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@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
@gt12 said in US Politics:
@Snowy said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
So far based on his words and his actions he is utterly beholden to the radicals of the party.
Not sure about that. Some of the things he is doing are just rejoining the world. WHO, Paris accord. Undoing what trump did - rightly or wrongly. Hardly radical.
The trans gender stuff is a lot more out there. Has anybody actually seen what what Biden signed?
Everything in the Sun "article" if it can be called that, is opinion comments and tweets by quite likely "radicals".Yeah, if the order does do what is being said, he's made a huge mistake, but I've yet to hear any analysis from a legal perspective (and I'm too lazy to find and read it myself).
“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the rest room, the locker room, or school sports. . . . All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Anything that threatens women's rights in this way should be treated with extreme caution. This is reckless at best, and will no doubt be used by some to justify biological males competing in women's sports given it explicitly talks about... sports.
There are a lot of well informed and reasonable people expressing a huge amount of concern over this.
I actually don't disagree with that last sentence, but how different is that interpretation from those words?
I also think it can be looked at from the other side too.
Biden may have done as best as he can here - it nods towards the radical wing, but also very few would actually disagree that ppl should receive equal treatment under the law.
As you said, some may mount legal challenges (each way) based on the different interpretations already in effect (states have different rules for transgender kids), so I wonder whether this was a way of getting it to advance through the court system, where at the end of the day a conservative leaning Supreme Court will end up ruling on this.
He virtual signaled to his radical base, and their actions will likely see their arguments fail once they go through the court system.
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@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
@gt12 said in US Politics:
@Snowy said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
So far based on his words and his actions he is utterly beholden to the radicals of the party.
Not sure about that. Some of the things he is doing are just rejoining the world. WHO, Paris accord. Undoing what trump did - rightly or wrongly. Hardly radical.
The trans gender stuff is a lot more out there. Has anybody actually seen what what Biden signed?
Everything in the Sun "article" if it can be called that, is opinion comments and tweets by quite likely "radicals".Yeah, if the order does do what is being said, he's made a huge mistake, but I've yet to hear any analysis from a legal perspective (and I'm too lazy to find and read it myself).
“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the rest room, the locker room, or school sports. . . . All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Anything that threatens women's rights in this way should be treated with extreme caution. This is reckless at best, and will no doubt be used by some to justify biological males competing in women's sports given it explicitly talks about... sports.
There are a lot of well informed and reasonable people expressing a huge amount of concern over this.
From that rather limited quote he says that "children" (note children) should not be denied access to school sports, which they shouldn't (if we focus on sports), the others are equally relevant. If they are already undergoing gender change hormones / operations, then they are what they are born with, until old enough to change things.
You use the word "women" not children which really is quite different.
As for well informed and reasonable people, they might be more concerned about what "might" happen than what has been said.
I would say his words are very carefully chosen.
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@Snowy said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
@gt12 said in US Politics:
@Snowy said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
So far based on his words and his actions he is utterly beholden to the radicals of the party.
Not sure about that. Some of the things he is doing are just rejoining the world. WHO, Paris accord. Undoing what trump did - rightly or wrongly. Hardly radical.
The trans gender stuff is a lot more out there. Has anybody actually seen what what Biden signed?
Everything in the Sun "article" if it can be called that, is opinion comments and tweets by quite likely "radicals".Yeah, if the order does do what is being said, he's made a huge mistake, but I've yet to hear any analysis from a legal perspective (and I'm too lazy to find and read it myself).
“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the rest room, the locker room, or school sports. . . . All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Anything that threatens women's rights in this way should be treated with extreme caution. This is reckless at best, and will no doubt be used by some to justify biological males competing in women's sports given it explicitly talks about... sports.
There are a lot of well informed and reasonable people expressing a huge amount of concern over this.
From that rather limited quote he says that "children" (note children) should not be denied access to school sports, which they shouldn't (if we focus on sports), the others are equally relevant. If they are already undergoing gender change hormones / operations, then they are what they are born with, until old enough to change things.
You use the word "women" not children which really is quite different.
As for well informed and reasonable people, they might be more concerned about what "might" happen than what has been said.
