Juliajms

Not until this morning. It certainly did clarify some of the larger issues for me though. I really hope a leader emerges for the democrats who can bring people together in time for the midterms. At this point I'm really unsure how I feel about Bernie Sanders. If it's true that he's the most popular politician in the country than I hope democrats can utilize him, but can that be done without further alienating more than half the party? I shudder to think if he somehow gets the nomination in 4 years. Thanks, but I had my head in the sand for far too long. Better late than never I guess.

^ I'm really not trying to defend the guy. He's probably lying about his position having changed, but he just can't do much damage as mayor. There was a time when I wouldn't have even bothered to vote in this race, but after Trump won I promised myself that I would vote in every damn election from dog catcher on up.

Yes, he did, which is disgusting, no doubt. I have no love for the man. I think he promised not to do anything restricting choice in this race because it's irrelevant to being mayor or possibly he's evolved. More likely he knows it won't come up. Like I said in my first post on he subject, if this is just about being mayor of Omaha, JS is probably the slightly better choice, since the restaurant tax is progressive and good for public school funding. I just consider bringing Scott Walker into the mix a true slap in the face. Jean had this won the moment HM brought Bernie in though. Bernie might be popular in the country, but he is not popular in Nebraska. As for voter suppression in Georgia I'm disgusted by how shameless these people can be. I feel like this country is truly determined to repeat every injustice we've ever committed. I can only hope it's a temporary moment in time and things will get better again.

Mello isn't really anti choice though. He's anti abortion in his personal life. I'm pretty sure he's not alone in that. He's promised he would not do anything to get in the way of a woman's reproductive choices. That's about the best you are going to do in this state right now and have a chance to win. Do I consider that good or right? I sure as hell do not, but that is the reality here. If we make it through the next 4 years without teenage girls having to drive to CO or KS for a first trimester abortion, I'll consider it a near miracle. Not long ago a teenager gave birth in her bedroom and threw the baby out the window because she was too afraid to tell she was pregnant, but people will not learn.

But they generally aren't voting against what they consider their own self interests. ICAM that the poor in particular should be voting their basic economic interests, but a lot of them consider their moral values such as being pro-life to be more important. Some of these people are very deeply anti government and very strongly pro gun. Those are their self interests as they see it. Plenty of Democrats vote against their economic interests as well depending on how you look at it. I'd say if it's just about how much is left in my bank account I should even be a Republican, although overall I'd say being a Democrat is still big picture in my economic interests. I'd rather pay a few thousand extra dollars to see the wealthy pay anything like a fair amount.

Well, it's true that Obama won Omaha in 2008, but the district has been gerrymandered since then, which is why HRC lost here last year. It's technically a non partisan race anyway and until recently I was actually thinking of voting for Jean Stothert (and did vote for her in the primary). That's because when I call her "mayor's hotline" to get a pothole fixed, it gets fixed. When the city tries to raise property taxes 20% in one year she gets it lowered to a more reasonable amount. Does it get any more banal then that? Abortion is irrelevant to this race as are most of the big ideological issues. In fact, I'm hard pressed to differentiate between Mello and Stothert, since both of them are about cutting taxes. Yet Stothert is for a street car project and Mello wants to cap the restaurant tax, which I see as kind of a luxury tax that should stay. BUT then Stothert called in Scott Walker and f*ck that. If we are going to have some pathetic little ideological war over Omaha, Nebraska then I'm going to have to side with my (losing) team. Unfortunately for Heath Mello having Bernie come in is going to hurt him a lot more then help him in my estimation. Hell, Jean features Bernie's endorsement in her ads. Omaha is a lot more liberal then people who haven't lived here think, but not Bernie Sanders liberal, and it's going to be awhile before metro growth balances out the gerrymandering.

This makes me sick, although I'm surprised it's not even more. Please God, let someone sue the f*ck out of this guy. I know Fox settled some of his cases, but maybe there are more and he can be sued directly? I can dream.

I expect him to turn up on talk radio.

^ Good. I can only hope that there are people out there with credible cases that can sue him. It makes me sick to think that he is walking away with a golden parachute.

^ I can't even guess Carl. They've apparently made a boat load of money off the cult of personality. At times like this it does seem like a double edged sword though.

^ Yeah, I've seen some articles about truck drivers on the edge of losing their jobs too. That's a real shame. In my town I grew up in jobs were incredibly scarce. One of the few people who made a decent living was a long haul truck driver. Fast forward 20 years to when I was living in SF and various forms of truck driving were some of the best jobs that (documented) immigrants without a high school degree had. Both doing delivery for the beverage company I worked for (EvilCorp!) and as long haul drivers. I was surprised to see people could earn somewhere around $100,000 doing that. One thing I saw mainly in SF, that seems to be becoming more frequent is people doing things like dog walking/pet sitting, unlicensed daycare, housecleaning,gardening, snow shoveling handymen, food delivery. I've noticed more and more of it on the Nextdoor app and I would assume it's mostly under the table. Of course, in SF people were making a couple of hundred a day dog walking. That won't be happening in Omaha. I find it worrying because of course these people are out of luck when it comes to any kind of benefits or job security.

The decline of retail really scares me. That's an area that people with low skills can go into, even if they aren't physically strong. I hate to see people in that group hit harder than they already have been. One difference between retailing and coal mining is that coal miners made a high wage and I do think it's a bigger loss if you are just looking at it on a job by job basis. At the same time, someone capable of coal mining can probably do other kinds of manual labor that pays better than a "pink collar" job. Automation of jobs is really going to affect our whole economy and a lot of people are in deep denial. More people are going to be plunged into the gig economy and I'm not sure any politician can stop it. I'm enjoying Billy O'Reilly getting the boot. He was always an insufferable ass. In the end it doesn't make that much difference at Fox because a new jackass will arise, but maybe for the sake of the women around him we can hope the next won't be a harasser.

