what hurricane? according to tv news, only in texas and florida! :rolleyes:

New Yorker

Amid Trump’s nuclear brinksmanship and social-media provocation toward North Korea, amid the swollen gorges of water streaming through Puerto Rico, amid the craven and indefensible attempts to gut health care, amid the slower-moving crises of voting access, economic inequality, and climate change—amid all these things, Trump yet again found a novel way to diminish the nation he purportedly leads. He has authored danger in more ways than there are novel ways to denounce it. This is his singular genius. When this moment has elapsed, when some inevitably unsatisfactory punctuation has concluded the Trump era, we will be left with an infinitude of questions. But Trump, we will assuredly understand, is a small man with a fetish for the symbols of democracy and a bottomless hostility for the actual practice of it.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-...the-new-uppity

Thanks for posting this - I had to read a little further. Oddly I first ended up reading the Jones Act of 1917 that formalized Porto Rico and offered citizenship to its people, only 288 said no. After all the United States liberated Porto Rico from a brutal, degenerate and genocidal Spanish monarchy.

The Jones Act of 1920 is the relevant law, it reads to me as a surprising America First law, for ships engaging in coastwise trade must be US registered with US crew. I could be wrong, but my impression is the major US shipping industry is locked up into a few major corporate shippers and of course the security risk of having foreign ships cruising the coast loaded with huge loads of unknown cargo can't be allowed.

Because there are TREMENDOUS tax advantages for everyone in PR (no income tax on money earned in PR) and the poor get the same rewards for breeding regardless there is also a strong argument to NOT gain statehood. so why lose that free stuff for what, extra SSI? An electoral and Congressional vote that won't matter anyway...and the corruption is structural - the rich aren't going to give this up.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-hot-tax-haven
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...as-a-tax-haven

Half the island is about to move here to the mainland anyway...and Trump can't do shit about it!

They will NOT temp repeal the Jones act. http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...to-rico-relief fucking assholes.

the fact that PR citizens do not pay income tax is used to justify all sorts of slavery. PR, all US citizens, pay social security, they pay all sales taxes, they pay all property taxes, triple in GAs taxes, double on shipping tariffs, etc, etc. It is the same as a white slave master saying the slaves should be hapy because he does not force them to pay rent, while forcing them to pay for food, medical supplies, clothes, tools, etc. The Jones law is from WWI when the fear was that german (pre-Nazi_ U-boats would use PR as a hub to attack USA. it serves no purpose now other than to line the pockets of the MAFIA that runs US shipping and teamsters unions. Trump, the fat fucking idiot, has been in bed with them since his NYC real estate days.

you say "liberated" I say "conquered."

BTW, it is PUERTO Rico, NOT "PORTO" which is what white fucking asshole FUCKS wanted to rename the island in the 20's to make it easier for white cracker ass fucks to pronounce it. "porto" is not a real word.

Think some Portuguese might want a word with you there :rolleyes:

come on, but that's totally besides the point of the argument rob was making.

if you wanna get on with the erudition, in spanish "porto" is the first person singular present indicative of "portar" (to bear, to carry, as in the english word "portage"). so the word "exists" in spanish without giving the island a portuguese-looking name.

but that's still besides the point, right? because "porto rico" still makes no sense for puerto rico.

rob is refuting tesla's manifest destiny bullshit and let's not distract from that. "liberated" from a genocidal monarchy! (because usa freedom & democracy never "genocided" anyone.)

Jones Act (not named after Alex nor Grace) is a POS of the worst order. I think knowledge of this is pretty slim in the US, thanks for the info, I have posted elsewhere. This needs to change.

Haha I was taking the piss. These emojis are too limited for my modern day ass. Shoulda used the old :D Thought the :rolleyes: was sarcasm enough but maybe not

oh i thought your rolleyes was a putdown on rob's ignorance of football clubs (and the portuguese cities that begat them, ha ha)

the green one with the big teeth is friendlier i think. this goofy one: :D

===

BUT ANYWAY

was here to add that, while technically under the spanish crown, puerto rico had already achieved self-government before the american invasion happened.

the usa is a great country, but as such, it has great demons--denial and delusion among them, fueling the beast of imperialism.

BTW. the Jones Act does not apply to US Virgin Islands and several other US slave-holdings.

i seriously doubt el trumpo knows anything about nicaragua unless he has a golf course in it (he doesn't).

Trump defaulted on $33 million owed to Puerto Rico in taxes over one of his golf courses which declared bankruptcy.. he paid back about $100,000 of the bond money he was given.

