Trump's America

[yovargas]

That is definitely the right choice by Time but....why is this in the Trump thread?

[Primula Baggins]

Because of what Trump did a few days back, tweeting that Time told him he was "probably" going to be Person of the Year but also told him they wanted an extensive interview and photo shoot, and so he told them no thanks. Thus indicating that he would have been their first choice but passed on it by his own choice.

Meaning he knew he wasn't getting it and needed to stroke his own ego a bit.

[yovargas]

Oh. Right. I forgot. Ugh.

[Frelga]

Meanwhile in Russia.

BREAKING: Vladimir Putin declares his intention to seek re-election as Russian president.

@AP needs to look up BREAKING. It's not supposed to mean "obviously."

[yovargas]

BREAKING: Vladimir Putin is going to win the next "election".

[Frelga]

FCC repeals net neutrality rules.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/14/167 ... s-repealed

[Primula Baggins]

Better hope HoF is in the right tier.

[River]

Call your Congressional delegation. They can fix this.

[Griffon64]

Well, it is important to not buy into some of the hype around this, or get distracted by some of the buzzwords. Instead, focus on what's actually going on, and what actually should happen.

The actual official doc in all its hideous dryness: http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Release ... 7927A1.pdf

Some additional info, cuts through some of the mud but is written with a bit of a bias: https://www.wired.com/2017/05/congress- ... eutrality/

The real crux is that it is beyond time for Congress to enact net neutrality into law - no throttling, no blocking. Just open and equal. This really should be an easy bipartisan issue that the current administration can claim as an easy and important win, but I suppose there will be enough special interest money coming in to make that hard.

True open, neutral internet is vital to an economy that is shifting online all the time, like ours is. Should neutrality fall, I think the biggest impact will be the hostile environment this will create for future tech startups, which will stifle business growth and innovation, as well as the narrowing of consumer choices for certain online services. Why do I say that? Good luck bringing in a new social media service from scratch if Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey can just flick some cash to an ISP to give their service preferential treatment. Enjoy shopping with a specialty online shopping service? Enjoy your wait times while Amazon loads nice and fast. Wanna stream Netflix? Hope the one ISP you get is the one that got paid extra to make Netflix fast, or you may have to switch to their preferred streaming provider instead. If you enjoy the monopoly cable had on your programming a while back, you'll love the end of net neutrality. The issue won't be so much in whether a forum or a favorite blog loads fast as it would be in whether your established online service providers do or not.

So, since I bet no regular Joe voter wants that kind of thing, the Republican administration has a very strong interest in not letting it happen on their watch. Let's hope Congress does the right thing for once and stamp out this back and forth with good, clean, consumer and industry-friendly legislation.

[Frelga]

Basically, what Griffy said.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile, the GOP tax bill is a done deal.

[River]

From today's WaPo:

The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or ­“evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered.

.

link to the article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... 385def6ed1.

I guess one way to avoid politically difficult topics go away is to just make it really hard to talk about them. That way instead of actually talking about the topic officials can just clench their metaphorical pearls and whinge about "tone" or "the right words" or some other nonsense. Meanwhile, Zika and the TORCH infections will continue wreck havoc upon fetuses both in the US and abroad...

[Frelga]

If only community wishes were enough to make disease go away.

Not a surprise, given for example Pence's record on public health in Indiana. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... ontentious

At least Zika is abating worldwide for reasons unrelated to community wishes.

[yovargas]

They banned science- and evidenced-based??????????

[River]

Yes. Apparently someone in the Trump Administration finds such terms offensive. Probably because they imply facts exist and, as we all know, we now live in a post-fact society.

Zika's a flavivirus and flavis have this weird habit of appearing, wreaking havoc upon a population, and then going silent until the next time. West Nile does the same thing. So enjoy the lull but be prepared. It'll probably come back.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is going to be the justification for Trump to fire Mueller, even though it is complete bullcrap.

Trump transition accuses Mueller of 'unlawfully' obtaining emails

[River]

So let me get this straight...

They were using a bunch of .gov addresses on government-owned devices and are now howling because the federal agency that owned the devices and the documents turned them over when another federal agencyI wrote a letter and asked for them?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yup

Sent from my LG G6 using Tapatalk

[River]

They're taking this to the press because if the took it to judge the judge would throw them out on their ears, right?

[Frelga]

Yes.

ETA: also, this is illuminating (short Twitter thread)

https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/stat ... 8483469312