Political Randomness

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 1:10 pm

I'll give the media some credit on this. If you read past the sensationalized headlines and completely unsubstatianated claims many do mention at the end of the story that Target hasn't provided any data to support their claims.

The golden age of disinformation. Oddly it all seemingly supports the notion that certain forces should have more power. What a coincidence. Right? Well democracy was nice while it lasted.

Jaymon · Post by **Jaymon** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 3:04 pm

the right wingers (tm) have always been against popular music. wasn't there the same sort of backlash against the beatles? the rolling stones? If the kids like it, there must be something wrong with it, right?

waitingtoconnect · Post by **waitingtoconnect** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 5:40 pm

malchior wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2023 1:10 pm I'll give the media some credit on this. If you read past the sensationalized headlines and completely unsubstatianated claims many do mention at the end of the story that Target hasn't provided any data to support their claims.

The golden age of disinformation. Oddly it all seemingly supports the notion that certain forces should have more power. What a coincidence. Right? Well democracy was nice while it lasted.

And all democrat cities- seems somebody is trying to apologise to the GOP for all those nasty rainbow t shirts now trump is ahead in the polls.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 6:47 pm

Taylor Swift spoke out against Trump a few years ago, the behind-the-scenes drama of which was captured in her documentary. Her PR folks wanted her to stay out of the political fray for fear of hurting her popularity, but she insisted. And her music and videos are very pro-LGBTQ+ and pro-feminism. So she doesn't have to say who to vote for, the GOP knows very well she's not on their side.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 7:01 pm

Time to resurrect this 2020 Billy Bragg cover of Taylor Swift's "Only the Young," featuring the text of one of her tweets against Trump.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 7:08 pm

Jaymon wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2023 3:04 pm the right wingers (tm) have always been against popular music. wasn't there the same sort of backlash against the beatles? the rolling stones? If the kids like it, there must be something wrong with it, right?

In the 80s it was led by Tipper Gore, hardly a symbol of the right. But generally, yeah. The religious right and the Olds.

One does have to wonder, if you make your hay by sacrificing the youth, how long will it be before youth wants to sacrifice you and how much can you blame them?

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 7:47 pm

Wait...Taylor Swift hates Trump?...I love her! OMG I'm a swiftie. Actually always liked her music..wife didn't...but my wife could take a jealous dislike of a pretty and talented girl even if I was never going to meet her.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 8:55 pm

LordMortis wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2023 7:08 pm
Jaymon wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2023 3:04 pm the right wingers (tm) have always been against popular music. wasn't there the same sort of backlash against the beatles? the rolling stones? If the kids like it, there must be something wrong with it, right?
In the 80s it was led by Tipper Gore, hardly a symbol of the right. But generally, yeah. The religious right and the Olds.

One does have to wonder, if you make your hay by sacrificing the youth, how long will it be before youth wants to sacrifice you and how much can you blame them?

Yeah, the Gores were from Tennessee, and the 80s (along with the late 70s) were chock-full of moral panics around heavy metal and Satanism. At the time it was still possible for centrist Democrats to sign on to these.

But the general backlash against rock and roll in the 50s and 60s was always a right-wing thing. They hated that white kids were discovering black music, even if the artists playing the music were white.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 9:03 pm

1920s. You square danced in school because Henry Ford thought that jazz was a Jewish conspiracy.

Unagi · Post by **Unagi** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 10:47 pm

The Jazz Conspiracy

great band name.

and - it's taken.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 11:19 pm

After a century, you have to assume you missed the window.

waitingtoconnect · Post by **waitingtoconnect** » Wed Sep 27, 2023 11:38 pm

Daehawk wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2023 7:47 pm Wait...Taylor Swift hates Trump?...I love her! OMG I'm a swiftie. Actually always liked her music..wife didn't...but my wife could take a jealous dislike of a pretty and talented girl even if I was never going to meet her.

Just plead the Pence defence that you never eat meals alone with billionaire female pop stars.

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Thu Sep 28, 2023 11:55 am

Re: the Target announcement, someone did a solid job of analysis of available crime data. The tldr; is, where there is available data (Seattle and Portland) he finds that stores that are remaining open have MORE CRIME than stores that are being closed. He makes some reasonable speculation that certain property crimes, for example less shoplifting, at a closing store are proxies for lower sales. In other words, there is some reason to believe that perhaps the stores are being closed for other performance based reasons and they are using crime as a smokescreen.

