Slashdot Mirror
New Bill Would Allow Employers To Demand Genetic Testing From Workers (businessinsider.com)
capedgirardeau quotes a report from Business Insider: A little-noticed bill moving through the U.S. Congress would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars, and would let employers see that genetic and other health information. Giving employers such power is now prohibited by U.S. law, including the 2008 genetic privacy and nondiscrimination law known as GINA. The new bill gets around that landmark law by stating explicitly that GINA and other protections do not apply when genetic tests are part of a "workplace wellness" program. The bill, HR 1313, was approved by a House committee on Wednesday, with all 22 Republicans supporting it and all 17 Democrats opposed. The 2008 genetic law prohibits a group health plan -- the kind employers have -- from asking, let alone requiring, someone to undergo a genetic test. It also prohibits that specifically for "underwriting purposes," which is where wellness programs come in. "Underwriting purposes" includes basing insurance deductibles, rebates, rewards, or other financial incentives on completing a health risk assessment or health screenings. In addition, any genetic information can be provided to the employer only in a de-identified, aggregated form, rather than in a way that reveals which individual has which genetic profile. There is a big exception, however: As long as employers make providing genetic information "voluntary," they can ask employees for it. Under the House bill, none of the protections for health and genetic information provided by GINA or the disabilities law would apply to workplace wellness programs as long as they complied with the ACA's very limited requirements for the programs. As a result, employers could demand that employees undergo genetic testing and health screenings.
Freedom.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I guess NASA was right after all.
but employers often give you discounts or money for an HSA if you do the program
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
If you decline to participate, they can boost your insurance premiums by 30%-50%.
Workplace wellness programs make some sense - but there's absolutely no need to involve genetic testing. Has Breitbart been telling them you can catch congenital ugliness from your co-workers or something?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
How much are they going to pay me for it?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
My mom doesn't need a bill for that. She is a grown woman and what she decides to do in the privacy of her home with one or more willing partners is neither my business, nor the governments.
The emails were a felony only in your imagination. If the Republicans keep pulling shit like this they will become even more irrelevant in reality than you imagine the other party is.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
I would be soooo tempted to bribe the lab tech (who probably doesn't give a shit) and give the lab a vial of my dog's blood .....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Important note: This bill came from the House of Representatives, not from the White House. So, Breitbart had nothing to do with it. Bills like this are why Trump was the Republican nominee rather than a more traditional Republican politician. Now whether Trump opposes this bill or not remains to be seen.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The linked article can't be read if an adblocker is active.
The current state of the law:
Employees who refuse to participate in an employer wellness program can be charged up to 50% more for employer-provided health insurance.
If genetic testing is part of the wellness program then employees have to voluntarily authorize the genetic test. If an employee participates in the wellness program but declines included genetic testing then they can't be penalized with the higher insurance premiums.
The new state of the law, if this bill passes:
Employees who refuse genetic testing that is part of a wellness program can be considered non-participants in the wellness program and be charged the higher insurance premiums.
The comment in the summary that the new bill would "...let employers see that genetic and other health information." is the current state of the law as it relates to wellness programs (Work wellness programs put employee privacy at risk). There is nothing in the new bill that suddenly decreases patient/employee privacy.
"Mandatory" wellness programs, themselves, were controversial and lacked privacy protections when the Democrats insisted everyone participate. They're no less controversial today as the Republicans expand those wellness programs with additional components.
So we will soon have Gattaca? https://www.themoviedb.org/mov...
Which obviously would NOT include racial markers given the extreme reactions of our society to anything "racist".
But given the high percentage of Aspies in the field... you're screwed.
Rank your job interviews by merit as always.
But what to do with all the failed average applicants who still demand full employment?
The genetic test result can then sort all applicants who have no skill but still have to be considered.
Finally a way to not have to consider a lot of applicants for a reason other than saying they are lack skills and further education at a top university has not helped.
A work force thats smart and healthy can be hired without the need to explain why all average applicants never got hired.
Their health results are private and all the smart, healthy applicants got to the interview.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
"In addition, any genetic information can be provided to the employer only in a de-identified, aggregated form, rather than in a way that reveals which individual has which genetic profile"
If you have been awake during any moments of the last 20 years, then you know that the likelyhood of this being violated is as certain as the Sun rising tomorrow.
Even without violating this, I can think of five ways to circumvent it.
Republicans might not have done much planning on the replacement of Obamacare over the last seven years, but they certainly didn't waste much time after the election before getting this in for their Sans-a-Belt buddies. Hard to say which party is worse, really.
...on their clothes. Pardon me if that was meat to be the joke.
Wages haven't kept up with the increase in the money supply that took place in 2010~. Minimum wage should be $50/hour, salaries should respectively go up 5x-6x.
corporate HR + insurance adjusters = the REAL death panels
(albeit indirectly)
...down the road...if this passes...
The eye gouging program is entirely voluntary.
Employees can qualify for not having premiums doubled by simply removing an eye. It's not our fault, but our fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value. And you'll still be able to see if you were responsible and maintained two healthy eyes prior to the program. It won't reduce our healthcare costs if you join the program, but it will reduce our payroll costs if you fail to qualify for the discount.
Rest assured that you can't be penalized under current law if the eyeball you submit for testing is defective in any way, but should the legal landscape change we may be forced to re-evaluate the policy.
Have a nice day
Nullius in verba
slavery is introduced again....
When will this shit finally end?
Keep voting GOP candidates in...
Sooner or later, give them enugh rope and they'll kill off their voters.
I can't wait to see republicans who lose their job due to "private" genetic testing who then vote republican's because they don't have jobs.
