Pentagon Demands Journalists Pledge To Not Obtain Unauthorized Material (msn.com) 264
The Washington Post: The Trump administration unveiled a new crackdown Friday on journalists at the Pentagon, saying it will require them to pledge they won't gather any information - even unclassified - that hasn't been expressly authorized for release, and will revoke the press credentials of those who do not obey.
Under the policy, the Pentagon may revoke press passes for anyone it deems a security threat. Possessing confidential or unauthorized information, under the new rules, would be grounds for a journalist't press pass to be revoked.
"DoW remains committed to transparency to promote accountability and public trust," the document says, using an acronym for the newly rebranded Department of War. "However, DoW information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified."
For months, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his staff have been tightening restrictions on Pentagon reporters while limiting military personnel's direct communication with the press. Like many defense secretaries before him, Hegseth has been deeply irritated by leaks. His staff this year threatened to use polygraph tests to stop people from leaking information, until the White House intervened.
Under the policy, the Pentagon may revoke press passes for anyone it deems a security threat. Possessing confidential or unauthorized information, under the new rules, would be grounds for a journalist't press pass to be revoked.
"DoW remains committed to transparency to promote accountability and public trust," the document says, using an acronym for the newly rebranded Department of War. "However, DoW information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified."
For months, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his staff have been tightening restrictions on Pentagon reporters while limiting military personnel's direct communication with the press. Like many defense secretaries before him, Hegseth has been deeply irritated by leaks. His staff this year threatened to use polygraph tests to stop people from leaking information, until the White House intervened.
King George the Third... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:King George the Third... (Score:4, Informative)
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We're already in a second civil war. It was started by the left years ago.
We never finished the first one. The losers were allowed to keep their flags and their guns. Instead of trying to be one big happy country we should have freed all the Africans and enslaved the Southerners, since they love slavery so much. Then we could have them picking fruit right now.
Re:King George the Third... (Score:4, Funny)
We don't need another civil war MAGA's, you just need to learn some History
A civil war is more likely than maggots reading something.
Re:Jokes on you (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll take things that never happened for $400 Alex
I do remember when Dr. Seuss' estate decided to stop publishing his books of their own accord, because they decided they contained things that the Doc himself wouldn't have liked in retrospect.
I do remember some folks trying to conflate books being removed from school reading lists with banning them, as you are doing here.
I do remember the ALA not listing things like "left" or "right" in their list of most banned books, only the nebulous "challenged for". I do remember you making that part up because you reasoned that it must be true because it fits your beliefs about what 'should' be, and you don't even see yourself sorting people into identity boxes based on your need to protect what is ultimately your self image and ego...
Learn to take responsibility for your projection and maybe we can all move on together. You'll have to first face the fact you are the one who wants this to be a power struggle and you don't want to move on before we can do that though.
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Bullshit.
You want the... like 6 total entries you named to be related to something that you specifically care about, and then you want them to somehow outweigh all the other books on the list that are obviously not banned by any 'leftist'.
If you're big mad because counting is hard then sooner or later you're going to start picking fights with people much smarter than you. That time was... oh it was years ago actually. How is constantly being shown that you're the antagonist going, in your quest to become a
Re:Jokes on you (Score:5, Informative)
Precisely none of those books were ever banned.
Be a better and more intelligent person.
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Precisely none of those books were ever banned.
I decided to check :-)
According to the Book Censorship Database [everylibra...titute.org] from the Every Library Institute, both "Of Mice and Men" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" have been challenged, but only "Of Mice and Men" was removed, though "restricted" is more accurate. The Birdville Independent School District in Texas removed the book from general access, allowing access only to the AP English class, and the Indian River County Schools in Florida restricted it to high school students.
No Doctor Suess books were ba
Re:Jokes on you (Score:5, Insightful)
So Democrats want to remove fiction with outdated racial stereotypes (not actually ban, just remove them from the view of kids whose racial concepts are still being formed). Republicans want to absolutely ban and prevent publication of frelling TEXTBOOKS with scientific facts which disagree with their world view.
One of these things are not like the other. (I disagree with both, but damn conservatives are cowardly little dewdrops.)
Re:King George the Third... (Score:4, Insightful)
In other parts of the world, there are fledgling maggot movements too. What is particularly interesting and relevant about those is that they often quote some ideas and misconceptions that simply do not apply where those movements are forming. This is due to cultural and legal differences in the other countries.