Analysis here

But if crime is not rising at these stores, then why were these stores able to bear this suddenly unbearable level of crime for so long, and why do they all have to close so rapidly — within a month of the statement going out?

With this in mind I set out to see whether the stores that Target is closing are in fact experiencing increasing reported crime and how crime in those stores compare to other nearby Target stores that are not being closed.

Target announced that it will close stores in New York City, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. Unfortunately, incident-level crime data in NYC and San Francisco does not contain addresses, but the data from Portland and Seattle do. The addresses are anonymized to the block level, but that is good enough to gauge crime levels in and around these stores.

...

Both Portland and Seattle have publicly available crime data which neatly separates crimes into NIBRS Society, Property, and Person categories. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of crimes at these stores (90+% at most) are property crimes such as shoplifting. Very few violent crimes have occurred on these blocks since 2016.

There are three Target stores in Portland being closed and two in Seattle. Both Portland and Seattle have three Target locations that are not being closed making it possible to compare crime trends at the closing and non-closing stores. How fun!

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Thu Sep 28, 2023 12:44 pm

Holman wrote:
LordMortis wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2023 7:08 pm
Jaymon wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2023 3:04 pm the right wingers (tm) have always been against popular music. wasn't there the same sort of backlash against the beatles? the rolling stones? If the kids like it, there must be something wrong with it, right?
In the 80s it was led by Tipper Gore, hardly a symbol of the right. But generally, yeah. The religious right and the Olds.

One does have to wonder, if you make your hay by sacrificing the youth, how long will it be before youth wants to sacrifice you and how much can you blame them?
Yeah, the Gores were from Tennessee, and the 80s (along with the late 70s) were chock-full of moral panics around heavy metal and Satanism. At the time it was still possible for centrist Democrats to sign on to these.

But the general backlash against rock and roll in the 50s and 60s was always a right-wing thing. They hated that white kids were discovering black music, even if the artists playing the music were white.

But he couldn't even win his own state, and we got the Iraq invasion and budget busting tax cuts from the tax cut and spend Bush admin, to say nothing of the massive surveillance state Cheney created.

Sent from my SM-S908U1 using Tapatalk

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Thu Sep 28, 2023 12:54 pm

malchior wrote: Thu Sep 28, 2023 11:55 am Re: the Target announcement, someone did a solid job of analysis of available crime data. The tldr; is, where there is available data (Seattle and Portland) he finds that stores that are remaining open have MORE CRIME than stores that are being closed. He makes some reasonable speculation that certain property crimes, for example less shoplifting, at a closing store are proxies for lower sales. In other words, there is some reason to believe that perhaps the stores are being closed for other performance based reasons and they are using crime as a smokescreen.

Analysis here

But if crime is not rising at these stores, then why were these stores able to bear this suddenly unbearable level of crime for so long, and why do they all have to close so rapidly — within a month of the statement going out?

With this in mind I set out to see whether the stores that Target is closing are in fact experiencing increasing reported crime and how crime in those stores compare to other nearby Target stores that are not being closed.

Target announced that it will close stores in New York City, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. Unfortunately, incident-level crime data in NYC and San Francisco does not contain addresses, but the data from Portland and Seattle do. The addresses are anonymized to the block level, but that is good enough to gauge crime levels in and around these stores.

...

Both Portland and Seattle have publicly available crime data which neatly separates crimes into NIBRS Society, Property, and Person categories. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of crimes at these stores (90+% at most) are property crimes such as shoplifting. Very few violent crimes have occurred on these blocks since 2016.

There are three Target stores in Portland being closed and two in Seattle. Both Portland and Seattle have three Target locations that are not being closed making it possible to compare crime trends at the closing and non-closing stores. How fun!

I won't dispute it but there is a lot of guesswork and assumption going on there. Number of reports to police don't represent all crime nor does it represent dollar value of each crime. It also doesnt account for theft that wasn't noticed at the time. It's all mentioned at the link but thought I'd point it out.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Thu Sep 28, 2023 3:28 pm

Mike Lindell says MyPillow has been crippled by American Express slashing their credit line

"Out of the blue, they took our credit line from a million dollars down to $100,000," Lindell said. "Just cripples MyPillow. No reason, no explanation, just dropped it down last Tuesday."
...
In February 2022, Lindell was terminated as a client by the Minnesota Bank & Trust a month after the bank called him a "reputation risk."

