Meathead

lol his other car has a licence 'bythepuzzi' edit: crap you beat me to it

does anybody know the age of the girls who were refused? i seem to recall they were 14 but i cant find the reference right now im asking bc of this: There was also the question of why any gate agent saw little girls in leggings as reason enough to keep them from flying. "I'd be interested in knowing how often they do this for little boys," Watts told the Daily News in an interview. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/united-banned-girls-leggings-flight-article-1.3010391 "little girls". this is another thing that we do, we take young adults and characterize them as little children to play on ppls sympathy. oh those poor fourteen year old little girls, with boobs and possibly camel toes peeking out of those leggings. poor little girls treyvon martin was old enough to be robbing people, making purple drank, and beating ppl savagely for doing something he didnt like, but was portrayed as a sweet little kid. remember how they used his picture from many years ago to pretend he wasnt a brawny football playing seventeen year old with an anger and behavior problem

United Airlines under fire for barring teens from flight who were wearing leggings United Airlines came under fire Sunday after two teenage girls were barred by a gate attendant from boarding a flight from Denver to Minneapolis because they were wearing leggings. The girls, whose ages were not specified, were not allowed onto the morning flight because they were traveling under an employee travel pass that includes a specific dress code, airline spokesman Jonathan Guerin said. Activist Shannon Watts of Denver tweeted that she witnessed Sunday's events and questioned United's decision to police women's clothing. Watts said the girl's father was allowed to board while wearing shorts and called the airline's policy sexist. http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/03/27/united-airlines-under-fire-for-barring-teens-from-flight-who-were-wearing-leggings.html After Barring Girls for Leggings, United Airlines Defends Decision United Airlines barred two teenage girls from boarding a flight on Sunday morning and required a child to change into a dress after a gate agent decided the leggings they were wearing were inappropriate. That set off waves of anger on social media, with users criticizing what they called an intrusive, sexist policy, but the airline maintained its support for the gate agent’s decision. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/us/united-airlines-leggings.html Celebs blast United for 'terrible' dress code Cue the Twitter outrage from celebrities who deemed that policy sexist, outdated and unfair. (United says that ticketed passengers, however, are allowed to wear leggings on flights.) Oscar winner Patricia Arquette tweeted at the airline, saying, "This is terrible," and asking, "Do you have a secondary fail safe from a supervisor to make these calls?" United's reply didn't earn them many fans: "Casual attire is allowed as long as it looks neat and is in good taste for the local environment." Supermodel Chrissy Teigen chimed in, "I have flown united before with literally no pants on. Just a top as a dress. Next time I will wear only jeans and a scarf." Stars including LeVar Burton and Keegan Allen also tweeted directly to United, complaining that the attire rules are unjust, and Seth Rogen sarcastically tweeted that United is "Cool, right?" because the airline is just "trying to police the attire of the daughters of our employees!" http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2017/03/26/celebrities-react-to-united-leggings-dress-code/99670416/ this is the kind of stuff that drives me nuts i dont give a crap about leggings, but i can certainly understand why a business would want appropriate dress for their employees and family taking advantage of the free flights they get. whether you like it or not, you are representing the company and should follow whatever rules they give you to take advantage of free flights. my brother in law is a commercial pilot and he says everyone knows full well what the requirements are before they board. if you dont like the company's dress code, either dont use that benefit or find another job and yet, even after all this information came out, we still have ppl losing their minds condemning the company as some kind of sexist monsters. as always, ppl are flying off the handle making all kinds of wild accusations with no accounting for the logic and reason of the situation do we even have the ability to think for ourselves anymore? do we have any discernment whatsoever? doesnt seem like it. seems like everything is sexist or racist at the drop of a hat, regardless of whatever reasonable policy there is or how valid an observation is. everything else is ignored just so we can mob up and point the finger and make frivolous claims of oppression by the man the most ridiculous has to be the celebrities 'speaking out'. yeah thats what we need, mega-pampered narcissists telling us how we all should think and react. yeah that will be helpful when the hell are we going to get over this ridiculous politically correct hyper-sensitivity. everybodys a victim in our current culture. except of course those awful white males

