American Politics

[MarquisdeSade1]

"Golden, Marquis, absolutely golden:

But, again, I have no problem with nubile women from Cuba and Venezuela raiding our fridges and medicine cabinets.

I'll second that too. Board members who share our interest in Colombia should check out Gabriel Garcia Marquez. My favorite of his novels is Love in the Time of Cholera. I'm a big fan of one piece of nonfiction, News of a Kidnapping. And yes, Grossman somehow manages to make Garcia Marquez just as compelling a read in English as Spanish. I think. I tried reading Cien Anos de Soledad in Spanish and gave up after 5 pages. ".

The only thing I love about Colombia is all the delicioso Venezuelan chicas there jajajajaaaaa.

[MarquisdeSade1]

"Golden, Marquis, absolutely golden:

But, again, I have no problem with nubile women from Cuba and Venezuela raiding our fridges and medicine cabinets.

I'll second that too. Board members who share our interest in Colombia should check out Gabriel Garcia Marquez. My favorite of his novels is Love in the Time of Cholera. I'm a big fan of one piece of nonfiction, News of a Kidnapping. And yes, Grossman somehow manages to make Garcia Marquez just as compelling a read in English as Spanish. I think. I tried reading Cien Anos de Soledad in Spanish and gave up after 5 pages. ".

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/va...11/id/1133982/

https://dailystormer.in/watch-loony-...-take-control/

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...hment-inquiry/

[EihTooms]

Two and half trillion dollars? First, it was around 1.5 to 1.7 trillion total over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation. Probably less because the corporate tax is bringing in a lot more money than people expected. Furthermore, money left in the hands of the taxpayer is not flushed down the shitter. It's flushed down the shitter when the federal government takes that money from the taxpayer and spends a large % of it on foolishness.

The federal debt held by the public has increased from $16.2 trillion when Paul Ryan left office to 25.5 trillion today. That's 9.3 trillion dollars. Yes, SOME of the COVID-related stimulus was defensible. Nevertheless, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Donald Trump, the Democrat's Best Friend, have presided over a huge increase in the national debt.

So the permanent rates in that monstrosity might only add $1. 5 Trillion to the deficit in the first 10 years of their existence. Then what happens? Does the Earth evaporate and we no longer keep count of how much it continues to add to the deficit while adding zero net gain to GDP and fewer jobs with it than without it?

Unless "permanent" means something other than "permanent", it will continue to add at least $1. 5 Trillion to the deficit with nothing to show for it every 10 years. Goodie. I have obviously been too generous and forgiving of that monstrosity by only attributing $2. 5 Trillion to its net cost to America. I could have accurately characterized it as flushing $100 Trillion down the shitter if it takes long enough to repeal it.

As a purported USA National Economy "stimulous" and "jobs creator", it surpasses the definition of "flushing money down the shitter. ".

Now, if they had sold it as and named it "The Great Trump / Repub Jobs Losing, Deficit Skyrocketing Gift To Corporate CEOs and the Super Wealthy To Be Paid For By Everyone Else Act", then I would really have nothing to criticize about it in terms of a piece of legislation accomplishing its stated goals.

[Tiny 12]

Yes, they are. It is expected behavior from them. I have had many surgeons tell me that they scrub before surgery knowing scrubbing does nothing to prevent infection. They do it out of tradition.

That's not relevant Elvis. We're addressing transmission of COVID from infected individuals to me when I'm wearing an N95 or KN95 mask.

Are you saying health care professionals are not like you? That they make decisions based on stone cold science versus emotions?

I make decisions based on stone cold science, not emotions. If I didn't I'd be broke and married. Or broke and divorced. And yes, when physicians got vaccinations themselves and wore N95 masks while treating COVID patients, most did so based on stone cold science.

And the science just showed that so many cancer preventative measures do not work. Do you think doctors and nurses are going to stop recommending colonoscopies, PSA blood tests, and mammograms even though they do no good? Hell no!

Colonoscopies? People who get regular colonoscopies are about 50% less likely to die of colon cancer than people who don't. One of my best friends and my uncle might be alive today if they had gotten regular colonoscopies.

I don't know much about PSA tests and mammograms, but suspect like non-respirator masks, they reduce the probability of dying from cancer by some percentage that I would believe is significant. And that you would believe is not enough to justify their use.

I am not in favor of mask, COVID vaccine, colonoscopy, PSA or mammogram mandates. However, as a free man from the Free State of Texas, I have the right to avail myself of any of these prophylactics and procedures, regardless of whether my fellow Texans approve.