You can see this by observing marches and protests and interviews in other countries. The slogans and demands just don't make sense locally most of the time, yet are carbon copies of American ideas.
This tells you two things: 1) the maggots in America and abroad are being paid to propagate the conservative hate speech in their own countries. 2) the groups who are paying them are Americans, because the talking points are American conservative talking points even in the rest of the world where it makes no sense. The local maggot movements are simply paid to propagate the American talking points in their local cultures, and nobody bothers to adapt them or see if they make sense at all.
The last thing this tells you is this: if you follow the money to the source, then you will know who needs to be stopped for the good of the world. When the payola stops, the movements will stop. The ball is in Americans' court (For now. Don't sit on your ass too long).
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When the majority of the placards carried in a protest in Azerbaijan are in frelling **English** the origin of the "movement" is pretty obvious.
Re:King George the Third... (Score:4, Interesting)
When the majority of the placards carried in a protest in Azerbaijan are in frelling **English** the origin of the "movement" is pretty obvious.
The same for the "Truckers Convoy" in Canada. Way too many Confederate flags. Not to mention one of them in court trying to plead the 5th amendment.
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Yes, that was the American innovation, making slavery about race. Used to be about tribes (then nations), criminals and debt. European's enslaved each other. Orientals enslaved each other. Red people enslaved each other and black people enslaved each other. And they all enslaved other colours.
Then Americans made it about race and how certain people with more pigment in their skin were inferior and naturally were slaves. Now we have people like you still making it about the colour of peoples skin rather then
MAGA please (Score:5, Insightful)
Rationalize this for us. How is this a good thing? We're at the "ministry of truth" phase in the dictator playbook.
Trump is basically the second coming of Christ (Score:5, Insightful)
The right wing is about hierarchy and structured order with some people at the top some people at the bottom and of course never ever ever anyone on the right wing at the bottom.
Trump can do whatever he wants for the exact same reason God can do whatever he wants. It's literally Divine command theory.
If Trump does something it is good because Trump did it and if you think it's bad it's just that your feeble mind can't comprehend the 8d chess
It's the same reason the tribal war god of Abraham can commit multiple genocides and endorsed slavery and turn women into property and it's all okay because it has to be because God did it and God is inherently good.
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(Shrug) Our need to stop the next Hitler outweighs your need for a daddy figure.
Re:You Are MAGA. tear up your Politics Card (Score:4, Informative)
Trunp was in Democratic Party longer than
I see the username, but I'm genuinely interested, when was that?
Wikipedia breaks it down like this:
Registered as republican/teabag party/trump party:
1987-1999 -> 12 years
2009-2011 -> 2 years
2012-2025 -> 13 years, or
a total of 27 years
democratic party:
2001-2009 -> 8 years
third party:
1999-2001 -> 3 years
Is there anyone here that voted for Trump (Score:5, Informative)
I am guessing not but I got to admit I am curious. Comment below.
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Re:Is there anyone here that voted for Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
If only we could escape from reality so easily.
There is an important difference between conspiracy theories, and real conspiracies. Conspiracy theories are always vague and imprecise, suggestions that what we see happening "couldn't possibly be" what it seems to be. Real conspiracies have specific perpetrators and specific actions.
Which description better fits Trump's accusations from 2020? Which one better fits now?
I agree with your opinion of Trump. But let's not look for conspiracies where reality points to simple human stupidity.
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They are not free and fair. The presidential 'electoral' vote doesn't reflect the true public voice. Regardless:
The republican party did a lot to ensure as many brown and poor people were disenfranchised as possible. The current administration has done as much as possible to remove mail in voting rights which disenfranchises people with mobility or social issues (which is more than you might think if you include most people over the age of 80 and veterans).
Link to wikipedia: [wikipedia.org] https:/ [wikipedia.org]
Re: Is there anyone here that voted for Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
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What makes an election "fair"?
To answer this, let's ask "What makes a sport fair?"
For a game of football to be "fair," the referees must enforce the rules of the game *as written*, without bias. One could argue that the rules themselves are unfair. One could say that the rules of basketball unfairly favor tall people, or that the rules of American football unfairly favor large, strong people. But the truth is, if the rules are equally applied to both teams, then the game is still...fair.
Your argument about
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But they're not applied evenly, have you somehow missed that?