Plus it's ridiculous to believe that they will ever be able to pin this failure on the Democrats. No matter what anybody says, any current Administration owns everything that has to do with Health Care during their term. Partisans on both edges will buy into whatever blame gaming it's going on, but the majority of the country is going to rightfully view it as a failure of the current Administration, because it is

i think 9/11 was a major influence on that as well after the attacks everybody sort of went back to their roots in an attempt to find comfort and to assuage their suddenly roiling fear. for most americans that meant running back to conservatism. we saw this play out in the series of missteps taken by george junior that were based on nationalistic pride and the wide space that gave him to do what he wanted - and make mistakes it didnt take long for ppl to remember why they abandoned that superficial and extreme conservatism in the first place, and a massive shift back towards liberalism started and commenced through obamas terms. we see the destruction that whipsawing caused in the neofacist liberalism that infected our college campuses so now we are left with the holdouts on both sides, clutching desperately to their ideologies as they try to find comfort, and warring with anyone who challenges them bc they see it as an existential crisis its the legacy of extremism. and in a way its exactly what the extremists wanted

i read schumer there as doing a bit of posturing and post-victory gloating. im sure he realizes even a wounded president is still president, he cant expect don to just roll over. its still a republican presidency backed by a republican dominated congress, schumer cant dictate all the terms. it was sort of his opening salvo on the negotiations this is a little off-topic for this thread, and i dont know nearly as much about the nuts and bolts of health care reform like you do, but im curious to hear what you think would fix the biggest failure of the ACA right now in much of the middle class having coverage that is too expensive to use. i know a ton of ppl both directly and that ive read about that cant use their coverage bc their premiums and deductibles are so high and they dont get subsidies you also seem to not like the so called essential health benefits requirement, which to me seems highly important. without that wide baseline of services ppl wont get prescreening, they wont be covered for unexpected illnesses, and they will develop bigger and super expensive conditions down the road. sometimes that means ppl will have to pay for coverage they dont need (mammograms for males) but it seems to me that all generally evens out. plus it would be ridiculously complicated to try to provide all those things ala carte and ultimately wouldnt make it worth it when its overall effect on cost to an individual consumer would be minimal in the long run these essential benefits seemed like a huge sticking point that could derail dons attempts to negotiate with the dems if they decide to hold firm, which i think they will. it seems like it would turn off a lot of the republicans, and not just the hard right wingers like heritage and freedom caucus on top of that, they need to find ways to keep multiple insurance providers in every market to foster competition and make sure everybody has reasonable options i dont yet see how they can do all that, keep the subsidies and most of the 'new' health care taxes, address the middle class coverage deductible problem, and do tax reform and the expansion of the military at the same time. unless they just continue to expand the deficit which for obvious reasons seems like a nonstarter hes definitely a major narcissist, but hes also not really a republican, and that could work heavily in all our favor hes beholden to the republicans only as far as it benefits him, he can actually cross the aisle at any time bc hes not really aligned with either ideology. he can write off big chunks of the republicans he cant get to fall in line, like the ones that just derailed this piece of crap legislation n running his hatchet job businesses he didnt have to answer to anybody, and im sure hes not at all used to not getting his way. hes going to hear about his health care failure until it gets fixed. so hes going to be driven hard to do whatever it takes to get a reasonably working hc system in place and his best bet appears to be embracing a true bi-partisan approach. in this way, we use the dons own shortcomings in the country's favor, and if we're lucky it might finally break this entrenched partisan logjam thats been sabotaging our government and even our culture at large

