American Politics

[ChuchoLoco]

And your point is what outside of semantics? So you think it is okay for a branch of government that makes law, excuse me regulations that have the full force of law, to engage in censorship?

Oh I see. So Twitter has a policy that is against disinformation, and government agencies lie to Twitter and said the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, and we know that there is no question these entitles lied and they knew they were lying, but that is not censorship because Twitter is a private company?

In other words, you are perfectly okay with government entities interfering in elections as long as they use a private company as the vehicle to do so.

And you expect us to believe this bullshit about the 2020 election being the fairest in history?

No semantics just telling you who makes the laws in the USA. Three branches of government remember or don't you even know that? Where did I say anything about ok for censorship. Once again I was telling you how the government works. Like it or not, that's how it works. Three separate branches of government, each with different responsibilities. I am repeating to help it sink in to your head. You are only good at making up what you say others are saying or thinking.

Where did I say anything about 2020 election? Man, it's obvious you are delusional. Go argue with yourself. Let us know which one of your make believe identities wins.

Twitter and Hunter Biden, what does that have to do with who makes the laws? But since you brought it up and say we all know so and so lied. How do you know? Where's your proof? And once again, what does that have to do with who makes the laws. It's the Congress and not the executive branch aka the president. Do you understand that? That's all I was pointing out.

[Chris P]

My position is that a BUSINESS entity is entitled to write rules and enforce them as it pleases, so long as it does not harm people. Here's how you know you are not harmed, you can simply go to other social media sites and post the same thoughts you had on Twitter.

Except that logic doesn't work when it is a private baker who declines to bake a cake promoting homosexual sodomy. Does it? Or a hotelier who declines to rent a room to two sodomites.

And the difference is that while the homosexuals can go to any other baker and get an equally good cake (they are well-funded activists who deliberately target Christians and others who do not follow The Agenda) there is no social media site with the reach of Twitter. Twitter is genuinely the public square.

Moreover, the deeper scandal is the collaboration between "muh private company" Twitter and organs of the Washington swamp / deep state. Govt alphabet agencies and the permanent bureaucracy working to censor and harm American citizens.

Yet again, we see that the Washington swamp alphabet agencies have grown monstrously out of control and must be disbanded.

[Elvis 2008]

The Executive Branch doe not make laws in the USA. That is the job of Congress, Senate and House of Representatives. The Executive may or may not sign it into law but does not make the laws. The President can issue Executive Orders but they are not law

And your point is what outside of semantics? So you think it is okay for a branch of government that makes law, excuse me regulations that have the full force of law, to engage in censorship?

The First Amendment is about the Government censorship or whatever you want to call it with regard to Free Speech and Religion and not what private entities may or may not do.

Oh I see. So Twitter has a policy that is against disinformation, and government agencies lie to Twitter and said the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, and we know that there is no question these entitles lied and they knew they were lying, but that is not censorship because Twitter is a private company?

In other words, you are perfectly okay with government entities interfering in elections as long as they use a private company as the vehicle to do so.

And you expect us to believe this bullshit about the 2020 election being the fairest in history?

[PVMonger]

He's actually admitting what I accused him of. He considers it "censorship" when a Chrissy Teigen tweet wasn't removed, but he doesn't consider it censorship when the entire account of the New York Post was suspended to protect Biden before the election.

This is the level of reality-denying delusion in which modern leftists exist. Men are women. The border is closed. Mail-in voting is the most secure form of election. It's censorship when nothing is removed, but it isn't censorship when a newspaper's account is banned.

Thanks for confirming what I said.

Is Twitter a business? Yes. Does a business have the right to formulate their own policies? Yes they do. Does a business have the right to change their policies? Yes they do.

Therefore, in relation to your misguided worldview, Twitter does not have the right to formulate their own policies. How fucked up is that? Talk about a reality-defying delusion!

[PVMonger]

A public square is not consider a public square if there are not enough people in the square. Is this correct? So the park by my house is not a public square because only a handful of people are there at anytime. Or if a Starbucks is fill beyond capacity because a bunch of Libs protest inside the store, and Starbucks can not have the police remove them because they have the pre-requisite number to be a public square despite it being a business that hold the public. "Public Square" argument in private property will never be a good argument.

My position is that a BUSINESS entity is entitled to write rules and enforce them as it pleases, so long as it does not harm people. Here's how you know you are not harmed, you can simply go to other social media sites and post the same thoughts you had on Twitter.

Example: you write a book that you think is amazing, and so does your friends, family and adoring fans, about how the democrats are destroying america. You take it to Simon & Shuster. They say, "no we don't want to publish this for you". This, by your definition, would be censorship. And I would agree with you about the characterization to some extent. But it is legal because it is a business that chooses what books to print in order to make money.