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Thu Sep 28, 2023 4:16 pm

Some of of the rabid MAGAs will call this being cancelled but it's just a good business decision on the part of AmEx.

He's being sued for a shit ton of money and his business is floundering. Credit had been adjusted accordingly. And predictably, he's calling for donations now.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu Sep 28, 2023 6:06 pm

Saw a ton of MyPillow space in Ollie's. That's not a good sign for his company.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Thu Sep 28, 2023 7:16 pm

Musk is live-sharing from the Texas/Mexico border today. He's wearing a tight t-shirt, a cowboy hat, and mirrored sunglasses.

This asshole is 100% going to insert himself into the 2024 elections and manipulate the news.

Absolute trash person.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Fri Sep 29, 2023 12:01 pm

Holman wrote:Musk is live-sharing from the Texas/Mexico border today. He's wearing a tight t-shirt, a cowboy hat, and mirrored sunglasses.

This asshole is 100% going to insert himself into the 2024 elections and manipulate the news.

Absolute trash person.

And how many immigrant H1-B visas does he sponsor again?

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malchior · Post by **malchior** » Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:36 pm

Only in America. ;tldr A man arrives at Wisconsin governor's office shirtless and armed with a pistol and demands to see him. He gets arrested, bailed out, and returns with an assault rifle. Now held in protective custody.

AP News

A man illegally brought a loaded handgun into the Wisconsin Capitol, demanding to see Gov. Tony Evers, and returned at night with an assault rifle after posting bail, a spokesperson for the state said Thursday.

The man, who was shirtless and had a holstered handgun, approached the governor’s office on the first floor of the Capitol around 2 p.m. Wednesday, state Department of Administration spokesperson Tatyana Warrick said. The man was demanding to see the governor, who was not in the building at the time, Warrick said.

A Capitol police officer sits at a desk outside of a suite of rooms that includes the governor’s office, conference room and offices for the attorney general.

Octavious · Post by **Octavious** » Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:40 pm

I'm kind of shocked that we haven't had a politician killed yet. It's just a matter of time sadly.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Thu Oct 05, 2023 2:24 pm

Octavious wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2023 1:40 pm I'm kind of shocked that we haven't had a politician killed yet. It's just a matter of time sadly.

IIt's not that shocking that higher level politicians are mostly safe. I mean the Governor's protection detail worked and he wasn't even there. The fact that the guy posted bail and came back isn't on them. And they stopped him the second time.

But it does happen. Reagan, Giffords, Scalise, etc.

Plus John Roll, Tommy Burks, Clementa Pinckney, all killed. Lots of judges, state reps...

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Thu Oct 05, 2023 3:46 pm

The FBI killed a man who wanted to go after Biden in August and several have been arrested this year for threatening various politicians. Still it feels like we've might just be lucky over the last couple of years.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Oct 10, 2023 7:26 pm

I'm putting this here because we should collectively be ashamed that a gold-medal Olympian needs a GoFund Me to pay for medical bills:

Olympic gymnastics champion Mary Lou Retton is “fighting for her life” in an intensive care unit, according to her daughter.

Retton has been diagnosed with “a very rare form of pneumonia” and has been in the ICU at an undisclosed hospital for more than a week “not able to breathe on her own”, McKenna Kelley said in an Instagram story posted on Tuesday afternoon.

“Out of respect for her and her privacy, I will not disclose all details,” wrote Kelley, a former gymnast at Louisiana State University. “However, I will disclose that she not insured.”

America

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Tue Oct 10, 2023 9:27 pm

Living as I do in a state with near-universal coverage, I sometimes forget that large numbers of Americans are still uninsured. You'd think a faded celebrity should be able to afford an ACA plan...but of course IDK anything about her circumstances. Hope we don't soon wind up typing "RIP" in the celebrity death thread.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Tue Oct 10, 2023 9:49 pm

Kraken wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2023 9:27 pm Living as I do in a state with near-universal coverage, I sometimes forget that large numbers of Americans are still uninsured. You'd think a faded celebrity should be able to afford an ACA plan...but of course IDK anything about her circumstances. Hope we don't soon wind up typing "RIP" in the celebrity death thread.