And the democrats are not nearly as bad. They are not as good as they could be but they are not even in the same league as the Republicans when it comes to being willing to let people just flat out suffer and die.
For god's sake, make abortion illegal so the republican golem will dissolve and we can stop destroying the country over the issue.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You were paying for people outside your shallow gene pool either way, that's what insurance is moron.
I was wondering about this so I googled it. Dems opposed mandatory wellness back in 2013. tranquilidad is full of it. Got modded up to +5 even.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So they're a felony for Pence then, is what you're saying.
And it's a much worse felony, presumeably, that President Trump communicates about governance related issues using his unsecured Android phone.
Hypocrisy of the highest order.
The whole email affair was a mountain made out of a mole hill to scam gullible people into voting for someone who wants f*cking corporations to have the right to demand genetic testing of employees if it will notch up their profit one notch.
F*ck people are stupid. Is there another planet with intelligent life?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The biggest problem with the US health insurance is the way it's tied to employment: it means that people end up in weird employment-based risk pools, that they lose health care when they lose their jobs, and that people don't get the same kind of tax breaks when insured on their own.
There are plenty of the proverbially "advanced nations" that have private health care instead of "single payer"; however, they usually have private health plans that aren't tied to employers. That's what Congress should fix, first by giving individuals the same kind of tax breaks as employers for health plans, and then by gradually phasing out employer-based health plans altogether.
8 years ago, the Democrats held the Presidency, both Houses and 57% of governorships. Yet here we are.
If you're looking for "lying, partisan piles of shit", give Ted Cruz & Paul Ryan (among others) a call and ask them what Cheeto-flavored jizz tasted like
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Perhaps if you truly dislike things like this bill
So, you think employers should be able to perform genetic testing on their employees? This is the party of "individual liberty?"
What a joke.
Individual liberty and smaller government. So they keep saying
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Fine, but at least my chosen party didn't just VOTE TO LET YOUR EMPLOYER FORCE YOU TO TAKE A GENETIC TEST SO YOU CAN BE DISCRIMINATED BASED ON THE GENES THAT MAKE YOU YOU.
I mean, fucking Christ man.
And yes, slashdot. I know it's like yelling. That's because I'm yelling here. It'd be nice if we weren't still stuck with the same terrible filters Rob wrote two decades ago, but I guess we're not.
Wrong. In the new economy, what one person receives without working for, another AI guided robot must work for without receiving, and one automated-system owner must receive a slightly smaller profit than the insane profit they would have received making lots of valuable things with almost no human employees to pay.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Ahh, blaming an enemy for his opponent's practices. If only the French were strong enough to defeat the Nazis, then we'd never have had world war II, so therefore France should pay for all of Germany's reparations. And then opposing a nutbag of conspiracy theories makes one partisan, which somehow ruins a republic, so you need to be partisan for my side so we're not partisan and lacking in integrity and somehow all of the problems in today's society will fix themselves without my dedicating an iota of thought.I love the acrobatic logic, truly.
Now, hmm. A moron of a president who doesn't know the first thing about politics, a chamber with a brand of conservatives dedicated to opposing the moderates in their own party, widespread differences in view with no interest in attempting any sort of reconciliation, occupying a number of incredibly unpopular views while making promises they know they can't keep, having lost the culture war 20 years ago and losing more each day, having virtually no sway with all of the increasing voter demographics, and being hopelessly out of touch with their own voters on topics such as healthcare, and uh, yeah. I am hugely afraid of all the stupid and damaging legislation that could be passed in the next 4 years. I am not at all worried they'll stay in power after that at the rate they're going, and if they keep shooting themselves in the foot by making policies that hurt their own voters the most, that might not even take four years.
The bigger question I have for you is, what about them makes you want to support them?
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
This "we own you" crap - wasn't there a civil war over managers with that sort of attitude?
"Under House rules, the Speaker schedules floor votes on pending legislation. The Hastert Rule says that the Speaker will not schedule a floor vote on any bill that does not have majority support within his or her party — EVEN IF THE MAJORITY OF THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE would vote to pass it"
So the speaker subverts the majority of the votes using his position to prevent votes on bills not supported by his party.
And now we have a President that Americans didn't vote for, they voted by clear majority for the other one.
Robert Mercer you suck as human being.
IMHO "employer-provided health care" should be a voucher up to a certain amount that the employer gives you to spend on any health insurance of your choice. That way it remains a purely financial transaction between you and the employer, while all personal health information remains between you and your insurer. Then there's no excuse for any health information being leaked to your employer. No entrapment that comes about when your employer is the source of your health insurance. If you lose or change your job, you can keep the health insurance - paid out of pocket or with vouchers from your new employer.
I was manager of a small business when we instituted employer-provided health care. The operating premise is that by combining your employees into an insurance pool, it stabilizes both the premiums paid into the pool (one person could quit their job, but it's highly unlikely all your employees will quit their jobs at the same time), as well as the payouts due to employees getting sick (one person can get sick, but it's highly unlikely all your employees will get sick at the same time). But a pool is a pool. Unless your employees are uncharacteristically healthy or unhealthy, there's no statistical difference between a pool of employees, and a pool of random people who bought their own health insurance (out of pocket or using vouchers from their employer).
So why isn't she being charged now that she's political roadkill?
No answer?
Maybe it wasn't just the political connections then but it just being something that was too trivial to go after for Rice, Powell and so many others before and including Clinton.
8 years ago, the Democrats held the Presidency, both Houses and 57% of governorships. Yet here we are.
