Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 116: Procedural Drama

(+) Yeah! (+)

Can the Republicans be the ACA's death panel?
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#MilitaryTransition
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Statement from McCain

“The statement was unclear. The Department of Defense has already decided to allow currently-serving transgender individuals to stay in the military, and many are serving honorably today. Any American who meets current medical and readiness standards should be allowed to continue serving. There is no reason to force service members who are able to fight, train, and deploy to leave the military—regardless of their gender identity. We should all be guided by the principle that any American who wants to serve our country and is able to meet the standards should have the opportunity to do so—and should be treated as the patriots they are."

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https://twitter.com/MarkAgee/status/890272120575451136

Sorry I was led to believe that trans people were so skilled in combat that I should fear being alone in a bathroom with them

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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/26/trump-transgender-military-ban-behind-the-scenes-240990

Numerous House conservatives and defense hawks this week had threatened to derail their own legislation if it did not include a prohibition on Pentagon funding for gender reassignment surgeries, which they deem a waste of taxpayer money.

....“This isn’t about the transgender issue; it’s about the taxpayer dollars going to pay for the surgery out of the defense budget."

...The president’s directive, of course, took the House issue a step beyond paying for gender reassignment surgery and other medical treatment. House Republicans were never debating expelling all transgender troops from the military.

"This is like someone told the White House to light a candle on the table and the WH set the whole table on fire,” said one senior House Republican aide."

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From two years ago, and NPR is the type of link you guys should approve of: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/04/454672813/controversial-marine-corps-study-on-gender-integration-published-in-full

Trans people in the military is probably fine by itself, but not in combat roles and certainly not if taxpayers are fitting the bill for reassignment surgery. The marines already sort of proved this. Non-combat, go nuts.

I'm a libertarian. Do what you want, but pay for it yourself. Joining the military so tax dollars pay for sex surgery is pretty slimy.
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Jakyl25 posted...

This isn’t about the transgender issue

surejan.gif
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Read this: https://twitter.com/jrsalzman/status/890233643179716608
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Jakyl25 posted...

"This is like someone told the White House to light a candle on the table and the WH set the whole table on fire,” said one senior House Republican aide."

I mean, that's trump in a nutshell.

Also, as someone pointed out earlier - why does they military care about trimming these costs when literally every other aspect of the budget is larger? I understand that they need to spend a hot 84 mil on boner pills because they love waving their dicks around, but this is like tearing a steak in half to remove a tiny piece of fat in the middle while ignoring the inch of fat along the side.
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trump is pretty good at setting the whole table on fire.
anyway if this is the discussion, keep these in mind:

http://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/disqualifiers-medical-conditions.html
http://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/security-clearance-jobs/psychologial-conditions-and-security-clearances.html
http://www.chadd.org/Understanding-ADHD/For-Adults/Workplace-Issues/ADHD-and-the-Military.aspx

ADHD isn't a blanket ban but it does have strict requirements. same goes for bipolar disease (i think) and here's a recent change Air Force has had:
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/10/air-force-expands-medical-waivers-no-questions-prior-marijuana.html

just to have an idea on how strict military is.
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Jakyl25 posted...

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/26/trump-transgender-military-ban-behind-the-scenes-240990

Numerous House conservatives and defense hawks this week had threatened to derail their own legislation if it did not include a prohibition on Pentagon funding for gender reassignment surgeries, which they deem a waste of taxpayer money.

....“This isn’t about the transgender issue; it’s about the taxpayer dollars going to pay for the surgery out of the defense budget."

...The president’s directive, of course, took the House issue a step beyond paying for gender reassignment surgery and other medical treatment. House Republicans were never debating expelling all transgender troops from the military.

"This is like someone told the White House to light a candle on the table and the WH set the whole table on fire,” said one senior House Republican aide."

Incidentally, reportedly this was in exchange for votes for funding on the border wall.

So Trump quite literally sold away transgender rights.

But he was also a shitty businessman at it, because he sold a product worth way more than what the consumer was intending to pay for.
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Ideally the military would just ban everyone from serving.

And cut its entire budget (because it's all waste).

Only way to not be a hypocrite!
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I'm not quite sure how the ENTIRE military is a waste
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HashtagSEP posted...

I'm not quite sure how the ENTIRE military is a waste

Because war is like, bad, man
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Having a national guard is reasonable by almost any standard IMO

It's deployment to foreign countries that's an issue
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Jakyl25 posted...

Having a national guard is reasonable by almost any standard IMO

It's deployment to foreign countries that's an issue

Honestly, we could probably do decently well with just the police. The NYPD alone is better funded than the militaries of all but 19 countries (including our own)
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Ulti your Twitter thread post is arguing against a strawman. No one here is saying that trans people should get preferential treatment for enlisting.
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Idk man the national guard has done some pretty horrible shit too
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SupremeZero posted...

Jakyl25 posted...

Having a national guard is reasonable by almost any standard IMO

It's deployment to foreign countries that's an issue

Honestly, we could probably do decently well with just the police. The NYPD alone is better funded than the militaries of all but 19 countries (including our own)

Especially if the invading army was largely black
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Kenri posted...

Idk man the national guard has done some pretty horrible shit too

I'm arguing in theory. Congress does horrible shit no matter who is in charge but that doesn't mean it's bad to have a Congress
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White people do horrible things.

It's time we did away with them.

Also I have Ulti blocked, did he stand by his word and finally turn his back on Trump?
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http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/politics/trump-approval-underwater-11-states/index.html

TheRock1525 posted...

White people do horrible things.

It's time we did away with them.

Also I have Ulti blocked, did he stand by his word and finally turn his back on Trump?

Am I supposed to laugh?
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Jakyl25 posted...

