For the first link Yes, COVID-19 has created an unprecedented situation in 2020, but you’re not dumb enough to think that situation persists. 1st and 2nd quarter GDP are going to be laughably huge and that graph is going to revert. Meanwhile the rest of that graph tells a story of a developed country with a lot of…

. We know female athletes receive considerably less investment than male athletes in most sports, and in many sports female athletes received no investment whatsoever until quite recently; how much has this hampered their achievements is difficult to say with the available data.

That’s a high minded ideal, but unless “someday” is a time in the future when we’ve radically re-engineered human DNA to eliminate the way evolution has caused the males of our species to be stronger and faster, the impact of “desegregating” sports will be that born males win basically every class of athletic…

This doesn’t hold up.

And also worth noting that America’s probably got more going for it in terms of ameliorating the problems caused by lower birth rates than a lot of the developed world.

Yeah, the “undue financial burden” is especially not compelling. Sports are divided up to make it so that the competition is more enjoyable to both participate in and spectate. It’s a communal thing. In a hypothetical world where a trans woman is blowing out the women’s field because she’s never had hormone treatment…

It’s true, there are a lot of segments you could divide people along.

The Phelps example always cracks me up because there’s a plethora of adjacent data to show why it’s a poor comparison for the divide between men and women.

In a more sane world, everyone would just use the NCAA’s testosterone policy, and then be open to monitoring outcomes over the course of years or even decades as we continue to accrue more observations of trans athletes. This is a topic where I don’t really care about people’s opinions right now. I think the…

When you’ve been as public as Tanden is for so long I don’t think that works ...

Unsurprisingly, in the desperate scramble to protect their egos, senators overlooked the more legitimate criticisms and concerns about Tanden’s nomination

If the leadership of a party has zero influence on members of the party, then there simply is nothing called a “Democratic Party”

The good thing about the House being a pure mob rule legislative body is that it does indeed have it’s own form of cancel culture. Jim Jordan has no ability at all to force a hearing.

Because the shots are being taken at party leadership when it’s not reasonable to expect them to have influence over those senators.

Citing polls about policy popularity after the last 20 years of US politics is just so adorable.

I mean, when you say “disaster” I think that’s a lot about perspective. The hard truth is that if you are viewing the Navy Twitch stream for any reason other than “I’m going to troll the United States military!” then you aren’t going to care about trolls dropping bomb emotes trying to criticize military strikes you…

A photograph of then Minnesota Senator Al Franken pretending to grope Leeann Tweeden’s breasts while she was asleep certainly fueled calls for Franken to resign in 2017; but it didn’t stopped him from mounting an effective comeback tour.

But even if they were willing to, it wouldn’t have mattered. If they’d stuffed it in there and either overruled the parliamentarian or the parliamentarian had gone along to get along, Manchin wouldn’t have voted for the bill under reconciliation rules making it moot anyways.

Democrats in Congress, and the Biden administration, want a $15 minimum wage. They just don’t want it all that bad, and aren’t willing to expend any political to get it. (Kamala Harris could overrule the parliamentarian, or they could change the Byrd Rule so that a minimum wage increase is within its scope).

it’s definitely going to be challenged in court no matter how it’s handled