'Religious left' emerging as U.S. political force in Trump era

[HisArpy]

No. It is not excusable when Trump promises the impossible, regardless of whether he believes it is possible.

But, again, it's ok when a pol does this? You're being inconsistent here.

Marijuana only, and marijuana could always be grown in this country anyway. The real money is in cocaine, from plants that grow only in South America, and the wall will not interrupt that traffic.

Marijuana is a gateway drug. It seems as if it is a gateway legalization effort. There are calls to legalize ALL the drugs in the Fed's war on drugs. So, legal cocaine, heroin and all the rest are coming soon to a State near you.

Who do you think has the money, resources, and network to supply that?

Reducing illegal immigration would not do any of that.

Not true. Some of the highest crime neighborhoods are those where illegal immigrants live and work. From slumlords, to dishonest merchants, to gang and crime, increased policing, prosecutions, medical requirement (for injuries due to the above activities) and so on would all go DOWN if those communities did not exist.

Forcing employers to hire only authorized or documented workers would increase wages and heighten living conditions even for seasonal workers.

No doubt, after training, but most of those jobs will only exist during the transition to automation and then will disappear.



I'm not, no doubt they can be retrained, but that would take time and effort and money, some of it government money. At present, most of the WWC are qualified only to do the kinds of jobs that are disappearing, and there does not appear to be any real political will to retrain them en masse for the new kinds of jobs that have emerged in the Information Age.

Jobs for service tech will continue. Jobs servicing the service techs will continue. Additional satellite jobs will be created. More jobs will be created as demand for local services and good increase.

You are still insulting them as being stupid. And, you are not conversant with the rules for retraining workers. The infrasturcture for this EXISTS already. Retraining for displaced factory workers paid for by the former employer exists and it works. GM, Ford and Carrier (to name the most well known of the list) would have had to do this.

Oh. I thought you were talking about where within the U.S. the jobs would be located.

I am. Jobs here provide income which can be used to purchase goods from overseas and domestically made products. Jobs in India, or China, or Taiwan, or Timbuktu don't.

Incorrect. The coal industry downturn is as a DIRECT RESULT of the EPA regs from the Obama admin.

Cite?

Some interesting reading. You have to get beyond the political doublespeak but:

The EPA proposal sets a different carbon reduction threshold for each state based on feasibility, cost and current pollution levels, to help achieve a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions nationally by 2030.

To reach their respective goals, each state can choose from a multitude of options, including regional cap and trade networks, investments in renewable energy and building smart grid technology.

And, yes, they could phase out some existing coal plants.

Experts noted, though, that the goals are phased in gradually and can be met without stopping many plants from burning coal, even in states heavily reliant on fossil fuels.

"We’re going to see a shakeout of older and smaller coal plants, the least efficient ones anyway," said Dallas Burtraw, associate director of the Resources for the Future Center for Climate and Electricity Policy, an energy think tank funded by government, nonprofits and energy companies. "The ones that remain will have a high level of environmental controls and will run relatively efficiently with a high utilization rate."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...fact-checks-obama-coal-rules-carbon-politics/

http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/28/the-stunning-effects-of-obamas-war-on-coal-in-one-chart/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/19/obama-rushes-out-11th-hour-regulations-targeting-c/

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/coal-obama-federal-land/424422/

At some point you have to admit the evidence is pretty damning. The Obama EPA war on coal was a reality.

 

[Wrong Element]

Incorrect. The coal industry downturn is as a DIRECT RESULT of the EPA regs from the Obama admin.

The number of jobs in the coal industry has barely budged in this century, and most of the fluctuations can be explained by growth or lack thereof in the wider economy.


Trump's obsession with coal is really inexplicable. It's a minor (no pun intended) part of the economy and getting smaller all the time.

 

[phrodeau]

(edited)

Marijuana is a gateway drug. It seems as if it is a gateway legalization effort. There are calls to legalize ALL the drugs in the Fed's war on drugs. So, legal cocaine, heroin and all the rest are coming soon to a State near you.

Heroin is an opioid, and opioids are legal in all fifty states.

 

[Hard_Rom]

Heroin is an opioid, and opioids are legal in all fifty states.

Legally dispensable from a doctor.

Alcohol is far more a gateway drug than pot.

 

[Hard_Rom]

The number of jobs in the coal industry has barely budged in this century, and most of the fluctuations can be explained by growth or lack thereof in the wider economy.