Puerto Rico has always been the whipping boy for US interests, because we are essentially slaves

when the US Pharma was developing the birth control pill, hundreds and hundreds of women in PR were sterilized unknowingly by the pharma companies doing "research."
"Women enrolled in medical school in San Juan were told they had to take part in the medical test or face expulsion." Again, these women weren't told what the pill was for; instead, they were supposed to shut up, take their medicine, and submit to frequent, invasive medical exams."
They were not allowed to sue , because we are slaves. https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/artic...effects-secret

The US Navy used half of the offshore island Vieques as a bombing range for the navy ships (half the island is occupied and these people started getting cancers and tumors because of the spent uranium shells used by the Navy, along with tons of toxic chems tested out, including ASgent Orange before its use in NAM. They sprayed PR people, US citizens, killing hundreds and dooming many to cancer. To this day that part of Vieques is off limits due to toxicity. Protesters were shot at, including myself and my family when I was 6 and my parents were protesting. I have photos at home of a young man shot by US MP's during protest and my dad giving him first aid. horror.

to this day, big med and pharma companies are allowede to enter into a tax-free partnership, build facilities, hire puerto ricans for 1/4 of what they would pay in a mainland US city, and then they shut up and leave town after 6 years. If they stay 7 years, they have to start paying back all the taxes owed. soooo, they fire every single person, shut the shop, go back to US, in six months, with a new name, they reopen their labs and hire all new people and so on. My cousin who has two medical and science master degrees, earns $10.00/hour running one of these labs, and she has been "fired" and "re-hired" three times already.


there is so much more. so much. My mom and dad have a massive file in the FBI from thjeir involvement in the Puerto Rican nationalist party, which sought independence for the island. From 1974-1981, anytime my parents had a large group at home the FBI would show up and ask questions as to who was there and why. I distinctly remember them interrupting domino games, my dad's bible study groups (my dad was an episcopal priest) etc. NO JOKE.

Man...

Don't really know what to say to that except thanks for saying shit I (and I suspect many people) had ZERO idea about.

Massive respect to your parents though.

that's something that nobody should take personally cuz el trumpo does it to everybody.

--

and i didn't know that about your parents! wow!

That's correct. I plug myself into the matrix for those 90 minutes, then I'm off again.

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson Take a Knee on The X-Files Set in Solidarity with NFL Protests

and the rest of the time you're and internet gringo, captive in the wrong hemisphere? ¡ja ja ja!

bueno, cada loco con su tema... yo también tengo los míos... :D

so i posted this on the irrelevant thread but im gonna relink here cuz this is effectively our politics thread and shit's hilarious

http://wapo.st/2xy2Y7O

I always wonder about the endless lack of discussion of Roy Cohn and Trump's association even by the right -

per Slate
The Jones Act has ensured the preservation of thousands of jobs at U.S. shipyards and on U.S. ships. The trade-off is higher-priced consumer goods.

http://www.icontainers.com/ship-container/san-juan/

Also from The Washington Post:

Tax reform is 'not good for me, believe me,' Trump said. Don't.

This is when shit gets scary for me. Believing in magical tax cuts that pay for themselves is worse than believing in God. (OK, it's close, but still). Not that these fuckers necessarily believe in them. If they defend them on principle, they're idiots; if they do because it's good for their yachts, they are fucking evil.

https://news.google.com/news/story/d...M2RDtgDM?hl=en

It’s way worse than believing in god. Believing in God in and of itself doesn’t do anything or affect anyone adversely. Just believing in god is a totally internal consequence-free act for anyone but the believer. Also, there’s nothing wrong with it, even if you think it’s dumb. There’s something wrong with allowing belief in a bogus ancient tome to affect public policy, or the way you parent your kids, but just believing in god is not “bad.”

I believe in god, but if you looked at my life, choices, politics, etc. you’d swear I was an atheist. It’s a thing that lives in my brain that I know is irrational, so I treat it as a flight of fancy.

Believing in magical tax cuts that pay for themselves results in voting for people who believe in that. It also makes you a shitty financial steward and a shitty participant in the economy, so there are consequences.

Belief in god, by itself, should not offend or upset anyone. Acting crazy based on religious nonsense is different.

Believing in God IS acting crazy. Anyway, let's put imaginary friends aside for now and stay on magical tax cuts:

I helped create the GOP tax myth. Trump is wrong: Tax cuts don’t equal growth.

Believing in something is just believing in something. Acting on that belief is different.

Sorry, but it’s extremely unfair to call faith crazy, or equate it to socially dangerous behavior. Like I said, I “believe” in God; or rather, I don’t believe there *definitely* is no god because I understand how silly it would be to take a stance like that. It’s a choice I make to believe in something pleasant that is probably not true. It’s something for dark moments. It’s hope. That’s all. I don’t believe in the Bible and I don’t subscribe to any religion, but I choose to naively believe that there’s a source of complete benevolent goodness out there.

I know it’s probbaly not true, and I’d never try to get someone to believe that it is.

I actually think that having absolute certainty about the truth/falsenesss of a fantastical and non-falsifiable idea is more crazy than being open to the possibility that it might be true. You’d have to think that somehow you knew the unknowable. That’s much more crazy than saying, “It’s unknowable, but I choose to believe it might be true.”

I believe in randomness.

"You know, I'd get it if people were just looking for a way to fill the holes. But they WANT the holes. They wanna LIVE in the holes. And they go NUTS when someone else pours dirt in their holes. CLIMB OUT OF YOUR HOLES, PEOPLE!"