This is part of the normal political pendulum. People become disillusioned with whatever party is in power because problems aren't being solved. So they vote the other guys in, and then slowly realize that the other party doesn't have any solutions either.
It's sort of true if they are pushing for an absolute monarchy - one individual with all the liberty.
The ACA was a tax based on the belief that everybody has a right to life. Thanks to your higher premiums, I was able to get free coverage after so many years without insurance. Thank you for involuntarily saving my life. Sorry you had to drive a slightly worse car because of it.
This space intentionally left blank
It finds the people who are not Nordic enough to be true citizens of the great new utopia.
You broke it you bought it. The Republicans are responsible for that trust fund baby that never grew up being in the White House AS WELL as shit like this bill.
Thank you for voting Democrat in 2008 and 2012 - you helped more than double my insurance costs
You can blame lobbyists and the Republican filibuster on earlier attempts for single payer. Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was a compromise reached through negotiation with insurance lobbyists. It is modeled on the earlier Massachusetts Accountable Health Care act (Romneycare), and mainly adds requirements for insurance providers to cover preventative care and has provisions to expand Medicare. But the rest of it remain the same, it's an expansion of a system that Massachusetts already has operated successfully.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That didn't happen to me. You did something wrong.
As far as your theory on taxing the rich, let's try it, enough arm-chair theory already.
Table-ized A.I.
Oh bullshit, democracy rules. One man, one vote, and that man is Mr. President for Life, an ordinary man who will represent you in the small government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Irrelevant ?
3/4 of the state governments
The House
The Senate with possible super majority in the Senate by 2018
and the presidency
Somehow I don't think that word means what you think it does. BTW looking at those numbers you might want to acquaint yourself with Article V of the constitution so you don't look stupid when reality starts smacking you upside the head.
So, you response to someone who is telling the truth is to wish they were dead so you don't have to grapple with the fact your preferred politician is a corrupt liar? Which part was the lie ... the part where the entire Clinton apparatus stonewalled and foot-dragged on FOIA requests for years? The part where she and her husband raked in millions of dollars selling influence while she was in office? I know, it's painful if you were rooting for her, and you know that she was looking you in the eye and lying - over and over and over again - so you're trying to wish it away. But why the venom aimed at the people who simply point that out? What are you, 12?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
So they're a felony for Pence then, is what you're saying.
No. Because the two situations aren't even remotely comparable. Which you know.
President Trump communicates about governance related issues using his unsecured Android phone.
Citation based on something other than a whiny liberal fake news blog, please.
The whole email affair was a mountain made out of a mole hill
No, it was an example of one of the most senior people in the federal government deliberately conducting official business on a poorly secured internet-connected mail server she kept in her house. And then failing to turn over all of that data on the day she left office, as required by law. And deleting thousands of federal records while under subpoena, and then repeatedly lying about the entire process for months on end, as pointed out by the FBI director in specific terms. Any other federal employee would lose their job. Nobody conducting themselves in that way with classified material could EVER get or keep a security clearance. Nobody doing those things could secure a federal job in the first place, let alone in connection to more handling of sensitive information.
someone who wants f*cking corporations to have the right to demand genetic testing of employees
Really. Who would that be? Are you referring to people in the legislature, where that is being talked about but hasn't even faced reconciliation or voting of any kind? Or are you referring to the president, who has said exactly zero on the matter at all?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The purpose of this bill is to bypass the ACA's current protection mechanism against discrimination due to preexisting conditions. Currently, we know very little about what sections of our DNA actually does (with a few exceptions) and even less about how sections are activated. How we "know" what risk factors you have via DNA is strictly a statistical analysis and based on observation rather than investigations into a particular gene's function. So really, this just gives insurance companies a blank check to claim any bullshit they want to change people with preexisting conditions. The irony here is that your DNA is the very first condition for coming into existence!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
So, what you're saying is that you have no understanding, whatsoever, about the things you're ranting about. You are so upset that your designated queen who you wanted to see back in power where she and her husband could continue to enrich themselves at the public trough ... lost the election because she called millions of women deplorable racists, and exhibited so much contempt for voters outside of her comfortable couple of large coastal zones that she couldn't even trouble herself to set FOOT in places that she was later shocked, SHOCKED! to find didn't vote for her. Yeah, that was all Republican scheming! The convinced her to run her official State business off an internet-facing server in her house, destroy tens of thousands of records while under subpoena, fail to produce documents - even years later - that she was obligated to hand over on the day she left office, and then lie repeatedly about ALL of that ... yes! It was the crafty Republicans that talked her into doing all of that with their special mind control rays. You should be safe from that, of course, with your special hat on.
... inbred, shitstains, etc., while actively ignoring the fact that you supported a corrupt, serial liar who did things like deploy people paid with your tax dollars to go out and smear the reputations of the women her predatory husband abused... never mind. You know all of that. Your childish ad homimem is a perfect measure of how much you know it - because that's all you've got. Otherwise, you'd have to address the substance of the matters, and anything you'd say in that area would be too funny, and you know it. So, keep it up! Especially through 2018's elections. Thanks! It really helps.
Please, though. Carry on. Do as much ranting like this as you possibly can for the next year and a half, so the Democrats can lose even more of their dwindling minority of seats in the legislature. Thanks for your hard work to that end. Your entire bearing on the matter is exactly why liberals lost a thousand legislative seats under Obama, most of the governorships, both houses of congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court. Hillary Clinton lost because she was blindly wishing all of that away, and then demanding that people she falsely called irredeemable racists and homophobes vote for her anyway, because of her genitals. You need to get over your complete lack of understanding about what happened - not just in November, but for the last eight years. Hilarious that you talk about things like "exploding deficits" (as Obama added more debt to your tab than every other president in history COMBINED).