[Tiny 12]

The amount of money Biden and the Dems and in some cases even a few stray Repubs voted to spend to recover America and not just America from the worldwide disaster of Trump's Pandemic is totally defensible. Particularly in light of whatever foolish missteps a Repub / Trump-appointed Fed Chairman was likely to make along the way. If anything, a tad more spent in the usual Dem-chosen areas would have put us in an even better position today.

By contrast, the Trump / Repub $2. 5+ Trillion TCJA they flushed down the shitter with only fewer jobs created with it than without it to show for it was indefensible. As was virtually every Repub tax policy change that precipitated every Great Repub Depression, Great Repub Recession and Massive Repub Jobs Destruction of the past 100 years or so. Every Dem in Congress knew it. That is why they didn't vote for it. And Biden / Dems had greater challenges to meet in order to pull us out of the mess Trump's stewardship left behind than to rehaul the entire tax code in those first 2 years.

There was not going to be some miraculous new result from a predominantly Repub-inspired, proposed and passed legislation than the usual crap-to-Super Crap one we've been getting from them over the past several decades. Every Dem in Congress knew it, of course.

Every voter should have known it too. But I guess the influence of pro-Repub Bothsiderism was too great and some suckers actually fell for Trump's con that spending those Trillions would produce "3%, 4%, maybe 5% or 6%" annual GDP Growth and turn him into "The Greatest Jobs President that God ever created"! Oh, and with the biggest inauguration crowd ever, too! LOL.

Two and half trillion dollars? First, it was around 1.5 to 1.7 trillion total over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation. Probably less because the corporate tax is bringing in a lot more money than people expected. Furthermore, money left in the hands of the taxpayer is not flushed down the shitter. It's flushed down the shitter when the federal government takes that money from the taxpayer and spends a large % of it on foolishness.

The federal debt held by the public has increased from $16.2 trillion when Paul Ryan left office to 25.5 trillion today. That's 9.3 trillion dollars. Yes, SOME of the COVID-related stimulus was defensible. Nevertheless, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Donald Trump, the Democrat's Best Friend, have presided over a huge increase in the national debt.

[Tiny 12]

Golden, Marquis, absolutely golden:

Bret (on the subject of illegal immigration): It's one thing when several kids come into the cranky neighbor's backyard. It's quite another when several million do, then raid his fridge and medicine cabinet and never want to go home.

Bret (on the subject of Hunter Biden): As for the second, at a minimum I'd like to know how the president's story went from "I've never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings" to the White House's tacit admission that Hunter would put his dad on the line when speaking to business associates, ostensibly just to make small talk but very likely as a way of selling the Biden "brand. " I'd also like to know why Biden used email aliases during his vice presidency to communicate with Hunter. The answers might well turn out to be innocent. But that's all the more reason to respond to the questions rather than evade them.

But, again, I have no problem with nubile women from Cuba and Venezuela raiding our fridges and medicine cabinets.

Bret: I'll defer to you on this subject. And speaking of immortality, I need to put in a word for Rebecca Chace's wonderful obituary of Edith Grossman, the great translator of Gabriel Garca Mrquez and Miguel de Cervantes. I started reading Garca Mrquez in Spanish as a kid he lived just a few blocks from us on the south side of Mexico City and then I read some of the same books in her English translations when I was a bit older. Grossman's translations somehow managed to make him a more vivid, lucid, enchanting writer.

She wasn't just a translator. She was an artist.

I'll second that too. Board members who share our interest in Colombia should check out Gabriel Garcia Marquez. My favorite of his novels is Love in the Time of Cholera. I'm a big fan of one piece of nonfiction, News of a Kidnapping. And yes, Grossman somehow manages to make Garcia Marquez just as compelling a read in English as Spanish. I think. I tried reading Cien Anos de Soledad in Spanish and gave up after 5 pages.

[MarquisdeSade1]

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...-donald-trump/

Correction, LOSE AGAIN.

[EihTooms]

Translation: The $1. 9 trillion American Rescue Plan and other legislation passed in 2021 and 2022 that would, in total, increase the national debt by over $5 trillion isn't really defensible. So I'll change the subject to Republican presidents, a couple of whom were in office over 90 years ago.

Come on Tooms. I readily admit that Donald Trump and George W. Bush did some stupid things. You don't have to defend the indefensible every time.