Take out "Simon & Shuster" and replace it with "Twitter".

Your rights are protected from government overreached and jailing you for saying or writing certain things. This too has its limits, but this has nothing to do with business choosing how to deal with their situation. The test is whether you are able to say or write the same exact thing somewhere else. And if you are able, you have no case in court.

This makes too much sense for Chrissie.

Chrissie is part of the cult that says government ought to stay out of a business' way, except when the business does something that Chrissie and her friends don't like. Then, of course, Chrissie believes that the government ought to step in and force the business to stop that they're doing. Of course, Chrissie and her fellow cultists don't see it that way.

[EihTooms]

Picking up Democrat Math is pretty easy. You just have to remember one equation:

x=a

Where "a" is any real number, and "x" can only have two values, Democrat or Republican.

All you have to do is to remember that if "a" represents a good outcome, then "x" is "Democrat President." And if "a" is bad, then "x" is "Republican President".

In other words, "Democrat good, Republican Bad."

Let's take an example.

x = -2.3%, where -2. 3% is year-on-year GDP growth at 12/31/2020.

Well, the right answer is x=Republican President, because an annual decline of 2.3% in GDP is a bad outcome.

Now in reality, the value of GDP growth is a function of a lot of things. A more complicated and more correct way of putting this would be

x = f(x1, x2, x3, x4, x5...xn).

Where x1 =Fed policy.

x2 = the business cycle.

x3 = external events like pandemics.

x4 = growth or decline of the size of the labor force.

x5 = changes in productivity.

Etc.

Who's president usually has very little to do with GDP growth. But, if you're a Democratic politician (with some exceptions like Joe Manchin and formerly Kyrsten Sinema) or pundit, why bother the base with endless details? It's much easier to just think "Democrat Good, Republican Bad."

You might be able to blame a good part of the Great Depression on Republicans, and the subsequent recovery on Roosevelt et al throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the problem. I'm not sure as I'm not well read on that. But as to the other recessions and following recoveries you're fond of quoting, being the 1981-1983, 2008-2009, and 2020 downturns, your explanations fall flat. Some make absolutely no sense. For example, you claim Fed policy had little to do with the 1981-1983 recession. And instead put part of the blame on bipartisan, across-the-board tax cuts. Well, that's Keynesian economics ass backwards. Increasing government spending and lowering taxes are the ways out of a recession. And blaming the 2020 recession on Trump was laughable. When I pointed out that the USA Decline in GDP in the year ended 12/31/2020 was the lowest by far of the USA, Japan, Germany, France and the UK, someone here refused to believe the numbers. Why? Well, I think I explained it above, with the Democrat Equation, x=a.

I don't really give a rats ass what happened when Hoover and Roosevelt were president. I do know that developed countries with the smallest governments are the most prosperous. And I know that the Federal Government, unlike my state and local governments, is inefficient. Democrats want to grow the size of federal government faster than Republicans. Based on correlations between government expenditures and government revenues as a % of GDP by country, I'd expect USA GDP per capita to shrink 15% to 40% in the long term if Democrats get their way, that is, if total government expenditures as a % of GDP go from around 35% to 50% on a long term basis.

And as to the so-called revered legislation, my question is how many bills were proposed, fought for and passed when Republicans held the WH and the majority in both houses of Congress that increased our unfunded liabilities by tens of trillions of dollars. I can't think of any. I'm a Libertarian who wants the federal government out of my hair to the extent possible, so your boast just sounds stupid from my point of view.

Nope. You did not even earn a participation trophy with that pro Repub Bothsider / Neithersider Bizarro World reply to some of the most blatantly obvious and blissfully easy "math" questions that every kid in Baltimore would no doubt ace even without a free calculator app on their smartphone.

And that's a pity because those are the only kind of math questions that really matter now that free calculator apps are widely available and easy to download and install on our smartphones. Well, easy for kids in blue states at least. Luckily for kids in red states that most smartphones come with calculator apps pre-installed. Assuming there is a Dem family kid around to point it out to them, that is.

[Tiny 12]

Based on correlations between government expenditures and government revenues as a % of GDP by country, I'd expect USA GDP per capita to shrink 15% to 40% in the long term if Democrats get their way, that is, if total government expenditures as a % of GDP go from around 35% to 50% on a long term basis.

That should have read "be 15% to 40% less than it would be otherwise" instead of "to shrink 15% to 40%."