Your juvenile need to call people
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_sexual_misconduct_allegations, none were really proved. So while I find Clinton abhorrent, you can only say about what is really proved : the sexual harassment lawsuit and the admitted sex with the 2 women. As such the GP is correct.
Furthermore while there was allegation
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Not everybody is as rational as you. If you bought the propaganda hook, line and sinker then you're emotionally invested and the current government can do nothing wrong.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
To be fair (to the US, not Hillary), Hillary did effectively lose her job and prospects of future employment over the email scandal and the dirt she was hiding in general. Hillary Clinton will never be president of the United States.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Small government Republicans exist, here and there, but are hardly the establishment. Trump seems intent on reducing the scope of government though. Actions need to follow words, but he might actually make some government departments smaller for once. Wouldn't that be shocking.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
which would have exposed her soliciting bribes and other felonies.
In other words, if the facts don't say what you want, you'll make shit up to justify your views. That never happened, there's no proof or even circumstantial evidence. You made your decisions and are note justifying them post hoc.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
What a pity that they deleted the evidence before the hackers got hold of the REST of the emails.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Seems more like a way of having a DNA database of a large part of the population than anything else.
Then we are the employers of Congress, and we will then have a right to their genetic information? *Drops mic*
"F*ck people are stupid. Is there another planet with intelligent life?" Yes, but they are not accepting applications at this time.
Nordic people are less likely to have lactose intolerance, so the test can consist simply of giving the employee a glass of full fat milk and monitoring bathroom breaks. No intrusive measures or expensive lab facilities required.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
F*ck people are stupid. Is there another planet with intelligent life?
Wow! You mean that you know a planet with intelligent life?
Would you mind sharing with us its location?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
No, Democrats are responsible for Trump being in the White House. If they had not re-elected Obama after he had demonstrated that he had no respect for the rule of law the Republican voters would not have felt it necessary to vote for someone who would do the same thing in their interest.
That is really what the last election was about: whose interest would the President break the law in order to promote. Hillary, who stood foursquare for the political establishment, or Trump, who proclaimed himself as opposed to it. It was really a shame it came down to that with no good candidates, but at least the American voters chose the least bad choice.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
More importantly than my previous comment. If you want to fix what is wrong with our government you need to make sure you blame the correct people for the problem you are trying to fix.
The point of my original post was that blaming this bill on Breitbart is like blaming the voters in California for Bernie Sanders being in the Senate.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Hi! It's me, your best buddy from high school. I would like to get in touch and pay you a visit. You still live with your mom, right?
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
"F*ck people are stupid. Is there another planet with intelligent life?"
If there is, thankfully for them we're too far away to infect them with our stupid.
Please get your dog ready, we are coming to take possession due to cruelty.
The ASPCA
https://www.aspca.org/
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
In any normal country the insurance industry would be fighting this. Insurance is insuring against risk. Without risk there is no insurance. If an insurance company knows 100% that you will die or cost them something then they won't offer you insurance but if they do offer you insurance then you would be a fool to take it since you aren't going to need it.
If you decline to participate, they can boost your insurance premiums by 30%-50%.
With all the money spent playing political and legal games over legislation regarding insurance premium regulations, we probably could have funded a socialized healthcare system by now for many years.
We'll make great pets
Even if it got as far as passage, it would never survive in courts. First of all, it allows discrimination in compensation based on race. The court arguments will pretty much stop at that. But it also allows discrimination based on yet-to-be-proven-to-be-genetically-caused disabilities. That's going to be enough to get it laughed out of the courts rather than just thrown out.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
This is your brain on drugs!
Above poster, you'll scare yourself when you come down from whatever you are on and read what you have written. "Democrats are responsible for Trump being in the White House"? OMFG that's funny.
Maybe, but 99% of the time "small government" is code for "no regulators to watch me when my company breaks the law".
No, they don't run the NRA. Weirdo.
The weird thing is this traitor is running the NRA (http://nraontherecord.org/oliver-north/).
there's no statistical difference between a pool of employees, and a pool of random people who bought their own health insurance
Not really true. A pool of random people (prior to ACA) don't all buy insurance - and the reasons they don't have a lot to do with how high premiums are for those that do.
The widespread occurrence of employer provided health insurance in the USA is a historical artifact of WWII when the government restricted the freedom of companies to raise salaries to attract workers. Instead, many companies began to offer health insurance as a perq of employment and the system stuck, and even worse, became tax deductible for the company (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114045132). The one useful thing which (the few remaining) rational Republicans (and many economists) have proposed for health insurance lately is to break the link between health insurance and employment.
"employers could demand that employees undergo genetic testing and health screenings"
:) ) thinking at companies that they are doing their employees some big favor by using their talents, capabilities and time. It's not so. It's an agreement, that until we think our treatment and our compensation is worth lending our resources. Should it become not so, then bummer, this is still a fairly big world with lots of employers in it.
And I could demand that the employer go fsck themselves sideways. There's this still lingering and weird and unhealthy (speaking of
Maybe this sounds a bit idealistic, but acting like a powerless workforce victim will actually get you closer to becoming one.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
The bill, HR 1313, was approved by a House committee on Wednesday, with all 22 Republicans supporting it and all 17 Democrats opposed.
But remember, folks: both sides are bad and all truly intelligent people choose not to vote.