Kenri posted...

Idk man the national guard has done some pretty horrible shit too

I'm arguing in theory. Congress does horrible shit no matter who is in charge but that doesn't mean it's bad to have a Congress

You're talking to someone who believes in abolishing at least the Senate so we may not see eye to eye on this one!
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75% of the country would agree with the statement, and the 1st Amendment guarantees their right to express that opinion. Separation of church and state protects both from each other.

like jakyl said, it's the tone. don't have much of a problem with the stance since the US is christian as fuck, but the way it's in all caps makes it seem like he's shouting that waving a bible around.

that being said, don't think there's much to worry about because lol @ trump actually caring that much about christianity and not just saying it to pander. i'd find it more scary if, say, GWB tweeted that during his presidency.
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One of the top posts currently from /r/the_donald:

https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/6pod4i/thank_you_mad_dog/

Supporters getting all their cutting edge memes from your grandmothers emails.

Also, I didn't think it was possible, but I somehow underestimated how much Trump supporters hate transgender people (well, Trump supporters on reddit, perhaps I shouldn't overgeneralize here). Like...I knew they HATED transgender people. But this is grotesque.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Wanglicious posted...

ADHD isn't a blanket ban but it does have strict requirements

I was disqualified for life for having it. Wouldn't even let me in boot camp.

that's changed over the years as they've softened up on a position that's more merit based (e.g., if you can prove it doesn't impair you, fine). even asthma seems possible under certain circumstances in certain branches (Air Force was an example in the same link).


but i mean, if you're trans and taking HRT for an ongoing period, you're taking a medical treatment that changes your physical and mental state. fair enough, shouldn't serve. if you're not on HRT anymore over an extended period of time or not at all, then what? the argument goes to mental state at that point. could there be certain things a trans person has that would disqualify them? possible, depression or other issues may come up (do have to keep in mind that suicide rate is alarmingly high in this group). but the issue isn't their being trans there, even if that may be at the root. it's possible to be trans and have the necessary fortitude to be at the front line, though it'd be extremely rare. still possible though and as medicine advances, don't want to remove able bodies from the pool.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/mlcalderone/status/890287732559314944
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Man Shepard Smith just tearing Trump and the Republicans a new asshole.
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I'm sure this amazing display of moral conviction is going to help Dean Heller hold on to his Senate seat next year:
https://twitter.com/MariannaNBCNews/status/889936289734307840
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Imagine being Dean Heller and believing that by now toeing the line he isn't still going to have a Trump-approved candidate attempt to knock him out in the primaries anyway for daring to object to AHCA in the first place. In their eyes, he's already too risky to keep around.
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I mean the truth is that Dean Heller is probably fucked no matter what so he should probably go with his moral convictions, but being totally spineless probably lowers his win probability from like 10% to 5%.
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Trump saying "Americans Worship God" is an insult to everyone who doesn't worship God. It doesn't matter if 75% of Americans agree (and I'm not sure they do--even if they believe in God they might not think all Americans worship God--mainly because they don't, and we have this thing called 'Freedom of Religion')

This isn't the first time he's said it, is it?

He's spending today pandering to evangelicals it seems. Does this mean we'll get a leak soon on the... leak tape?
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He said it in yesterday's rally too.
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Nos on clean repeal (so far? Not sure if it's over yet or not): Capito, Collins, Heller, McCain, Portman, Alexander, Murkowski

Cassidy is for some reason a yes
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Yeah, clean repeal is dead (not that it was ever passing).

It does sound like they'll have the votes for skinny repeal, though.
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I'm seeing it noted that skinny repeal would massively fuck up the individual market for next year since insurers have to submit rates before anything would be sorted out in conference
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Skinny repeal would legit send the market into the death spiral the GOP has been claiming exists for seven years now.
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"They say 'death, death death.' They're the ones who are death!"
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Regaro posted...

Skinny repeal would legit send the market into the death spiral the GOP has been claiming exists for seven years now.

Which may be all they really want, assuming they think they can convince voters that all the problems with the system are a result of Obummer and those damn Democrats and not Republican meddling in what was admittedly an imperfect system but vastly superior to what we would have had without it.
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Disturbing note: only three GOP Senators voted against both BCRA++ and Repeal and Go Fuck Yourself (Collins, Murkowski, Heller), and Heller has indicated he would likely vote for skinny repeal.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

For me, it's about combat efficiency and not making taxpayers fund sex changes. That's it. It's not some anti-trans crusade.

but taxpayers are funding sex changes (and will continue to in the military budget) and hardly ever care about it and it's a small drop in the bucket compared to the other stuff you pay for that is actually wasteful

I mean, really think about this
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Thinking is an incredibly high bar for Ulti to clear.
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So, uh.

Apparently, Sarah Huckabee Sanders has started reading letters during her press conferences.

Fan letters. To the President.

Reportedly, this is one of them.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DFr7iNvV0AE-MSF.jpg

So in the event that this somehow isn't total bullshit, apparently the president of the united states needs his ego stroked by a barely capable of writing 9 year old.
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Man, Anthony Scaramucci's handwriting is not great
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It's amazing seeing people who never served a day in their life talking about what would be a "distraction" in the military.

You have no idea how many absolutely fucked up non-trans people there are already serving.

When I was the Patient Travel Coordinator for a month (special duty leading up to my separation), I signed orders for SIX people to go to taxpayer funded REHAB, and only one of them was getting out afterwards.





Tl;dr Six non-trans people, at taxpayer funded rehab in one month, still getting paid while they were there, and five of them stayed in.
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Regaro posted...

Thinking is an incredibly high bar for Ulti to clear.

he made some topic about seeking help, I guess I am taking him for his word and I don't look at these topics often.
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