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Sunday attacked conservative lawmakers for the failure of the Republican bill to replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law, as aides signaled a greater willingness to work with moderate Democrats on upcoming legislative battles from the budget and tax cuts to health care. “It’s time for the party to start governing,” Priebus said. “I think it’s time for our folks to come together, and I also think it’s time to potentially get a few moderate Democrats on board as well.” Trump faces decisions on whether to back administrative changes to fix Obamacare or undermine it as prices for insurance plans rise in many markets. “I don’t think the president is closing the door on anything,” Priebus said. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats stood ready to work with Trump to fix Obamacare if he is willing to drop attempts to repeal the law and not undermine it. He warned that Trump is destined to “lose again” on other parts of his agenda if he remains beholden to conservative Republicans. “If he changes, he could have a different presidency,” Schumer said. “But he’s going to have to tell the Freedom Caucus and the hard-right special wealthy interests who are dominating his presidency ... he can’t work with them, and we’ll certainly look at his proposals.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-attacks-conservative-lawmakers-over-health-bill/2017/03/26/f56eb11e-1226-11e7-bb16-269934184168_story.html?utm_term=.2cf1374de366 things could get real interesting real fast despite his posturing, don doesnt have the option of letting the ACA 'explode'. it doesnt matter how many times you call it 'Obamacare', its owned by whatever presidency is current. if its in bad shape at the end of his first term both he and republicans will lose. big time hes either got to try again with just the republicans, or he goes nuclear and enlists the dems to fix what we have and move on the only long-term option for successful health care reform is bi-partisan so hopefully he chooses that route. but thats going to leave a lot of blood on floor in the hallowed halls of congress. given how wretchedly poor our entire political process had been running the last decade, this could be a very good thing taking an unconventional approach and crossing over the deeply entrenched partisanship will be explosive. seems like its what we need. this could actually be dons comfort zone, and if anybody is going to be good at it it would be him. personally, i think its his only chance to avoid a failed presidency

when confronted with a bully you have two options you can exit, or turn the other cheek, and move on, which is usually the right option but that leaves the bullies in control of whatever space they are patrolling. so if you ever want to use that space you have to punch them in the head once in a while. its unfortunate but thats all bullies respond to if you dont plan to permanently ceed that space theres little option but to confront them once in a while i admit that i feel like im not doing a very good job all the time of picking my spots, but resistance to asshollery is a responsible endeavor ty. yeah i figured some kind of established contest thing like that was going on doesnt change the fact that this space is mostly controlled by a subset of abusive ass holes. and its pretty entrenched bc their leader has enough intelligence to avoid being full ass hole and contributes constructively. the others try to emulate him, without the intelligence, and just end up full abusive ass hole i accepted that from the start. and this was a poor choice of a place to make that point. still doesnt excuse their full on ass hole treatment of others on a routine basis i will try to pick my spots better but the point remains

oh i realize its futile but once in a while good ppl need to stand up and point out who the ass holes are political forums always draw the dumb, abusive and partisan. but if you ever want to accomplish anything real you have to occasionally remind everyone that being a dick for the sake of being a dick doesnt move the discussion forward i dont like most of the established posters here and they dont like me. thats par for the course in these environments. but you cant just let the ass holes go indefinitely without a push back or they will drive off quality posters

lmao. you guys are epic ass holes. lmao! is that all it takes? id just like to say thank god ppl like you are here to set the rules for everybody. what would be possibly do if we didnt know the parameters of how to be an epic ass hole? we all owe you a debt of gratitude. without you, ppl might make the mistake of being civil and honest. and what would this world be if we didnt have an abundance of total dicks to make everybody miserable fks like we have in this forum? look around and see what youve created and be proud

lindsey isnt quite the middle but in todays toxic hyper partisan environment hes certainly a major moderate. i love how he told the crowd heckling him that if they dont like him they dont have to voite for him but hes just going to keep doing what he believes in. nice thumb in the eye of the partisans there

Graham said he believed the U.S. House Republicans' failed attempt at replacing the Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare, was the best way for things to turn out. After a scheduled attempt to secure a vote Friday, House Speaker Paul Ryan and the GOP pulled the bill. "If the House had passed the bill that we were pushing in the House, I'm not so sure that it would have made things much better," Graham said. "I don’t think one party is going to be able to fix this by themselves, so here’s what I think should happen next. I think the president should reach out to Democrats, I should reach out to Democrats, and we should say 'let's get a shot at doing this together, because it ain’t working doing it by ourselves.'" http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/sen-lindsey-graham-fights-back-rowdy-town-hall-bring-it-n738521