I would say his words are very carefully chosen.
Children includes teenagers which includes scholarships etc.
And then when these transgender kids graduate with the scholarships they took from biological females... where to then? Do they suddenly go back to competing against men where they will be middle of the field at best? Or do they continue to compete against women?
At the end of the day this shouldn't be up for interpretation. Biological males should not be allowed to compete in women's sports. No ifs, no buts, end of story. Biological males should be discriminated against when it comes to competing in protected women's categories, that's the only way to make it fair. Any EO like this should be explicitly clear on this but it appears to be vague and up for debate.
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@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
@Snowy said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
@gt12 said in US Politics:
@Snowy said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
So far based on his words and his actions he is utterly beholden to the radicals of the party.
Not sure about that. Some of the things he is doing are just rejoining the world. WHO, Paris accord. Undoing what trump did - rightly or wrongly. Hardly radical.
The trans gender stuff is a lot more out there. Has anybody actually seen what what Biden signed?
Everything in the Sun "article" if it can be called that, is opinion comments and tweets by quite likely "radicals".Yeah, if the order does do what is being said, he's made a huge mistake, but I've yet to hear any analysis from a legal perspective (and I'm too lazy to find and read it myself).
“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the rest room, the locker room, or school sports. . . . All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Anything that threatens women's rights in this way should be treated with extreme caution. This is reckless at best, and will no doubt be used by some to justify biological males competing in women's sports given it explicitly talks about... sports.
There are a lot of well informed and reasonable people expressing a huge amount of concern over this.
From that rather limited quote he says that "children" (note children) should not be denied access to school sports, which they shouldn't (if we focus on sports), the others are equally relevant. If they are already undergoing gender change hormones / operations, then they are what they are born with, until old enough to change things.
You use the word "women" not children which really is quite different.
As for well informed and reasonable people, they might be more concerned about what "might" happen than what has been said.
I would say his words are very carefully chosen.
Children includes teenagers which includes scholarships etc.
And then when these transgender kids graduate with the scholarships they took from biological females... where to then? Do they suddenly go back to competing against men where they will be middle of the field at best? Or do they continue to compete against women?
At the end of the day this shouldn't be up for interpretation. Biological males should not be allowed to compete in women's sports. No ifs, no buts, end of story. Biological males should be discriminated against when it comes to competing in protected women's categories, that's the only way to make it fair. Any EO like this should be explicitly clear on this but it appears to be vague and up for debate.
In the UK they need to be 18, under that they are children, over that adults. There is no legal distinction for "teenagers". I don't know about the US, it may vary state to state?
I said that if they haven't started to actually change their sex they are stuck with what they had. If they have a penis they compete with men until they don't. Then they have compete in their own "class".
The words were carefully chosen. It was about children so probably under 18s until they can actually change gender.
We agree that biological males should not be allowed in women's sport but that wasn't what was said.
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@Snowy said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
@Snowy said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
@gt12 said in US Politics:
@Snowy said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
So far based on his words and his actions he is utterly beholden to the radicals of the party.
Not sure about that. Some of the things he is doing are just rejoining the world. WHO, Paris accord. Undoing what trump did - rightly or wrongly. Hardly radical.
The trans gender stuff is a lot more out there. Has anybody actually seen what what Biden signed?
Everything in the Sun "article" if it can be called that, is opinion comments and tweets by quite likely "radicals".Yeah, if the order does do what is being said, he's made a huge mistake, but I've yet to hear any analysis from a legal perspective (and I'm too lazy to find and read it myself).
“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the rest room, the locker room, or school sports. . . . All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Anything that threatens women's rights in this way should be treated with extreme caution. This is reckless at best, and will no doubt be used by some to justify biological males competing in women's sports given it explicitly talks about... sports.
There are a lot of well informed and reasonable people expressing a huge amount of concern over this.
From that rather limited quote he says that "children" (note children) should not be denied access to school sports, which they shouldn't (if we focus on sports), the others are equally relevant. If they are already undergoing gender change hormones / operations, then they are what they are born with, until old enough to change things.
You use the word "women" not children which really is quite different.