The amount of money Biden and the Dems and in some cases even a few stray Repubs voted to spend to recover America and not just America from the worldwide disaster of Trump's Pandemic is totally defensible. Particularly in light of whatever foolish missteps a Repub / Trump-appointed Fed Chairman was likely to make along the way. If anything, a tad more spent in the usual Dem-chosen areas would have put us in an even better position today.

By contrast, the Trump / Repub $2. 5+ Trillion TCJA they flushed down the shitter with only fewer jobs created with it than without it to show for it was indefensible. As was virtually every Repub tax policy change that precipitated every Great Repub Depression, Great Repub Recession and Massive Repub Jobs Destruction of the past 100 years or so. Every Dem in Congress knew it. That is why they didn't vote for it. And Biden / Dems had greater challenges to meet in order to pull us out of the mess Trump's stewardship left behind than to rehaul the entire tax code in those first 2 years.

There was not going to be some miraculous new result from a predominantly Repub-inspired, proposed and passed legislation than the usual crap-to-Super Crap one we've been getting from them over the past several decades. Every Dem in Congress knew it, of course.

Every voter should have known it too. But I guess the influence of pro-Repub Bothsiderism was too great and some suckers actually fell for Trump's con that spending those Trillions would produce "3%, 4%, maybe 5% or 6%" annual GDP Growth and turn him into "The Greatest Jobs President that God ever created"! Oh, and with the biggest inauguration crowd ever, too! LOL.

[MarquisdeSade1]

"After I read the piece I googled him and saw he was a Republican, so did think the piece was kind of curious. Your explanation makes sense. ".

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/r...09/id/1133865/

OPINION.

THE CONVERSATION.

Once Again You Lose Me at the Wall.

Sept. 11,2023.

Migrant families wade through waist-high water in the Rio Grande.

Migrant families wading through the Rio Grande in July. Credit. Adrees Latif / Reuters.

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Gail CollinsBret Stephens.

By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens.

Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are Opinion columnists. They converse every week.

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Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. Democratic mayors and governors are warning the Biden administration that the migrants crossing our southern border are straining their cities and states to the breaking point. New York City alone is sheltering and feeding an average of 59,000 migrants a day. What's your advice to the White House?

Gail Collins: Easy stuff first, Bret. There are job openings many newcomers could fill in areas like food service, if they're given the ability to work. And the federal government needs to give stressed-out regions — particularly New York City — a whole lot more help when it comes to housing.

Bret: I'm definitely in favor of handing out work permits, if that's what you mean. Please go on.

Gail: Making more housing available has to include building new accommodations and transforming existing city buildings, both residential and those with unneeded office space. Over the long run, we absolutely have to open up options for multifamily housing in suburban areas that have long resisted it.

As to the border itself, Biden is trying to tighten up the whole immigration process, but a lot of his initiatives have been challenged in court. The administration has expanded federal border resources in an effort to make processing families faster. Although of course there's still more that should be done.

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OK, your turn.

Bret: Assuming the president wants to get re-elected, while preserving the possibility of immigration reform sometime in the next, oh, 100 years, he has to get control of the border. Right now. Jobs can take months to fill and housing takes years to build — not to mention that there are plenty of USA Citizens who ought to be the administration's first priority when it comes to affordable housing.

In the meantime, we've had a 30-month crisis that too many Democrats downplayed until it became a blue-state problem. Millions of people have entered the country illegally and tens of thousands in New York are now living off government assistance. Working-class people are afraid they are going to be priced out of low-paying jobs by desperate migrants.

My advice to the president: Ask for the resignation of Alejandro Mayorkas, his failed homeland security secretary. Put a highly respected former military officer, like retired Adm. William McRaven, in the job. Call up 10,000 active duty troops to help police the border. Work with Mexico to further strengthen its border with Guatemala. And invest infrastructure funds to build that damned wall. Because if Biden doesn't get control of the border, it will become Donald Trump's signature — and possibly winning — issue in next year's campaign.

Gail: Ah, Bret, once again you lose me at the wall. Which isn't very useful at stopping migrants but is great as a symbol of our worst impulses — the evolution from our image as welcoming land of liberty to cranky neighbor warning the kids to stay out of his backyard.

Bret: It's one thing when several kids come into the cranky neighbor's backyard. It's quite another when several million do, then raid his fridge and medicine cabinet and never want to go home.

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Gail: Speaking of kids — I know this is not a terrific segue — I guess we should discuss the Hunter Biden situation.

Bret: I think of it as two situations: the first about Hunter, the second about Joe.

Regarding the first, I don't see why the son of any president — but particularly a Democratic president who favors gun control and believes the rich should pay their taxes — should not face stiff penalties for blowing off paying his taxes and also for buying a gun while addicted to drugs.