Don't worry, the Democrats want to control your every move, but the freedom loving Republicans will make certain y this will make...... Hey! That brown person over there is a-tryin' to take yer guns away - Get 'im And Besides, abortion, and the death tax.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Way back in the 1980s when companies complained of insurance rates for their workers the sales agents would casually mention that if a few of the older workers were laid off the insurance rates would go way down. Companies could create excuses for laying off or firing older workers and frequently did so. You can bet that with genetic testing any individuals will be laid off or prevented from advancement so that they are frustrated and quit their jobs. Companies need to be prohibited from gaining any knowledge of a worker's DNA.
So, you're unable to provide a citation to back up the assertion. Gotcha! Thanks.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The Canadian Parliament has just passed a bill making this sort of thing illegal.
http://www.hilltimes.com/2017/...
It is a little late, but health care is a provincial matter and there was a reluctance to tread on the provincial toes. Since the provinces have done nothing about privacy of genetic testing, the federal parliamentarians felt it necessary to do something at the national level.
(I apologize for the lack of acceptable formatting.)
So, you're using the Standard Liberal Response to anyone who points out that their political champion is a corrupt liar who got away with things that would have landed any of her federal underlings in jail. One can always tell that's the truth with the best counter-point a Democrat can come up with is a foul-mouthed little tantrum that shows contempt for women and people with developmental problems. As usual, it's the liberals who actually do have the real, active hatred for other people that they pretend to accuse others of having. Thanks for demonstrating that once again - well done!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
That requires an assumption that they had ideals regarding decency which required compromise. More likely, their ideals of decency fit right in with taking healthcare away from sick people, raising the prices at big-box stores, bombing / invading anyone handy, telling women what they may and may not do with their own bodies, controlling who uses what bathroom because (cough) "decency", interfering with personal liberties, pushing their particular brand of superstition on everyone else... and so forth.
"Ideal" is not a synonym for "good." It just means circumstances that are optimally congruent with the views of the idealist. That can be very bad indeed.
For example:
o "Ideally, we'd kill all the Muslims"
o "Ideally, women would be at home, either barefoot and pregnant, or virgin"
o "Ideally everyone would believe in the bible"
o "Ideally, there would be prayer in schools"
...those are ideals. Those are ideals that led people to vote for Trump and a large number of people in congress. The people that hold those ideals won't need to compromise them at all in order to maintain their current outlook.
TL;DR: One person's ideals of decency are not any kind of guarantee that the next person's will be even remotely similar.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Why do you say SJWs aren't a thing?
Because they're not. It's become a catch-phrase dogwhistle used to shout down arguments. Like: You said Y which makes you an SJW. You're an SJW, and SJWs do X therefore you believe X. And various other things. It's used as nothing else other than a random grab-bag mishmash of "shit I hate on the internet".
AmiMojo's sig qouting an AC has it nailed: someone I don't like and by the way I'm a fuckwit.
Please supply another definition if you disagree, but I've yet to see a remotely meaningful definition that fits the rather broad and perverse set of things SJWs have been accused of doing.
No one but him (a white guy) was offended but the major UK retailer caved just in case a shitstorm ensued.
Companies care desperately about PR. Welcome to the vaguely modern world.
No one but him
If you want to cherry pick the craziest crazy you can find, go ahead, I'm sure I can find equally crazy people (or more so). That doesn't really prove anything.
was offended
Speculation. As far as you know, no one but him complained, but you're speculating on people's internal mental state. Given that there wasn't a huge outcry, it's reasonable to assume that not _many_ people were offended. I've no idea how many people even saw it. I'm a regular Metro reader and I hadn't seen that article until you posted the link.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
so youre still a fucking moron?
big surprise there.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
You mean the status quo of not discriminating or oppressing based on genetics? Sounds awful...
no, hes using hte standard response for when someone posts a bunch of made up bullshit as if it were facts.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
you were provided links already. his assessment of your definition is accurate.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
all youve done is describe yourself.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Why do you say SJWs aren't a thing?
Because they're not. It's become a catch-phrase dogwhistle used to shout down arguments. Like: You said Y which makes you an SJW. You're an SJW, and SJWs do X therefore you believe X. And various other things. It's used as nothing else other than a random grab-bag mishmash of "shit I hate on the internet".
I believe the term the right has started using is "virtue signaling". In that, using the term "SJW" they are "virtue signaling" to other right-wing-nuts that they are also a right-wing-nut. It's like a mating call.
HIPAA privacy rules block the transfer of medical info to a company that isn't HIPAA compliant. I expect most companies are not compliant. The company doing the testing would therefore be legally blocked from handing over the test results or face large fines.
Your 'acquittal' was a political act by the Congress, he lost the jury trials and was disbarred. Oh yes, he did cut a deal to do that 'voluntarily' in return for not appealing it, but that was a plea deal after he had already lost repeatedly in court.
Let's not forget that the sexual harassment included non-consensual acts, including things like greeting an underling at the hotel room door and propositioning her while naked.
I see no evidence the American voters have gained the wisdom to avoid picking bad presidents.
I've seen his comments over the last couple of days. 12 is being generous, if one assumes he's taking his meds.
Uh huh... right.. and guess which party is the one who created this bill? Whatever nonsense your spouting, so far as far as actions go, only one party has been doing that. So please piss off with your both sides bullshit.
If you're talking about things like burning the Reichstag I doubt that will even be necessary.
Economy of effort: why break windows when bullshit will suffice?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They got disillusioned because one party decided that they were going to put their party ahead of all interests and basically said no to everything like a bunch of petulant children. They wanted and hoping everything would burn so that they can get back into power. It was never about the American people. Right now, fringe Republican party politicians think all liberals are the enemies... or I should amend that all people who don't think like them. We are living in dangerous times and it doesnt matter where you are in the political spectrum. You simply have to think different to be considered liberal.
