage is absolutely ridiculous.

[The Archregimancy]

Perhaps, but 9 April is also the day that Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House; hardly a glorious precedent for this new union of states proposed by the GOP Texas chair. I'm sticking with 12 April.



Anyway, it turns out that the Texas GOP chair isn't the only Republican in Texas encouraging secession, or rather that 'perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the Constitution'.

Texas state representative Kyle Biedermann [R] has stated that he'll table legislation for a Texas independence referendum, tweeting that 'I am committing to file legislation that will allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for the State of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation'.

It also seems that a recent awardee of the Presidential Medal of Freedom is also openly stating that 'I actually think that we’re trending toward secession ... It can’t go on this way ... There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different theories of life, theories of government, theories of how we manage our affairs. We can’t be in this dire a conflict without something giving somewhere along the way.'

For more fair and balanced coverage of the above patriotic pro-American remarks, see here: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas- ... ing-states.


As an aside, I was slightly surprised to read that the current president has awarded fewer Presidential Medals of Freedom than any president since the award was initiated in 1963. Trump has only handed out 19. Even Kennedy, who was assassinated the year the medal was created, chose 29 recipients (though they were only formally awarded in person under LBJ). Given that Obama handed out 123 - the most ever - you would think that this would have been an easy win for Trump. Perhaps he's planning on handing them out like candy in his remaining weeks in office, but if so he'd better get a move on; Obama only handed out one after November 2016 (to Joe Biden, about a week before Trump's inauguration).

I was thinking more along the lines of Jorge Gaitan's assassination in Bogota in 1948 because La Violencia(72 years and counting) is what such a conflict would more closely resemble today.

I applaud your knowledge of South American history, but that series of posts you were replying to was poking gentle fun at the Texas GOP via deliberate cheeky links to US Civil War history since the 160th anniversary of secession is this coming February, and of the outbreak of the war this coming April. Had I wanted to go for South American examples, I instead likely would have gone for Venezuela's little-known Federal War.

[Ifreann]

The fact that some people argue that biological males should be allowed to play in sports against biological females when the former has a clear physical advantage is absolutely ridiculous.

Thanks, I do my best.

[Shrillland]

I was thinking more along the lines of Jorge Gaitan's assassination in Bogota in 1948 because La Violencia(72 years and counting) is what such a conflict would more closely resemble today.

I applaud your knowledge of South American history, but that series of posts you were replying to was poking gentle fun at the Texas GOP via deliberate cheeky links to US Civil War history since the 160th anniversary of secession is this coming February, and of the outbreak of the war this coming April. Had I wanted to go for South American examples, I instead likely would have gone for Venezuela's little-known Federal War.

Ah, fair enough. And thank you.

[Thermodolia]

Turns out Tulsi Gabbard is a transphobe, so it's probably for the best that she didn't get anywhere in the primary.

Stealing a post from the trans thread:

Meh, it's purely symbolic at this point, she'll be out of Congress in a few weeks.

Which is a damn shame.

[Ifreann]

Meh, it's purely symbolic at this point, she'll be out of Congress in a few weeks.

Which is a damn shame.

Nah tho

[Thermodolia]

Which is a damn shame.

Nah tho

We’ll definitely disagree on this so why don’t we just cut to the chase instead of having a six page long back and forth

[Kowani]

I still can't get over that one fringe candidate who called him Cocaine Mitch. Like, what? Can you imagine anyone less likely to be on cocaine than Mitch McConnell?

Point: The “cocaine Mitch” cbarge is not that McConnell actually does cocaine, but rather, that he trafficked it.

[Ifreann]

I still can't get over that one fringe candidate who called him Cocaine Mitch. Like, what? Can you imagine anyone less likely to be on cocaine than Mitch McConnell?

Point: The “cocaine Mitch” cbarge is not that McConnell actually does cocaine, but rather, that he trafficked it.

Oh

Well that's much more plausible. Republicans love trafficking cocaine, in honour of Saint Reagan.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

Meh, it's purely symbolic at this point, she'll be out of Congress in a few weeks.

Which is a damn shame.

This alone indicates to me that nothing of particular value is lost with her leaving Congress.

[Thermodolia]

Which is a damn shame.

This alone indicates to me that nothing of particular value is lost with her leaving Congress.

Extremely unbased

[Salandriagado]

The fact that some people argue that biological males should be allowed to play in sports against biological females when the former has a clear physical advantage is absolutely ridiculous.

Plenty of sports have no problems not having gender separation in their major events.

[Flarbinia]

Which is a damn shame.

This alone indicates to me that nothing of particular value is lost with her leaving Congress.

Really? You are slamming Tulsi for being opposed to Big Tech censorship? Spoiler alert! If the Big Tech monopolies are not broken up, there will be nothing to stop Google, Twitter, and Facebook from shadow banning you when your views are no longer in line with the Left's agenda.

[Thermodolia]

This alone indicates to me that nothing of particular value is lost with her leaving Congress.

Really? You are slamming Tulsi for being opposed to Big Tech censorship? Spoiler alert! If the Big Tech monopolies are not broken up, there will be nothing to stop Google, Twitter, and Facebook from shadow banning you when your views are no longer in line with the Left's agenda.

The removal of Section 230 would make more censorship not less. And Section 230 does nothing to big tech, they aren’t broken up by the removal of it. In fact just the opposite. Small tech companies would be obliterated because they can’t afford to spend weeks in court after being sued into oblivion by the major companies.

Section 230 actually protects small companies from harm which would happen if it was removed as all tech companies would be responsible for all content posted on their sites. Meaning that Facebook, Twitter, and others would be more censorship happy not less

[Kowani]

This alone indicates to me that nothing of particular value is lost with her leaving Congress.

Really? You are slamming Tulsi for being opposed to Big Tech censorship? Spoiler alert! If the Big Tech monopolies are not broken up, there will be nothing to stop Google, Twitter, and Facebook from shadow banning you when your views are no longer in line with the Left's agenda.

That’s not what section 230 does.
In fact, because Tulsi and Trump are idiots, if the law they wanted went through, tech companies would be cracking down on conservatives much harder than they currently do.

Also, Google, Twitter, and Facebook don’t ban you because “your beliefs don’t align” they do it because your beliefs are unprofitable.

[Thermodolia]

Really? You are slamming Tulsi for being opposed to Big Tech censorship? Spoiler alert! If the Big Tech monopolies are not broken up, there will be nothing to stop Google, Twitter, and Facebook from shadow banning you when your views are no longer in line with the Left's agenda.

That’s not what section 230 does.
In fact, because Tulsi and Trump are idiots, if the law they wanted went through, tech companies would be cracking down on conservatives much harder than they currently do.

Also, Google, Twitter, and Facebook don’t ban you because “your beliefs don’t align” they do it because your beliefs are unprofitable.

Not to mention that things like Parler would be non existent without 230.

[Kowani]

That’s not what section 230 does.
In fact, because Tulsi and Trump are idiots, if the law they wanted went through, tech companies would be cracking down on conservatives much harder than they currently do.

Also, Google, Twitter, and Facebook don’t ban you because “your beliefs don’t align” they do it because your beliefs are unprofitable.

Not to mention that things like Parler would be non existent without 230.

As the CEO of Parler himself noted.

[Omniabstracta]

This alone indicates to me that nothing of particular value is lost with her leaving Congress.

Really? You are slamming Tulsi for being opposed to Big Tech censorship? Spoiler alert! If the Big Tech monopolies are not broken up, there will be nothing to stop Google, Twitter, and Facebook from shadow banning you when your views are no longer in line with the Left's agenda.

Repealing or modifying section 230 does nothing to stop “internet censorship” or whatever the hell you want to call it. In fact, it would force social media companies to be more in moderating their content, and would also damage smaller forums and sites unable to expend the resources that a Twitter or Facebook has to automate or otherwise handle moderation of content, and unable to withstand legal challenges.