Part of the decline in the US labor force participation rate is the baby boomer generation reaching retirement age.

Sounds like a POG mod could not solve the puzzle of internet access.

I would like to start a puzzle and game thread in politics.

It's been done before

DG makes a post pointing out that no one's ever been sued for hosting conspiracy woo woo ~12 hours after that post.
Can't imagine why there are zero infractions or user notes on either account...

the graph is ages 15 to 64. if anything the 55-64 year olds probably have higher work rates than 15-24 year olds so an older population would show a rise.

i think the opiods epidemic is more likely a major factor. maybe the criminal justice system. maybe less movement on gender norms than elsewhere. maybe something else entirely

Ah yes. I missed that part.

Could also be an increase in people with two or more jobs.

MS senate passes a ban on all abortions after 6 weeks, effectively outlawing abortion in the state completely.

The first step towards our real life Handmaids Tale.

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

That was a super fun game iirc it was my very first ww game. Tom coached me up in dvc afterward, I always thought it was weird afterward that he knew so much about the game but I'd never see him play after that game

West Virginia at the top? I thought Trump cared about those coal miners! I'm sure the loosened safety restrictions have likely contributed to the black lung epidemic in the coal industry.

Let's check the tape...



yep...

They must not know. Someone should tell those people they don’t like the welfare state so the can get off comp.

In for the next one

We need something to call the sexual subtext evangelicals use to describe homosexuality.

Let's talk that Kraft prostitution arrest. Here's how Business Insider reported it at the time:

I'm now going to quote heavily from a series of articles written by Elizabeth Nolan Brown (1, 2, 3) in Reason.

So. People were arrested for trafficking. Right? It says so right in the Insider article.

It should be noted that the police have weeks of surveillance footage from hidden cameras at this establishment. If they're not bringing trafficking or abuse charges, it's because there isn't evidence of trafficking or abuse.

But the women are very grateful for having been rescued?

But they were working under horrific conditions. Right?

So basically, everything the police have said to the media on the subject is self-serving lies, designed to evoke moral outrage from a public who doesn't really care about vanilla prostitution. Law enforcement telling fibs? I'm shocked.

Sex trafficking is unquestionably going on in the US, but what is the scale of the problem? To me this has the shape of a moral panic (like "Stranger Danger" back in the day, where allegedly huge numbers of kids were being abducted by strangers). It's because:

- Trafficking is, like terrorism, a way to combine disparate incidents into a whole that you can present to people as a huge, terrifying problem necessitating drastic action. Like terrorism, laws intended to stop this problem will inevitably be applied to situations they weren't meant for.

- Not many people want to die on the hill of pushing back against this issue, it makes you look like a callous monster.

- Everyone involved here - advocates, police and the media - have huge incentives to exaggerate the scale of the problem. Nobody has an incentive to downplay it.

Meanwhile, the women caught up in the sting are sitting in state jail, awaiting trial for prostitution. If the state's interest in this case is the welfare of these women, they have a funny way of showing it.

i agree. sex trafficking vs prostitution is a big problem in law enforcing in my opinion. LE wants to use the term trafficking as much as possible to drum up support and money and sometimes it just isnt. DA's want to use it to get re-elected

i had to prosecute a "pandering" case one time that simply wasn't pandering or trafficking. guy calls up a hooker(undercover cop) on backpage, meets her brags that he could be her new pimp and buy her fancy clothes. no money or sex was ever exchanged. dude had no history and sat in jail for 4 months on a 2k bail.. my superiors wanted double digit years.. i gave him 3yr probation on misdemeanor solicitation and like 6 months in with credit. he hasn't been in trouble again and no evidence (that i was told existed) was ever found that he was a human trafficker.. i got demoted.

Here's a former prosecutor on this case as well:

Seems like a pretty solid point, right? By the way, the women Kraft allegedly engaged the services of were 45 and 58 years old, Florida residents, and legally registered masseuses.

Kraft, along with other men in the case, has been offered a no-plea deal, but it's being reported that he is not going to take it. I've seen suggestions both that the hidden cameras were installed illegally, and they weren't recording sound, which means it's going to be difficult to prove that sex was exchanged for money. I'd say Kraft's lawyers will eat them alive if this case goes to trial, so it's going to be interesting to see how far the back-pedaling is going to go.

Not that villain is an awesome dude or anything, but you are.

For men not in the know, this gives us ONE WEEK to get that abortion

That fifth week we're like **** **** **** is it coming, is it late? Finally you get the test.

One week.

**** MS

Btw am I allowed to post here? I'm like 99.999999% worried about sexist trolls and an overlapping 5% worried I'm just generally not allowed to post here I don't know why... Its hard to new forum.

This forum is largely on your side

Of course you're allowed to post here.

At first I thought you were both confusing Kentucky with Mississippi, but nope, Kentucky's was a few days ago, this one is new.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/u...rtion-law.html

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/...or/3214702002/

It still feels a little like walking to my mailbox at night

s chuck

*place barbaric yawp here*