Yet, they voted this party back into power after 8 years of growing prosperity in a number of sectors. Despite the huge clusterfuck that happened at the end of the Bush presidency, the huge deficit, the wars... and the fact that a major terrorist attack happened on a Republican's watch. It seems that voters are extremely capricious about how to punish a party if they can come back within a couple of years. It seems that things should completely fall apart and those older voters who are still fighting the culture wars pass on to their heavenly awards before we are going to get anywhere.
Meanwhile Trump distracts the press with nonsense and everyone falls for that distraction.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
If your house is on fire, you get a bucket. You don't give the Joker an unlimited supply of napalm, some matches, and point him at your front door.
I get that they were so bewildered by right wing agitprop and the sabotage that Comey engaged in just before the vote that they ended up feeling that way. I also get that this was both a highly inaccurate representation of what was really going on, and that now, post-error, confirmation bias drives people to claim they were justified when it is patently obvious that they were not. Rational behavior is not generally the rule of the day when someone has committed a huge screwup, a fact Trump voters now must eventually face.
I have often discussed Clinton's shortcomings, which are many. As are those of the system she operates within in the usual manner of a bought-and-paid for politician. But compared to Trump who is both an idiot and a threat to the country's ultimate stability, she's a genius and a patriot. Voting for Trump "because Clinton" inevitably means you didn't understand one or the other of the two candidates, or possibly both. Some of that is because of crazytarded activity on the part of Drudge, Breitbart, Fox News and so forth. But some of it is because people were too lazy to do their own fact checking. And some, of course, because the Gaussian goes quite a distance to the left before "you can't vote" shows up as a differentiator.
Barring impeachment, which really isn't all that likely, we're in for a minimum of two years of continuing lies, idiotic behavior, and structural damage to the system that will reach into people lives and do very serious harm -- as it has already been doing.
Likely it'll get fixed, inasmuch as (a) Trump lost the actual vote, only gaining office because of the duty-abrogating machinations of the electoral college, which provides us with the incontrovertible fact that the majority of people were against him becoming president; and (b) at this point, no one is guessing if Trump is as big an idiot in real life office as the idiot he was playing on television. Now there is no doubt. So odds are excellent that there's going to be quite a backlash come 2018.
But it's still going to be a rough couple of years.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I agree and was just agreeing with you except in a republic there is no monarchy (think imperial Rome or the Democratic Republic of N. Korea) and it is still a democracy as long as there is one voter. The actual quote I was going for was from Discworld, "One man, one vote and I'm that man" or so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Is good for the gander. In other words, will our elected representatives consent to genetic screening? I, for one, would like to see their Î4 stats made available for analysis.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Hillary Clinton sold 20% of our uranium to Russia... meanwhile Trump is working with the Ukraine to help keep it independent from Russia.
The masters of manipulation are always the ones who make you think you are working for the other side...
Also of note: Who has communists prominent at every rally? Not Trump, that is the domain of the left. If that isn't a big enough tell for you, not sure what is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not only are you still butthurt over losing the popular vote,
1) Who could possibly be hurt over something so irrelevant? Total vote counts do not matter in presidential election. You are basically saying Hillary is so stupid she forgot what office she was running for. Not very flattering.
2) Even if you do care about the popular vote, both Trump and Hillary lost the real popular vote - neither of them got even 50% of all possible voters.
3) Although I don't believe the numbers myself, when you make a claim like "lost the popular vote" to try and put down a Trump voter, remember that a lot of them simply think you are mistaken because so many illegal votes were cast for Hillary. So they "know" they really won the popular vote, and your claiming Hillary won even slightly more votes than Trump among the people who voted just makes you look like a tool. Which you are, but that's another matter.
I'll let you have the last response since liberals just scream louder when they are shown how stupid they are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
During WWII, the US put various limits in place on resource allocation. One of those things was a wartime limit on salary. That meant employers added benefits instead. One was health insurance. I guess it became expected.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
And yet ... still no addressing of the matters at hand! Why? Because when I refer to Hillary Clinton as having lied repeatedly about what she did, it squares directly with the evidence of that presented by the FBI. When you call that made up bullshit but don't explain why you think the FBI was lying when it explained it to you, you're essentially confirming every stereotype of the Fake News liberal take on things. Hurl ad hominem, and avoid reality at all costs.
So, correct the situation, with specifics. Did the FBI provide us with a long list of untrue utterances and assertions by Hillary Clinton, or not? If you say they did not, are you suggesting that the video of the FBI director presenting that information was somehow doctored before it was broadcast by every major new outlet? If you think that, can you explain why you think saying that makes you sound at all rational on the subject?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Hey, look! Still not a single sentence on the subject matter - just vague hand-wavy ad hominem. Again.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Still so poignant, even after all these years.
Employees tested. IN-VALID vs VALID. Self-esteem, standing in the community, opportunities or denial of them, all based on someone's genetics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Fuck this world I"m ready to die now
Small government Republicans exist, here and there, but are hardly the establishment. Trump seems intent on reducing the scope of government though. Actions need to follow words, but he might actually make some government departments smaller for once. Wouldn't that be shocking.
Homeland Security is one the biggest and it's likely to swell up like a bloated tick under the Orange Don.
Then there's the Armed Forces which he also wants to make bigger - how long before that budget item exceeds a trillion dollars?
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Where are the trolls getting all these sock puppets with "insightful" mod points? And why doesn't Slashdot care?