As for well informed and reasonable people, they might be more concerned about what "might" happen than what has been said.
I would say his words are very carefully chosen.
Children includes teenagers which includes scholarships etc.
And then when these transgender kids graduate with the scholarships they took from biological females... where to then? Do they suddenly go back to competing against men where they will be middle of the field at best? Or do they continue to compete against women?
At the end of the day this shouldn't be up for interpretation. Biological males should not be allowed to compete in women's sports. No ifs, no buts, end of story. Biological males should be discriminated against when it comes to competing in protected women's categories, that's the only way to make it fair. Any EO like this should be explicitly clear on this but it appears to be vague and up for debate.
In the UK they need to be 18, under that they are children, over that adults. There is no legal distinction for "teenagers". I don't know about the US, it may vary state to state?
I said that if they haven't started to actually change their sex they are stuck with what they had. If they have a penis they compete with men until they don't. Then they have compete in their own "class".
The words were carefully chosen. It was about children so probably under 18s until they can actually change gender.
We agree that biological males should not be allowed in women's sport but that wasn't what was said.
I think we mostly agree, but I probably have more concerns over this EO than you? It'd be great if we could get much more clarity on this, but I just don't think we have anyone in media that's actually able to properly investigate/query it to get a full understanding of the implications.
I don't like that it appears Biden is nodding to the radicals in the party while giving himself wriggle room to get out of what they are advocating. Given the recent debates around this, and the fact that there are already athletes competing at the top level making a farce of the sport (E.G. Laurel Hubbard) we really need clarity around what the laws are going to be moving forward. Having an op and suppressing testosterone doesn't wipe out the (massive) advantages biological males get by going through puberty with elevated levels of testosterone, not by a long way.
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@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
It'd be great if we could get much more clarity on this
Yes it would. Snippets of text aren't that helpful.
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
I don't like that it appears Biden is nodding to the radicals in the party while giving himself wriggle room to get out of what they are advocating.
Pretty good politics I would have thought. Appease them but give them nothing.
We do agree on the premise that initially biological men should not be in women's sport but he would have to say more than he has for this to be going down that path yet. I actually think that if the IOC and sports regulatory bodies should dictate what happens once they reach adulthood.
They have Paralympics, why not Transolympics? Should draw a crowd...
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Biden has moved on private prisons. Instructions for no new contracts with privately run prisons, although people are noting incarnation rates are dropping and there's a minimum population the private facilities need to be viable. Still a good move imo, even if it's not as momentous as some people might think.
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To quote the president, " Awww man..." America is in a terrible place right now as played out through the media.
The democrats and establishment really goading and smearing a purposefully undefined part of the population known as Trump supporters or republicans. The rhetoric against anybody not visibly deriding Trump is at enormous levels.An eye opening first month for the unity president
The impeachment going ahead
AOC claiming the Republican caucus contains white supremacists
4000 national guard stationed in DC till April
Former CIA Head, Brennan stating that domestic terrorism is more dangerous than ISIS and international threats
AOC lying about being threatened by the enemy and begging her supporters to report on social media any post they see that refutes her obvious fabrication
Troops moving into Syria and not out of Afghanistan
No covid stimulus check yet and the campaigned on promise of 2k each dropping to $1400
More kids in cagesAnd today an astonishing article from time magazine detailing how corporate giants, unions and left wing activists conspired to "fortify" to "save" democracy in an election year.
The domestic terrorism narrative is especially ominous as leading figures in the party and media seek to dehumanise anyone not voting blue. It's like they want something to kick off, in my limited mind anyway.
Life without the former president hasn't started off so rosey and harmonious as we were led to believeTime article exerpts:
This is the inside story of the conspiracy to save the 2020 election, based on access to the group’s inner workings, never-before-seen documents and interviews with dozens of those involved from across the political spectrum. It is the story of an unprecedented, creative and determined campaign whose success also reveals how close the nation came to disaster. “Every attempt to interfere with the proper outcome of the election was defeated,” says Ian Bassin, co-founder of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan rule-of-law advocacy group. “But it’s massively important for the country to understand that it didn’t happen accidentally. The system didn’t work magically. Democracy is not self executing "
That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it. And they believe the public needs to understand the system’s fragility in order to ensure that democracy in America endures.
