Political Discussion

nolalady said:
Also while talking about climate change, one really easy thing we can do is to stop all commercial space flights and to ban the use of private jets.

This criticism around private jets comes as new research shows the luxury lifestyles of the richest 1% could jeopardize targets to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

Per capita, the richest 80 million people in the world will account for 16% of total emissions globally by 2030, up from 13% in 1990.

www.forbes.com

118 Private Jets Take Leaders To COP26 Climate Summit Burning Over 1,000 Tons Of CO2

As the COP26 climate conference opened on Monday (1 November), 50 private jets landed at Glasgow and Edinburgh airports, ferrying their passengers to one of the most critical environmental summits in history.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
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Yeah and I’m also in favour of a radical reevaluation of carbon taxing, particularly when it comes to air travel. A small, largely wealthy or corporate funded, cabal are disproportionately using air travel. The democratisation of air travel with low cost airlines, has been transformative in opening the world up to lower incomes. We shouldn’t be saying, “its got to get expensive for the planets sake so you can’t have it, only the rich”. There should be a sliding scale whereby the more air miles you rack up the higher the percentage of carbon tax you pay is.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
No.
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Then what is it about? I came to that conclusion from:

He said that a growing mental health problem was posing a threat to staff and customers and making it difficult for Starbucks employees to manage its stores with the current policy in place.
"We have to harden our stores and provide safety for our people," the Times quoted Schultz as saying at the conference. "I don't know if we can keep our bathrooms open."
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RenegadeMonster said:
Then what is it about? I came to that conclusion from:
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When I was working at Starbucks over a decade ago, I was in a store in El Segundo, CA and we often had problems with homeless people around the store. It was really sad. There was one man who was clearly in need of mental health treatment who would come around and sit at a table outside and yell and then convulse his body around. It was very difficult for the yuppies to deal with.

Lately, I've been reading about how homeless people are OD'ing in Starbucks bathrooms. I think that's really the biggest issue and the reason that they are closing the bathroom. They've had lots of issues with this. Here's an article from 2018 about the issues:

www.bbc.com

Why Starbucks faces toilet trouble

The US chain is giving access to all after a race row but that could open the door to other issues.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

Starbucks is far from the only US business to keep its toilets under lock, wanting to avoid them being used as "public bathrooms".
Aside from vandalism concerns, public toilets need constant maintenance to stay functional, let alone hygienic.
For many businesses, asking customers to pay for goods before requesting toilet access helps cover maintenance costs.

More concerning than cleanliness is the prevalent drug use and prostitution in public facilities.

A 2013 study of New York City businesses found that 58% of store managers had seen drug use in their toilets.
Over the last year, US media have called public lavatories the new frontline of the opioid epidemic.
The city of Seattle spent $5m (£3.6m) on five self-cleaning toilets in 2004, only to close them four years later due to rampant drug use and prostitution.
One woman even told the New York Times that she used to smoke crack cocaine in the toilets but stopped because they were too "disgusting".
But for those without a home, public facilities are often the only ones they have access to.
 
nolalady said:
When I was working at Starbucks over a decade ago, I was in a store in El Segundo, CA and we often had problems with homeless people around the store. It was really sad. There was one man who was clearly in need of mental health treatment who would come around and sit at a table outside and yell and then convulse his body around. It was very difficult for the yuppies to deal with.

Lately, I've been reading about how homeless people are OD'ing in Starbucks bathrooms. I think that's really the biggest issue and the reason that they are closing the bathroom. They've had lots of issues with this. Here's an article from 2018 about the issues:

www.bbc.com

Why Starbucks faces toilet trouble

The US chain is giving access to all after a race row but that could open the door to other issues.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

Starbucks is far from the only US business to keep its toilets under lock, wanting to avoid them being used as "public bathrooms".
Aside from vandalism concerns, public toilets need constant maintenance to stay functional, let alone hygienic.
For many businesses, asking customers to pay for goods before requesting toilet access helps cover maintenance costs.

More concerning than cleanliness is the prevalent drug use and prostitution in public facilities.

A 2013 study of New York City businesses found that 58% of store managers had seen drug use in their toilets.
Over the last year, US media have called public lavatories the new frontline of the opioid epidemic.
The city of Seattle spent $5m (£3.6m) on five self-cleaning toilets in 2004, only to close them four years later due to rampant drug use and prostitution.
One woman even told the New York Times that she used to smoke crack cocaine in the toilets but stopped because they were too "disgusting".
But for those without a home, public facilities are often the only ones they have access to.
Click to expand...
Unless we build and maintain public bathrooms, or better yet housing for the unhoused and mental health services for all, then I think places open to the public need to be required to allow all to use the bathrooms. Otherwise where are these folks supposed to go? This is literally the least we can do for them as a society. And since it's a problem, then corporations should pressure the government to support better policies instead of fighting to just let them discriminate more.

Sorry for my rant.
 
Hemotep said:
Unless we build and maintain public bathrooms, or better yet housing for the unhoused and mental health services for all, then I think places open to the public need to be required to allow all to use the bathrooms. Otherwise where are these folks supposed to go? This is literally the least we can do for them as a society. And since it's a problem, then corporations should pressure the government to support better policies instead of fighting to just let them discriminate more.