[CheckMate1]

The first difference is that in no way can ISG be considered "the public square". Its user base is far too small. Twitter, by contrast, is extremely widely used, and cited and seen even by people who don't have accounts. It is the online public square.

The second matter is that it was not just leftists working at Twitter who were censoring rightwing users (which would be bad enough). It was that they were doing so in collusion with the Washington alphabet agencies and leading democrats, aka the deep state / the swamp.

A public square is not consider a public square if there are not enough people in the square. Is this correct? So the park by my house is not a public square because only a handful of people are there at anytime. Or if a Starbucks is fill beyond capacity because a bunch of Libs protest inside the store, and Starbucks can not have the police remove them because they have the pre-requisite number to be a public square despite it being a business that hold the public. "Public Square" argument in private property will never be a good argument.

My position is that a BUSINESS entity is entitled to write rules and enforce them as it pleases, so long as it does not harm people. Here's how you know you are not harmed, you can simply go to other social media sites and post the same thoughts you had on Twitter.

Example: you write a book that you think is amazing, and so does your friends, family and adoring fans, about how the democrats are destroying america. You take it to Simon & Shuster. They say, "no we don't want to publish this for you". This, by your definition, would be censorship. And I would agree with you about the characterization to some extent. But it is legal because it is a business that chooses what books to print in order to make money.

Take out "Simon & Shuster" and replace it with "Twitter".

Your rights are protected from government overreached and jailing you for saying or writing certain things. This too has its limits, but this has nothing to do with business choosing how to deal with their situation. The test is whether you are able to say or write the same exact thing somewhere else. And if you are able, you have no case in court.

[Tiny 12]

Math Proficiency Pop Quiz

Which is greater, 10+ significant and now revered legislation proposed, fought for and passed when Dems held the WH and the majority in both houses of Congress or 0 by Repubs when they had the same advantage?

Every Great Repub Depression / Recession and Massive Job Losses of the past 100 years minus none of the Great Recoveries, Economic Expansions and Job Gains = ?

81,000,000 votes vs 74,000,000 votes + 306 EC votes vs 232 EC votes + 65 lost court case challenges and no wins = ?

5 months with no Pandemic Prevention and Response minitoring and reporting minus a 2 month heads up to avert a Pandemic and all of the deaths and economic destruction that followed = ?

You boys and girls have been making personal value judgements about Dems and Repubs with that "good" vs "bad" obsession of yours.

I rarely if ever use those words to describe any politician, much less entire political parties. But you boys and girls trot out those value judgements all the time.

Very telling.

See, I only point out the irrefutable historical facts regarding Dems passing the legislation I have listed under certain conditions, producing and presiding over every major recovery, economic expansion and historic job gains and none of the Great Depressions / Great Recessions and Massive Jobs Destruction of the past 100 years while Repubs have passed nothing of note under the same conditions, produced and presided over every Great Depression, Great Recession and Massive Job Losses, etc.

Yep, it seems historical data and the actual record of results for America is the same no matter where you verify and cite it. Even in a different country, it remains the same, totally unchanged by ones proximity to the unbiased record sources.

You seem to have concluded those Dem results are "good" and the Repub results are "bad."

Well, those are your value judgements based on the facts but I have never really expressed such a thing either way.

Ya' know: I Report, You Decide.

The big difference is, unlike Faux News, what I have reported for you to pass judgement on is true, I know it to be true and so do you and everyone else.

Interesting that most of you have decided "Dems good and Repubs bad" based solely on the data and actual record of results, definitely not based on me telling you which is which. LOL. Obviously, a lot of Repub voters think those Great Repub Depressions, Great Repub Recessions and Massive Repub Job Losses are "good" and keep voting for them and that those Great Dem Recoveries and Historic Job Gains are "bad."

Again, those are personal value judgements.

Picking up Democrat Math is pretty easy. You just have to remember one equation:

x=a

Where "a" is any real number, and "x" can only have two values, Democrat or Republican.

All you have to do is to remember that if "a" represents a good outcome, then "x" is "Democrat President." And if "a" is bad, then "x" is "Republican President".

In other words, "Democrat good, Republican Bad."

Let's take an example.

x = -2.3%, where -2. 3% is year-on-year GDP growth at 12/31/2020.

Well, the right answer is x=Republican President, because an annual decline of 2.3% in GDP is a bad outcome.

Now in reality, the value of GDP growth is a function of a lot of things. A more complicated and more correct way of putting this would be

x = f(x1, x2, x3, x4, x5...xn).

Where x1 =Fed policy.

x2 = the business cycle.

x3 = external events like pandemics.

x4 = growth or decline of the size of the labor force.

x5 = changes in productivity.

Etc.

