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Peter Thiel Is Joining Donald Trump's Transition Team (theverge.com)
Peter Thiel's time spent campaigning for Donald Trump during the election season has paid off. According to a statement released today, Donald Trump has named Thiel to the executive committee of his presidential transition team. The Verge reports: Thiel, who donated $1.25 million to Trump's campaign late in the election cycle, mostly stood alone among colleagues in his support for Trump, who was publicly disdained in the Valley. Thiel's support came at a cost to businesses like startup accelerator Y Combinator, which soon attracted negative publicity for having Thiel as a part-time adviser. Thiel also brought criticism to Facebook, where he is a board member, although Mark Zuckerberg defended his place at the company. Thiel further angered First Amendment supporters by bankrolling the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that brought down Gawker. Thiel said before the election that he would find some way of working with the Trump administration, and although his final role is unclear, his appointment to Trump's executive committee signals the relationship will indeed continue.
he reaps the rewards.
A little conflict of interest here with his company Palantir Technologies and its half a billion dollars in defense contracts.
"Thiel further angered First Amendment supporters by bankrolling the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that brought down Gawker"
I'm pretty sure the only people who felt angered at this as a first amendment issue were the folks at Gawker.
Everyone else was pretty happy to see the Silicon Valley Version of TMZ (Thirty Mile Zone) go away, and quit outing the sexual orientation of businessmen whose only possible reason for being considered "public persons" was having been promoted as such by Gawker in the first place.
Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan: I personally cheered for the verdict in this case, and am glad Thiel backed it.
Trump chose his vice-president to lead his transition team.
This is a guy who, as governor of Indiana, when facing a breakout of AIDS in the rural community due to drug use, chose "prayer" as his only solution.
This is a guy who signed a bill with a government mandate that families hold funerals for miscarried or aborted fetuses.
This is a guy who as governor, instructed law enforcement to investigate women who miscarried to make sure they weren't aborting their fetuses.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's the Vice President
Sorry he wasn't your pick but the electorate didn't have a problem with him.
Good. I want the Republicans to go all in: have Roe v. Wade overturned, ban abortion, eliminate the fillibuster, repeal the ACA, lower taxes on the top earners while shifting the tax burdern to the lower and middle classes, have gay marriage overturned, everything. Make things as painful as possible for as many people as possible. Most people, it seems, only respond to pain; make them feel it.
Isn't it strange how the people who scream "small government" and "freedom" go out and employ extra people just so that they can poke their noses into the most private places.
I can't wait to watch the intellectual contortions you put yourself through as you and your fellow Trump supporters being to realize what it is you actually elected.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
mandate that families hold funerals for miscarried or aborted fetuses
This was so crazy that I had to look it up. Turns out "hold a funeral" is "dispose of remains properly" -- the bill required that fetal remains be either interred or incinerated. Generally speaking that would be the responsibility of the healthcare facility in custody of the remains.
Tell me straight, is "require families to hold a funeral" truly the most accurate and reasonable way you could come up with to indicate the nature of the bill, or is it a purposeful deception?
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
You know whats sad - most "conservatives" I know would still manage to find a way to blame it on the democrats.
Thiel further angered First Amendment supporters by bankrolling the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that brought down Gawker.
I didn't realize publishing private sextapes and ignoring orders from judges was a first amendment issue, but hacked nudes were a completely different, terrible thing to do.
http://i.imgur.com/CQ5qgvu.jpg
Oh, my bad, that was the other side's policy. I got confused there for a second.
Do you mean the "furniture for pardon" program implemented during the Clinton presidency? Or the more popular "cash for pardon", also implemented by Clinton? Or maybe the more recent "donate to the Clinton Foundation to meet the secretary of state" program? There's also the classic "sell uranium to the Russians as long as they contribute to the Clinton Foundation" program.
You'll have to be more specific.
lucm, indeed.
