The Trump Presidency | Biden Inaugurated

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fcbforever said:
It’s not the gouverment but a private entity contracted by the gouverment. I would have done the same, she’s done something potentially damaging the company. If it was yours and the guy you are subcontracted you wasn’t Trump but just some random ass you don’t like, wouldn’t you still expect your employees to act properly? This isn’t a freedom of speech issue, that’s simple employment law.

I also wonder why everyone seems to have forgotten „when they go low, we go high“
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1. It is a stretch to say it was potentially damaging. The way the company learnt abot it wasn't through hate-mail but voluntary disclosure. The photo is of her back. Social media accounts of hers don't mention her job.
2. VA is an at-will state. It means that the company does not need to explain their decision.
The only way to reverse a firing at an at-will state is for the *employee* to prove beyond reasonable doubt that s/he was fired because of gender/race or because s/he was trying to form a union. Every other grounds for dismissal, including the ghastliest you can think of, is valid.
For another example, Tesla just fired ~700 workers in the middle of a unionisation drive, including all those most involved in trying to form a union. It claims that the firing was based on confidential internal performance reviews. The workers have to prove **without seeing these reviews** that they were singled out for their involvement in the potential union.

More broadly, this does suggest a very easy way in which the 1st amendment becomes about as restricted as rights were before Magna Carta. If employers agree with the govt about some decisions, any dissent regarding those decisions can be grounds for termination.


The reason people seem to have forgotten going high is because it has cost them.
 
Further:
http://crookedtimber.org/2012/07/01/let-it-bleed-libertarianism-and-the-workplace/

On pain of being fired, workers in most parts of the United States can be commanded to peeor forbidden to pee. They can be watched on camera by their boss while they pee. They can be forbidden to wear what they want, say what they want (and at what decibel), and associate with whom they want. They can be punished for doing or not doing any of these things—punished legally or illegally (as many as 1 in 17 workers who try to join a union is illegally fired or suspended). But what’s remarkable is just how many of these punishments are legal, and even when they’re illegal, how toothless the law can be. Outside the usual protections (against race and gender discrimination, for example), employees can be fired for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason at all. They can be fired for donating a kidney to their boss(fired by the same boss, that is), refusing to have their person and effects searched, calling the boss a “cheapskate” in a personal letter, and more. They have few rights on the job—certainly none of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendment liberties that constitute the bare minimum of a free society; thus, no free speech or assembly, no due process, no right to a fair hearing before a panel of their peers—and what rights they do have employers will fight tooth and nail to make sure aren’t made known to them or will simply require them to waive as a condition of employment. Outside the prison or the military—which actually provide, at least on paper, some guarantee of due process—it’s difficult to conceive of a less free institution for adults than the average workplace.

In addition to abridging freedoms on the job, employers abridge their employees’ freedoms off the job. Employers invade employees’ privacy, demanding that they hand over passwords to their Facebook accounts, and fire them for resisting such invasions. Employers secretly film their employees at home. Workers are fired for supporting the wrong political candidates(“work for John Kerry or work for me”), failing to donate to employer-approved candidates, challenging government officials, writing critiques of religion on their personal blogs (IBM instructs employees to “show proper consideration…for topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory—such as politics and religion”), carrying on extramarital affairs, participating in group sex at home, cross-dressing, and more. Workers are punished for smoking or drinking in the privacy of their own homes. (How many nanny states have tried that?) They can be fired for merely thinking about having an abortion, for reporting information that might have averted the Challenger disaster, for being raped by an estranged husband. Again, this is all legal in many states, and in the states where it is illegal, the laws are often weak.

While employers often abridge workers’ liberty off the job, at certain moments, those abridgments assume a larger function for the state. Particularly in a liberal state constrained by constitutional protections such as the First Amendment, the instruments of coercion can be outsourced to—or shared with—the private sector. During the McCarthy period, for example, fewer than 200 men and women went to jail for their political beliefs, but as many as 40% of American workers—in both the public and private sectors—were investigated (and a smaller percentage punished) for their beliefs.