Who's president usually has very little to do with GDP growth. But, if you're a Democratic politician (with some exceptions like Joe Manchin and formerly Kyrsten Sinema) or pundit, why bother the base with endless details? It's much easier to just think "Democrat Good, Republican Bad."

You might be able to blame a good part of the Great Depression on Republicans, and the subsequent recovery on Roosevelt et al throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the problem. I'm not sure as I'm not well read on that. But as to the other recessions and following recoveries you're fond of quoting, being the 1981-1983, 2008-2009, and 2020 downturns, your explanations fall flat. Some make absolutely no sense. For example, you claim Fed policy had little to do with the 1981-1983 recession. And instead put part of the blame on bipartisan, across-the-board tax cuts. Well, that's Keynesian economics ass backwards. Increasing government spending and lowering taxes are the ways out of a recession. And blaming the 2020 recession on Trump was laughable. When I pointed out that the USA Decline in GDP in the year ended 12/31/2020 was the lowest by far of the USA, Japan, Germany, France and the UK, someone here refused to believe the numbers. Why? Well, I think I explained it above, with the Democrat Equation, x=a.

I don't really give a rats ass what happened when Hoover and Roosevelt were president. I do know that developed countries with the smallest governments are the most prosperous. And I know that the Federal Government, unlike my state and local governments, is inefficient. Democrats want to grow the size of federal government faster than Republicans. Based on correlations between government expenditures and government revenues as a % of GDP by country, I'd expect USA GDP per capita to shrink 15% to 40% in the long term if Democrats get their way, that is, if total government expenditures as a % of GDP go from around 35% to 50% on a long term basis.

And as to the so-called revered legislation, my question is how many bills were proposed, fought for and passed when Republicans held the WH and the majority in both houses of Congress that increased our unfunded liabilities by tens of trillions of dollars. I can't think of any. I'm a Libertarian who wants the federal government out of my hair to the extent possible, so your boast just sounds stupid from my point of view.

[Chris P]

Only a Repub would say that Twitter blocking the NY Post for violating Twitter's "hacked materials policy" was wrong.

He's actually admitting what I accused him of. He considers it "censorship" when a Chrissy Teigen tweet wasn't removed, but he doesn't consider it censorship when the entire account of the New York Post was suspended to protect Biden before the election.

This is the level of reality-denying delusion in which modern leftists exist. Men are women. The border is closed. Mail-in voting is the most secure form of election. It's censorship when nothing is removed, but it isn't censorship when a newspaper's account is banned.

Thanks for confirming what I said.

[Chris P]

You know Tooms does not even live in the USA? He reads this biased left wing crap and then spews all this nonsense about how he knows what is best for a country he does not live in.

Yeah, typical limousine liberal. Like all those shitlibs in nice, peaceful, prosperous, 95% white Vermont or Martha's Vineyard saying how much they support the illegals pouring across the southern border thousands of miles away.

But when some illegals were sent to Martha's Vineyard, they called in the army and had them dragged away within two days.

Do as I say, not as I do.

[Chris P]

You know how ISG deleted your post on 10-19-22 because you violated their policy. They can do that. Just as Twitter deleted a whole bunch of people who violated their terms of agreement.

The first difference is that in no way can ISG be considered "the public square". Its user base is far too small. Twitter, by contrast, is extremely widely used, and cited and seen even by people who don't have accounts. It is the online public square.

The second matter is that it was not just leftists working at Twitter who were censoring rightwing users (which would be bad enough). It was that they were doing so in collusion with the Washington alphabet agencies and leading democrats, aka the deep state / the swamp.

[ChuchoLoco]

Checkmate, I am giving you one more chance and then I am done.

I am not talking about whether the executive branch has the right to make the law. They do. I think you are so dumb you do not even get what the first amendment is .

The Executive Branch doe not make laws in the USA. That is the job of Congress, Senate and House of Representatives. The Executive may or may not sign it into law but does not make the laws. The President can issue Executive Orders but they are not law. The First Amendment is about the Government censorship or whatever you want to call it with regard to Free Speech and Religion and not what private entities may or may not do.

The First Amendment may protect your right to call someone dumb in public but does not prohibit a private entity such as ISG from not allowing such language. In this case ISG does not seem to care and allows it but that is their choice not the government's.

[JustTK]

You said China was banished from the world economic community. I showed you it was not.

No, you showed me that China was slling rubber ducks to Japan. You gave a non-sequitor.

Venezuela is not poor because of the USA TK. You went there and said that very thing. Venezuela is poor because their leader Hugo Chavez said it was okay to steal. Period. And he did not just steal from the USA. He stole from Europe, Russia, and China. But you go there and you say it is all the USA.