Re:Is there anyone here that voted for Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
Press asleep at the wheel, no credible opposition, and mountains of propaganda (foreign and domestic) fed to social media addicts 27 hours a day.
While the electoral system in the US is slanted in favor of Republicans at many levels, "rigging" in the sense of altering vote tallies isn't necessary when you have all the rest of this going on.
Re:Is there anyone here that voted for Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
Worse than Falling Asleep (Score:5, Insightful)
Press wasn't asleep at the wheel. Anyone who spoke ill of the chosen one Lord Orange was fired.
So it was worse than falling asleep at the wheel - they bent the knee to him. That is what has largely amazed me seeing this play out as a non-American. For all the bluster about how free and democratic the US is, the courts, politicians, press and companies all seem to have just largely capitulated and accepted Trump's rule by proclamation and speech-suppression by firing/intimidation tactics.
Re:Is there anyone here that voted for Trump (Score:4, Interesting)
That would be sort-of a good thing. But the reality is that the US voter population is broken and wants to remove democracy.
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While certainly historically accurate, do you think the MAGAs can be really reached that way? They seem so deeply stuck in their made-up parallel universe that nothing can shake their deep and entirely baseless conviction that they are right.
Blaming the People is Dangerous (Score:3)
the reality is that the US voter population is broken and wants to remove democracy.
Blaming the people is a very dangerous, and frankly extremely undemocratic approach to take. If you look around the western democracies I think the problem is that voters are getting increasingly fed up with politicians who are not addressing the increasing problems that they are facing: salaries rising slower than inflation, house prices going through the roof, immigration out of control etc. Mainstream politicians on both the left and the right seem either incapable or unwilling to address these problems
Re:Is there anyone here that voted for Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect that the election was faked.
Based on the number of incredibly stupid posts we see online I don't see how you could give your fellow countrymen that benefit of doubt. No there's waaaay too many people who actually believe the shit they say. You don't need to fake an election when you have a dumb populace.
And by dumb I mean people who shout "Lock her up" in 2016 and yet vote for Trump in 2024. I mean people who are still looking for Hunter Biden's laptop. I mean people like at the top of this page, someone who claims that the Democrats banned several books, none of which were banned and all of which are still available.
The alternate reality is weird, and half the population seem to live in it.
Why people voted for Trump (Score:2, Insightful)
1. All voters are liars, and most of them feel entitled. Also most people think they are net contributors to the country.
2. The vast majority of voters oppose illegal immigrat
Re: Why people voted for Trump (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why people voted for Trump (Score:4, Insightful)
- The Democrats fix nothing and are abusive but I'll vote for the guy promising to be more abusive and fix everything, although I know that he too, will fix nothing.
- I want free stuff that someone else pays for, but giving someone else free stuff is Communism.
Bernie Sanders exposed point 1: Many MAGA knew Trump would fix nothing and there was no reason to vote for Trump. They were voting for Trump to piss-off everyone else.
I wonder how that plan is working?
Re:Why people voted for Trump (Score:4, Insightful)
Bernie Sanders exposed point 1: Many MAGA knew Trump would fix nothing and there was no reason to vote for Trump. They were voting for Trump to piss-off everyone else. I wonder how that plan is working?
Telling from the outside, that plan appears to work fine. It still seems unbelievable to me that among 300+ millions, these two utterly incompetent figures - Biden and and Trump - were presented as the only options to the voters. Almost as if both parties wanted to mock voters by telling them: "Look how we can make you desperately choose between two terrible options, both of which we already know will not work in your interest."
What the US is lacking is at least one non-crazy, non-demented, not-corrupt third option, but it may be too late for this to materialize.
Re:Why people voted for Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm so tired of the trope that Democrats hate men. All propagating this nonsense does is reinforce a conservative myth they've been successfully capitalizing on. It's like the myth that feminisms means "women who hate men" which came from years and years of conservatives pointing at fringe feminists from academia as opposed to what anyone in the mainstream was saying. They've successfully demonized female equity and they've made pathetic victims out of men.
Re:Why people voted for Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
What vocal minorities? You mean the ones Fox news creates with a series of anecdotal stories? Dignifying their fabricated problems every single time they do this with a response just makes them look real. It actually helps them as it gives the illusion that their claims have meaningful substance and that they aren't just throwing out anecdotes of awful individuals.
But there is a tiny vocal minority and their voices were celebrated and promoted. And criticism of that tiny minority was stomped out with vengeance.
Definitely promoted by the right, probably celebrated as well as it gave them the tools to turn a word that meant "female equity" into a bad word women don't want to call themselves anymore. You can blame the left all you want but which side consciously wanted to turn the tide against female equity?
There's no point (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem Democrats have is the Republicans are actively sabotaging the country and holding us all hostage.
They aren't alienating there voters you're just eyeball deep in propaganda so you aren't aware what they're up against.
It's not your fault like I said right wing completely took over the news media and the media in general. They just bought everything over the last 50 years.
The sabotage and hostage taking started with newt Gingrich with a tricky call to contract with america. Basically you block everything positive to Democrats want to do for their voters and you continuously sabotage the government and the country in general. Then you use your control of the media to blame the Democrats.
The problem is understanding that is way too nuanced. You kind of have to be paying close attention to politics to see it happening and frankly that's not good for your health
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Re:Is there anyone here that voted for Trump (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is there anyone here that voted for Trump (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Is there anyone here that voted for Trump (Score:4, Interesting)
You're okay with him disregarding the constitution? You're okay with him being the laws and acting like a king, eliminating power of Congress? Finally are you okay with a Democrat coming to power and doing the things Trump is doing?
Wise Words (Score:5, Informative)
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
Teddy Roosevelt May 17, 1918
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What a traitor! The FBI should disappear him to Alligator Alcatraz for this kind of anti-American propaganda.
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To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
Teddy Roosevelt May 17, 1918
Roosevelt spoke these words in Kansas City on May 7, 1918, no doubt in part to justify his extreme criticisms of President Woodrow Wilson, whom he excoriated for moral flabbiness, for high sounding words unmatched by action, and for not preparing the people of the United States for entry into World War I.
Doublethink (Score:5, Insightful)
DoW remains committed to transparency to promote accountability and public trust," the document says, using an acronym for the newly rebranded Department of War. However, DoW information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.
Wikipedia says that "Doublethink is a process of indoctrination in which subjects are expected to simultaneously accept two conflicting beliefs as truth, often at odds with their own memory or sense of reality." If you didn't immediately recognize the quote from the summary as doublethink - or at least as extreme hypocrisy - read it again.
To those Americans who still deny that the US is now a dictatorship: open your eyes, give your head a shake, and wake the fuck up. There are plenty of people - Democrats and independents as well as Republicans, across the full wealth spectrum - who are in denial of just how bad things are. It's time to take your head out of your ass and start fighting to reclaim YOUR country.
Re:Doublethink (Score:5, Informative)
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Renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War really shows where Trump's focus lies. "I've stopped 7 wars. No new wars while I was president."
Why rename the Dept of Defense to the Dept of War if his focus is on NOT going to war?
To be fair, the DoD has been focused on war more than defense for decades. At least now they are being honest about it.
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Renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War really shows where Trump's focus lies. "I've stopped 7 wars. No new wars while I was president."
Why rename the Dept of Defense to the Dept of War if his focus is on NOT going to war?
It's called "intimidation".
You don't want to fucking go to war with us,
because we are ready for war.
Even though for the past 9 months we've been
doing everything we can to stay out of the wars.
"Don't make me come back there. You'll be sorry."
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Nobody in the world wanted to go to war with us when it's the DoD. This is a child's vision of the how the world works.
Also remember Trump 1 when conservatives loved Mattis and he famously said " If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.". Well fuck that guy right? Now we've gutted State and are acting like a clown show.
Even though for the past 9 months we've been doing everything we can to stay out of the wars.
Oh yeah, the illegal bombing of Venezuelan civilians (and remember according to the admin we are at war with Venezuela),
the bombing of Ira
Dear withholders of the Epstein files... (Score:4, Informative)
Hitler and Trump get rid of the comedians first! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hitler and Trump get rid of the comedians first! next is the press that does not print what trump wants.
Re:Hitler and Trump get rid of the comedians first (Score:5, Informative)
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Ukraine elected one president! Maybe that's the REAL reason Putin invaded...
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And on the other hand, said comedian does a far better job than any career politician would have done. Maybe these people are valuable to society?
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Wow, someone with mod points is apparently unfamiliar with Zelenskyy's former occupation.
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Putin has been trying to get rid of Zelenskyy for a few years now, but isn't having much luck there.
Re:Hitler and Trump get rid of the comedians first (Score:4, Informative)
When Roseanne Barr was fired in 2018 over a racist tweet, liberals applauded. Different years, different comedians, but the same story: outrage, pressure, punishment, and partisan applause.