Actually, just kidding about the second question. I already know that the underlying problem with Slashdot is a broken financial model, so they don't have the resources to do better. Kind of sad to see it sink down to the miserable level of the "insightful" post you're replying to.
I still think it's pointless to feed the trolls with your direct replies. Either they are sincerely insane, proudly ignorant, or they are paid to fake it. If they are paid to troll, then they probably earn bonuses based on how many replies they elicit.
Closing on a constructive note? I think Slashdot should switch to a cost-recovery financial model. Under that model, they could implement and support whatever anti-troll countermeasures the members were willing to help pay for. Details available upon polite request (but I'm not holding my breath to see much politeness on today's Slashdot).
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Hmm... Your Subject: line could have earned more favorable mods, but the body is weak.
Let me say that today's so-called Republicans have no real understanding of what freedom is about. However the part that deserves funny mod points is that the libertarian wing of the GOP has the weakest understanding of freedom.
I would say (1) Libertarians don't actually understand what freedom is, and (2) Libertarians think they are superior people. Among the other ugly ramifications of (2) is that (2-a) they think everyone else should be free to make bad decisions, (2-b) they have no responsibility to try to stop other people from making bad decisions even when they know exactly what is bad about those decisions, and (2-c) they think it is fine for them to personally profit from other people's mistakes and weaknesses.
Just speaking for myself, but I think (2-c) is worst of all. Also unsustainable because EVERYONE makes mistakes.
Just for reference, the latest (and obviously greatest) version of my "freedom formula" is:
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{~5} (Beer^4 | Speech | Trade)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Uh huh... right.. and guess which party is the one who created this bill? Whatever nonsense your spouting, so far as far as actions go, only one party has been doing that. So please piss off with your both sides bullshit.
Anyone who uses the "Everyone is bad, and they al agree" excuse is promoting that they are perfectly accepting of the bad behavior.
It takes a secial kind of stupid to say that a bill introduced by one party, supported unanimously and opposed by every member of the other party means tat both parties are in agreement.
Then again, America's mistaken idea that the thoughts of the stupid are equal to the thoughts of the intelligent are exactly why we have fucked ourselves severely. AC is the epitome of the stupid side.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
That's my entire point. There are people in politics who want to move to a totalitarian type of government instead of a republic. It's a few years back but Koch is a clearer example of someone who wanted to be King.
Funny enough, having a King is usually better then having a President for Life, First Citizen or whatever title a dictator chooses while maintaining the illusion of a democratic republic (think of the arsehole in charge of N. Korea and how little he cares for the people). Kings are usually raised to care about their realm and at least have a court to keep them in check whereas dictators are usually just that though I guess there is always a chance of lucking out on a benevolent one.
I live in a Democratic Constitutional Monarchy, which in practice is little different then a Democratic Constitutional Republic and republic is not a magic word here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
SJW refers to the toxic people who participate in the modern McCarthyism regarding the various -isms, where people have no way to defend themselves because there's no way to prove you're not one and denial is taken as proof. The same people engage in organized harassment and then say it's okay when they do it, even though they complain about getting triggered by others.
What you don't seem to realize is how many people have turned against you. Yes, you can still throw tantrums for now, but we're working on putting a stop to that. No, we're not going to let the KKK run loose or whatever ridiculous ideas you have. Unlike you, we believe in treating people decently. We do plan to shut off the media's 5 minute hate machines, though. We're not falling for them any more.
We know your tactics, you don't know ours. Your toxic culture's days are numbered.
Was Pence dealing in the highest levels of classified information as part of his day job?
Was Pence subject to federal FOIA laws as a state official?
Was Pence railing against secret email servers just two years before doing the same thing himself? Although AOL isn't exactly 'secret'.
Not necessarily stupid, but you sure do like false equivalencies.
For the uninformed: Gatica Tailer https://youtu.be/BpzVFdDeWyo
This! And me without mod points!
....don't I as employer have the right to know what I'm paying for?
If you don't like it, buy your own health insurance.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
That's as much bullshit as claiming that racist Trump supporters don't exist. Off the top of my head:
Game of Thrones was "glamorizing" rape in a scene that was supposed to be creepy as fuck: her brother forcing himself on her over the corpse of their dead son. The SWJ's on Salon got half a dozen articles out of that, but DGAF about cannibals murdering an entire village in the same episode, and Theon's far worse fate in a previous season.
All the ratfucking aimed at Bernie Sander's way when he said "excuse me, I'm talking" during a debate - ermagerd he's so sexist to shout down the wooman in the race! When in reality she had constantly been interrupting him, and Sanders was just speaking up for himself.
The craters made in fainting couches over Marvel's variant cover of Spider-Women, even though Spider-Man often drawn in the same pose. In the same vein, the pearls clutched over Apocalypse holding Mystique by the throat, ignoring the fact that is also a common display of dominance from both antagonists and protagonists.
Of course SJW's exist. They are the left wing equivalent of right wingers who rail against trans people using bathrooms or Muslims - assholes who use demagoguery to control conversation and shut people up.
Democrats haven't been this wiped out between state and federal levels in almost 100 years. There's nothing "normal" about this, so Republicans should be thanking Obama on a daily basis for all the hard work he did for their party.
What a bizarre comment. The HIPAA law effects every business, company, school, medical entity in the USA already. HIPAA training can be purchased from training consultants. Just ask any HR person about HIPAA.
Lobbyists yes, Republicans no. Obama drowned the public option in the bathtub long before any Republican could vote against it in Congress. And after that, the ACA passed without a single Republican vote, as partisan Democrats keep reminding people.