Take it up with the professor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#Religion

puta madre what did this thread turn into now

Lotta side topics have been discussed here, Symbols! But nevermind; we can now focus on how the ORANGE FUCK is about to go into a degenerate deregulation spree. If you want to. :)

Tom Price out, what an asshole.

Zinke still in, what an asshole

http://www.latimes.com/politics/wash...htmlstory.html

michael moore was on democracy now today talking about how "we have to get rid of trump" this year, and swearing that he's gonna get us into a war, and to be ready

I love Michael, but see, the thing is we'd have to get rid of this whole administration. As you have pointed out before, Mike Pence could be even worse — we wouldn't have to endure a psychotic circus every day, but by now we'd have Ryancare as the law of the land because Pence would actually work with those fuckers in Congress instead of engaging in a pissing contest with them every other day. So I guess I'm saying... Let Trump Be Trump? :eek: :mad: :(

yeah... his random incompetence is our ally

me-- im holding my breath till the midterms... and turning the color of this message board

JET! Woo-ooh ooh-ooh ooh-ooh-ooh ooh-ooh! And he was the HEALTH secretary — ostensibly, the guy who had to lead the repeal of the ACA from the executive branch! So all this time he should've been a major player! Instead, he spent a million public dollars assclowning his way around the globe! You can't make this up!

By the way, everybody please knock it off with the bullcrap that Republicans have supposedly been talking about "repealing and replacing Obamacare" for seven years. Fake news! "Replacing" was never in their discourse until recently. Their whole slogan was just to repeal it, roll it back, because the United States, the greatest country in the world, already had the greatest healthcare system in the world, you follow. (Fucking Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney actually said that, verbatim). The "replacing" part had to be added because some former teabaggers went, "UH, wait a minute, this Nazi/Joker/Obama-care stuff isn't that bad — I think my HMO may have been sodomizing me after all...".

Thanks for the thoughtful reply to the things I said.

Gotta be honest, I’m a little peeved about this now. I’m obviously not making a case for religion. I’m saying belief in god in and of itself is harmless, and anyone who claims to definitively know that God doesn’t exist is too dumb to warrant my time or energy.

You call it “God,” I call it “Superman” or “Doctor Who,” or the feeling you get when you hear “Inagine” or make fall in love, or hope.

Fuck you if you think there’s anything wrong with that. I’m about as science-minded as they come, but I choose to believe that a fantasy that can’t be disproven at this point in our evolution might be true. When the concept of God becomes falsifiable, I’ll stop believing and probably be a little sadder for it.

If you really think that’s more damaging than conning people into believing tax cuts for the wealthy will save them, then I’d say you’re making some weird comparisons, and not doing anything to benefit your own argument.

You're right, I could and probably should have tried to be articulate and explain my position at length, but —just like you're feeling now— I couldn't muster the energy to do so once again (I've talked about this here in the past). Instead, I decided to have a little fun with it. (As Thomas Haden Church tells Paul Giamatti in Sideways, "Remember FUN?"). And I had to seize the chance to use that Greg House gif! Kanye shades with "Fight The Power" coming from the boombox don't really mix though, but hey, the gif is silent.

I gotta say, "I choose to believe in a fantasy" is one of the biggest oxymorons I've read in my LIFE. But lookit, man, nevermind, really. You remembered the "Heroes" <-> The Best Day connecsh and that's all that matters to me now. That and Molly Parker. Good GOD what a woman...

It’s not really an oxymoron. It’s just anachronistic. And I get that. But I think the people/ideologies you (and I) have issues with are the folks who cannot, or are unwilling to, understand and accept that God is just a fucking idea. Claiming there is, factually, a God, is ridiculous and absurd, and throwing your public or political decisions behind that idea is DANGEROUS. But I believe Thomas Kuhn would say that definitively claiming that there is no God is just as absurd and pointless, and even potentially dangerous.

I have huge, lifelong issues and gripes with every religion under the sun, and I subscribe to exactly none of them, holding them all in equally negative regard including atheism (which is essentially a religion).
I think we probably agree on just about everything of substance that there is to agree on here. But my choice to stubbornly believe in goodness and benevolence is not harmful in any way, shape or form to anyone anywhere. Besides, my “God” is not the Christian God, and it’s not Yahweh and there are no prophets. When I say I believe in god, I mean I have a thing in my mind that is the essence of goodness, and I choose to root for this thing in the privacy of my own mind.
Categorically I am an agnostic.
I think being an agnostic is the only sane option. If you’re anything else, you’re deluded/ willfully ignorant/ arrogant in the extreme.

So I don’t think your beef is with people like me. I think your beef is with organized religion, zealots, and people who DON’T understand that they’re making a choice to believe in what is almost certainly a fantasy.

I have beef with all the same things, people, ideas and institutions. And since I get this, and understand that we are in fundamental agreement (correct me if I’m wrong and I don’t get it), then I guess I could go easier and avoid getting peeved. But I’d like to think there are more people out there like me, who identify as theists because they’re not atheists, and because they have hope in something good that has nothing to do with common ideas of religion or spirituality.

Think I heard Rob's screaming from over here after Trump's new comments about Puerto Rico. How can anyone be so cold-hearted? It actually baffles me.