As for the second, at a minimum I'the like to know how the president's story went from "I've never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings" to the White House's tacit admission that Hunter would put his dad on the line when speaking to business associates, ostensibly just to make small talk but very likely as a way of selling the Biden "brand. " I'the also like to know why Biden used email aliases during his vice presidency to communicate with Hunter. The answers might well turn out to be innocent. But that's all the more reason to respond to the questions rather than evade them.

Gail: We definitely have two different Hunter Biden issues: what punishment he deserves and how much of an impact his messy saga should have on our opinion of his father.

Bret: The father who, I should underscore, I will probably find myself voting for next year barring the miracle of a Nikki Haley or Chris Christie candidacy on the Republican line. Go on.

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Gail: As to the first, we have a guy who lied, when filling out the paperwork to buy a gun, about whether he was a drug addict. And who failed to pay all his 2017 and 2018 taxes. Hunter was going to get 24 months probation, until his plea deal collapsed.

This is a combo for which low-income folks with no friends in high places would probably get a stiffer punishment. But I am also sure that any Republican senator's son who got in similar trouble would not in a billion years go to jail.

Do you disagree?

Bret: I'm sure you're right — and that's wrong in itself. But Hunter definitely deserved stiffer punishment than the wrist-slap he seemed on his way to getting before his plea bargain fell apart this summer.

Gail: On the second count, it is pretty clear that Joe Biden helped Hunter get some business cred by reminding potential clients that Dad was vice president.

Bret: Meaning that Joe could have been turning himself into a willing participant in some pretty shady business dealings in places like Ukraine, where he was supposed to be the Obama administration's point man for fighting corruption.

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Gail: Even if that's the version of the saga voters buy, I find it extremely hard to imagine this is going to have any impact on the president's re-election prospects. You have here a guy who lost his first wife and a daughter in a terrible car crash and his beloved older son after a long cancer battle. Don't think most Americans will hold his attempts to aid the surviving son against him. While he's running against a man whose family profited shamelessly from foreign business ties during the presidency.

Bret: I truly feel for the president when it comes to the tragedies in his life. And I have zero sympathy for Trump or his sleazy family. But that doesn't change the fact that Hunter is also sleazy and that, at a minimum, Joe shouldn't make a habit of having Hunter constantly by his side.

Gail: I know the Republicans can't let a day go by without howling about Hunter, but I truly don't think the country cares.

Bret: Not sure you're right about that. Democrats are really underestimating the impact this could have on the election. A CNN poll published last week found that 61 percent of Americans think Joe was involved in Hunter's business dealings and that 55 percent think he acted inappropriately regarding the investigation into Hunter. What that does is to diminish Biden's claim to represent honesty and decency in the White House. A similar thing happened in 2016 when Democrats went after Trump on his sexual ethics, and Trump struck back by bringing Juanita Broaddrick to his second debate with Hillary Clinton, to remind the country about Bill's sexual ethics. The risk is that undecided voters conclude that both sides are morally tainted so they may as well vote their pocketbook interests.

Gail: I just feel the only people who are going to vote against Biden because of Hunter are people who were going to vote against Biden for something anyway.

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Bret: Different subject, Gail. Nancy Pelosi just announced she intends to run for re-election, when she'll be 84. I realize she's no longer in a leadership position, but given Mitch McConnell's and Dianne Feinstein's and, well, Joe Biden's diminished capacities, wouldn't it be better for her to retire in good health and make way for someone a little younger?

Gail: The super-important fact about Nancy Pelosi's career decision is that she opted to give up one of the nation's most powerful posts because she felt a younger leader could do it better.

Bret: True, and she deserves credit for that. I'the still suggest she take a look at some of her generational peers in politics, including McConnell and Feinstein, and ask herself if that's the best way to walk off the political stage.

Gail: The nation is growing older and people need to believe that they can step aside for the next generation of leaders without totally retiring from public life. So, hey, I'm a Pelosi rooter on this front.

Bret: I'll defer to you on this subject. And speaking of immortality, I need to put in a word for Rebecca Chace's wonderful obituary of Edith Grossman, the great translator of Gabriel García Márquez and Miguel de Cervantes. I started reading García Márquez in Spanish as a kid — he lived just a few blocks from us on the south side of Mexico City — and then I read some of the same books in her English translations when I was a bit older. Grossman's translations somehow managed to make him a more vivid, lucid, enchanting writer.