Homophobic? Isn't Peter Theil gay?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Oh, the irony. A far leftist, suddenly concerned with what's happening in flyover territory. Funny how there's such concern in the last 72 hours, when, before, all you had was laughter and abuse. Oh wait, that's all you have now, too. Nothing but blistering abuse for the ignorant proles who are too stupid to follow your leftist enlightened ways. Here's a video you need to watch. It concerns why you lost, and will continue to lose in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The hiring of the *homophobic bigot* Peter Thiel just goes to show how awful they are.
He's also sexist, since he won't have sex with women.
lucm, indeed.
Good. I want the Republicans to go all in
Lots of liberals said the same thing back in 1980 when a B-movie actor was elected president.
He was re-elected in 1984 with one of the biggest landslides in history.
Over the past year, many people have underestimated Donald Trump ... "he will flame out before the Iowa Caucus", "he can't survive Super Tuesday", "he can't win over moderate Republicans in the upper midwest", "he is leading the Republican Party into the wilderness", "he doesn't stand a chance against Hillary". So far, they have all been wrong.
mandate that families hold funerals for miscarried or aborted fetuses
This was so crazy that I had to look it up. Turns out "hold a funeral" is "dispose of remains properly" -- the bill required that fetal remains be either interred or incinerated. Generally speaking that would be the responsibility of the healthcare facility in custody of the remains.
Tell me straight, is "require families to hold a funeral" truly the most accurate and reasonable way you could come up with to indicate the nature of the bill, or is it a purposeful deception?
This is what happens when you believe what you read at Media Matters. In this case, MM was blindly copying from Esquire:
http://mediamatters.org/resear...
Do you have ESP?
I've heard that TPP and TTIP are already going through their death throes thanks to Trump.
You are incorrect.
TPP is dead.
Donald Trump’s victory in Tuesday’s presidential election has prompted President Barack Obama to abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, the Wall Street Journal reported late Friday.
According to the Journal, the White House had hoped to push the deal forward in the lame-duck session of Congress, assuming Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had won the election. Her loss has already changed the political landscape:
Also of note since Trump won: Canada has said it's willing to renegotiate NAFTA, Mexico said it's willing to renegotiate NAFTA, stock market has hit new highs, money previously allocated by the government for the purpose of building the wall has been found, and two of Trumps scandals (the underage rape, and the muslim hajib thing) were found out as complete fabrications.
I'm waiting to hear the liberals on Slashdot spin the death of TPP as a bad thing because it was due to Trump.
This kind of unhinged nonsense just confirms Trump's election was the right thing for the country.
Maybe if you believe the media and the monster they declare Trump to be.
How many GOP presidential candidates, or candidates from either party, have taken pictures such as this?
http://www.inquisitr.com/3702676/donald-trump-surprise-president-elect-supports-lgbt-community-holds-rainbow-flag-at-colorado-rally-lgbt-for-trump/
Trump has shown over the last 2 years that he has a backbone of steel. I wasn't expecting that from him but the man is tough as they come, and as soon as the campaign was over he started showing his true leadership.
Of course we won't hear about it on TV or in the newspapers because the liberal media will spend their time in FUD mode. At first it was "the markets are gonna crash because Trump" until the next day the markets open on an uptick, then it was all about the "massive demonstrations against Trump" of 700 people in NYC. The media are even more useless when it's a Republican administration than when they get their propaganda straight from Obama press secretary.
lucm, indeed.
Trump will see the break up of the US in ways the Southern Confederates could only dream about.
You mean when the Democrats were fighting to keep slaves and the Republicans freed them?
lucm, indeed.
Pence is Trump's impeachment insurance.
Trump's the first republican to hold a pride flag on stage. http://m.washingtontimes.com/n...