Obomneycare is entirely on Democrats - one of the reasons Republicans voted against it.
Because it was a shit sandwich. They knew it was a shit sandwich because they're the ones who came up with the damned thing, through the Heritage Foundation in the early 90's. That they didn't have a better plan (since their own plan was adopted by a Democratic president, in the same way NAFTA was) does nothing to change the fact that it wasn't Republicans who saddled the country with a mandate to buy a shit sandwich (junk for-profit insurance).
That's a very bad example since there is no illusion to the people there or outside of the place of it being anything other than the totalitarian shithole run by the Kim family that it is. I met someone who had to flee the place just in front of arrest to the relative freedom of Mao's China - that's how much a totalitarian shithole it has been for decades.
I get your point though. Iran may be a better example because it has an elected President with very little political power. It's a theocracy with an incredibly skewed democratic process that can be overruled at any time.
In America it is.
That's as much bullshit as claiming that racist Trump supporters don't exist.
I see you ignored my argument and just went "nuh uh!". Very smooth.
Off the top of my head:
Well, that's the problem isn't it. You're cherry picking an example of thing you personally think are SJWisms. Which is pretty much proving my point. You've got a random grab-bag of things you hate and labelling it as SJW. You probably think I'm an SJW, and I've certainly been called it many times, so does that mean you think I care about those things?
I like GoT (books and series), but I think rape scenes is one of those places where GRRM is being a bit of a lazy writer. It's overused as general signifier of badness of people and situations.
And you don't even seem to understand your own terms. Calling it ratfucking pretty much excludes anyone fighting for social justice. Sure that might be the guise but ratfucking is politically oriented and aimed only at getting the preferred candidate an advantage. The motive is purely political and not remotely ideological.
The craters made in fainting couches over Marvel's variant cover of Spider-Women, even though Spider-Man often drawn in the same pose.
Bro, did you even watch the video you linked? The poses are similar but not the same. Spiderman is shown climbing over something. Spider woman is shown climbing over something while shoving her ass in the air. Regardless of the merits and demerits of the original argument, the video person is being intellectually dishonest and so are you by referring to it. The rest of the video is filled with poorly argued points and general dumbassery.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The ACA was a tax based on the belief that everybody has a right to life. Thanks to your higher premiums, I was able to get free coverage after so many years without insurance.
I am glad someone got a use out of it. The rest of us got fucked HARD. Enjoy your extended life. It was VERY expensive for the rest of us.
Oh well, as long as the people who control the money that goes to the insurance companies got an extra yacht this year, it is all worth while. For every dollar spent by the insurance companies to save your life, 5 dollars went to the people who own the insurance companies.
Please do not misunderstand me though: I would gladly help you live. I am just REALLY fucking pissed how much extra they charge me for it. If your treatment cost 1 million dollars, I have to pay some wealthy people 5 million dollars first to get that 1 million dollars worth of treatment to you.
And people wonder why there are terrorists...
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Hi Jon. Repeat after me please: There should be no middlemen (multiple in this case) reaping obscene profits from people seeking medical care. There should be you. There should be a doctor. There should be procedures. The admin costs are higher than the fucking treatment costs for most procedures. Insanity! Those admin costs are driven by insurance companies. Those insurance companies have all been angling for this obscene indulgence in greed since it was recognized that there was a "baby boom" immediately after World War 2.
This entire situation was engineered to capture all the money that retiring/dying baby boomers generated. The vacuum generated by this wealth transfer is so extreme that is threatens to destabilize the entire planet.
Meh.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
It is an incentive to labour, jobs. You get a CAd genetic test for free!
Obomneycare is entirely on Democrats - one of the reasons Republicans voted against it.
Other than it being a similar, but expanded, version of Massachusetts. Not that Romney ever wanted the level of entitlements that ended up in the final version. But the structure and basic principles are the same. The entitlements are always negotiable as administrations come and go if there is a good framework for it. It's not like the ACA is written in stone and we must start over every election cycle.
In state and federal legislature, you can't always get want you want. Really you never get want you want, because everyone has their fingers in it. I guess it keeps the ideologues perpetually unhappy, but the moderates can at least make headway in a system like this.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Admin costs are higher for education than spend on directly teaching students. Really there are a lot of parasites in every part of society, and I don't know how to get rid of them entirely.
The other problem with health insurance is it is used as a club membership for getting discounts. When insurance in other areas is used so that it covers rare situations that would be financially catastrophic. You would pay premiums for insurance and have a high deductible so that you wouldn't have to sell your house because you needed a heart stent.
Finally there is some responsibility for the community to provide basic care to those who lack the ability or means to do it for themselves. The disabled, the elderly, and children. Having children grow up unhealthy (and uneducated) is a far bigger burden on society than paying for regular checkups.
The ACA tries to achieve some of the above by packing the program with lots of paying healthy adults (forced through fines). Using the current private insurance system as a framework. It's a short cut, and satisfies some immediate goals. It's far from perfect, and a lot of people take issue with the implementation.
That the US government can't even provide decent healthcare for Vets tells me that the government is not yet capable to provide healthcare to all citizens. I don't know how Europe and Canada do it, my guess is they pay a whole lot more taxes to cover the administration costs and worked on managing the programs effectively instead of fighting over every nickle in the budget.
That's the difference between having a 30% income tax (typical US) and a 70% income tax (Scandinavian countries). There ain't no free lunch (unless baby boomers choose to steal from the younger generations)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
As far as I can tell, no party has voted on that yet. This is a committee, not the entire House or Senate.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I'm in! Let's keep all of those tribalist bastards out!
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?