The difference with Roseanne being that Obama didn't call up her boss and demand a firing. The part that really gave me a good laugh was when she tried to blame the drug ambien. The makers of ambien tweeted back that none of the side effects include racism.
Re:Hitler and Trump get rid of the comedians first (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's precisely the naked abuse of state power to try to force the media to toe the line on their repugnant little exercise in hagiogra
The options (Score:5, Insightful)
So it would seem they have a choice,
(1) Sign the document and lose all credibility as a journalist,
(2) Be excluded from the room where Hegseth is pontificating
I'm not sure what value sitting in the room with that guy even provides. Whatever nonsense he's spouting, it's going to be public within 5 seconds from the conclusion of the press conference, and then any banned journalists can just refer to that reporting. Not sure what the obsession is with being in the press conferences. Is it just old people remembering when there wasn't internet and the news only happened for 1 hour in the evening?
I know a lot of these journalists don't have any credibility to lose, and have probably already signed it. There's a big opportunity here for some news organizations to differentiate themselves. But I think most of them will follow the approved script for this 2025 season of The Apprentice.
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If anything, unless there's someone significantly smarter than P
OK. I promise. (Score:2)
EOL.
End of the USA (Score:2)
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LOL. We're talking about the "middle class" that just voted to re-elect Donald Trump.
Their problem isn't the immigrants.
Their problem isn't the poor people.
Their problem isn't some shadowy "oligarchs."
Their problem is that they are fucking morons.
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First I'd like to disclaim: The government should absolutely not be dictating who plays sports anywhere. That is for whoever is organizing the game to decide. (I realize the ship of government regulating sports has left port, but maybe we could bring it back, or at least hit it with an iceberg?)
Secondly: I'd like to point out that the insistence on transgenders playing on specific teams is, in part, why transgenders continues to occupy such a huge part of the discourse.
There are some things I can't do becau
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Their problem is that they are fucking morons.
To be fair, education has been systematically dismantled in the USA since the 1980s.
Toothless threat (Score:2)
Oh no, not the press pass!
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Let's do a thought experiment.
Pretend Obama made this statement. Your words would be very different.
Signal SNAFU (Score:4, Informative)
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don't have the journalist ethics
im not mad. please dont put in the newspaper that i got mad.
Like in a 3rd world "shithole"... (Score:2)
These people have no shame.
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You're pretending that the US wouldn't have already joined the Third World.
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Let's be real. It still has quite some way to go. But unless there are drastic changes in the voter population, that is where it is going.
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The War President (Score:2)
We are currently involved in TWO actual
shooting wars, one of which is Russia
trying to start World War 3.
Meanwhile, we are in a cold war with
China, who is sabre rattling and trying
to coordinate and bankroll an Axis of evil.
We renamed the WW-2 War Department back
to it's original name. "Defense" was for when
the World Wars were over. Now they are back.
It is pretty normal during wartime for the military
to restrict what the press is allowed to report,
and to expect them to be on our side,
which includes not report
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Correct acroymn (Score:2)
Re:Pentagon Papers (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, except for the journalists of NPR. Those guys are the most serious journalists you'll ever see. That's why Trump and his cronies tried to destroy them by defunding public broadcasting. And, no, I'm not being sarcastic. The only reason they all seem like a bunch of liberals is because reality itself has a liberal bias. They (NPR) and the BBC, AP, and Reuters are the most neutral news agencies to ever exist. That's why Republicans (let's be real, Trumpsters) hate them so much.
Re:Pentagon Papers (Score:4, Interesting)
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Oxy ftw! Rush was also a former welfare recipient, not counting all the welfare wealthy people receive in America.
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Re:Pentagon Papers (Score:4, Funny)
I see you brought your Trump branded knee pads to the discussion.
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Necessitous men are not free men [wikipedia.org]
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It just might be the case that it's good for a society for it's people to be healthy.
The fact anyone in the USA wakes up sick or their kid is sick or they have a bad diagnosis and they might have the thought "can I afford this?" is a public failure.
Healthcare was what radicalized me out of libertarian-ism.
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All people respond to incentives, for me the role of the state in the economy is recognizing market failures, externalities and perverse incentives and correct them.
The hodgepodge American system is just a basketcase of all of those. And it's the most expensive to boot!
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