Illustration by Ryan Olbrysh for TIME
BY MOLLY BALL
FEBRUARY 4, 2021 5:40 AM EST
A weird thing happened right after the Nov. 3 election: nothing.The nation was braced for chaos. Liberal groups had vowed to take to the streets, planning hundreds of protests across the country. Right-wing militias were girding for battle. In a poll before Election Day, 75% of Americans voiced concern about violence.
Instead, an eerie quiet descended. As President Trump refused to concede, the response was not mass action but crickets. When media organizations called the race for Joe Biden on Nov. 7, jubilation broke out instead, as people thronged cities across the U.S. to celebrate the democratic process that resulted in Trump’s ouster.
A second odd thing happened amid Trump’s attempts to reverse the result: corporate America turned on him. Hundreds of major business leaders, many of whom had backed Trump’s candidacy and supported his policies, called on him to concede. To the President, something felt amiss. “It was all very, very strange,” Trump said on Dec. 2. “Within days after the election, we witnessed an orchestrated effort to anoint the winner, even while many key states were still being counted.”
In a way, Trump was right.
There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.
The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election–an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted. For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President. Though much of this activity took place on the left, it was separate from the Biden campaign and crossed ideological lines, with crucial contributions by nonpartisan and conservative actors. The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory. It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding.
Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears. They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction. After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result. “The untold story of the election is the thousands of people of both parties who accomplished the triumph of American democracy at its very foundation,” says Norm Eisen, a prominent lawyer and former Obama Administration official who recruited Republicans and Democrats to the board of the Voter Protection Program.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/%3Famp=true
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Only a deeply stupid country would expose themselves to this risk:
China targets rare earth export curbs to hobble US defence industry
This has been a well known problem for at least a decade.
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@Tim said in US Politics:
Only a deeply stupid country would expose themselves to this risk:
China targets rare earth export curbs to hobble US defence industry
This has been a well known problem for at least a decade.
It's paywalled. You might need to summarize...
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@canefan said in US Politics:
It's paywalled. You might need to summarize...
China is exploring limiting the export of rare earth minerals that are crucial for the manufacture of American F-35 fighter jets and other sophisticated weaponry, according to people involved in a government consultation.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology last month proposed draft controls on the production and export of 17 rare earth minerals in China, which controls about 80 per cent of global supply.
Industry executives said government officials had asked them how badly companies in the US and Europe, including defence contractors, would be affected if China restricted rare earth exports during a bilateral dispute.
“The government wants to know if the US may have trouble making F-35 fighter jets if China imposes an export ban,” said a Chinese government adviser who asked not to be identified. Industry executives added that Beijing wanted to better understand how quickly the US could secure alternative sources of rare earths and increase its own production capacity.
China’s own rare earth security isn’t guaranteed. It can disappear when the US-China relationship deteriorates or Myanmar’s generals decide to shut the border
David Zhang, Sublime China Information
Fighter jets such as the F-35, a Lockheed Martin aircraft, rely heavily on rare earths for critical components such as electrical power systems and magnets. A Congressional Research Service report said that each F-35 required 417kg of rare-earth materialsThe Chinese move follows deteriorating Sino-US relations and an emerging technology war between the two countries. The Trump administration tried to make it harder for Chinese companies to import sensitive US technology, such as high-end semiconductors. The Biden administration has signalled that it would also restrict certain exports but would work more closely with allies.
Beijing’s control of rare earths threatens to become a new source of friction with Washington but some warn any aggressive moves by China could backfire by prompting rivals to develop their own production capacity.
In a November report, Zhang Rui, an analyst at Antaike, a government-backed consultancy in Beijing, said that US weapons makers could be among the first companies targeted by any export restriction.
China’s foreign ministry said last year it would sanction Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon for selling arms to Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its sovereign territory.
The proposed guidelines would require rare earth producers to follow export control laws that regulate shipments of materials that “help safeguard state security”. China’s State Council and Central Military Commission will have the final say on whether the list should include rare earths.