She wasn't just a translator. She was an artist.

[Elvis 2008]

When physicians and nurses wear N95 masks while treating patients with respiratory viruses, are they virtue signaling?

Yes, they are. It is expected behavior from them. I have had many surgeons tell me that they scrub before surgery knowing scrubbing does nothing to prevent infection. They do it out of tradition.

How many would treat a COVID patient without using respirator masks or something better?

Are you saying health care professionals are not like you? That they make decisions based on stone cold science versus emotions? I just gave you an example of doctors doing something that they know does not work. Health care professionals were told they have to wear masks. They have a tradition and are not going to stop just because of the science.

And the science just showed that so many cancer preventative measures do not work. Do you think doctors and nurses are going to stop recommending colonoscopies, PSA blood tests, and mammograms even though they do no good? Hell no!

The difference with masks versus scrubbing and screening tests were that masks were mandated, and the other behaviors were not.

I don't care if a doctor sees a Covid patient maskless and comes to see me next, but 90+% of the population would lose their shit if that happened.

[Tiny 12]

"Before Covid".

"Pre Covid".

Lololol.

Tell us more about American Nirvana before Trump's typically atrocious Repub stewardship of the economy and national security eventually laid the foundation for and created Trump's Pandemic.

How wonderful were things for the wealthy before Coolidge, Hoover and the Repub Congress' Great Recession?

How long was FDR a "failure" because he hadn't fully restored and recovered every crap result for the wealthy from that Repub disaster?

Yeah, yeah, we know, Obama came into office in the midst of GW Bush's spectacular economic and national security failures and was slammed by idiot Repubs for not fully recovering us from it as fast as previous Dems recovered us from previous Great Repub Disasters. Oh, my my my, "the slowest recovery since blah blah blah".

Remember? LOL.

Biden took over in the midst of Trump's Pandemic, Trump's Worldwide Economic Disaster, Trump's Violent Insurrection, etc, etc, etc.

Stop making us laugh with your sad lament that he has not yet fully recovered America to the condition it was in when Trump could coast on the amazingly positive trajectories he inherited from Obama-Biden while Trump was doing diddly squat except coming up with funny and insulting nicknames for his critics from a golf cart.

Translation: The $1. 9 trillion American Rescue Plan and other legislation passed in 2021 and 2022 that would, in total, increase the national debt by over $5 trillion isn't really defensible. So I'll change the subject to Republican presidents, a couple of whom were in office over 90 years ago.

Come on Tooms. I readily admit that Donald Trump and George W. Bush did some stupid things. You don't have to defend the indefensible every time.

[Tiny 12]

When you wear a mask under the guise of preventing infection, all you are doing is virtue signaling and making yourself feel safer. You are not safer. You just feel that way.

When physicians and nurses wear N95 masks while treating patients with respiratory viruses, are they virtue signaling? How many would treat a COVID patient without using respirator masks or something better?

[Tiny 12]

But now hes on PBS and has a column in NYT.

So he must say certain things or he will be unemployed before 8 pm est.

He must say nice things about Barry Hussein, and Biden.

And that Orange man is a meanie.

Or else.

So you need to learn how to read between the lines to decipher what hes trying to say.

After I read the piece I googled him and saw he was a Republican, so did think the piece was kind of curious. Your explanation makes sense.

[Tiny 12]

I can't remember who it was that said it best, deport every single illegal alien.

And when you're finished goto the cemeteries and dig up the dead ones.

Just mi dos pesos!!

I draw the line at large breasted Cuban strippers. We need all we can get. Have you ever tried to chase poontang in Cuba? It's a pain in the ass. It's better if they come here.

[Tiny 12]

Love the way you guys bring up Solyndra but ignore the fracking technology boosted by Energy Department grants. Not every project is a winner but many are!

The cost of the green pork in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will exceed $1 trillion according to researchers at Wharton and Goldman Sachs.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...r-later#xj4 y7.

The DOE's fracking-related grants and research were valuable to the industry. But I doubt the cost was 1/100th of $1 trillion. It may have been less than 1/1000th.

I don't have a problem with reasonable government expenditures on R&D for renewable energy, or for that matter a reasonable tax on carbon that wouldn't apply to exports. But $1 trillion in subsidies and incentives is way over the top. It's pissing off our allies and trading partners too, who rightly believe we're running roughshod over the WTO rules we agreed to.

I read an article on the Biden Administration's renewable energy czar and some of the projects he's encouraging, that I'm too lazy to try to look up. It sounded like he was unwisely throwing money around.