On Sunday, at a rally in Colorado, Mr. Trump proudly held up a rainbow flag with the words “LGBT for Trump” written on it to a cheering crowd of thousands. It was an historic moment for gay equality and the Party of Lincoln as the 2016 GOP nominee for President of the United States held high the flag for gay equality. No other Republican Presidential nominee in history has embraced the LGBT community in such a loud and proud way.
He's also said trans could use what ever bathroom they wanted and Caitlyn Jenner took Trump up on bathroom offer. http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/28/...
How exactly was that different from the other candidate? I'm shocked she didn't throw Bill under the bus in her run at the position.
How about the $750,000 speech Bill Clinton gave for Ericsson 9 days before telecom equipment was left off a list of items prohibited by Iran sanctions. Just a coincidence probably.
I've been hearing a lot of talk about "Give Trump a chance", and "let's judge him when he gets to office" by people who voted against him, but are practical enough to want a good leader.
However, this seems to be a pattern with Trump - using donors or people who already agree with him in key positions and advisors. His economic team consists of big donors, and discredited hacks like Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow (this is non-partisan; even economic advisors of previous republicans presidents don't agree with Moore). He takes an climate-change skeptic (Myron Ebell) to lead the EPA transition.
Yet, I haven't heard a peep from most people who supported Trump about this. The "blue collar" crowd who supported him was about people sick of "Establishment politics", and instead wanted someone "looking out for the working class". Trump's isolationist and trade-war leaning policies, and embrace of supply-side economics have a proven record of hurting workers. Together with clear cronyism (to be fair, this was obvious before the election), I'm surprised that the "blue collar" crowd isn't even slightly upset.
Trump's supporters seem to still be in the post-game high - "Our team won!"; are they going to hold him to his (crazy) campaign promises? Are they going to expect him to loosen libel laws, build a wall, bring back sweatshop factory jobs? A co-worker remarked "Trump's victory speech was a step towards healing", instead of realizing that the stirred up crazy is still out there; he doesn't get credit for not being as crazy enough to follow through on his campaign promises.
Also, since when does anyone care who is on the transition team? The transition team disappears in a few weeks. They don't make policy.
Try not to wet your pants every day between now and the inauguration.
The law in case requires treatment of what is nothing but medical waste as if it were a dead body.
Throughout the law in case, legislators explicitly removed ANY limitation of gestation time or any choice from the pregnant women on the matter - making it a law that 1-week, 2-week or 20-week abortion MUST be treated the same as a body of a grown human being.
It MUST be issued a burial transit permit and it MUST be either buried in a graveyard (i.e. interred) or cremated - at the expense of the clinic or the parent(s).
It cannot be disposed of as what it is - medical waste. As was the case prior to that law.
Furthermore, law requires informing the parent(s) of the "fetus" about "counseling that may be available concerning the death of the miscarried fetus".
Which is treating a removed cyst as if it is a dead human. And if the human is dead due to a surgery, that means someone killed it.
I.e. Abortion is murder.
Also, parent(s) are required to sign off on the "final disposition of the miscarried fetus" - i.e. the burial.
Thus, the law DOES require families to hold funerals (as only licensed funeral facilities may conduct burials of human bodies) - if they chose not to have the burial of the "fetus" taken care of by the clinic.
In which case, the clinic must bare the costs of the procedure - IF they can even find someone willing to do the "interment or cremation".
Cause while on one side there is an active campaign against anything abortion related in that state, on the other there is no money in it for the funeral homes.
For either of those reasons, they tend to refuse to provide burial services to clinics.
"We're all figuring it out," said Patti Stauffer, the vice president of policy at Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky. So far, she hasn't had much luck finding potential funeral homes and cemeteries - a lot of the businesses she's called have told her no. "It's not like we have hundreds of people that are interested in working with us," she said.
That doesn't mean implementing the law won't be logistically challenging, though. "There's going to be a lot of man hours involved," said Curtis Rostad, the executive director of the Indiana Funeral Directors Association. "I think a lot of funeral homes are going to be doing a lot of man hours to do this, for not a lot of income."