Rare earth minerals are also central to the manufacture of products including smartphones, electric vehicles and wind turbines.
The F-35 relies on rare earths for critical components such as electrical power systems © George Frey/Bloomberg
Some executives and officials are, however, questioning the wisdom of formally including rare earths in the export control regime. They argue that it would motivate Beijing’s rivals to accelerate their own production capacities and undermine China’s dominance of the industry.“Export controls are a doubled-edged sword that should be applied very carefully,” said Zhang of Antaike.
The Pentagon has become increasingly concerned about the US reliance on China for rare earths that are used in everything from precision-guided missiles to drones.
Ellen Lord, the top defence official for acquisitions until last year, told Congress in October that the US needed to create stockpiles of certain rare earths and re-establish domestic processing. She said the US had a “real vulnerability” because China floods the market to destroy any competition any time nations are about to start mining or producing.
In recent months, the Pentagon has signed contracts with American and Australian miners to boost their onshore refining capacity and reduce their reliance on Chinese refiners.
The US National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment.
Why China's control of rare earths matters
Chinese rare earth miners themselves are worried about the enhanced power the regulations would give MIIT to control their output.China began setting rare earth production limits in 2007 to keep prices high and reduce pollution but the policy is not legally binding and many miners regularly exceed their output quota. The latest regulations would allow the government to impose steep fines for unapproved sales.
“The new rule is not going to make China stronger in the global supply chain when local mines can’t operate at full capacity and an export ban is easier said than done,” said an executive, who asked not to be identified, at Guangdong Rare Earth Group, one of the nation’s largest rare earth groups.
In a statement, MIIT said the new law would help “protect national interest and ensure the security of strategic resources”.
According to government statistics, China’s demand for rare earths is so high that it has consistently exceeded domestic supply over the past five years, prompting a surge of Chinese imports from miners in the US and Myanmar.
Recommended
News in-depthThe Big Read
US-China: Washington revives plans for its rare earths industryA wide range of industries are driving demand for the strategic resource, including China’s electric vehicle and wind power generation sectors.
“China’s economic planners have failed to predict the surge in rare earth consumption,” said an executive at Gold Dragon Rare Earth Co in south-eastern Fujian Province.
“China’s own rare earth security isn’t guaranteed,” said David Zhang, an analyst at Sublime China Information, a consultancy. “It can disappear when the US-China relationship deteriorates or Myanmar’s generals decide to shut the border.”
While China’s dominance in rare earth mining is under threat, it maintains a near monopoly in the refining process that turns ores into materials ready for manufacturers.
The country controls about four-fifths of global rare earth refining capacity. Ores mined in the US must be sent to China as the US has no refining capacity of its own yet.
Industry executives, however, said China’s strength in refining had more to do with its higher tolerance for pollution than any technological edge.
Additional reporting by Tom Mitchell in Singapore
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@Tim said in US Politics:
Only a deeply stupid country would expose themselves to this risk:
China targets rare earth export curbs to hobble US defence industry
This has been a well known problem for at least a decade.
Truth
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@Siam said in US Politics:
The untold story of the election is the thousands of people of both parties who accomplished the triumph of American democracy at its very foundation,” says Norm Eisen, a prominent lawyer and former Obama Administration official who recruited Republicans and Democrats to the board of the Voter Protection Program.
Thank heavens a cabal of rich businessmen & elites stepped in to protect US democracy from a President they decided was "autocratically inclined" and took it upon themselves to decide on whether the election was fair or not.
It's great they fought the good fight against Trump-supporting conspiracy theorists.....
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@Tim said in US Politics:
Only a deeply stupid country would expose themselves to this risk:
Or a country run by vested interests more intent on short-term gain than US security.
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Because of a past history working in the power industry, I've been reading up on the issues that Texas is having currently, and came across this.
This sounded insane. Who would voluntarily forego critical infrastructure redundancy? However it seems to be verified by this:
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@Stockcar86 i read about that yesterday, it's pretty funny (well, not for the people suddenly freezing i guess)
The US really is a hilarious shitshow to watch.
US Politics