In his magisterial history of Reconstruction, W.E.B. DuBois noted that “the decisive influence” in suppressing the political agency of ex-slaves after the Civil War “was the systematic and overwhelming economic pressure” to which they were subjected. Though mindful of the tremendous violence, public and private, visited upon African Americans, DuBois also saw that much of the repression occurred in and through the workplace.
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fcbforever said:
It’s not the gouverment but a private entity contracted by the gouverment. I would have done the same, she’s done something potentially damaging the company. If it was yours and the guy you are subcontracted you wasn’t Trump but just some random ass you don’t like, wouldn’t you still expect your employees to act properly? This isn’t a freedom of speech issue, that’s simple employment law.

I also wonder why everyone seems to have forgotten „when they go low, we go high“
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I get that we are dealing with a private enterprise here. I was pointing out that the government while handing out contracts should be held to a higher standard regarding what they consider damaging from contracted companies. Reputation damage while exerting a Constitutional Liberty shouldn't be a criteria for the govt. in public submission which in turn would disincentivize the company to fire her given highers costs.

For all we know it wasn't necessarily White House contracting them so to say that by insulting Trump she insulted the contractor is stretching it a bit. Trump and every other government official participating in politics need to accept that it's part of the game that people can express their opinion about their work in a broader fashion than they could with private actors. It was clearly poor taste but she didn't spray 'feck off' on the escalade, did she?
 
WackyWengerWorld said:
It's considered sexist because women are judged or commented on their physical appearance far more than men in professional jobs.

There's centuries of culture that makes us judge women so even liberal posters will refer to Kelly Anne Conway as 'Skeletor'. Anyone referred to Bernie as 'Skeletor'? No. How often is Trump's weight mentioned? Not much, even by those who dislike him.

Aside from anything focusing the coverage on critical physical appearance is at best irrelevant and at worst rude.
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He wasn't focusing the coverage on physical appearance. It was one sentence in a long (brilliant) piece about her. I'm just not on board with the unequal approach being taken here, Trump gets loads stick for being XXXL, just look through the 500 pages of this thread (or look at any discussion about Chris Christie :lol:), but I guess that's irrelevant, as single examples won't do anything to discredit your claim, which I actually generally agree with.

This author isn't obliged to care about Ms. Sanders feeling. Anyone can argue that it's tasteless of him, I have no problem with that. My problem is the mass of liberals that force someone like him to apologies about something that is tasteless at worst, trying to shut him up for stating the freaking obvious. All the while the person being talked about has one of the central jobs in a working democracy (explaining the governments actions to the public) and is using it to spread propaganda and misinformation. Where's the perspective?
 
Abizzz said:
He wasn't focusing the coverage on physical appearance. It was one sentence in a long (brilliant) piece about her. I'm just not on board with the unequal approach being taken here, Trump gets loads stick for being XXXL, just look through the 500 pages of this thread (or look at any discussion about Chris Christie :lol:), but I guess that's irrelevant, as single examples won't do anything to discredit your claim, which I actually generally agree with.

This author isn't obliged to care about Ms. Sanders feeling. Anyone can argue that it's tasteless of him, I have no problem with that. My problem is the mass of liberals that force someone like him to apologies about something that is tasteless at worst, trying to shut him up for stating the freaking obvious. All the while the person being talked about has one of the central jobs in a working democracy (explaining the governments actions to the public) and is using it to spread propaganda and misinformation. Where's the perspective?
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You’re trying to argue with folks who think making a comment about a woman’s appearance equates to sexism.
 
Raoul said:
This is the sort of stupidity that could ultimately keep Trump in office. People who think they are doing something tangible against Trump by retweeting a tweet
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Its just the attention seekers wanting retweets/hearts and they know by making these kind of stupid posts, they'll attract a following.

You just need to read what this user has put in theirTwitter bio to realise what a delusional person he/she is.