ultimately it has to be bipartisan bc the parties always swap power and it will be a never ending build up/tear down cycle. the citizenry appears to finally be tiring of that pendulum screwing everything up every political cycle and its always destined to end up single payer in one form or another. we will end up with a baseline of hc run by the gubmint, something like medicare, and a drastically shrunk insurance industry supplying rider policies on top of that to improve care and coverage for those that can afford it. its not a mystery why all the plans end up looking similar, theres only so many ways to make that complexity work. you cant have a good system covering a maximum amount of the population without everyone participating, which means some form of single payer

idk whats going on with your special debate rules but im pretty sure i won

hot dog?

then when they played the redskins they could be the ketchup and mustard and the bills could be the weiner

ralph youre still a hero

admittedly i havent read all the posts yet but my swami instincts are telling me i will be in the serious minority saying i think the electoral college works exactly like they intended first, the EC is supposed to ensure that the candidates be responsible to the whole country, otherwise they would just campaign at the high-population areas and mainly represent only those voices in this case, we got a bad result. the pissed off white ppl across the heartland seethed in just enough states to deliver the victory - just as the EC was designed we can make legitimate points about the various things that stacked up in dons favor to bring us this disaster, some of them very unsavory. but he represented more cumulative EC votes than those in the urban areas dominated by clinton. im sure shes kicking herself for a lot of things, including not campaigning harder in some of those states. but the EC worked as designed it gave us what we asked for: a ѕhit president

he could go nuclear and work with the dems to fulfill his promise of retribution in a seriously aggressive donian manner nah forget it. that probably a wet dream

oh yes he definitely was he was working off the narrative of the baiters, most prominently BLM. that narrative paints america as systematically racist, and specifically white america. they assume this is still 1970 and act like we have that eras problems, when we dont white america isnt todays primary problem when it comes to race. the automatic assumptions made by blacks and enabling whites, as well as the widespread black racism against whites, is really where we are broken today this is just flat out true we took the broad brush that we rightfully took away from last cycles whitey and we have now given it to blackness and enabling whites. a broad brush is a broad brush is a broad brush we finally managed to get whitey to limp across the finish line, now the disease has sprung up on the other side if this was 1980 i would agree its not the data does not support the idea that todays law enforcement is universally biased against blacks. whatever pockets we do have remaining is not license to paint all cops with that biased brush yes it definitely is but thats not bc cops are biased against blacks. its bc cops are sometimes dicks and go too far as horrible as those instances were, the data says those were isolated incidents. we know similar incidents happened with white suspects but we dont have those videos and the public doesnt even really care even if we did whites getting mistreated by cops simply doesnt generate the clicks that black suspects do the bias is in us, not the cops

you are very generous to give them that one doesnt look to me like they pulled it bc they realized it was a mistake of health care legislation philosophy or process. they pulled it bc they didnt want to be embarrassed with a failed repeal effort i see this as still playing very small ball. but if you want to attribute that to some greater wisdom i guess we will just have to see where they go from here

absolutely true hugely unfortunately, also true

agreed this could and should actually be a very good thing for america. the ACA is doing both spectacularly well and spectacularly bad depending on which regions youre talking about. now maybe they will finally focus on fixing the areas that are broken there instead of this sick fantasy of a full repeal the funny thing is that the republicans would get credit for any fixes that made to the ACA so they really didnt have to go down that path at all. just get ppl the care and service they want and they will sing republicans praises. the dems would get still get some credit for starting it all, but really the republicans would own it a lot more than the dems at that point. its what they should have been doing in the first place

i dont think its the process holding that back. its total all-out culture war, nobody wanting to give any ground, more focused on settling old scores than actually doing something productive if anything is in a death spiral its logic and reason. we are deluged with out and out lies far more than we deal with facts and realities. the whole culture now is click based and everybody competes for their side to get the most clicks. its massive conflicts of groupthink we see it right here in this forum. its dominated by biased partisan narratives. there really is no actual discussion that leads to consensus outside of rigid partisan lines. its permanent gridlock

lmao. that really told him