Political Roundtable Part XIV

[JWizmentality]

I want to care about the opioid crisis but I just don't.

You should if you are a tax payer - you are going to pay for it

That's democracy. You don't get to pick and choose what you pay for.

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

[dckingsfan]

I want to care about the opioid crisis but I just don't.

You should if you are a tax payer - you are going to pay for it

That's democracy. You don't get to pick and choose what you pay for.

You can still be ornery about paying for it...

[montestewart]

Read on Twitter

It's just one endless troll. He picks people based on looks alone. His lawyer looks like Robert Morley. His doctor looks like the crazy doctor in Independence Day. He had a communications director who looked like he was from Laverne and Shirley. His vice president looks like Newt Gingrich with the air let out.

Now he takes a radio host who looks like a cross between Boss Hog and Buford T. Justice and calls him a scientist. Just call everything, everything fake, and eventually anything, anything at all, can be real.

[JWizmentality]

You should if you are a tax payer - you are going to pay for it

That's democracy. You don't get to pick and choose what you pay for.

You can still be ornery about paying for it...

Nope. The cynical side of me feels a twisted sense of retribution from the whole thing. African Americans got a war and mass incarceration that destroyed communities and continues to this day. White people get a crisis and a national emergency all the while Jeff Sessions ponders new ways to destroy more minorities for marijuana. So forgive this bleeding heart liberal who has no empathy to bleed for Trump country as they OD on their happy pills.

And I'm disgusted to feel this way but watching this moron in office and the sycophants who will bend over backwards to justify it has numbed any compassion I had for his supporters.

Sent from my ASUS_Z01BDC using Tapatalk

[dckingsfan]

That's democracy. You don't get to pick and choose what you pay for.

You can still be ornery about paying for it...

Nope. The cynical side of me feels a twisted sense of retribution from the whole thing. African Americans got a war and mass incarceration that destroyed communities and continues to this day. White people get a crisis and a national emergency all the while Jeff Sessions ponders new ways to destroy more minorities for marijuana. So forgive this bleeding heart liberal who has no empathy to bleed for Trump country as they OD on their happy pills.

And I'm disgusted to feel this way but watching this moron in office and the sycophants who will bend over backwards to justify it has numbed any compassion I had for his supporters.

Okay, so just to be clear. It doesn't bother you to say, sink the ACA because of this? Wouldn't that be an unintended consequence that they will use to (unjustifiably) make their point.

I guess I can see the retribution thing - I just think it never goes where you expect. In the case of the prison complex - it just takes treasure out of the hands of those that need it, reduces our workforce and (as you say) destroys families and communities.

[popper]

This new report from one of the country’s leading progressive publications is worth a read.

A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack

Former NSA experts say it wasn’t a hack at all, but a leak—an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system.
By Patrick Lawrence

https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/

[closg00]

Read on Twitter

It's just one endless troll. He picks people based on looks alone. His lawyer looks like Robert Morley. His doctor looks like the crazy doctor in Independence Day. He had a communications director who looked like he was from Laverne and Shirley. His vice president looks like Newt Gingrich with the air let out.

Now he takes a radio host who looks like a cross between Boss Hog and Buford T. Justice and calls him a scientist. Just call everything, everything fake, and eventually anything, anything at all, can be real.

Just mind-boggling, I'm curious who is getting these names to him, is Bannon behind all of this? On the plus side, this guy looks like a potential heart attack victim.

[Wizardspride]

That's democracy. You don't get to pick and choose what you pay for.

You can still be ornery about paying for it...

Nope. The cynical side of me feels a twisted sense of retribution from the whole thing. African Americans got a war and mass incarceration that destroyed communities and continues to this day. White people get a crisis and a national emergency all the while Jeff Sessions ponders new ways to destroy more minorities for marijuana. So forgive this bleeding heart liberal who has no empathy to bleed for Trump country as they OD on their happy pills.

And I'm disgusted to feel this way but watching this moron in office and the sycophants who will bend over backwards to justify it has numbed any compassion I had for his supporters.

Sent from my ASUS_Z01BDC using Tapatalk

Join the club.

Any compassion I had for Trump's supporters went out the window when he nominated Jefferson Sessions.

That was huge "F U" to people of color.

[DCZards]

Nope. The cynical side of me feels a twisted sense of retribution from the whole thing. African Americans got a war and mass incarceration that destroyed communities and continues to this day. White people get a crisis and a national emergency all the while Jeff Sessions ponders new ways to destroy more minorities for marijuana. So forgive this bleeding heart liberal who has no empathy to bleed for Trump country as they OD on their happy pills.

I'm with you. It pisses me off when I think about the friends I had who were addicted to heroin back in the day but couldn't get access to rehab. They were seen as being criminals and/or not worthy of our compassion...or resources.

But now that it's mostly white people who are strung out, it's a "health" problem and our nation's "leaders" are eager to provide the resources to combat it.