+1

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Oct 10, 2023 10:09 pm

I think it’s important to remember though that a pharmaceutical executive’s boat isn’t going to pay for itself.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 12:37 am

[

Smoove_B wrote: Tue Oct 10, 2023 7:26 pm I'm putting this here because we should collectively be ashamed that a gold-medal Olympian needs a GoFund Me to pay for medical bills...

She was very well taken care of as far as gold medalists go. I don't know that she needs a go fund me. I can't imagine that she couldn't afford insurance.

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 8:46 am

According to the intertubes, she's worth a couple million dollars, so I'd guess that there's a distinction to be made between can't pay for insurance and chose not to pay for insurance, as well as can't pay the hospital bill and doesn't want to pay the hospital bill. As a staunch Reagan Republican, she will surely want to pay her own way.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 8:49 am

Yeah, I'm learning more about the story as it's developing from "breaking news" last night and there's something else going on here. Still, I wouldn't expect someone like her to be dying in a hospital without insurance.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 9:56 am

Max Peck wrote: Wed Oct 11, 2023 8:46 am According to the intertubes, she's worth a couple million dollars, so I'd guess that there's a distinction to be made between can't pay for insurance and chose not to pay for insurance, as well as can't pay the hospital bill and doesn't want to pay the hospital bill. As a staunch Reagan Republican, she will surely want to pay her own way.

Depends. If she owned 1 or 2 properties she could be worth a few million. Should she have to pick between her health and her home?

That said, I have no idea what the situation is, but being worth a couple of million dollars isn't what it used to be, especially when we hear about (some) hospital stays costing a sizeable percentage of a couple of million dollars.

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 9:57 am

She's in a hospital. She's getting treated. The insurance has little to nothing to do with what's happening now. Make a connection to having no insurance caused the current condition and she couldn't afford it, then the story gets more meaningful. But right now? It feels grifty.

GreenGoo wrote: Wed Oct 11, 2023 9:56 am
Max Peck wrote: Wed Oct 11, 2023 8:46 am According to the intertubes, she's worth a couple million dollars, so I'd guess that there's a distinction to be made between can't pay for insurance and chose not to pay for insurance, as well as can't pay the hospital bill and doesn't want to pay the hospital bill. As a staunch Reagan Republican, she will surely want to pay her own way.
Depends. If she owned 1 or 2 properties she could be worth a few million. Should she have to pick between her health and her home?

That said, I have no idea what the situation is, but being worth a couple of million dollars isn't what it used to be, especially when we hear about (some) hospital stays costing a sizeable percentage of a couple of million dollars.

I don't know if this changes the math for you but she owns a *re-checks the notes* a 9000-sq. ft home. It probably was a choice.

Octavious · Post by **Octavious** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 10:20 am

I was thinking she was living in a van down by the river by the whole no insurance thing.

malchior · Post by **malchior** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 10:43 am

Also pure speculation here, but I would be not a little shocked if she was on death's door due to pneumonia 'from COVID' instead of 'with COVID'.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 10:47 am

Kinda feeling weird that I posted it last night thinking it was an indictment of the American health care system and it might actually just be a FAFO scenario for an antivaxxer. And I totally missed this. Yikes.

Still depressing either way.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 10:54 am

I remember when she shilled for USAG to downplay the Larry Nassar abuse, lamenting that the negative press was bad for the sport. Most charitable view is that she was tone deaf when reciting the company line. Either way, you would have thought thst USAG would have given her the Cadillac plan for that.

Certainly don't wish bad health on her but going willfully uninsured/under-insured doesn't garner a lot of sympathy from me.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 10:56 am

malchior wrote: Wed Oct 11, 2023 9:57 am I don't know if this changes the math for you but she owns a *re-checks the notes* a 9000-sq. ft home. It probably was a choice.

I make no comment on this specific situation with Mary Lou, but selling (or mortgaging) your home should not be necessary, I think we all can agree on that.

Post by **ImLawBoy** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 10:57 am

She wouldn't have to sell/mortgage her home if she paid for the insurance she most certainly could have afforded.

Freyland · Post by **Freyland** » Wed Oct 11, 2023 11:00 am

I am as deep a cynic as you will find. As soon as I read "very rare type of pneumonia", it was covid until proven otherwise. If she actually had something bizarre, that tidbit would be useful to bring attention to your grift, I mean gofundme. Also, she can't breathe on her own, so she isn't coordinating this gofundme idea. That would be the family members who don't want to see their inheritance lost to the medical system.