I'm well aware it is, since it's a point I've made several times in this thread, including the Disney example. My point is women leave the industry due to the rampant sexism, both in education and in the actual work place. There are so many women coming out and speaking about it that it seems indisputable. If tech dealt with that, they couldn't even pretend to have a lack of workers, except maybe at he very high end. They would also have more workers and a cheaper labor pool without even having to go abroad to get it. One of the many reasons I'm against the H1B visa program is that I have exactly zero sympathy for tech companies as long as they are allowing women to get frozen out of these jobs.

I hate to agree with a single thing that man does, but if I do, this is it. If tech needs more workers maybe they should solve their rampant sexual harassment issues that chase women out of STEM jobs (particularly tech) in droves.

I'm pretty sure he just turned 11. I hope the rumors of Steve Bannons fall from grace are true.

Hell no. I would be so livid. No woman should have to put up with sexual misconduct in the workplace, but HHK was really young. MM should never be allowed back on the set, especially since other people seem to be persona non grata for doing far less (imo). If EB still has any pull at all I have to believe it won't happen.

That makes sense. I bet our own tech firms feel like the more H1B visas they can get the better too.

I know, I'm not saying Canada is doing anything wrong. In fact, I think the way they treat immigrants makes a lot more sense than the way we do. At the same time, I'm never going to think hundreds is a lot for a place like NZ. If you want to make it sound like you are a hero (the more the better!) then you better be taking at least a few thousand. As long as the US is taking a million people every year I'm going to call hypocrisy on the people who criticize us on the immigration front (In terms of numbers, not treatment). Especially if they have nothing to say about places like Japan who effectively take no one.

Hundreds? That's not a lot. The US takes a million every year and we are still taking 50,000 refugees (I'm sure Trump is still trying to change that as we speak). Canada with a smaller population then ours takes 300,000.

^ Yeah. I want my real president back to deal with this. Heaven help us all.

I'll admit I don't either, but I do think this is an area where the far left are right about their being a certain amount of propaganda in the US. I had a Chinese roommate when I was in college and that girl was under the influence of serious propaganda, it was pretty surreal at times. I'm not talking about that kind of complete warping of facts. It's just that we very rarely have in-depth coverage of the number of people our bombings have killed. There isn't a lot of talk in the mainstream about the amount of damage we've done in the Middle East over the last 25 years or so. I'd love to see a poll asking regular people how many people we've killed during these endless wars. I bet it's a small percentage that can even come close to the right number. The difference between someplace like China and Russia and the US is that we can easily find info here if we want to go looking and I'm not down playing that difference. http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/11/30/why-they-hate-us-ii-how-many-muslims-has-the-u-s-killed-in-the-past-30-years/

They are hoping this will stop Assad from continuing to gas people. I'm not saying they are right or that it's every human rights worker that's thinking that way. I'm saying if you are on the ground in Syria watching this happen, I understand you might hope that the US stepping in will help. I've been saying we need to stay out of it, even when Obama was the one who wanted to get involved. We don't have the will to do what it would take this kind of war (thank god) and if we did we'd almost certainly have to be occupiers. And maybe we do have a hand in what's happening in Somalia, Yemen and Sudan, but I don't think the whole thing can be laid at our door. I'd certainly be way more in favor of food aid then I am of getting involved in Syria. However , if your point is that we have let atrocities go on in places like Darfur without lifting much of a finger, yet for some reason we're getting involved with Syria, then I could not agree more. I don't see why the Syrian civil war is more worthy of our intervention then Sudan's was. I'm hardly a military expert, but it seems to me we might have had a chance of actually helping in Sudan, although once again the question is what do you do after you win? Leaving a power vacuum doesn't seem like a good option and occupation is nearly as bad.

Totally disgusting. Even if we were doing the right thing, calling the bombing of another nation "beautiful" is just completely messed up. How many times are we going to bomb the f*ck out of a middle eastern country, with no real strategy? I do understand why some human rights experts are happy about this. I really don't blame them. I felt the same after what Saddam Hussein did 20 some years ago. I happened to be up late the night he gassed the Kurds. CNN had footage and they aired it uncensored. I'm pretty sure it's the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I'll never forget it. Still, all the bombing we did only added to the atrocities and it won't surprise me if things end up the exact same way this time around.

No kidding. The bastard going on about the "beautiful babies" being killed in the chemical weapons attack are the very people he won't let in our country. This is the caliber of the mind potentially leading us into a proxy war with Iran and Russia. I'm not sure. There having been some experts saying that he had prior authorization for some reason. The details were lost on me, but I'm sure we'll be hearing more on that over the next few hours.

Then for once I agree with them. Not that I'm angry, I'm just deeply, deeply skeptical. Days ago he said he said he wasn't interested in regime change. Many people have said that signaled to Assad that he had impunity and led to the recent chemical attack on civilians. Now he decides that killing under 100 people is the straw that broke the camels back, but the 400,000 Assad killed over the last few years wasn't? I find the lack of a coherent, logical position very concerning. Now if this strike actually is very limited and does some good great. I'll be the first to say the right thing was done. Still conventional wisdom seems to be that getting rid of Saddam was a mistake and he was every bit as brutal as Assad when it comes to using chemical weapons. I'm just not sure Trump took the time needed to thing through the unintended consequences here. Time will tell. I'm be a lot more willing to support this if I had a shred of confidence in the man in charge.