Which in practice leaves clinics with a single solution - to shift the burden of the burial of the "fetus" onto the patient.
"Fetus" must be treated as a dead body...
Clinics can't find a business partner to do it for them...
But a patient can simply walk into a funeral home with their burial transit permit and their bag of medical waste and have the "fetus" interred or cremated. Yay!
I.e. Either the parent(s) must take the "body" to a funeral home and have it buried at their own expense - OR the clinics will be forced to have parents take the body to a funeral home and have it buried at their own expense.
Or clinics can simply close. That's an option too.
Just like coat hangers and falling off a stool are an option.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Keystone was shut down because it was primarily a way for Canada to ship oil to China. It's of very, very limited use to the United States while presenting significant risks (oil pipelines break all the time because it's cheaper to let 'em break than to maintain them since the tax payer cleans up the spills).
Coal burning isn't a big deal because we regulated the fuck out of it. It's not profitable when they coal burners can't externalize their costs by dumping crap into the air and water. That's what shut down coal burning.
He won't gas jews, but I am worried about my daughter's access to reproductive services. She's got some fairly serious congenital health issues that might someday require an abortion of a non-viable fetus to save her life. This is a surprisingly common occurrence that Mike Pence believes his God forbid's. If you think I'm speaking hyperbole then you don't know the horror of child birth left in God's hands. Educate yourself.
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but not necessarily unhinged. Pence is on the extreme right. He's intensely religious and believes his religion dictates his actions.
The thing that frightens me about Christians more than most religions is that their God punishes _them_ for _my_ sins. Think about Sodom & Gomorrah or the Floods. Think about how many baby's God killed. Sure, they're with God now, but they're still dead.
To many Christians who take the bible literally my sinning represents an existent threat to them. Not just their "way of life" but their actual lives. This makes Christianity powerful, because there is a powerful incentive to spread the faith by any means necessary. It's one of the reasons it's as successful as it is. But if your a non-believer and you notice it then it's downright terrifying...
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I have faith in America for that exact reason. Reagan was an idiot who was going to start a nuclear WW3. W was going to impose a theocracy. Trump's not even inaugurated yet. Let's calm down, be vigilant, and see what happens.
You're willfully missing the point.
Clinton is questionable as hell, and that is why she wasn't elected.
Trump promised (or technically implied so, maybe there is a literal swamp he'll be draining somewhere) to clean things up. Now, he is putting people into government that were throwing money at him. Sure, they're a transition team and all that, but so much for a clean break. Screaming Clinton this, Clinton that doesn't make Trumps hypocrisy any better.
I take it you haven't seen the so-called Pied Piper memo?
It wasn't Daddy's money and influence propelling Trump over the past year, it was Hillary's. As disturbing as that revelation was to me, I can only imagine how Trump took it. He must feel like the victim of the world's most elaborate troll.
Humans are sadly very tribal so the Trump supporters are going to be unwilling to admit he's not what they wanted him to be. One common denial tactic you'll see is a redirection where someone points out that Trump or his people do something bad, is to point out a time that the other team, Secretary Clinton in particular, did something similar. To them that justifies it in the sense "We are still in the right because the other guy would have been even worse." It is a way to deflect acknowledging criticism.
You saw the same thing with supporters of President Obama. When he was criticized for things that went against campaign promises, such as offering government transparency, supporters inevitable dredged up President Bush. Basically since President Bush had done something they would argue was worse, that would excuse what President Obama did.
Same shit, different side. Expect to see plenty of it as there is essentially no way at all that Trump can keep most of his promises. Many that see them selves as on that "team" won't want to acknowledge criticism as valid, so they'll deny it when they can, or use redirection like this when they can't.
No, no, no, We have a huge problem with him. Hillary was just EVEN FUCKING WORSE.
we just won't have to pay for her abortions if she chooses to have them.