Sorry for my rant.
Click to expand...
There's a deep individualist, scarity-focused mindset to America that makes this so impossible. The unhoused need access to a restroom and because we find that messy or unpleasant we further restrict access to such spaces; the same justification keeps us from shoring up public transit or expanding parks. It's so reminiscent of the thinking behind "if people are getting shot, we just need more guns," and "why should I pay off your student loan?" The very ways we react to our troubles just increase them manifold.
 
Hemotep said:
Unless we build and maintain public bathrooms, or better yet housing for the unhoused and mental health services for all, then I think places open to the public need to be required to allow all to use the bathrooms. Otherwise where are these folks supposed to go? This is literally the least we can do for them as a society. And since it's a problem, then corporations should pressure the government to support better policies instead of fighting to just let them discriminate more.

Sorry for my rant.
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Oh, I totally agree.
We are seeing diseases like trench foot--which we thought we had basically eliminated in the modern era--in homeless populations because there are so few facilities for them and there is also a big rat problem. This is just the basics of public health. We are seeing more diseases being spread and we are seeing a re-emergence of diseases that we thought we had eliminated because we cannot keep a basic standard of hygiene across our populace. This is a bad omen for the future.
 
www.insider.com

A gas station in California 'turned into a circus' after glitch only charged people 69 cents a gallon amid high prices

"I've never seen gas this price in my lifetime, could you imagine that?" Darryl Surita told CBS 13. "This is history right here."
www.insider.com www.insider.com

Not a single person questioned the price to the gas station attendant. They all just called their friends and family to come get gas ASAP.

If a low gas price can turn a gas station into a circus, we for sure know the economy is not in a good place and people are hurting.
 
The GOP had more than one committee and 4+ years of investigation into Bengazi. Kevin McCarthy even said publicly that the purpose of one of the investigation was to ruin Hillary Clinton. So it's save to say the committees and investigations into Hillary Clinton over Bengazi was politically motivated.

Now we have the January 6th committee about an insurrection incited by former president Trump and Republicans / Fox News / Tucker Carson are spreading propaganda that it is purely political in nature. And the fact that it was a year and a half ago and the democrats are still trying to dig it up and continue the investigation along shows how desperate they are.

Fox News was the only Media Outlet last week to not have live coverage of the hearing. Why? Because they said there was no insurrection, just a minor protest that the democrats are blowing out of portion. And that it happened a year and a half ago and that there is no need to go on and on about it when it's based on lies.

So, apparently it's unacceptable for the democrats to investigate an insurrection and have that investigation take more than a year. But yeah, it's perfectly fine try to ruin Hillary Clinton and spend more than 4 years trying to do just that.
 
2 Bad rulings from the SCOTUS this morning.

1st, the court ruled that illegal immigrants can be held without bonds for up to 6 months. What the constitution says was dodged because illegal immigrants "are not citizens" and therefor only federal statues apply in the ruling. Under federal statues illegal immigrants can be held for 6 months without bond.

The court basically said, there is nothing to challenge the law on and as written holding illegal immigrants for 6 months without bond is legal.

2, In a capital murder / death penalty case, the Texas courts defied an earlier ruling by the SCOTUS. Previously the SCOTUS kicked the case back to the lower court to review evidence that was not brought up in trial previously that is relevant to the case. Without oral arguments, the Texas courts then rejected the new evidence as being permissible and let the conviction stand.

The current SCOTUS basically ruled that cases about whether a defendant had adequate legal counsel is not for them to decide. They ruled on this earlier this year saying such cases are a waste of time for federal courts.

The liberal justices are outraged because they said the Texas courts were defiant of the SCOTUS previous ruling

In her lengthy, 25-page dissent, Sotomayor said that “Andrus’ case cries out for intervention, and it is particularly vital that this Court act when necessary to protect against defiance of its precedents.”
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I wasn't sure where to post this; I'm shaken and sad. This young man and his family were long-time friends of ours. His mom is an art teacher at a nearby high school, and is the opposite of him and his awful mission.

www.mcall.com

National hate group monitor unmasks a Lehigh Valley-area publishing company peddling Nazi and fascist literature

Since 2020, Montgomery County has been home to an internet-based publishing house that has an unremarkable name — Antelope Hill — and three owners who have gone to great lengths to keep…
www.mcall.com www.mcall.com

He was a vocal Trump supporter during the last election cycle, at least since 2016. He pissed off a lot of his close friends and mentors, mostly because he was raised around gay people and mixed race people. He became radicalized during his college years at Penn State.

His wife and he are so-called Christians, they had a church wedding, wouldn't live together until they were married, she has a cross tattooed on her back... horrible racist scumbags, these folks.

If there was someone with red flags that you wouldn't be surprised to see in the national news for being part of something even more awful, this is him. I'm glad these reporters dug up this info and made it known, but I am so sad to learn that we have known him since he was a baby. I read Christmas stories to him & the other kids every Christmas eve. I went to his Eagle Scout ceremony. In fact, I have contacted a friend who sits on Eagle Scout review boards and he's going up the line to see if Vinnie can be stripped of his Eagle award.



www.splcenter.org

White Nationalist Book Publishers Revealed

Hatewatch has identified three previously anonymous principals in the publishing company Antelope Hill Publishing, which specializes in translating historical works by Nazis, fascists and ultranationalists, and original works by contemporary white nationalists, neo-fascists and others on the far...
www.splcenter.org www.splcenter.org
 
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