Trump's obsession with coal is really inexplicable. It's a minor (no pun intended) part of the economy and getting smaller all the time.

Considering he lost the popular vote every vote next time may count. Even in a primitive fossil fuel struggling industry. All about the votes and profits.

 

[Wrong Element]

The cultural marker part makes me think of J.D. Vance (who has just moved back to Ohio, apparently!). I remember reading that interview with him before the election and then again after.

Another great article I read:
Growing up in a Trump Town. This part really stuck out to me (supporting links in the original).

Good old J.D., returned to save us all. I haven't read his book yet, but given that every newspaper in the world has profiled literally every Trump voter living between Scranton, Pennsylvania and the Ohio-Indiana border, I haven't really needed to.


In the rural South, culture, religion, and politics are intertwined in a way that they just aren't anywhere else. Most Southern states have no history of strong two-party politics, because their rural whites all believe the same things. In the places where that isn't the case (Florida, Virginia), the cities and suburbs are able to compete with the rural vote.

North Carolina is starting to change too, because its large cities are twice as big now as they were in the 1970s. When I lived there as a boy, it had a smaller percentage of Catholics than any other state, and tobacco was still the dominant industry, at least in the collective imagination of the folks living there (kind of like coal in Kentucky today, even though 99% of Kentuckians do something else for a living).

 

[Hard_Rom]

Tobacco used to be a huge crop in SW Ontario. Not so much these days. No one misses it. Even farmers have stopped complaining. Shit is unhealthy and so yesterday. Like coal.

 

[Conager]

Tobacco used to be a huge crop in SW Ontario. Not so much these days. No one misses it. Even farmers have stopped complaining. Shit is unhealthy and so yesterday. Like coal.

A truly splendid analogy! What do you propose coal miners extract from coal mines, instead?

 

[KingOrfeo]

But, again, it's ok when a pol does this?

No, it isn't, but most pols promise at most the improbable, not the impossible like Trump routinely does.

Marijuana is a gateway drug.

Not really.

It seems as if it is a gateway legalization effort. There are calls to legalize ALL the drugs in the Fed's war on drugs. So, legal cocaine, heroin and all the rest are coming soon to a State near you.

Who do you think has the money, resources, and network to supply that?

Not the Mexican cartels; if cocaine is legalized they're out of business, they'll be shoved aside by Big Pharma.

Not true. Some of the highest crime neighborhoods are those where illegal immigrants live and work.

Some of the highest crime neighborhoods are poor neighborhoods. But illegal immigrants, as such, are not associated with high crime rates.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Some interesting reading. You have to get beyond the political doublespeak but:


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...fact-checks-obama-coal-rules-carbon-politics/

That is about coal-fired power plants, not coal mines. Shutting down some older inefficient plants, but leaving other plants in operation, does not necessarily affect the total market demand for coal.

 

[phrodeau]

A truly splendid analogy! What do you propose coal miners extract from coal mines, instead?

There are many more sensible reasons to make holes in the ground. Here's one:

http://energystorage.org/compressed-air-energy-storage-caes

 

[Hard_Rom]

A truly splendid analogy! What do you propose coal miners extract from coal mines, instead?

Same thing asbestos miners do.

 

[KingOrfeo]

A truly splendid analogy! What do you propose coal miners extract from coal mines, instead?

Dwarves and gnomes and kobolds, for the exotic-pets market.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

So you ask for specifics then discount them because "you know what the ACA covers and doesn't cover" even though you are not conversant with the specific details of the industry. In essence, you say that what I've outlined cannot be true because public gossip says so?

I have what is commonly called "creeping paralysis". The medical term is Spinal Synosis. My insurer will NOT authorize surgery because the rules under the ACA allow them to down classify it, require a quack to give a second opinion, which they use to deny coverage to get out of paying the 100's of thousands the combined surgeries are going to cost them. These surgeries were previously authorized until the ACA was signed. .

I so look forward to the day I sit down in a wheelchair to never stand up again. Because my med insurance no longer covers what is needed to prevent it. So now I'm fucked. Thank you very much for playing.[/sarcasm]

But won't you get valuable counseling?

 

[Hard_Rom]

Dwarves and gnomes and kobolds, for the exotic-pets market.

Dwarves and gnomes are demi-human they won't take lightly being lumped in with kobolds, orcs and bugbears.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Same thing asbestos miners do.

Die of asbestosis?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The number of jobs in the coal industry has barely budged in this century, and most of the fluctuations can be explained by growth or lack thereof in the wider economy.


Trump's obsession with coal is really inexplicable. It's a minor (no pun intended) part of the economy and getting smaller all the time.

That's not the point and on that count you share KingO's focus on coal, because it is the one salient point you can make in the larger issue of government picking winners and losers in energy production (they picked the losers based on ideology) and of writing regulations with complete disregard for any and all economic consequences because ten years ago, the famous Scientist and world-reknowned deep thinker told us that the world would be dead by now if we did not eliminate CO2 pollution. Since then his smug ass has traveled the country in a huge jet creating a huge carbon footprint, but it's okay because he supports CO2 credits...

Trump's stand is not that he is specifically going to save the coal industry, but that he is going to stop the stupid energy policies of the Progressive-Socialist-Justice League.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The number of jobs in the coal industry has barely budged in this century, and most of the fluctuations can be explained by growth or lack thereof in the wider economy.


Trump's obsession with coal is really inexplicable. It's a minor (no pun intended) part of the economy and getting smaller all the time.

PS - And Obama's obsession with coal was explicable?

 

[Hard_Rom]

The Progressive-Socialist-Justice league gave ordinary people the vote, civil rights for minorities and old age pensions for the aged. I doubt the Regressive-Capitalist-Injustice league has done better for the common man.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The Progressive-Socialist-Justice league gave ordinary people the vote, civil rights for minorities and old age pensions for the aged. I doubt the Regressive-Capitalist-Injustice league has done better for the common man.

You don't mean the common man.

To the P-S-J League, they are now the "deplorables."

They gave it to themselves in order to get power over the life of the common man.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Double post.

 

[BotanyBoy]

The Progressive-Socialist-Justice league gave ordinary people the vote, civil rights for minorities and old age pensions for the aged.

They have also murdered hundreds of millions of their own people.


Not that you would care, being a good lefty and all.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

They have also murdered hundreds of millions of their own people.


Not that you would care, being a good lefty and all.

They have also murdered hundreds of millions of their own people.


Not that you would care, being a good lefty and all.

There's a glitch in the Matrix...

 

[BotanyBoy]

Considering he lost the popular vote every vote next time may count. Even in a primitive fossil fuel struggling industry. All about the votes and profits.

The only reason that industry struggles is because the governments war against it.

They might as well be opium farmers.

 

[RobDownSouth]

So you ask for specifics then discount them because "you know what the ACA covers and doesn't cover" even though you are not conversant with the specific details of the industry. In essence, you say that what I've outlined cannot be true because public gossip says so?

I have what is commonly called "creeping paralysis". The medical term is Spinal Synosis. My insurer will NOT authorize surgery because the rules under the ACA allow them to down classify it, require a quack to give a second opinion, which they use to deny coverage to get out of paying the 100's of thousands the combined surgeries are going to cost them. These surgeries were previously authorized until the ACA was signed. .

I so look forward to the day I sit down in a wheelchair to never stand up again. Because my med insurance no longer covers what is needed to prevent it. So now I'm fucked. Thank you very much for playing.[/sarcasm]

Well I appreciate you being specific. Now we go to school!

I've got almost-first hand experience with spinal stenosis, I had a girlfriend with early-onset spinal stenosis. You are correct, there are a wide variety of treatment options depending on severity (and often, age). Some people are "cured" via chiropractic (I'm being facetious here).

If I'm not mistaken, and I rarely am, they first try and treat spinal stenosis with regularly scheduled injections, especially in lumbar stenosis. Surgery is always a second option in lumbar spinal stenosis (I suspect you'd already be in a wheelchair if you had the cervical variety).

So I assume you are waiting on a lumbar laminectomy to alleviate your pain. Those ARE expensive. My mother had one of those, my ex-gf is waiting on one of those. I am fairly sure (not 100%) that virtually ALL insurance plans in the US require a second opinion on that sort of surgery, to minimize risk to you (prevent unnecessary surgery) and maximize profits for them (Oxycontin is much cheaper than surgery).

And I'm willing to concede that there are far fewer surgeons accepting ACA-backed health policies than the bigger insurance companies. The ACA cannot FORCE doctors to accept patients, that's the invisible hand of the market. But once you go through the paperwork (including the second opinion), you should be covered 100% less your deductible (assuming you are in-network). THAT is what I am talking about. I continue to stress that you in no way have "reduced coverage" as a result of the ACA.