The Hummingbird is a leading member of #TheResistance on a mission to impeach Donald J Trump
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SaintTresano said:
You’re trying to argue with folks who think making a comment about a woman’s appearance equates to sexism.
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Imagine being a woman and having your looks and how you dress judged and commented on every day of your life. Then imagine watching. Successful power woman getting attacked not for what she does or says but because she's not attractive. Now finally think about how you might feel about that? Would it perhaps make you angry? Pissed off? Sympathetic even?
 
Kentonio said:
Imagine being a woman and having your looks and how you dress judged and commented on every day of your life. Then imagine watching. Successful power woman getting attacked not for what she does or says but because she's not attractive. Now finally think about how you might feel about that? Would it perhaps make you angry? Pissed off? Sympathetic even?
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Other than being a woman, I know very well what it's like to judged on appearance in nasty ways. So that's not going to work on me.

Also, I think the comments against Sanders about her appearance were unnecessary. I don't think they're sexist and roll my eyes at people who get so wound up* by it.

*not to be confused with disagreeing with it
 
Kentonio said:
So that makes up for centuries of one sidedness? Women are judged on their looks constantly, and it's very rarely an attack used against men.
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Define rarely? On this forum alone I see appearance being used constantly as a way to attack men. This forum has a particular fetish for making fun of men's baldness and weight. I get appearance related attacks all the while from men and women. Maybe If you do a poll attacks on women appearance slightly outweigh that done on men.... But to say it's rarely done is laughable.
 
SaintTresano said:
Other than being a woman, I know very well what it's like to judged on appearance in nasty ways. So that's not going to work on me.
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It's not the same. It's not just having your appearance judged as in 'good or bad', its about your appearance being used to judge not only who you are but your capabilities, intelligence and basically role in life. It goes WAY beyond just being told you're ugly.

SaintTresano said:
Also, I think the comments against Sanders about her appearance were unnecessary. I don't think they're sexist and roll my eyes at people who get so wound up* by it.

*not to be confused with disagreeing with it
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That's normal, men have been rolling their eyes at sexism for centuries. Funny how that works.
 
ChaddyP said:
Define rarely? On this forum alone I see appearance being used constantly as a way to attack men. This forum has a particular fetish for making fun of men's baldness and weight. I get appearance related attacks all the while from men and women. Maybe If you do a poll attacks on women appearance slightly outweigh that done on men.... But to say it's rarely done is laughable.
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8395792-3x2-700x467.jpg


Remind me again of the time Blair and Brown had their legs compared in the national media.
 
Kentonio said:
Imagine being a woman and having your looks and how you dress judged and commented on every day of your life. Then imagine watching. Successful power woman getting attacked not for what she does or says but because she's not attractive. Now finally think about how you might feel about that? Would it perhaps make you angry? Pissed off? Sympathetic even?
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I've seen plenty of people make fun of Trump for being a lard arse, with him though there is so much else to criticize him on (his morals, his stupidity, his hypocrisy etc etc). If the only thing you can criticize someone for is their appearance then you don't really have a lot on them, especially politicians, they're not there for their looks.
 
Kentonio said:
8395792-3x2-700x467.jpg


Remind me again of the time Blair and Brown had their legs compared in the national media.
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From the outset, almost every article about Trudeau meeting someone has a commentary on how good looking he is vs his dishevelled contemporary.

You've also posted a daily mail photo. You can't possibly expect people to discuss that kind of nonsense.
 
Kentonio said:
8395792-3x2-700x467.jpg


Remind me again of the time Blair and Brown had their legs compared in the national media.
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I have no clue. I'm not British and don't read British newspapers. Maybe if Blair and Brown (who ever he is) had on shorts and posed like that they would have captioned it "Hairy Hairy"

Edit :
Again... To say it rarely happens To men Is laughable and almost attention seeking. It's rarely made an out rage of.. That's what I would agree with.


Here's a nice one for you

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...chased-pike-fish-underwater-for-a7878756.html

Where's the outrage over this title of macho strongman and such
 
ChaddyP said:
I have no clue. I'm not British and don't read British newspapers. Maybe if Blair and Brown (who ever he is) had on shorts and posed like that they would have captioned it "Hairy Hairy"

Edit :
Again... To say it rarely happens To men Is laughable and almost attention seeking. It's rarely made an out rage of.. That's what I would agree with.


Here's a nice one for you

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...chased-pike-fish-underwater-for-a7878756.html

Where's the outrage over this title of macho strongman and such
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I'm going to leave it here, because there seems little point trying to argue with the 1970's.
 
Kentonio said:
I'm going to leave it here, because there seems little point trying to argue with the 1970's.
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look, there is plenty of sexism going around. plenty of racism going around, plenty of bigotry etc and its aweful and needs to be dealt with and cut out as much as possible. But to argue every striking intsance as being sexist isnt doing those that are actually getting treated unfairly any favours. Its like the boy who cried wolf. So if you see that as me being stuck in the 1970s then as you said no point going further.
 
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/7/16612288/gop-tax-bill-graduate-students

Ah how nice.
If you’re a PhD student right now who works in your university’s lab, you’ll get paid a stipend for that job — but not much. The average annual salary for graduate research assistant, for example, is less than $30,000, according to Glassdoor. There’s also tuition to pay to the institution where you’re getting that PhD.

But since you’re cleaning petri dishes, the university waives that tuition. And based on the qualified-tuition-reduction provision in the tax code, the waived tuition isn’t currently taxed as income.

But the new GOP plan would change that, Steven Bloom of the American Council on Education explained. That tuition, as he put it, “would be taxable income to the graduate student.”
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So, my stipend is about exactly the average, but with my tuition waiver added is 60k. This is even though I finished my coursework 12 months ago.

So, if this goes through, and if I continue having to pay tuition+getting the waiver, I will be taxed on 60k from my 30k income.
As the article states, that would make my tax bill ~15k.

Thus I will be on 15k take-home, which is literally poverty line.
My current spending is 1.1k/month, but I think that excludes flight costs.
 
berbatrick said:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/7/16612288/gop-tax-bill-graduate-students

Ah how nice.


So, my stipend is about exactly the average, but with my tuition waiver added is 60k. This is even though I finished my coursework 12 months ago.

So, if this goes through, and if I continue having to pay tuition+getting the waiver, I will be taxed on 60k from my 30k income.
As the article states, that would make my tax bill ~15k.

Thus I will be on 15k take-home, which is literally poverty line.
My current spending is 1.1k/month, but I think that excludes flight costs.
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It's as if they don't want pesky trained scientists!
 
senorgregster said:
It's as if they don't want pesky trained scientists!
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My only hope is that I don't need/get a tuition/waiver 3rd year onwards, but I doubt it.

My wise colleagues completely voted down a union effort too ~800 to ~300*. A grad student union would be really useful now. The """""tuition""""" is money taken from the my PI's grant by the university even though I am not doing coursework. The union would be useful in reducing this amount drastically, or removing students from this grant->university conduit.


*I was an idiot who didn't vote on this since someone convinced me that an increased stipden/benefits can only come from our PI's grants and thus will be at the expense of our research funds. Everyone else I know voted no because unions are evil outsiders.
 
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berbatrick said:
My only hope is that I don't need/get a tuition/waiver 3rd year onwards, but I doubt it.

My wise colleagues completely voted down a union effort too ~800 to ~300*. A grad student union would be really useful now. The """""tuition""""" is money taken from the my PI's grant by the university even though I am not doing coursework. The union would be useful in reducing this amount drastically, or removing students from this grant->university conduit.


*I was an asshole who didn't vote on this since someone convinced me that an increased stipden/benefits can only come from our PI's grants and thus will be at the expense of our research funds. Everyone else I know voted no.
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berbatrick said:
My only hope is that I don't need/get a tuition/waiver 3rd year onwards, but I doubt it.

My wise colleagues completely voted down a union effort too ~800 to ~300*. A grad student union would be really useful now. The """""tuition""""" is money taken from the my PI's grant by the university even though I am not doing coursework. The union would be useful in reducing this amount drastically, or removing students from this grant->university conduit.