Then why are my tax dollars being used for drug treatment programs for people who chose to use drugs? No one forced them to shoot heroin, snort cocaine or smoke weed. Let them pay for it themselves.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Clinton is questionable as hell, and that is why she wasn't elected.
No not really. She seems no more questionable than many, many other politicians, certainly less so than Trump. And bear in mind that the Republicans have had it out for her for decades. Everything with a sniff of dirt has been dragged out in public and pounded on. Given that level of scrutiny, few people would look as clean as a whistle.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Because it is not about junkies, it is about crime prevention. Far better and cheaper if a junkie in a need of the next fix won't have to rob and maybe kill someone to get the money.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Because it is not about junkies, it is about crime prevention.
So then, war on drugs?
Far better and cheaper if a junkie in a need of the next fix won't have to rob and maybe kill someone to get the money.
Far better and cheaper to let them kill themselves than waste money on people who are smarter than all the experts and ignore the Mt. Everest-sized evidence about the dangers of drug use.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
So then, war on drugs?
It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Remember that at all times. They're not going after the big pharma drugs that kill people. If truth be told, they're not really going after the illegal drugs that kill people, either. It's just profitable theater.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I love you people. You're every bit as entertaining as the idiots who ran around screaming about Obama when he was elected. Have a little faith in the system, it's worked for over two centuries. Obama shoved bad shit through when first elected and the backlash was he had to work with a Republican majority in Congress. If Trump starts going all right wing he'll wind up drowning in Democrats. I expect to see him undo the worst of Obama's policies and then hopefully he'll sit down with ALL of Congress and try to work on things. If not, he'll end up in a war with the other side just like Obama.
> There's also a religious ideology. This one opposes abortion, but it also opposes contraception - something seen as an enabler of sinful fornication. From the religious perspective
Specifically, that's the old-school CATHOLIC view. Most religious people don't hold that view, and the Pope himself is moving toward a more moderate position.
> "If they're so anti-abortion, why not work on ways to make it much less needed by offering more birth control and pre-natal healthcare to women?"
We do, and we get even more "bang for the buck" helping women who are already pregnant not just with traditional "pre-natal care" (aka doctors), but a whole range of services helpful to someone who is worried about their ability to have and raise a child. The center my wife and I volunteer at provides classes covering everything from pre-natal nutrition and exercise through what to do when your baby won't stop crying, and where to go next to get support in raising a school-age child. We provide diapers, toys, and a "mom's night" when we have childcare and the new moms can get a break. Almost everyone who volunteers there would be considered "religious", though that term isn't my favorite.
Anyway, a lot of us take Matthew 25:40 (and Matthew 25:35-40) seriously, and a there are many ways to "love your neighbor" when your neighbor is a pregnant teenager who is scared and broke.
Your daughter's "reproductive rights" will be fine
Unless you live in Texas (down to one operating abortion clinic, last I heard) or anywhere else in the country that feels as though the rights of cells outweighs the rights of a living breathing human being.
You kid yourself if you don't think this particular issue is going to come up in an administration that is 100% controlled by the Republicans. That isn't a Trump bash or a poke at the republicans. It is an observation based on facts stated by those particular people. Bible Belt Republicans were licking their chops, looking at Roe v Wade as soon as the election results started coming in.
Within 24 hours of being the confirmed President Elect the leaders of both Canada and Mexico willingly made it public that they are willing to renegotiate NAFTA. US Stocks have soared with the same, more gains than at any other time in history.
Prior to the election 3 of 4 Americans said that the Country was headed in the _WRONG_ direction. 4 out of 5 Americans said that our Justice system was broken. In California, a State where the Democratic candidate won and voter intimidation is high only 3 out of 5 voters voted for the Democratic candidate. US wide, 2 out of 3 Hispanic/Latinos, Black Americans, Asian Americans voted for the Democratic candidate, and women overall barely broke 50% in voting for the Democratic candidate.
