President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Not good news

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cn...um-wage-decision-biden-covid-relief-bill.html

 

The reconciliation process is just another gambit by the GQP to enforce their shock doctrine /Grover Norquist mandate that revenues may never ever be increased.

At some point the Dems have to say fuck you and ram it through. Down their throats.

 

Ram it, ram it, ram it through. Kneel on their throats.

 

Sacrifice the minimum wage and get the COVID package through.

Biden has more to gain from that than he has to lose from taking the L on the minimum wage.

 

Big projects first, details in the next 1.5 years. Make the Republicans run against things people — even their people — like. Make them justify every vote that hurts the people of the land, the common clay of the New West.

 

Knew this would happen. Fuck this guy and his loser father.

Rand Paul Launches Into Transphobic Rant Against Trans Nominee

 

The thing about transgender women athletes is that "She's a man in disguise!" has been an accusation since antiquity. Helen Stephens, the American sprinter of the 1930s, was accused of being a man and she was judged not to be by "visual examination," for what that's worth. Then again, she was woman enough that Hitler hit on her in his private box at the 1936 Olympics. Ironically, one of her chief rivals, the Polish-American sprinter Stella Walsh, was found to have no uterus, a non-functional penis and abnormal chromosomes, most of which was not revealed until she was killed in an armed robbery in Cleveland in 1980.

For basically the next 60 years, international women's athletics competitions featured these demeaning visual sex tests, occasionally referred to as the "nude parade," and then chromosome tests. Now and then, some folks would run afoul of it (the Press sisters of the Soviet track team one of the most prominent examples) Ironically, the one documented example of a female athlete who was exempted from this was Anne, Princess Royal, when she competed for her Mom's team (I guess one of her Mom's teams) in equestrian at the 1976 games in Montreal.

If there's anyone who I think has triggered the current wave of anti-trans hysteria in women's athletics, it's Caster Semenya. Semenya doesn't really have hips, breasts or any other traditionally "feminine" features. The fact that she's a black African probably doesn't help either. Someone leaked that the IAAF was investigating her "womanhood" hours before the 2009 World Championships. The most likely situation is that Semenya is intersex (kind of like Walsh). The problem is that her body produces high levels of testosterone naturally and the way she has crushed middle-distance fields in the past has basically led a lot of (mostly white) athletes and their representatives to basically believe Semenya is naturally cheating, for lack of a better description. No one has ever credibly accused Semenya of being deceptive, but I think in the last 15 years, as acceptance of transgendered persons in humanity has grown, people have seen in Semenya an archetype of something tangible people they already hate and think are being deceptive could take from them.

 

Always thought this was one of the more underrated West Wing scenes. Honestly, "What is the virtue of a proportional response?" is such a loaded question - could be the title of a Doctorate in military theory.