*I was an asshole who didn't vote on this since someone convinced me that an increased stipden/benefits can only come from our PI's grants and thus will be at the expense of our research funds. Everyone else I know voted no.
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I don't think it should be taxed at all. I assume they don't furnish the IRS with a W-2 still? Leave it to the students to figure out the tax law! I was one of the lucky ones who managed to get my own small grant and got $16k total. The others were on something like $13k. This was about 15 years ago though. The poor postdocs were on next to nothing. Awful.
 
berbatrick said:
My only hope is that I don't need/get a tuition/waiver 3rd year onwards, but I doubt it.

My wise colleagues completely voted down a union effort too ~800 to ~300*. A grad student union would be really useful now. The """""tuition""""" is money taken from the my PI's grant by the university even though I am not doing coursework. The union would be useful in reducing this amount drastically, or removing students from this grant->university conduit.


*I was an asshole who didn't vote on this since someone convinced me that an increased stipden/benefits can only come from our PI's grants and thus will be at the expense of our research funds. Everyone else I know voted no.
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I would generally say that over some time a new equilibrium would be achieved taking into account the new tax structure (if it passes in current form) and its effects on after-tax income. But that also relies on the new status lowering the supply of grad students willing to go down that path on lower after-tax income, and I'm generally already surprised with some of the levels of privation a lot of people are willing to go through in grad school (especially in the humanities).

And also in yours and other current student cases there isn't enough time for this market to "play out", especially because I assume the universities make these decisions on an annual basis. So they might underpay one year and only realize any problems with that the next (if they do). Guess the students could still "unionize" around this one issue maybe...?
 
Oh dear. Reports that Trump was flying on Marine One to go to the DMZ and they had to turn back due to the weather.
 
senorgregster said:
I don't think it should be taxed at all. I assume they don't furnish the IRS with a W-2 still? Leave it to the students to figure out the tax law! I was one of the lucky ones who managed to get my own small grant and got $16k total. The others were on something like $13k. This was about 15 years ago though. The poor postdocs were on next to nothing. Awful.
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Yup, I had to learn on my own too. In the 1st year I got 2 documents, one with and one without tuition added. Useful.
Postdocs get a good bit more, but many of them have kids.
Obviously humanities students still have it extremely rough - 12k is the poverty line.
Further in that thread - many, many people still in that range.

MTF said:
I would generally say that over some time a new equilibrium would be achieved taking into account the new tax structure (if it passes in current form) and its effects on after-tax income. But that also relies on the new status lowering the supply of grad students willing to go down that path on lower after-tax income, and I'm generally already surprised with some of the levels of privation a lot of people are willing to go through in grad school (especially in the humanities).

And also in yours and other current student cases there isn't enough time for this market to "play out", especially because I assume the universities make these decisions on an annual basis. So they might underpay one year and only realize any problems with that the next (if they do). Guess the students could still "unionize" around this one issue maybe...?
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Hm. I think the reason it won't be easy for us now is that the university must have been counting on that money. With 2000 phd students enrolled, it isn't small (even though a good amount is just going between univ accounts, the rest (like mine) is being added from grants.

About the supply - I can safely say that half my batch including me would not have considered American grad schools in these circumstances. Some of them will be additionally hurt by the student loan deduction being removed as well. The remainder have won personal fellowships or (won?) very rich parents. I would guess these account for 20-30% of the total. Offers for admission are sent in February, so any change should be apparent (the code must pass by December, right?).

I do not see any viable options if it passes besides begging my parents, and changing my career path to compensate them afterwards.
 
Worst thing about this is Trump would have been told the weather was bad in the area and he still insisted they go.

Kim Jong must be laughing his head off.
 
@berbatrick Personally, I don't think they get it signed into law by Dec. No super deep insight on this, but we've seen their challenges in passing legislation earlier this year, and some analysts at research firms and banks think the same.
 
MTF said:
@berbatrick Personally, I don't think they get it signed into law by Dec. No super deep insight on this, but we've seen their challenges in passing legislation earlier this year, and some analysts at research firms and banks think the same.
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brb erecting a shrine to susan collins and mccain's tumour.
 
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