[dckingsfan]

Fascinating...

[Zonkerbl]

Addiction is a disease. It's really unproductive to be judgy about it. No amount of god fearing behavior will cure your cancer, nor will wagging your finger at people help them quit heroin.

Yes, all those rednecks dying of heroin overdoses are mad at US, the Dems, for blowing them off, and being a bunch of racist, xenophobic, misogynist d!cks they punished us by electing Trump. I get it. It's infuriating.

Still. If a nazi skinhead comes into your ER with swastikas tattooed all over his body, dying of a heroin overdose, would you withhold the narcan because you disagree with his behavior? If not, why would you do the same to a redneck, even a racist, xenophobic, misogynist one?

There is a deadly disease in our country that is killing our citizens. It was wrong to ignore the AIDS epidemic because we didn't like the personal lifestyles of the people who were getting sick, and it's still wrong now. We're supposed to be better than those evil, callous bastard conservatives who let all the AIDS victims suffer needlessly for a decade. Be the better man.

[montestewart]

Nope. The cynical side of me feels a twisted sense of retribution from the whole thing. African Americans got a war and mass incarceration that destroyed communities and continues to this day. White people get a crisis and a national emergency all the while Jeff Sessions ponders new ways to destroy more minorities for marijuana. So forgive this bleeding heart liberal who has no empathy to bleed for Trump country as they OD on their happy pills.

I'm with you. It pisses me off when I think about the friends I had who were addicted to heroin back in the day but couldn't get access to rehab. They were seen as being criminals and/or not worthy of our compassion...or resources.

But now that it's mostly white people who are strung out, it's a "health" problem and our nation's "leaders" are eager to provide the resources to combat it.

I agree about the past and continuing hypocrisy regarding drug addiction, and kind of appreciate the irony, but it's still a problem, and it isn't confined to midwestern, white Trump voters. It's a problem among veterans, Native Americans, poor seniors on medicaid...

[AFM]

"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when..."
*nuke explodes after Trump drunk tweets at North Korea*
"But I know we'll meet again some sunny day..."
*Mattis dons cowboy hat and rides the bomb down to Pyongyang*

[dobrojim]

Zonk -- if you are really asking who he is, Thomas Friedman is the author of some well-regarded journalistic books about... I guess you'd say "the global political situation." Probably best-known is "The World is Flat," but he made his name with "From Beirut to Jerusalem" (about... well it's obvious).

Popper -- I wouldn't call Friedman a Republican, but I also wouldn't particularly call him a "progressive." [large snippage]

I'm near the end of reading TF's Thanks Being Late which I would say is a good read.

Friedman is non-ideological from where I sit. I agree more with some of what
he suggests and less with other things (there is a list of ideas ie policy proposals in Thanks... about
2/3rds of the way through). I find the things he describes and discusses in the book
prior to this list of policy proposals fascinating and presumably well sourced and accurate.

I've also read the World is Flat.

oblig confession - I had until very recently been operating on the mistaken notion
that TF was related to Milton Friedman. I now know that's wrong. TF grew up in a
very middle class suburb of Minn-StPaul and is just a couple years older than me...born in 1953.
The last part I've just been reading is a description of what a cool place St Louis Park MN
was for him coming of age.

ps - in the beginning of the book TF describes the getting to know a parking attendant
at the Bethesda Metro, just down the road from NIH where I work. Interesting story.

[Zonkerbl]

We've got a sheriff in Ohio now whose solution to the heroin epidemic is to withhold narcan and let them die. Because that's how conservatives look at the world.

[cammac]

Drug addition is a world wide problem and maybe it is amplified more in USA but a certain % of people in any society has a additive personality. In some cases it is drugs, alcohol, pornography or video games but they definitely inhibit productivity since they are basically unemployable. I know when I lived in China it was incredibly easy to get prescription drugs since they really don't require doctors script. Young people in Middle Schools and High Schools have high usage of prescription drugs and is reaching a epidemic but would be very hard to regulate.

I know my father was a alcoholic and I know that I inherited some of his addictive personality but have been able to contain the demons. I really don't know if there is a cure because many have no will to combat the demons and the few that can become clean are a lower percentage than we would like to believe. It takes strength and a will to not relapse to break cycle which few people have. Yes opiate is the flavor of the times and has become a scourge because it is now a disease that is effecting white people like Rush Limbaugh and is isn't a criminal act but now a disease.

Many of the facilities that combat addition is a total fraud and are there to make money until the $ expire and the "patients" are put back on the street to continue the downward spiral. I respect self help non profits like AA which does have a higher success rate than many paid services.

[AFM]

"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when..."
*nuke explodes after Trump drunk tweets at North Korea*
"But I know we'll meet again some sunny day..."
*Mattis dons cowboy hat and rides the bomb down to Pyongyang*

[Zonkerbl]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-coroner-mobile-cooling-unit-morgue-overdoses/