My opinion on Vnzla has nothing to do with my visit there. I formed my opinion based on economic and political evidence prior to that. I don't agree with you at all. Vnzla has been a poor country for the vast majority of its citizens since time immemorial. It has been run by rich and corrupt oligarchs since they discovered oil. They enriched themselves and were allowed to do it bcos they allowed the USA and other resource seeking countries to expropriate its oil. Whether Chavez did or did not steal money has not been proven and I doubt it would make any difference. It would hardly be a drop in the ocean compared to the hardship born by its people due to the murderous sanctions of the USA govt.

You demonize the USA when Americans are working deals where we get rich and the country we visit gets rich too.

Not at all. It would be great if that were ever true. I demonise the USA govt bcos it overthrows govts that will not allow the USA to exploit its resources, when it imposes puppet regimes that oppress the local people so that they can enrich themselves.

[CheckMate1]

Checkmate, I am giving you one more chance and then I am done.

I am not talking about whether the executive branch has the right to make the law. They do. I think you are so dumb you do not even get what the first amendment is about.

Are the people who make the laws allowed to censor those parties that are critical of them? Yes or no. If you answer yes, we are done and you are a clueless moron.

Did that happen with Twitter? Did executive branch officials ask that Twitter censor individuals? Yes or no. If you answer no, you are VERY ill informed, and I am done with you.

The constitution varies? And who are those damaged supposed to sue? Federal officials have immunity, and Elon Musk has taken over and aired all the crap that the previous ownership did wrong. Suing the federal government and winning via Bivens lawsuit is nearly impossible and costly to boot and the former Twitter employees who engaged in censorship are gone.

Again, you do not know what you are talking about. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09...ial-media-law/.

A Texas law prohibiting large social media companies from banning users' posts based on their political viewpoints will go into effect after a federal appeals court on Friday lifted a block placed on the statute.

NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association sued Texas after the law, known as House Bill 20, was passed last year, arguing that internet companies have a First Amendment right to curate content posted on their platforms and decide which types of speech they saw fit to be there.

In its ruling, the 5th USA Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with the plaintiffs' argument that the law was unconstitutional, saying they were seeking protection to "muzzle free speech. ".

Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say," the ruling says.

The CCIA said the ruling forced tech companies to give equal treatment to all manners of speech, including extremist views.

You are contradicting yourself here. You said they can do whatever they wanted. Then you said they can do whatever they want within the parameters of the law, but you just admitted that you do not even know what all the state laws are.

So why are you posting corporations can do whatever they want when you do not even know what the laws are that regulate them?

And what am I supposed to think? You think it is okay that the bureaucrats and Twitter employees censored Republicans? And now you are saying you are a former Dem?

Come on man. You labeled yourself with that crap.

1. You should really read what you wrote. "Did executive branch officials ask that Twitter censor individuals?" Executive branch official ASKING is not the same as law making. (examples: Trump administration asked Twitter to take down Chrissy Teigen post, or Biden administration asked Twitter to take down posts) Executive branch doesn't make laws, they do, however make certain ruling based on what Congress have given them the power to do, ie. Enforce the borders as they see fit. This is how you get different enforcement codes (rules) from one administration to another.

"The ruling Friday from the 5th USA Circuit Court of Appeals likely means the case, which could have wide implications for online speech, will go before the USA Supreme Court again. " This is at the very top of the article below the headline.

You know how ISG deleted your post on 10-19-22 because you violated their policy. They can do that. Just as Twitter deleted a whole bunch of people who violated their terms of agreement. Then, Elon bought the Twitter, and changed the policy, which is his perogative. See how I don't jump up and down when policy changed, because it is not my property.

I wrote "US constitution and state laws can vary. " You read and replied, "The constitution varies?" As in Mr Phillips case, he sued the state through the Federal Court system.

You are correct that I do NOT know ALL the laws, in every state. I'm willing to bet you don't either. I can cite and comment on what the current laws that I know exist. Let's assume you've read more laws than me.

And it's funny that you asked "what am I supposed to think?"

You wrote this on 2-22-22, "Is that what happened? Damn right it did. You must be one of these dumb libs with your heads buried in the sand and have never heard of the Twitter files."

You do you. I can't help another grown man think.

I actually don't need you to give me chances on ISG forum. You have the right to express your opinions. If you choose not to interact with me or others, it's just a click away. But, I won't ever call you dumb, as you have expressed many times about me and others. This is a tactic usually employed by Bullies who want to be heard or get things his / her way.

Life is short, enoy it. Turn that frown upside down.