Instead of silencing opinions you dislike and intimidating voters, look at what happened in the Democratic Party! YOU SHOULD BE PISSED OFF AT YOUR PARTY! Massive amounts of corruption and collusion with media to prop up a candidate that nobody really wanted to lead the party! Outright lies about popularity and fake polls giving false hope that that same candidate would win. Right up to election day Democrats were lied to by the people leading them. When you have to bring out free concerts by huge names and have the sitting President campaign several times a day you should have known that it was looking much worse than they were telling you!
And if your party lied to you about Clinton what on Earth gives you any faith that what they were saying about Trump was true? MSM has a whopping 6% trust rating for a good damn reason!
As a Constitutional Conservative I am happy to watch the party continue to collapse. Democrats are losing more and more support every day these pathetic protests occur. Just like the NFL who has allowed anti-Americanism to become showcased, more and more people will become fed up with the lack of respect you have for others.
I am boycotting any MSM station that plays lip service to these "protesters", and recommend that all people do the same. I'm not impressed by fake protests full of paid protesters and supported by pure propaganda. Democrats need to get their shit together and put this in check if they ever want to win another election. Americans tend to support those being oppressed, and the Democrats are oppressing their own.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/11/...
Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement, first made her self-described "confession" in a Washington Post column on Thursday. Since it published, she told Costello, she has received a torrent of abuse on social media. It's a symptom, Nomani insisted, of an increasingly hostile "liberal honor brigade."
And that is what the left doesn't understand... and it is one of the reasons Clinton lost...
Liberals, self-proclaimed "tolerant" people, attack anyone who doesn't hold their values.
Big pharma used. Comment can be ignored.
But then you didn't, so why did you continue? Answer, you know that's not a valid reason to stop. Snarky bullshit used. What's your point?
"Big pharma" is responsible for keeping billions of people alive.
And medical misprescription is one of the largest killers in America, maybe the largest depending on who you ask but definitely in the top five. One hand giveth...
It was "big pharma" who finally wiped out small pox and rinderpest.
Today, virtually all of the basic research is done at universities, partially with public money. Big Pharma then goes through certification processes for which they have lobbied and which are shady as fuck, and spends the majority of their money advertising.
"Big pharma" doesn't deliberately make drugs to kill people.
They deliberately sell drugs which they know to be inferior in order to make a profit. There's a fine line between those two things; I agree they're not identical, but in both cases people are preventably dying for profit.
That is why their drugs undergo years of testing and trials to make sure, to the largest degree possible, their drugs don't kill someone.
The bar to bring a new drug to market is set very high, which helps discourage new players from even entering their damned dirty game. But the bar to bring a derivative of an old drug is much lower; under FDA rules you don't have to prove that it is even as efficacious as the drug it's replacing. You only need to prove that it doesn't kill notably more people than the old version, and bingo! Approval. Then you tap that massive advertising budget (larger than testing and R&D combined) to "warn everyone" about the "dangers" of your old drug. Maybe you even get the FDA to announce that they're investigating it, perhaps to take it off the market. Patients who aren't even qualified to read the PDR, let alone to sniff out bullshit in what they find there, are going to go to their doctors and demand they not get the old drug, because advertising works. And they're not going to do any research first, either.
It's just profitable theater.
Fine, then stop using every drug "big pharma" makes.
Because I am not an idiot, I am not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am also not going to be dumb enough to endorse a completely corrupt system. We can develop new drugs, vaccines, and therapies without Big Pharma even existing. The majority of research already happens outside of their labs. The rest of it can, as well.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Your daughter's "reproductive rights" will be fine, we just won't have to pay for her abortions if she chooses to have them.
The Hyde amendment makes it illegal to spend federal money on abortion so that has not been a problem since 1976. Allowing women the option is becoming more of a problem.
Yes, that was a part of my point. The other part was that helping drug users lowers the amount of muggings and burglaries, which is a good thing.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap